The Sunday Lunch Club

by Juliet Ashton

‘Your daddy speaks such nonsense,’ said Santi to Paloma. Once again, she was on his lap. ‘We think he’s gorgeous, don’t we?’

  ‘Youth is currency in my world,’ said Neil. ‘Which makes me a pauper.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Anna. She and Luca were sharing a chair, which was nicely intimate but also hard on her behind. ‘Women are up against that, too. We lose value as we age.’

  ‘Not in this house!’ said Luca.

  ‘Some women,’ said Sam, turning to take in Isabel, ‘will improve as the years go past.’

  ‘It’s a pressure, though.’ Maeve backed Anna up. ‘You’ve got to be thin, you’ve got to look no older than thirty-five your whole life, you’ve got to shave your legs, wax your you-know-what. It’s a full-time job.’ She addressed Paloma. ‘Don’t get involved, sweetie. Refuse! Be like your Auntie Maeve; my underarms are a jungle!’

  Neil tried to scowl. ‘Please don’t bring your hairy bits to the lunch table, Maeve.’

  ‘So that’s tortellini in brodo,’ said Maeve as Luca put down white bowls. Small pasta shapes swam in a shimmering golden broth. When pressed, Luca explained that he’d simmered beef bones, chicken, onions, carrot and celery for four hours. ‘But yours, Maeve,’ he added before she could complain, ‘is a vegetarian version I made in a separate pot.’

  ‘Four hours?’ Anna put an arm around him. ‘That’s dedication!’ she said, with a hint of pride. ‘I have a boyfriend who can actually cook!’

  ‘That’s very sexist, Anna.’ Luca tucked his napkin into his collar, Godfather-style.

  ‘Nope, it’s realistic.’ Anna turned to Sam. ‘I did all the cooking when we were married, didn’t I?’

  She regretted it as soon as she said it. Anna often referred to her marriage, but now that Isabel was an SLC regular, perhaps that was inappropriate. She saw Isabel’s head droop slightly over her pasta, and said quickly, ‘But that was years ago, so . . .’

  ‘I managed to knock up a weird casserole thing last week. Remember, Issy?’ Sam put his hand to his stomach. ‘Maybe that’s why I’ve been having these twinges in my gut.’

  Anna tried to share an ironic look with Isabel at this latest evidence of Sam’s hypochondria, but Isabel looked away, flustered, as if unsure of engaging with her. She’s wary of me, thought Anna.

  ‘More food?’ wailed Maeve as the next wave arrived.

  ‘Jesus, I can’t face another morsel, but that lamb looks so-o good.’ Neil allowed Luca to pile his plate with slices. ‘I half expected to see Thea today.’ He raised his double chin, peering down at Josh.

  ‘She’s not ready for the spotlight.’ Josh helped himself to potatoes.

  Santi put his head on one side. Josh touched his soft heart. ‘We’ll be kind to her,’ he promised. ‘We don’t bite.’ He flicked a look at his husband. ‘Well, I don’t.’

  ‘Whereas,’ said Anna, ‘Neil is Hannibal Lecter.’

  The loudest laugh came from Isabel, who was both trying too hard and sloshed.

  ‘Luca,’ said Maeve, ‘don’t you think it’s time we met Thea?’

  Nice try, thought Anna, as Luca avoided the question with a shake of his head and a pout of his full lips. Not only did he refuse to be drawn on the nature of Josh’s therapy, he was also tight-lipped about Thea’s age, nationality, height. Or whether she was as into Josh as he clearly was into her. The only morsel Anna had managed to draw out of Luca was that, yes, Thea was ‘good for’ Josh.

  Now, he said to Maeve, ‘Let’s respect Josh, and let him decide when we meet Thea.’

  All very well, thought Anna, but it’s tricky to respect somebody if you worry about them. It was, perhaps, a presentiment of motherhood, which meant Anna couldn’t share it with Luca. He had no emotional investment in the baby.

  ‘At least,’ said Maeve, unable to drop it, ‘take a bloody Polaroid of her, Josh. You take a picture of everything.’ He’d already snapped Storm’s new trainers and Anna’s ponytail.

  Josh pushed back the strand of dark hair that fell over one eye, and didn’t answer Maeve, saying instead, ‘I’m off to Croatia next week.’ He closed his eyes, with make-believe patience, and said, ‘Before you ask, Maeve, yes, Thea’s coming with me.’

  A not so covert look of approval travelled from Piper to Piper. This was progress. Josh had always sloped off abroad when his budget permitted, exploring corners of Europe and Russia and Latin America. Always alone, he sent no postcards, never texted a scenic shot. It was as if a door slammed when he left the country – and his family – behind. Even the inevitable Polaroids he took along the way were devoid of human figures.

  ‘It’ll be nice to have company,’ said Anna. She was never quite at rest when he was away. She assumed that her brother suffered with depression – it had never been named – and she intuited that these trips were one way of dealing with it. This Croatian trip with Thea sounded like a holiday – a most un-Josh occurrence.

  Begging like a professional, Yeti roamed beneath the table. Maeve slipped him cubes of Italian roast potato, freckled with rosemary. Isabel gave him the fat off her lamb. Neil pushed away the damp snout, saying, ‘You’ve spoiled that dog, Anna.’

  On cue, Yeti burped. Above the giggles, Anna defended her hairy protégé. ‘He wees where he should now!’

  ‘I’ve had boyfriends who couldn’t achieve that level of sophistication,’ said Neil.

  He was on better form today, not so warlike. Now that Anna wasn’t drinking alcohol, she had a hypersensitivity to how much the others drank. And the effect it had.

  Neil and Maeve drank too much; like I used to. Two hours in and they grew fuzzy around the edges, groping for their words, meandering on when the conversation had changed direction. Sticking to tap water, as ever, Josh was unchanging, calm as a monk. Luca, she noticed, only drank enough to relax, never enough to unravel; at some point, Anna assumed, she would find a fault with her lover, but for now the honeymoon blinkers were still firmly on.

  Nobody knew what zuppa inglese was. ‘It’s like trifle,’ explained Luca. ‘The name translates as English soup.’

  Layers of cake – ‘He made the sponge,’ Anna mouthed to an astonished Maeve – were interspersed with pillowy whipped cream and trickled with liqueur.

  ‘None for me, thanks.’ Neil’s refusal silenced the table. ‘What?’ he snapped. ‘Is there any point me spending a fortune on my face if I let the rest of me get fat?’

  ‘But you’re already fat, so . . .’ Maeve didn’t see the problem.

  ‘One bowl of zuppa inglese won’t make much difference. You love trifle.’ Anna hated to see Neil deny himself for the sake of regaining a youth that never really existed; he’d always been tubby. ‘Go on, have—’

  ‘Just because you’re expanding doesn’t mean I have to.’

  ‘Ooh!’ Sam made comedy out of Neil’s flash of claw, but Anna wondered when her brother had become so brittle. He’d always been arch, a touch camp, but when had that spilled over into irritable edginess and over-the-top put-downs?

  Paloma coughed, making a noise like a fairy yodelling, and with a flash of insight Anna pinpointed the moment of change. The adoption process.

  Conversation turned to politics. Sam had strong opinions about the government. So did Luca. These opinions were polar opposites, and the two men monopolised the table until Maeve, bored, chipped in.

  ‘I had one of my dreams last night.’

  ‘Here we go,’ sighed Neil. ‘Mystic Meg’s back.’

  Sam explained to Isabel that Maeve was ‘a bit psychic’. He was proud, proprietorial – even though, thought Anna, he pooh-poohs any mention of crystals or mandalas or auras.

  ‘Ooh, I love that kind of thing.’ Isabel sounded credulous, her mouth stained liquorice by the Sicilian wine. Her enthusiasm explained Sam’s enthusiasm.

  ‘I saw a letter,’ said Maeve.

  Anna sat stock-still. The room moved around her, chattering, slurping. Yeti rubbed against her leg.

  ‘Handwritten. It seemed to
rise out of the mist.’

  ‘A love letter?’ asked Isabel.

  ‘A final demand?’ said Neil, nudging Santi, who collapsed against him, laughing.

  ‘It was anonymous.’

  Anna felt her interior churn and knew it was nothing to do with the baby, still only the size of a mango. ‘And?’ she prompted.

  ‘That’s it.’ Maeve had moved on, her clairvoyant dream forgotten. ‘Any coffee going, Luca?’

  ‘Did it seem, you know, threatening?’ Anna wanted to know.

  ‘Did what seem – oh, the letter. Dunno.’ Maeve had lost interest. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked, peering at her sister.

  ‘I’m tip-top,’ said Anna. She stood abruptly. ‘I need some air.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Maeve was at her side, as close as Yeti, as the three of them headed to the wrought-iron balcony.

  On the other side of the sheer curtain, with the red geraniums and the snow white hydrangea, Anna composed herself.

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ said Maeve.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I told you.’ Maeve was impatient; she’d always assumed that the world ended at the end of her pretty nose. ‘Alva!’

  ‘Oh, yeah, sorry.’ Anna wrenched her focus away from the supernatural. ‘So, fill me in.’

  ‘Like I said, Alva thinks it’s time Storm lived with him full-time. Not just weekends and holidays and stuff. You know what Alva’s like, banging on about father/son time and a strong male role model and all that bollocks.’

  ‘It’s not bollocks, Maeve.’ Anna was gentle.

  ‘Storm has me.’ Maeve beat her chest. ‘I’m all the role model he needs. It’s not as if he never sees Alva. They’re really close.’

  ‘He’s a good dad.’ Anna emphasised this often; Alva was a good dad despite Maeve’s lack of cooperation.

  ‘And I’m a good mum.’

  ‘Keep your hair on. You’re as touchy as Neil.’ After a brief, irresistible detour to their brother’s smooth new face, they stopped cackling and Anna asked the obvious question: ‘What does Storm think?’

  ‘He won’t say.’ Maeve fidgeted, looking out at the rooftops. ‘Jesus, I wish Paul hadn’t convinced me to give up smoking.’

  Storm doesn’t want to hurt his mum. ‘You’ve done a great job with Storm.’

  Maeve looked startled, as if Anna had spoken in tongues. ‘You serious?’

  ‘Of course.’ Anna frowned; did she compliment Maeve so rarely?

  ‘It was hard in the beginning . . .’ Maeve was lost in the past for a moment.

  ‘You were only, what, nineteen, twenty?’ Maeve had grown up alongside her own son. In a way, they’d brought each other up. Anna did a quick calculation: When my child is Storm’s age, I’ll be fifty-three. When Anna got to fifty-three, Storm would be in his thirties. She romped through all the landmark ages: eighteen, twenty-one, forty. I’ll be fifty-eight, sixty-one, eighty. She gulped. She’d left it late, this baby-making.

  ‘I don’t know if I like, if Storm likes this idea.’ Maeve slipped up; this was as much about her fears as it was about Storm’s well-being. ‘Will you come with me, to talk to Alva about it? I don’t want to go all that way on my own.’

  ‘All that way?’ Anna smiled at Maeve’s talent for overstatement. ‘Hove is one stop on the train.’

  ‘No, Boston.’ Maeve was querulous. ‘Don’t you listen?’

  ‘Yes, I listen to all your guff all the time.’ Only sisters could be that frank. ‘You’ve never mentioned Boston.’ Anna shivered. She wasn’t going to like this next bit, she could tell.

  ‘Alva’s relocated. He’s gone into partnership with some big IT company. Or something.’ Details never interested Maeve. ‘You know how everything falls into Alva’s lap.’

  That was a perverse take on Alva’s hard work, long hours, stamina.

  ‘It all happened really quickly. He and Clare suddenly upped and left and now they’re living in one of those massive American houses with a veranda and a pool and . . . and . . .’ Maeve spluttered, groping around for another US stereotype.

  ‘A basketball hoop?’ offered Anna.

  ‘Probably. He’s found some snotty private school for Storm where everybody goes on to Harvard.’ Maeve curled her lip. ‘As if that’s all that matters.’

  ‘Looks like we’re off to Boston then.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Maeve almost melted with gratitude. Her eyes swam. ‘Will you help me do the right thing?’

  I’m the last one to ask about the right thing. The letter proved that. ‘You don’t need my help, silly.’ Anna saw panic flare in Maeve’s eyes. ‘But I’ll be there every step of the way.’ She said it and she meant it, but for the rest of the lunch, despite the good food and the better company, Anna was quiet.

  I should have been there every step of the way for Bonnie. It was a scar that had almost healed over before the letter ripped the thin skin away, and now it throbbed and bled and threatened to stain everything around her if she didn’t get a grip.

  They sat around like turkeys fattened for Christmas, nobody energetic enough to make the first move and go home. Except, of course, for Josh, who’d left soon after the last scraped spoonful of zuppa inglese. Luca and he had had a long, intense conversation on the stairs, out of Anna’s earshot.

  She’d scuttled back to a sofa as Luca’s footsteps rang on the stairs. Sam said, ‘You’re minding your P’s and Q’s, aren’t you?’

  ‘Me? No.’

  ‘You are, my darling,’ said Santi, his head on Neil’s shoulder, the baby wedged between them, fast asleep. ‘No burping. No rudey rudes.’ This was Santi’s code for farting; he was far too decorous to use such English words.

  Eyes closed, Neil murmured, ‘I didn’t see you scratch your bum once today.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Anna firmly as Luca appeared.

  ‘Do you use the loo while Luca’s in the bath yet?’ Sam seemed to be enjoying himself.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Anna, but Luca cottoned on and hooted.

  ‘We’re still being very polite about stuff like that,’ he said. Flopping down beside Anna, he laid an arm about her shoulders. ‘Aren’t we?’

  Oh, how she loved that ‘we’. Anna held back, fought against slipping down the mudslide of desire. Luca had never repeated his assertion, made at Josh’s flat, that he hated children, but it dangled between them. He’s only on loan, she reminded herself as she settled against his side in the lazy Sunday atmosphere. He was more comfortable than the cushions. And exciting with it. ‘If you want me to, I can do a rudey rude right now.’ She had to subvert her feelings with humour. She had to stop herself blurting out, Could you love me, Luca?

  Tuning back in, she heard Neil admit, ‘I meant to pop over to Dinkie this week, but work . . .’

  ‘You said that last week,’ she reminded him.

  ‘Who needs a conscience when you’re around?’

  ‘I went to Sunville,’ said Santi. When Neil looked taken aback – or as taken aback as a newly Botoxed man can – he said, ‘I don’t tell you everything.’

  ‘Did you bring Paloma?’ asked Neil.

  ‘Of course. Did you think I leave her with the servants?’ Santi trilled the r with Spanish brio as he mixed and matched tenses.

  ‘And . . .?’ Neil was anxious.

  ‘And what? We had a nice time.’

  ‘Did she, was she nice to Paloma?’

  ‘Neil, everybody’s nice to our little Palomita.’

  There it was again, that insecurity about Dinkie’s feelings for her only great-grandchild. ‘Was Sheba there?’ asked Anna.

  ‘You noticed it too,’ said Sam, looking up from the cat’s cradle he and Isabel had made of their fingers as they shared a vast, ageing armchair. ‘Something going on there.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Anna had hoped she was making it up. ‘The way Dinkie talks to her . . .’

  ‘And the way she talks to Dinkie.’ Sam was on Anna’s wavelength. ‘There’s something secret between them. Somethi
ng not good.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Neil sat up, perturbed. ‘You don’t think Sheba . . .’ He couldn’t find the word, then grimaced at the one he chose. ‘You don’t think she abuses Dinkie?’

  ‘No, no, no.’ Anna tried to convince herself. ‘But you read such awful things, about old people in homes.’

  ‘But not Dinkie,’ said Maeve. As with all problems, she evidently wanted this swept away as quickly as possible. ‘She’d speak up.’

  ‘Yes, she would.’ Neil looked at Anna. ‘Wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Of course she would.’ They were all silent. ‘I’ll ring her this evening.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Neil.

  ‘And me,’ said Sam.

  ‘She’ll be sick of us!’ laughed Anna.

  Sam and Isabel were the last to leave. As his girlfriend sought out her cotton jacket on the spare-room bed, Sam pulled Anna to one side in the hallway. ‘Hey,’ he said, which was his habitual way of starting a conversation he was unsure about.

  ‘Hey, yourself,’ said Anna gently.

  Throwing glances at the spare-room door, he said, ‘I’m going to ask Isabel to move in with me.’

  ‘Really?’ Anna moderated her expression. Sam had winced at her amazement. ‘Right. I see.’ She tried to gauge what he needed from her; it felt oddly as if he was asking her permission. ‘Are you sure? You haven’t been together long.’

  ‘When it’s right, it’s right.’

  ‘Be careful. Don’t scare her off. She might freak out.’

  He dropped his voice even further. They could both hear Luca and Isabel chatting. ‘Yeah, right. Like you’d freak out if Luca asked you? You’d bite his hand off.’

  ‘That’s . . .’

  ‘Oh, that’s different, is it?’ Sam ended her sentence when she was unable to. ‘Why? Don’t I deserve a chance at this? Christ, Anna, you could try and look pleased for me.’

  ‘You seem great together.’ Anna scrabbled, trying to make up lost ground. ‘I’m not raining on your parade, Sam. She’s sensitive and she’s—’

  ‘And she loves me,’ said Sam. He paused, then took her hand. The feel of his fingers was a constant throughout her life, at once nostalgic and contemporary. ‘Let’s not fight, eh? We were never any good at it.’