The Sunday Lunch Club

by Juliet Ashton

‘How would I know?’ Sometimes Dinkie behaved as if she and Sam were still together.

  ‘Go and look after him.’ Nobody was left behind on Dinkie’s watch.

  Anna glanced at Luca, not for permission, more to pull a face, but he wasn’t paying attention, listening instead to Santi tell a joke. Santi was very bad at jokes; it took a long time and he never quite nailed the punchlines.

  On the scrap of landing, Anna waited for Sam to emerge from the bathroom. He was in there a very long time, with none of the obvious noises you might expect. When he did come out, he stepped back, surprised to find her on the patch of nylon carpet.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, standing aside. ‘Did you want to . . .’

  ‘I’ve been sent by Dinkie to see what’s up.’ Anna didn’t want to ask, but she had to. ‘No Isabel today?’

  ‘No Isabel any day,’ said Sam.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Anna tailed him down the narrow stairs, even though Sam took them fast enough to convince her he’d rather she didn’t.

  ‘It means . . .’ Sam looked towards the crowded sitting room. Maeve had put on a beloved salsa CD, and he closed his eyes as if the noise hurt his ears. ‘Step outside with me a minute.’

  The street was weekday-busy; Brighton was a heathen town which didn’t believe in keeping Sunday for rest. It was hot too; Anna sweated beneath her stripes. ‘So . . .’ She folded her arms, nudged him with her elbow. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘She’s gone. Bolted.’ Sam threw out his arm. ‘Couldn’t get away quick enough.’

  ‘What hap—’

  ‘You were right. I freaked her out by baking my front door key into a bread roll then asking her to make me a sandwich. She looked at it and said, “I can’t.” So you were right. Well done you.’

  ‘I didn’t want to be—’

  ‘I need a drink.’

  They all noticed how much Sam drank during the meal. He ignored his enormous jacket potato and dragged the bottle of unspeakable plonk towards him possessively.

  ‘Are we allowed to ask why Isabel isn’t—’

  ‘No, Neil. None of your business,’ said Sam. Heartbreak stripped away his bonhomie. He was a snarly junkyard dog they all tried to ignore as he drank more and his mood worsened. He didn’t even join in with the general joy at dessert.

  All of them – except Santi – remembered the lurid yellow, white and pink stripes of angel cake from their childhoods. There was relief that Maeve hadn’t made the custard; it was shop-bought, a perfect match for the riot of E-numbers in the sponge.

  ‘I forgot. I brought you something, Maeve.’ Anna, squashed up against Luca on one side and Santi on the other, somehow extracted the rectangular package from her bag beneath the table.

  ‘Is it edible?’ asked Neil hopefully.

  ‘No, it’s amazing.’ Maeve had already greedily torn off the wrapping paper. She held the old framed photograph on her lap for all to see. ‘It’s Dinkie and Grandpa’s wedding picture!’

  ‘Oh, don’t be looking at that auld thing.’ Dinkie covered her face with her hands as the others leaned in and devoured all the details.

  ‘You were so cute!’ said Santi, holding up the baby. ‘Look, Palomita, your great-grandmother.’

  ‘I was sixteen,’ said Dinkie, confronting the image sideways, squinting at the child-woman smiling out from the black-and-white church porch. ‘Sixteen,’ she repeated wonderingly, as if she barely believed it.

  ‘You’re not wearing a white dress.’ Storm was confused.

  ‘We were poor, my love,’ said Dinkie softly.

  ‘I love your little tweed suit.’ Maeve was effusive. She leaned back, kissed Paul full on the lips, making Anna look automatically at Storm, who pretended not to notice. ‘Isn’t my Dinkie the most gorgeous bride you ever saw?’

  Anna thought that ‘gorgeous’ wasn’t the right word. She was poignant, this newly minted Dinkie with her nipped-in tweed jacket and her posy of wild flowers. ‘You were only three years older than Storm, Dinkie!’

  ‘We grew up fast in them days.’ Dinkie seemed tired of Memory Lane. She cast about for her handbag.

  ‘So pretty,’ said Luca. His tenderness for Dinkie made Anna glow. ‘You’ve hardly changed, Dinkie.’

  ‘Shut up you, y’auld charmer!’ Dinkie reached out to slap him. ‘I had freckles then. Now I have feckin’ age spots.’

  ‘That,’ said Paul, pointing at Grandpa, ‘is a handsome man.’

  ‘Wish I had his hair,’ said Neil. He scrutinised the photograph. ‘Something looks different about you, Dinkie. Something subtle . . .’

  ‘Like the passage of over sixty years?’ Every drop that Sam had drunk was there in his voice. A ripple of disapproval made an invisible lap around the table, but nobody chided him. Sam’s pain was palpable.

  ‘I know what Neil means.’ Josh traced a circle around his grandmother’s black-and-white face. ‘Something about your face has changed . . .’

  Anna saw it too, but couldn’t pin it down. Her phone cheeped, and she jumped when she saw the caller’s name. ‘I’d better take this.’ Rather than brave the rats in the garden, she stumbled through the maze of chair legs and outstretched feet to stand on the front doorstep. Bending to hold Yeti’s collar, she said, ‘Hi, Dylan.’

  ‘Oh, hi. Yeah. It’s me. So. Um. Thought I’d call. See how things are. With the, um . . .’ Dylan took a run at the word and managed to force it out. ‘With the baby. And stuff.’

  ‘The baby and stuff are fine.’ Anna wasn’t sure how much he really wanted to know. He wasn’t the person to share her stretch mark fears with. ‘Everything healthy and normal and cool. How are you?’

  ‘Oh shit, I’m wrecked,’ said Dylan. ‘Big night last night. I mean big.’

  Anna wondered if it had involved intercourse on household goods. ‘That’s nice,’ she said, for the want of anything better to say. I barely know this man I’ve made a baby with. ‘It’s good to hear from you.’

  ‘Thought I should check in. See if, you know, how, sort of, things are.’ Dylan was trepidatious, as if the baby might have faded, like a hangover. ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I could have found out at my last scan, but I don’t really want to know.’ She paused. ‘Would you like to know?’ It was odd, asking somebody else’s opinion; so far this pregnancy was a solo effort. ‘I could ask if you really want me to.’

  ‘No, God, no, look it’s your decision.’ Dylan distanced himself hurriedly. He couldn’t find the right tone, obviously wary of presuming too much, but anxious not to seem like a heel. ‘Has it got all the fingers and arms and that?’

  ‘As far as we can tell.’ Anna was often flippant about the baby, but she couldn’t bring herself to joke about its health. ‘If anything was wrong, I’d let you know.’

  ‘Great. I mean, not great, I mean . . .’

  ‘I know what you mean.’ Anna looked down at Yeti. ‘I got a dog,’ she said.

  ‘Cool! I love dogs.’ On safer ground, they chatted for a few moments more. When Anna went back inside, the table had been folded away, and the others were clustered around a large painting. Modern, bold, it took up most of a wall.

  ‘Paul bought that for Maeve.’ Sam turned, his wine sloshing out of his glass. ‘And she didn’t run away! Women are weird.’

  ‘We went to this exhibition,’ Maeve was explaining, the chopstick she’d earlier used to open a drawer now stuck in her hair. ‘I said I liked it and the next day it was delivered! He spoils me.’

  Paul seemed embarrassed; Anna liked him for that. ‘What do you think of your Mum’s new work of art, Storm?’

  ‘Bit shit,’ said Storm.

  ‘Hey!’ Neil looked aggrieved. ‘Your grandmother doesn’t need to hear that language, young man.’

  ‘Manners, Stormy,’ said Dinkie, the only one seated.

  ‘He loves it really.’ Maeve was blithe, but Anna saw how perturbed Paul was by the boy’s reaction.

  Sitting, standing, leaning uncomfortably – Maeve was very
short on furniture – they all found out more about Paul.

  ‘Two kids. Boys,’ he said in answer to Santi’s question. ‘They keep me busy, I can tell you.’

  ‘You divorced?’ Sam’s manners were in the same skip as Storm’s. He was slurring now. ‘What happened? Did you love her too much? Women hate that, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m divorced.’ Paul smiled at Maeve, mouthed, It’s OK. ‘We split up a few years ago. All very civil. We share the little fellers. We’re friends. She’s a wonderful person. Like this one, here.’ He gave Maeve a playful punch on the arm.

  Storm made a gagging noise and ran, heavy-footed, up to his room. They all heard his door slam.

  ‘Ignore him,’ said Maeve, placidly. ‘He’ll come round.’

  Tea broke out; Maeve didn’t believe in coffee, claiming it stained her chakra.

  ‘I’m not sure I even have a chakra,’ murmured Luca.

  ‘I did have one, but my karma ran over it.’ Anna and Luca braved the rats, who were nowhere to be seen among the recycling bins and broken chairs that constituted Maeve’s garden. ‘Not exactly Longleat,’ laughed Anna.

  When Luca said, ‘But it suits Maeve and she loves it like this, so better than Longleat, really,’ she felt ashamed.

  Luca stretched; the cottage had that effect on a body. So many belongings in such a small space gave Anna what she thought of as a ‘Maeve headache’. ‘We can make our excuses in a bit, and skedaddle.’ She saw how Luca tried valiantly not to look relieved. There is only so much exposure to his girlfriend’s family a man can take.

  They looked back in through the grimy glass doors. Muted, the family’s mouths moved, their hands gesticulated and Sam slumped.

  ‘I don’t think Neil’s going to get very far with his big idea,’ smiled Luca.

  ‘My brother doesn’t know when to stop. One of the secrets of his success.’ Anna watched Neil loom over Josh, talking passionately, selling his plan.

  ‘Josh is much too independent to take a loan from Neil.’

  ‘It’s tempting. No interest. Pay him back whenever. Neil’s worried that Josh’ll never get on the property ladder.’

  ‘It is tempting, but it implies that Josh won’t make it on his own.’

  ‘How many siblings offer tens of thousands of pounds, no strings attached?’ Generally the first to criticise Neil for his bluff bossiness, Anna was piqued by Luca’s analysis. ‘Neil wants to make sure everybody’s settled. He’s kind of the daddy of the family.’

  ‘But the family already has a daddy.’

  Anna opened her mouth to answer – evasively, slickly – but Maeve interrupted them, slipping out from the sitting room. ‘So hot in there,’ she said, lighting up a cigarette.

  ‘I thought you’d given up,’ said Anna.

  ‘I did,’ said Maeve. ‘Then I took it up again. No biggie. Listen. Small favourette to ask.’

  ‘Go on.’ Anna kept her face neutral. Maeve had the cheek of the devil when asking favours; she didn’t disappoint.

  ‘You know you’re coming to Boston with me next week?’

  ‘Yup. Give me your passport number so I can get on and book the flights, by the way.’

  ‘That’s the thing.’

  ‘What thing?’ asked Anna warily, a lifetime of Maeve’s things behind her.

  ‘I can’t go.’

  ‘But . . .’ Anna didn’t understand. ‘When can you go?’

  ‘I can’t. Ever. I . . .’ Maeve threw up her arms, as if asking the universe, What am I like? ‘I don’t want to face Alva and see him being all, you know, American, with his big house and his barbecue and his sodding veranda. So . . .’ She plucked at Anna’s sleeve. ‘You go for me, yeah?’

  ‘No! I’m only accompanying you, it’s you who has to look around, talk to Storm, make a decision.’ Anna frowned. ‘What are you scared of, Maeve? I know you’re not jealous.’ Alva’s success and wealth and domestic happiness had never attracted Maeve.

  ‘You’re better at weighing things up and making decisions and sorting shit out.’

  ‘Only because I have to.’ This little-girl schtick worked on most people. Not Anna, however. ‘This is important. Where Storm lives is something you and Alva have to deal with together.’ She softened, hating to put Maeve on the spot, knowing Maeve would do anything for her. Within reason. ‘Look, Maevey, you liked Alva enough to make a baby with him. That turned out pretty well.’ She looked in at Storm, carrying a cup of tea over to Dinkie as carefully as if it was liquid nitrogen. ‘Surely you can sit down and work this out like two adults.’

  ‘I’m not going.’ Maeve was mulish. She ground out her cigarette beneath her Birkenstock. ‘I don’t want to,’ she admitted. ‘Alva does my head in.’

  ‘Not a technical term,’ said Luca, making her smile reluctantly.

  ‘He’s always right. Which makes me . . .’

  ‘Always wrong.’ Anna sighed. Partly because her back ached – Is that you making your presence felt, baby? – and partly because this scenario had already been written. Of course she would agree. Of course she would go instead of Maeve. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll sort it out.’

  ‘You’re the best sis in the world.’ Maeve bounced on her heels. ‘Hey, why don’t you go too, Luca?’

  ‘That had a rather rehearsed ring to it,’ said Anna.

  ‘It’s about time you two went away together. That’s what new couples do. Paul’s taking me to Paris while you’re in—’ She clammed up abruptly.

  ‘I see.’ Anna put her hands on her hips. ‘Not only am I doing your dirty work with Alva but I’m providing free childcare so you can swan off to the world capital of lurve with your boyfriend!’

  ‘You could put it like that.’ Maeve winked.

  ‘Luca can’t take time off just like that.’ Anna clicked her fingers, irritated at how Maeve had put her relationship under the microscope. She, too, had been thinking Surely it’s time for a mini-break by now?

  Luca clicked his fingers. ‘It works!’ he said. ‘Turns out I can take time off just like that.’ He put his fingers, slightly calloused, around Anna’s chin and tipped her face upwards with tender purposefulness. ‘Even therapists take holidays, and I’ve never been to Boston.’

  ‘Great!’ Maeve literally applauded.

  As Luca’s face came closer, Anna hoped her sister would have the good sense to steal away. But no. It took an impatient hand gesture from Anna to get rid of her, so they could kiss in peace.

  It started off low-key, but turned dramatic, the way kisses can. Luca pushed her against a wall, the unfriendly pebble-dash grazing her shoulders. ‘You and me on the other side of the world,’ he said, against her lips.

  ‘No Sunday Lunch Club,’ smiled Anna, sensing how badly he wanted to get her alone.

  ‘No nobody. Just us.’

  And the baby. Anna concentrated on his mouth, on the way his tongue worked against her own. The baby wasn’t something they could share, but ignoring the child suspended happily, innocently inside her felt like a crime. She was a mother – they could never be truly alone. Besides . . . she pulled away. ‘Storm’s coming too, remember.’

  Luca breathed heavily and happily, resetting the kiss to a lower heat, hugging her tight with those thick arms of his. ‘I like that kid,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a ball.’

  He was a good man. Pity he was the wrong man; pity it wasn’t Luca she’d seduced exactly twenty-one weeks ago.

  The air had gone out of the party. It was a step away from winding down. Anna had made a tentative attempt to shake Sam awake as he lay on Maeve’s bed, entwined around Yeti – who was anybody’s for a cuddle – but had retreated downstairs again. She picked up abandoned plates, reached over Santi’s shoulder for an empty glass, but Maeve snapped, ‘Oh leave it, Sis, that makes everybody uncomfortable. I’ll do it when you’ve gone.’ She took a swig of wine and threw her leg over Paul, who was crammed onto the sofa with her. ‘Or not!’

  ‘Mum, can I . . .’ Storm stood up, disentangling himself
from Paloma and handing her to Santi, as the child’s other father was engrossed in the Sunday Times.

  ‘Yeah, love, off you trot.’

  ‘Where’s he going?’ Dinkie lifted her chin; she liked to keep tabs on her chicks.

  ‘Off to see his mates,’ said Maeve.

  ‘Hmm,’ said Dinkie, who had the old lady’s traditional dim view of ‘mates’.

  ‘Hang on, Storm.’ Paul struggled to his feet, escaping Maeve’s tendrils. ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  ‘Nah, you’re OK.’ Storm slipped out as Paul put his hand into his pocket for his wallet.

  ‘He gives Stormy pocket money,’ whispered Maeve to the others as her boyfriend followed her son out into the hall. ‘Told you. He’s perfect.’

  Anna yawned, fidgeted. Inside her, her tiny friend fidgeted too, or so it seemed; she’d yet to feel the baby genuinely move. It was a small anxiety, one she smothered by constantly rechecking the guidelines on the internet. I’ll worry when I get to twenty-five weeks. Surely an alarm would sound in her blood if there was something wrong?

  Slipping out to the hall, Anna had one foot on the stairs, determined to wake Sam this time; she and Luca were ferrying him home and she didn’t want to hang about any longer. Storm’s voice from the kitchen, a tone she recognised as an inch away from tears, made her stop and listen.

  ‘You can’t buy me. You’re not my dad.’

  ‘You have a dad, a perfectly good dad.’ Paul’s voice had a smile in it. Anna wondered if he would attempt a manly hand on Storm’s shoulder and hoped not. ‘I have boys of my own. But we can be mates, can’t we?’

  There was a mutter from Storm. It didn’t sound remotely like a ‘yes’.

  ‘Look, Storm, I don’t want to steal your mum. I want to take care of her. I happen to think she’s a lovely lady who deserves some love and attention. She does everything for you, and now and again she should be spoiled, yeah?’

  More rumbling from Storm.

  ‘If everything was fine before I came along, why was your mum so glad to meet me? If she likes me, shouldn’t you give me a chance?’

  Be nice, Storm, urged Anna, her hand on the bannister. Paul was what any sane doctor would order for Maeve; what was good for Maeve was ultimately good for Storm, even if he did hate sharing his mum.