The Sunday Lunch Club

by Juliet Ashton

  She deferred opening the box until she had a coffee in her hand. As she made her way back to the house, she wondered whether she should look up ‘caffeine intake during pregnancy’ and decided against it in case the prevailing wisdom was to cut down.

  Waiting for the kettle to do its thing, Anna sifted through the envelopes, passing over the brown ones for Sam to deal with, and picked up a handwritten one. This envelope, she noticed, had no stamp; it had been slipped through the door at some point, and Storm had scooped it up with the delivery.

  Handwritten notes were the best. She and Josh communicated in this way; she hadn’t had one of his quirky drawings for a while. Shaking out the flimsy notepaper, she reached out to scribble ‘pressie for Josh’ on the chalkboard by the fridge. He was hosting lunch on Sunday; it would be nice to turn up with a little something. Maybe his favourite chocolate, a dark, bitter variety that set Anna’s teeth on edge.

  The small handwriting marched self-confidently across a folded piece of thin paper. Anna put it down as she cast about for her glasses. She remembered the conversation she’d had with Sam after the last lunch club a fortnight ago.

  ‘So,’ he’d said at work the next day in Artem Global HQ/the shed. ‘You don’t like Isabel?’

  ‘Eh? Of course I do. She’s a lovely girl.’

  ‘She’s not a girl, Anna. Isabel’s a woman. And that sounded sarcastic to me.’ He mimicked her, his mouth turned down, ‘She’s a lovely girl.’

  ‘I didn’t say it like that. It wasn’t meant to be sarcastic.’ Anna withstood his sceptical look before saying, ‘Oh, all right, maybe a tiny bit. She was trying a bit too hard, wasn’t she?’

  That had been a classic mistake, expecting a lover to have clarity of vision about his beloved. Sam’s vision was more rose-tinted than most. Anna had been glad of it when they were first together, when he told her she was the loveliest girl in the world.

  ‘Of course poor Isabel tried hard! She wanted to make a good impression. She’s heard so much about you all.’ Sam had paused before saying, ‘About you.’

  The kettle danced, and Anna was back in the present. She poured hot water into the cafetière and then, glasses on, leant back against the fridge to enjoy the letter.

  She read it twice. She looked at the ceiling. There was no answer there as to why life had stretched out a paw and mauled her. On automatic pilot, she took the tray out to the others, adding a glass of orange juice for Storm. It crossed her mind to show Sam the letter, but that was out of the question.

  Sunday brought with it a lie-in, but Anna was chased from her warm bed by those small, neat words dancing behind her eyelids. In the shower, Anna watched her outline shimmer in the wet glass surround. As yet, her body was minimally changed by her pregnancy. Accustomed to being long and lean, Anna braced herself for the moment her tummy suddenly popped, but for now the baby was merely a polite swell of flesh.

  When, she wondered, will the boobs arrive? She planned to make the most of them. Her push-up bras had precious little to push up; as soon as her cup size increased she would buy a strapless maternity dress and enter rooms like a ship in full sail.

  Pity there would be nobody to appreciate her new figure when she took off the dress.

  As a divorcee and a survivor of numerous scarring flings, Anna was accustomed to thoughts of romance gathering in her peripheral vision. She was always wondering who it would be, the big love, the great man, the defining passion. At forty, she still had the optimism of a schoolgirl; surely everybody has a chance at lasting love? It was virtually a right. As for her age – that was a number from a hall door. It was outlook that mattered.

  Now such idealistic daydreams must be parked indefinitely. Surely all her attention, all her capacity for love, must centre on her pregnancy. At times like this, naked and foamy in the shower, the baby seemed more like an idea than a real living being. It couldn’t chat to her, or heckle the TV with her, or do any of the dull, wonderful things women expect from their men. Cutting herself off from the big guns of love and sex felt like wilful cruelty, but it was better to do it herself than wait for the time when her body did it for her. Surely a pregnant body is a turn-off for anybody but the prospective father? There can be no more definite way to signal ‘Sorry, guys, I’m taken.’

  Stepping out of the shower, Anna admitted that she wasn’t in the mood for Sunday Lunch Club. The letter demanded her attention, like a bony finger from the past tapping her rudely on the shoulder.

  ‘Say cheese!’

  ‘No.’ Neil hated having his photo taken. ‘I’m driving, darling. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘Shut up and smile, you swine. This is for Josh’s project.’

  Neil grimaced, then gave in and turned quickly to the lens, flashing his veneers.

  ‘That’s better.’ Anna’s Polaroid camera, a Christmas present from Josh, was one of her favourite playthings. The retro coolness of its bulky design and the playful magic of the picture swimming into focus were nostalgic pleasures.

  ‘What project?’ Neil looked over his shoulder at Santi and Paloma in the back seat. They were in a world of their own, a peachy world where Spanish endearments figured highly.

  ‘You know, Josh’s thing. He wants me to take a Polaroid every day and he takes one every day and . . .’ Anna wasn’t sure about the point of all this Polaroiding. ‘And then he’ll stick them up on a wall or something.’

  ‘Sounds like Josh.’ Neil rolled his head and winced as his neck cracked like a pistol shot. ‘Arty.’

  ‘He’s been texting me all week about what to cook today.’ It was rare that the club convened at Josh’s. He was a guest, not a host. Not even a guest, thought Anna. More of a ghost.

  ‘It won’t be vegan shit, will it?’ Neil was profoundly anti healthy eating; a balanced diet was a biscuit in each hand as far as he was concerned.

  ‘No, it won’t be organic, soulful, vegan cuisine,’ said Anna repressively. She was every bit as relieved as Neil – she’d met all the tofu she ever needed to – but she supported Josh’s obsessions. ‘I emailed him an easy recipe for chicken casserole. Should be delicious. Are we nearly there?’ Repeating one of Dinkie’s Dublin sayings, she said, ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a child’s arse through a chair.’

  ‘Eating for two,’ said Neil. ‘Then again, you always did.’

  ‘How many weeks now, querida?’ asked Santi as they swung round a corner.

  ‘Only eleven.’ Putting that ‘only’ in front of the number made the end game – Anna with her legs in stirrups – manageably far in the future. ‘He or she is the size of a grape.’

  ‘Are you drinking lots of water?’ Santi was stern. ‘Getting lots of rest?’

  ‘Trying to.’

  ‘Morning sickness?’

  ‘Now and then.’

  The physical symptoms were manageable. The fear was a different matter. The hormones supplied bouts of euphoria, but these daydreams were popped by self-sabotage. Can I really bring up a child on my own? Her close circle, family and as-good-as-family, would support her, but would that be enough?

  Sometimes extraordinary things happen in the most ordinary of places. In the car that smelled mildly of Paloma’s nappy, and where Santi’s bass recitations of Spanish nursery rhymes argued with the satnav’s robotic directions, Anna had a premonition.

  It popped into being, whole and perfect, a belief based on nothing, yet one that firmed up like a warm loaf baking in the oven.

  Love is waiting.

  Biding its time. Just when her body was telling her to narrow her focus to the baby, she had a premonition that life was about to open up.

  Unlike Maeve, Anna had no delusions about being psychic; yet this romantic optimism felt like gospel truth. Like maths. Or gravity. Despite being pregnant with the child of an itinerant cocktail maker, Anna sensed a big love circling.

  ‘Look at the state of the place.’ Neil edged the car into a space right outside the peeling stucco terraced house where Josh lived. They assembled i
n the once grand stone porch, now home to a cornucopia of kebab wrappers. Torn curtains hung at grimy windows, and marijuana smoke curled from the basement. ‘What a palace.’

  ‘Shush.’ Anna was curt. Neil sometimes forgot that not everybody had his wealth. ‘I can hear Josh.’ Feet were bounding down the stairs, jumping the last two, and she smiled, relieved; He’s in an ‘up’ phase.

  Pushing the letter and its toxic contents from her mind, Anna grinned as the door opened. Her smile froze.

  It was the surprise, maybe, of once again a complete stranger answering the door. Or perhaps it was the physical shock of the man who filled the space with such vitality.

  ‘You’re not Josh,’ said Neil amiably. He, too, had a thing for guys with hair that curled; this man had the rioting hair of a Roman statue.

  ‘Not even slightly.’ He stood aside to let them in. ‘Josh sent me down to get you. Apparently he’s at a critical point with the food.’

  Paloma wailed as they climbed the stairs, possibly with dismay at being in such a lowly postcode. The man was Luca, it transpired, and Anna, who had assumed that her pregnancy inoculated her against lust, wished with all her heart she’d worn one of her better bras and not opted for the striped tee and jeans combo that amounted to a uniform for her.

  For three flights, each with its own cocktail of smells – dope on the ground floor, cheese on the first, armpits on the second – Anna stared at Luca’s bottom. She could find no fault in it. He turned back, interrupting her studies, and nodded at the beribboned bar of chocolate in her hand.

  ‘You’ve brought a present? Josh has one for you as well.’

  ‘That’s sweet of him.’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ll like it.’

  ‘Why not?’ Josh rarely bought presents; his empty hands at family birthdays were taken as a symptom of introversion rather than stinginess; it would be just Josh’s style to suddenly produce a gift when there was no need.

  ‘You’ll see.’ Luca had dark eyes that sloped slightly. He was warm and lazy-looking, like a hot afternoon in a hammock. Tall, wide, he opened the door to Josh’s flat and something small and covered in hair raced through it, bounding up at Luca, at Anna, at Neil who screamed, and at Santi who lifted the baby over his head.

  ‘A dog,’ said Anna, holding the little beast by its scrawny paws. ‘This isn’t . . .’ She looked to Luca.

  ‘It is. That’s your present.’ It was the first collusion between them, a shared recognition of life’s absurdity. He held her gaze for a second longer than was strictly necessary. Or so Anna thought.

  ‘Sit!’ said Josh to the dog, who jumped and barked and slobbered as they edged into his tiny flat. ‘Sit. Please.’

  ‘Sit,’ said Anna. The dog miraculously sat. Its tail thumped and he stared greedily at her.

  ‘He likes you,’ said Luca.

  ‘He doesn’t know her yet,’ said Neil. ‘Josh, where did this creature come from?’ They filled the monastic studio room. A few books. Chairs donated from Dinkie. A standard lamp without a shade. It was as if Josh’s ‘real’ life went on elsewhere.

  ‘I’ve been volunteering at a dog shelter.’ Josh put his hand through his thick dark hair. His hands were constantly in motion around his face, as if to obscure it. ‘This fella’s been passed over so often.’

  ‘I wonder why,’ murmured Neil as the dog scraped its bottom along the carpet tiles.

  ‘He’s so full of love,’ said Josh, squatting down to have his face roundly licked. ‘Nobody understands him, that’s all. He needs a good home. So . . .’ He looked up at Anna. ‘I thought of you.’

  ‘But I . . .’ Anna was at a loss. She’d never hankered after a dog. The timing was way off; surely being pregnant and single was enough? ‘I’ll take him, of course.’ She never could deny Josh. He asked for so little.

  After the requisite blow-by-blow retelling of the train journey from Brighton, Maeve sat at the shaky table Josh had somehow fashioned for lunch. Isabel and Sam were together at one corner, with Storm opposite them checking his phone for . . . what? Anna wondered what urgent news stories kept teens glued to their mobiles, so she leaned over and saw a Buzzfeed quiz labelled ‘Build a Pizza and We’ll Tell You Which Celebrity You’ll Marry’.

  ‘Serious stuff,’ she whispered to her nephew, who burrowed even further down into the wonky stool Josh had provided.

  Circling the lunchers, the dog jumped first at one lap, then another, with no hard feelings when it was shooed away. Ears flopping, tail whirring, it pounced and leapt, its button eyes bright.

  ‘Guess what?’ Many of Maeve’s stories began this way.

  Neil guessed what immediately. ‘You have a new bloke.’

  ‘How’d you know?’ Maeve’s mouth fell open.

  ‘You always have a new bloke, darling.’ Neil looked around. ‘No napkins, Josh?’

  ‘Um, sorry, no.’ Josh looked around too, as if napkins might suddenly jump out of a drawer.

  ‘Shut up, Neil.’ Anna kicked him under the table. ‘You’re not at The Ivy.’

  ‘So is nobody interested in my life?’ asked Maeve loudly.

  ‘Tell us, Maeve.’ Santi’s gaze flicked to Paloma, snoozing behind a dam of cushions on the sofa that would later double as a bed. His expert appraisal told him everything he needed to know about his girl; she was safe/warm/dry. ‘Who’s the latest tio bueno?’

  ‘Latest and last.’ Maeve pulled in her chin. ‘Honestly, guys, Paul’s a keeper. Take that look off your face, Anna, I mean it.’

  ‘That’s not a look,’ said Neil. ‘That’s her face.’

  ‘I wasn’t aware I had a look on my face,’ said Anna.

  ‘You always have a look on your face,’ laughed Sam.

  A roll-call of Maeve’s lovers didn’t make pretty reading. She stepped over decent guys to get at the lowlifes. If they were likely to borrow money and then disappear, or sleep with her friends, or lash out with their fists, Maeve would make goo-goo eyes at them.

  ‘This one’s different,’ she said. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know.’ Maeve laughingly accepted the comments. ‘I’ve said that before, but this time I mean it. Paul is . . . oh, he’s . . . you tell them, Storm.’

  Looking up, horrified, Storm shook his head. His father, calm trustworthy Alva, was the exception to Maeve’s rule. ‘He’s a bloke,’ was all that Storm would contribute.

  ‘Oh, you.’ Maeve shoved her son. ‘I know you all disapprove of me and my quest for love,’ she said, ‘but this time I’ve landed on my feet. He’s solvent, for a start.’

  ‘Money isn’t everything,’ said Luca.

  Anna, who’d clocked Luca’s chunky watch and knew that artfully crumpled shirts like his weren’t to be found in M&S, raised an eyebrow. Luca saw it and raised one back. Something raised inside Anna; something deep inside. She shifted on her seat, startled by her feral physical reaction to a mere eyebrow.

  ‘He’s divorced but he’s a great dad. He’s got an amazing job as a . . .’ Maeve frowned. ‘Something or other, something proper.’

  ‘So he’s not a street performer? Good start,’ said Anna. Her sister’s last beau had juggled fire outside the Brighton branch of TK Maxx. Anna listened patiently to the recital of this ‘amazing’ man’s qualities – ‘He’s clever, and barely drinks, and he wears actual shoes’ – in the knowledge that next month there’d be another contender for The One. Maeve skipped from hopeless bozo to hopeless bozo without ever truly engaging her feelings. Anna wondered sometimes about what effect this revolving-door policy had on Storm. ‘Oi, Stormy,’ she whispered, and he looked up. ‘Soon I’ll only be able to recognise you by the top of your head.’

  ‘The main thing is,’ Maeve went on, ‘he’s normal.’

  ‘Is he good to you?’ Anna asked the only important question.

  ‘He’s kind and he cares.’

  ‘Can’t wait to meet him.’ This white lie pleased Maeve.

  The casserole, brought to the table from the abbreviated kitchen that took up a corner
of the studio, was brownish, thickish, the ‘Ooh!’s it provoked dutiful and a touch scared.

  Anna took a huge portion, to show solidarity. Josh bit his lip as the others tasted their lunch.

  ‘Is there paprika in this?’ asked Isabel, with polite interest.

  ‘Yes,’ said Josh, grateful. He grinned, until Neil said, ‘There’s a whole packet of paprika in mine.’

  ‘Joshy,’ said Maeve, in a cutesy voice. ‘Did you make me a meat-free version?’

  ‘Oh shit, Sis!’ He’d done the impossible: Josh had forgotten that Maeve was vegetarian.

  Luca leapt up. ‘No problem.’ He put his hands – strong, workman hands that nevertheless had neat nails – on Josh’s shoulders. ‘Sit, eat. I’ll rustle something up.’

  The little dog pit-patted after him, parking its bottom to watch him cook.

  ‘How long have you been seeing this new man?’ asked Santi, pushing chicken around his plate.

  ‘Since last night,’ beamed Maeve.

  ‘Jesus,’ muttered Neil.

  ‘What?’ spat Maeve.

  This Sunday Lunch Club was in danger of deteriorating into a badly catered brawl, so Anna turned, glass in hand, to ask Luca if he was really Italian. ‘Or did your parents just like the name?’

  ‘I’m the real deal.’ Luca let rip with a torrent of fluent Italian.

  As far as Anna knew, he could have been asking for directions to the abattoir, but it sounded super sexy. ‘So you were born here?’ she asked as Luca located a clean pan and some spaghetti in Josh’s barren cupboards.

  ‘No, I was born in Saluzzo, near Turin. When I was a baby, my mother took a teaching job at Oxford. She and my dad loved it here and they never went home again. So. Here I am. Practically an Englishman.’ He chopped up a tomato with more verve than any Brit ever could.

  ‘Do you miss home?’ Santi’s question was low-key, freighted with emotion, and Neil looked at his partner and put one hand over his.