The Sunday Lunch Club

by Juliet Ashton

  Whatever Storm said, it didn’t please Paul. She could hear his gritted teeth. ‘I’m going to keep trying, Storm. Because your mum loves you.’

  Storm clomped out on schoolboy feet that had grown faster than the rest of him. Anna held out her arms; she could see, appropriately enough, a storm gathering on his pretty features, but he ignored his aunt and let himself out into the street.

  It took a while to rouse Sam, to remind him where he was, to help him to the bathroom. Standing waiting for him, Anna couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen him so drunk. Possibly during the divorce. Isabel’s exit had evidently stirred up painful memories.

  Anna thought of the letters, waiting at home in a drawer, conspiring against her, poisoning the well of her happiness. Memories are powerful beasts.

  ‘You nearly finished?’ she shouted just as he emerged, tousled and bloodshot, his mouth turned down. Oh God. ‘You’re not going to be sick, are you?’

  ‘No. I’m just sick of life.’ Sam half walked, half fell down the stairs. ‘She won’t answer a text.’ He pronounced it tesht. ‘Not picking up when I call. I thought she loved me.’

  ‘She did. Does.’ Anna didn’t really know that; I barely know her. The most important thing now was to get Sam home and into bed where he could sleep this off. They could talk about it at Artem during the week. And talk. And talk. I owe him that.

  Lurching into the sitting room, Sam almost collided with Luca, who straightened him up with a questioning glance at Anna, who shrugged.

  ‘Soon get you home, Sam,’ said Luca, gripping him round the shoulders.

  ‘You are a good good dear good friend.’ Sam was close to tears.

  There was the usual circle of helpful relatives around Dinkie as she pulled herself to her feet. Santi held her gigantic handbag, Neil had a grip on her upper arm, Maeve was settling Dinkie’s collar.

  She wasn’t that creaky until she went into the home, thought Anna. Like all loving granddaughters, Anna wished Nature would grant Dinkie immunity from old age. She hated all the signs – the stooped posture, the crabbed fingers, the sparse hair showing pink scalp where once there’d been thick curls.

  ‘Soon get you home, Dinkie,’ said Josh. He was her chauffeur today, in charge of driving the staid Ford Focus his grandmother kept at Sunville.

  ‘It’s not home,’ said Dinkie abruptly, plonking back down into the chair like a broken doll. ‘That place isn’t my home.’ She began to cry.

  For a moment nobody moved. Dinkie never cried. Not a single tear throughout all the bereavements and disappointments of a long life.

  A whisky was poured. Dinkie’s cheek was kissed. Her hand was held. And still she sobbed, her puckered apple of a face pink with distress.

  ‘I hate it there,’ she moaned.

  ‘Do they . . . are they . . .’ Anna remembered the complicated tension between Dinkie and Sheba. ‘Do they mistreat you, Dinkie?’

  ‘I just don’t want to live there. I want me own house and me kitchen and me bed!’ wailed the tiny woman, rocking to let out the woe.

  Paloma began to fret at the sound of such unhappiness, and Maeve sobbed as hard as Dinkie.

  ‘You don’t have to go back!’ She hugged her grandmother almost violently. ‘You’re never going back.’

  ‘Is it your room that’s the problem?’ Neil knelt in front of the old lady. ‘I’ll have a word, Dinkie, I’ll fix it.’

  ‘She misses home,’ said Santi, verging on anger. ‘It’s not about the size of her room, for God’s sake.’

  ‘I miss me old life,’ said Dinkie, sniffling now, calmer but no less miserable. ‘The peace and quiet. Toddlin’ off to the shops.’

  ‘We discussed all this,’ said Neil. He was still sweet, still her doting grandson, but he was also pragmatic. ‘You had every opportunity to back out.’

  ‘Neil!’ Maeve was shocked. ‘If she doesn’t want to live there, she doesn’t have to.’

  ‘Neil’s right,’ said Dinkie, conjuring up a handkerchief – a proper, ironed one – from the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘I’m sorry, loves. I’m getting soft in me dotage.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Anna. She agreed with Neil, and she agreed with Maeve. Two conflicting facts were true: it was far too late for Dinkie to decide she didn’t want to live at Sunville; Dinkie could do whatever she pleased. We can’t let our Dinkie be unhappy. They owed her so much.

  Emails flew back and forth all Sunday evening. With Yeti on her lap, and Luca in her orbit, Anna was deep in Piper to-and-fro, where they soon forget the niceties like ‘Hello’ at the top of the emails, or signing off at the end.

  Josh was bombarded with ‘How was she when you dropped her back at Sunville?’, ‘Did she cry in the car?’, ‘How did that Sheba seem?’

  ‘Dinkie was her usual cheerful self,’ he told them all. ‘She said not to listen to her, she’s just a silly old fool. But in a very Irish accent.’

  ‘She has to leave sunvil!!!’ declared Maeve with characteristic poor spelling and extravagant use of exclamation marks. ‘NOW!!!!’

  They agreed she couldn’t stay at Sunville. Santi was all for staging a midnight raid. ‘Let’s go and get her straight away. I do not want her to stay there one minute longer than she has to.’

  Touched by Santi’s attachment to his grandmother-in-law, Anna nevertheless counselled reason. ‘We have to do this properly. Calmly. The next move that Dinkie makes will be permanent.’

  They all knew that Anna had almost typed ‘her last’.

  After all the emotion, the outbursts, the proclamations of undying love for Dinkie, came the big question.

  Neil was brave enough to type it. ‘Where’s she going to live?’

  There was internet silence. Anna’s fingers were in the air, ready, but she couldn’t seem to make them type the words ‘with me’. She looked around the quiet, lamplit room, at her quiet, lamplit boyfriend, and her sleeping, twitching dog. This was a bubble that would burst in December, it was precious; she wanted to preserve it as long as possible. This made her, Anna thought, officially a horrible person. Dinkie deserved her love and care. ‘I’ll,’ she typed, just as an email broke the silence.

  ‘I’ll happily live with Dinkie,’ wrote Josh.

  ‘No need darling!!! Dont be silly!!!!’ Maeve was first out of the blocks.

  ‘Josh, you are a young man you should live your life,’ was Santi’s take, echoed by Neil, who added, ‘Remember your rabbit? Remember it died under your bed trying to eat wallpaper? Stick to translating Russian, Josh. You’re very sweet, but NO.’

  ‘I miss Isabel.’ Sam had woken up, apparently. ‘How did I get home?’

  ‘Go to bed, Sam,’ typed Anna. ‘We have a conference call with New York in the morning.’ He’d howled about Isabel for the whole journey home. ‘Josh,’ she wrote, ‘that’s an incredible gesture, but you like to travel at the drop of a hat. You have your whole life ahead of you.’ She pondered for a moment: that sounded as if Anna didn’t. ‘Let us take care of this.’

  ‘But I want to help.’

  ‘You can, Josh, but not right now,’ wrote Neil.

  Josh added no more to the debate.

  ‘I can’t have Dinkie!!’ Maeve got that in speedily. ‘Not with Storm and the rats and everything.’

  ‘Everything?’ Anna was archly curious. ‘What, pray, is this everything you speak of? Could it possibly be the same as everybody’s everything? There’s nobody in the world ready to take in an elderly relative with zero notice!’

  ‘I’ve got no money and a new boyfriend and what do old ladies eat anyway?!!!’

  ‘Don’t worry, you’re safe,’ typed Neil. ‘Dinkie would be scandalised by what goes on in your bedroom.’

  ‘Jealus!!!’

  ‘Me and Neil will take in Dinkie to our hearts and our casa.’ Santi was clear. ‘It will be no trouble. She is my most special lady.’

  ‘Oh that’s so good of you! Bless you, Santi. I’ll help all I can.’ There was no time for Anna to press send before
Neil’s email stomped all over his husband’s.

  ‘It’s obvious Dinkie can’t live with us. Our lifestyle would make her uncomfortable.’

  Before Anna could take him to task for his paranoia, Neil went on:

  ‘Plus there’s Paloma to think of. Anna – you’re the obvious person for Dinkie to live with. For one thing, you’re her favourite, and for another thing, you’re a woman, and surely an old lady like Dinkie would prefer to live in a feminine home?’

  Anna stared at the screen of her iPad for a long time before her fingers flew over the virtual keyboard. ‘So I’m the “obvious” one to take in Dinkie because I’m a woman? Because if it comes down to a choice between you and me then it has to be me, because caring work, loving work, basic keeping-people-you-love-alive-and-well work is always down to the woman? Or maybe it’s because my house is so much smaller than yours; at last count, you had three spare bedrooms, Neil. Plus a cleaner, and a gardener, and a partner. As a pregnant woman of forty with no spare room, I am, you’re right, the obvious choice.’

  Delete delete delete.

  Instead, Anna wrote two short lines.

  ‘I’d love to have Dinkie here with me and the baby. It’ll be an honour to pay her back for all the love over the years. A xxx’

  She logged out before she could be thanked.

  She and Luca did not make love that night. He was preoccupied, his head in a book, frowning through the black-rimmed glasses that he only wore at night and which made him look, to Anna, like a glamorous nerd.

  The room grew dark, then light around the two figures in the bed, as they began the night spooning and gradually moved apart, only to find each other in the thin dawn. Anna didn’t sleep.

  She was greedy for sleep, hoarding it against the days when she’d have a mini-me and, according to the doom-mongers of internet forums, she would sleep like a sentry, snatching an hour here and an hour there, one eye open. That night, sleep didn’t play ball. Anna watched the light change on the ceiling to the music of Luca’s snores and grunts and lip-smacking. This symphony changed throughout the night, with an impressive variety of notes and tunes.

  If she’d liked him a little less, fancied him a little less, the night-time concert might have made her retreat from Luca, but she liked him a lot – Let’s not use that other, more explosive L word – so all it did was make her smile.

  Concerns of the day grow fangs in the middle of the night. All their colours are darker, they smell far worse, and they revel in their power. Anna was in the grip of the near future and the distant past.

  It was cruel of her to add Dinkie to her list of problems. The woman was the true matriarch of the Piper family – Sorry, Mum, but it’s a fact – and she had every right to expect a home with Anna.

  She moved closer to Luca. They both lay on top of the bedclothes, naked and gently luminous in the half-light.

  She wanted a last hurrah with this man. A few weeks of giddy lovemaking and daft jokes and deep conversation. An imminent baby was passion killer enough, but add an eighty-two-year-old to the mix and she might as well pull on her big knickers and concede defeat.

  A clock ticked. The house creaked. Somewhere on the street, a fox whined. Then the letters pounced; they knew her defences were down. She wondered if the writer, Carly No-Surname, was also lying awake. I doubt it. The letter had probably purged Carly, got the hatred and resentment down on the page and out of her house.

  And into my house.

  She turned, sparred with her pillow, but no part of her felt comfortable. She said it again, out loud this time. Sometimes she whispered it; she’d shouted it once at the sea; most days it simply said itself inside her mind.

  ‘I’m sorry, Bonnie.’

  Then, in the darkest dip of the night, the baby inside Anna moved. A silvery ripple travelled right through her. Like being tickled. Like being loved, by something not yet able to know what the concept meant.

  Thank you, thought Anna, and fell asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Lunch at Alva’s

  MARGARITAS ON TAP

  SMOKED BABY BACK RIBS/TEX-MEX BURGERS

  BARBECUE CHICKEN/CORN IN THE HUSK/SLAW/BOSTON BAKED BEANS/GRILLED SHRIMP

  HOME-STYLE PEACH ICE CREAM/CHERRY PIE

  Anna missed Yeti. Why? she wondered. To miss a creature that ate your discarded tissues and wet itself during thunderstorms made no sense. But she missed him, and his hairy enthusiasm and his licky kisses and his insane conviction that she was the best human in the entire world.

  Luca was a vague shadow behind the frosted glass that divided the bathroom from the hotel bedroom. ‘All yours.’ He emerged naked. He was wet, his hair a jagged slick. He stood with his back to her, putting on his wristwatch. ‘Are you looking at my bum, woman?’

  ‘It’s one of my favourite hobbies.’

  Luca wiggled his buttocks, and Anna snorted. She bounced off the bed, padding past him in the towelling robe provided by the hotel.

  ‘Hey . . .’ Luca reached out, unwound her from it. ‘Leave this off. Looking at you is one of my fave hobbies, too.’

  ‘No, I . . .’ Anna held the robe to her, backed into the shower. ‘Won’t be long!’

  ‘Yes, you will.’

  A reliable shower – her own was moody – was such a bonus that Anna lingered under the hot water, head back, letting it flow down her body.

  A body that didn’t quite belong to her any more. Her tummy had finally gone pop! It curved from below her breasts, and banished her waist. T-shirts, dresses, all her clothes looked different; some were impossible to wear. She still didn’t look unquestionably pregnant; when this thought occurred to her, Anna winced. Why do I keep saying that to myself? Her pregnancy was a fact, not something that could be denied as long as she fitted into her jeans. It had become a joy for her, a defining event of her life – but so had Luca.

  Yes, she held back. Yes, he was only on loan. That didn’t stop her recognising what they had as something to be cherished. She ached to share the baby’s landmarks with him, but since the first kick as she lay in bed beside him, she’d kept them to herself.

  ‘Fancy lobster?’ he called.

  ‘For a change,’ she shouted back, and was rewarded by his laugh. Lobster was on every menu in Boston, coming as standard with the breezy friendliness of the people and the taut perfect blue of the sky.

  Water, consistently hot and flowing from a shower head she didn’t have to clean, rained down on Anna, and she turned under it, enjoying it. In the shower she felt clothed by the water, and could appreciate the changes in her body as beautiful. There was a purpose in the push of her stomach, a reason why her hips bloomed.

  She turned off the shower and shook her hair, droplets of water banging on the glass tiles like bullets. It was time to own her new shape, and share it. Luca wasn’t the father, that was true, but he was her lover, and this growing, thriving form was her new reality.

  Nonchalant, shaking a little, she wandered past Luca as he pushed a comb through his hair. He saw her in the mirror and stared. He stared at every inch of her and then he turned.

  ‘It’s like Christmas every couple of weeks,’ he said. ‘I get a whole new girlfriend to play with, but she’s still you.’

  The post-coital glow didn’t last long. In fact, it had disappeared by the time they pulled on shorts and tees and called the lift.

  ‘You did ask, Annie.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’ Anna’s shoulders went up to her ears. ‘I didn’t expect you to tell me.’

  The ‘How many lovers have you had?’ question is always loaded, no matter how casually it’s dropped into conversation. With Luca’s arms around her, the sheets tangled by their lovemaking, Anna had heard the names of each of his partners.

  It wasn’t the number of women he’d slept with, it was the fondness with which he said their names. The way he was ready with charming memories. Anna had found herself saying, ‘I don’t know why you ever split up with them if you like them that much.’
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  Luca had been amused, but now, as they took their seats at a gingham tablecloth and said ‘Lobster’ in unison to the waiter, he was cheesed off. ‘Isn’t it a plus that I’m on good terms with my exes?’

  ‘Yes, whatever.’ Anna’s hair was still wet and she bullied it up into a bun.

  They tackled the lobster in silence. There was frosty politeness about pouring water.

  Going away together promises to be a smorgasbord of wild lovemaking and three-course dinners, but it also trains a cold spotlight on any fractures in the relationship. Anna had discovered that she and Luca didn’t feel the same about chatting on aeroplanes, that he hated room service, that he found the way she spoke to waiting staff – sugary, please-like-me – silly.

  Worst of all was the way he’d shouted, ‘Come on, Sleepyhead! Can’t lie in bed all day,’ on their first morning. It was accusatory, Anna felt, as she hugged her pillow, grateful to have neither Yeti nor Artem Accessories urging her to get up.

  These things piled up. Anna knew he was irritated by the time she took getting dressed; but then I do have a bump to disguise! She could tell he would rather not have long conversations with people behind them in queues, or sitting at the next table in cafés, or waiting for the lift, but Anna couldn’t help responding to Bostonians’ chatty friendliness. She knew she was driving him mad with her desire to tick off all the local sights; ‘We’re not on a school trip, Annie.’

  Perhaps this was the beginning of the end. The slow turn away from each other. Anna was unaccustomed to the harmony she’d found with Luca; these glitches upset her in a way they wouldn’t with any other man. Once perfection is sullied, can it ever look the same again? If something is imperfect to begin with, nobody minds a few scuffs or scrapes.

  Luca banged on the table. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s the end of the daft row.’ He leaned over, cupped her face and swiftly kissed her. ‘Back to normal, please, for me and my Annie. Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ It was perfect again; their version of perfect, which somehow could encompass her pregnancy.