“You had a problem before then and you know it.”
“What? Because I don’t know how to describe the ring with four diamonds instead of five?”
Geraldine stared at him. “I knew I should have come with a friend,” she muttered. “You spoil everything.”
He lowered his eyes. “Sorry.”
“Oh well, as long as you’re sorry. That’s fine then. Doesn’t matter that you’re spoiling my once-in-a-lifetime experience.”
“You’re right. Let’s go in.”
“Oh I’m really in the mood now.”
“Look, I’m sorry. You’re right, I spoil everything. I’m just a bit preoccupied with the café—”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, not again. This is the first whole Saturday you’ve had off in God knows how long. You live and breathe that bloody café. I’ve got a career too, but I manage not to bring it home with me. At least when you were in the city you cut off at weekends. If I’d known the café was going to take over our lives, I’d…” she trailed off. She’d made her point. Sometimes it was best to leave things hanging.
“You’d what?”
“I don’t know, Daniel. I just hadn’t realized it was going to have such an impact on our life together. One bloody Saturday looking for the most important ring of my life and you’re still in bloody Porter’s Green.”
“I’m sorry. I’m crap. I don’t know what you see in me.”
She half-smiled. “Neither do I.”
“Do you forgive me?”
Geraldine gave a deep sigh before giving him the other half of the smile. “Well now,” she said, “that all depends on how many wotsits my engagement ring has.”
Two hours later, the wedding list assistant at Harrods handed them their forms and Geraldine giggled with excitement. Dan smiled and put his arm round her. It had taken a lot of wotsits and a two-course lunch with a classy Bordeaux at Fortnum’s, but she was finally back to herself again. And he knew he could expect this familiar sensation of shell-shock from one of her bombs to have died down by this time tomorrow. They went to the china department first, Geraldine almost running up the escalators. They held hands at the entrance, took a deep breath and went in to find the dinner service of their dreams.
Meanwhile, Sukie Woodrow, tomorrow’s Brit-flick sensation, watched her feet take her to her last audition for the Tale of Two Cities adaptation. She looked up at the people waiting at the bus queue. No one glanced her way. Was all this about to change? Was her anonymity coming to an end? Was she finally about to gain recognition? Was this where her life would begin? Her stomach clenched. Just one more audition. So near and yet so far. Greta had phoned her just yesterday and told her the good news.
“Darling, it’s between you and that minx Miranda.”
“Miranda Armstrong?”
“Yes. You can do it.”
“But she’s half my age. How can she be up for that part?”
“I know. It’s utter madness. They’ll be auditioning fetuses next.”
“Oh bloody hell.”
“Now now, my love, my Katharine Hepburn, my silver screen queen. Do not give up hope.”
“So it’s just us two.”
“It is just you two. You’re within a cat’s whisker. The part of Sydney Carton has gone to Harry Hampton.”
“Hal!” cried out Sukie. “Fantastic! I was with him at The Almeida—the dynamic was exactly the same, he had an unrequited crush on me. You told them that, didn’t you?”
“I did,” sighed Greta, “and they said ‘Where’s The Almeida?’”
“Oh for God’s sake.”
“But it will help you and him become those people instantly.”
“Yes.”
“That’s the good news. The bad news is that they’re auditioning you first. You’re in the morning, Miranda’s in the afternoon.”
“Damn.”
“So you have to make a lasting impression. You have to inhabit Lucie, so that when these silly TV people go to bed at night, they see you as her and not that lanky teenage gobshite.”
And so it was. Sukie Woodrow, tomorrow’s Brit-flick sensation, stared at her hob-nailed, tightly laced ankle boots, inhabiting Lucie Manette, nineteenth-century heroine. And as she walked past the bus stop she wondered if her time had finally come.
As soon as she entered the now familiar audition room, she saw Hal perched on the back of a chair, drinking tea with the cameraman. She dearly wanted to do the luvvie thing and rush up to him, throw her arms around him and launch into reminiscing about their work together, but it would look too staged. And anyway, it might be good to have some tension between them. After all, Sydney Carton and Lucie were hardly friends. She smiled at the director and screenplay writer and gave the cameraman a wave. They all acknowledged her with the polite satisfaction of knowing that they had less to fear than she did. Ooh, she thought, we’re just like one big happy, dysfunctional family. She plopped her bag and little summer cardi down on a chair at the side of the room and went over to Hal. He gave her an encouraging smile and a kiss on her cheek. Good man. He hadn’t had to do that.
“Congratulations,” she whispered.
“Thanks,” he said. “Good luck.”
And that was when she remembered. Hal had bad breath. Really bad breath. Hal, short for Halitosis, she had privately joked during their run together. She had spent her entire time at The Almeida popping mints and offering him them on the pretext that really she needed them. How could she have forgotten? And today she had no mints in her bag. Which meant she had to remember her lines, work to the right camera, obey the twelve-year-old director’s idea of direction, perform the part for the first time with an actor and make a lasting impression—all while not breathing in.
During her second try, she made the mistake of taking a deep breath and was rewarded by retching before her line. At the end, she looked at her hands while waiting for the director’s version.
“SukieSue,” he said. “I bloody loved the bit where you retched. So real. So raw. So Dickens’s London. I think Lucie would definitely be sickened. Keep that in. But this time I want to see more physical attraction. That’s why she’s retching.” He couldn’t keep the pride out of his grin. “She’s revolted not by the man—but by her attraction to him.”
She nodded, wide-eyed. An hour later, she was on her way back to the café, giving Greta the run-down.
“So if I get it,” she summarized excitedly, “it will all be thanks to Hal and his bad breath.”
“Well done darling, I’ll phone you as soon as I’ve heard.”
As Sukie approached the café, she stopped for a moment, closed her eyes and made a secret wish. Almost as soon as she went in, she knew something was up.
“Have you heard?” Patsy called out, before she’d even reached the bar.
“Heard what?”
“Time Out? We’re good-looking!” She was jumping on the spot. “‘Good-looking staff!’ We think it was that odd bloke with the moustache in the other day. Isn’t it brilliant? Look!”
Sukie scanned the article desperately hoping this wasn’t the last review of her work she’d ever read. Suddenly, she felt very depressed.
“Wow.” She handed it back to Patsy. “How exciting.” She heard Patsy squealing behind her as she wandered into the kitchen.
She and Matt exchanged preoccupied greetings, Matt being almost physically attached to his mobile phone. As she nodded at Nik and considered seeing what he was cooking today, Patsy was suddenly in between them.
“She’s seen the review,” she giggled to Nik. Sukie turned to Patsy. “What are you doing in here?” she asked, her voice cold.
Patsy’s smile froze on her face. “It’s OK; Katie’s out front.”
“Yeah, well, if we only needed one waitress out front Dan wouldn’t have taken you on, would he?”
Patsy gave Nik a confused glance before returning to the café. Sukie apologized to the room in general.
“Don’t say sorry to us, love,” said
Nik. “Say it to Beautiful.”
Sukie decided not to. As she bent down to place her cardi and bag under the counter, Katie came in behind her.
“Have you seen Time Out?” she grinned.
“Yeah,” Sukie forced herself. “Well done.”
“Thanks, well, it’s well done to all of us,” said Katie.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” scoffed Sukie. “It’s all your doing.”
“Fuck off!” cried Nik. “What am I, Scotch mist?”
“Good question,” said Sukie. “I think you’re more frozen fog actually.”
Nik exploded into a rant about the importance of the chef in a café-cum-restaurant and Katie watched them for a while before quietly leaving them to it.
As soon as his shift was over, Matt made his way to Jennifer’s street. The street where the pavement had once disappeared beneath his feet. But not today. Today the pavement was horribly there. He’d had no reply from Jennifer’s mobile all day. And he’d left three messages on her voicemail. And she hadn’t come in for lunch since Thursday. He’d hoped she might pop in for brunch today, but no.
Had she been kidnapped? Was she still alive, even? Was she chopped up in a bin bag somewhere? Or worse, had she chucked him? Had he been too pushy? Had she felt intimidated by his desperate goodnight kisses? Oh God, he had been so forceful, but he hadn’t been able to help himself. Him and his stupid libido. As he turned the corner of her street, he made a solemn oath to himself that if she was alive and still wanted to go out with him, he’d never force so much as a kiss on her again. He approached her house and offered up a prayer.
He rang the doorbell and listened for sounds. After a while, he heard movement from upstairs. He rang again. Someone was coming down. His heart was in his mouth. What would he do if it was her parents? What would he do if—
And there she was!
He stared at her. God, she looked terrible. He must have got her out of bed. This time on a Saturday afternoon? And she was in her dressing gown too. He was right. She’d been ill. Oh, Jennifer! He wanted to take her in his arms and make her well again, and then make wild, passionate love to her.
“Jennifer,” he explained. “It’s me.”
“Yeah I can see that. What do you want?”
A pair of naked feet appeared on the stairs behind her.
“I wanted to see how you were,” he whispered.
“I was fine till you turned up.”
The feet spoke. “Everything all right, babe?”
Jennifer turned round and the feet turned into a man, also wearing a dressing gown. Was this her father?
“Hello, Mr….” began Matt, before realizing he didn’t know Jennifer’s surname.
“Hello hello hello,” grinned the man. Funny, Jennifer didn’t take after him at all. “Is this one of your little fans?” said the man. Jennifer didn’t seem to find this half as amusing as the man did. She turned back to Matt and spoke with some urgency.
“Matt,” she said. “Go away.”
“W-what have I done?”
“Just go away.”
“Is it ’cos I lied to you?” he said desperately.
She stared. “What?”
“When I pretended I was ill? I promise I’ll never lie again, but the spot was massive. It was right on my nose. I can’t believe Eva told you. She swore she—”
Jennifer and the man’s reactions were polarized at this: the man started laughing hysterically, but she saw red.
“You lied to me?” she barked. “And you told that cow?”
“Yes but—” he stopped. “What?”
“You complete tosser!”
“But-but?”
“I can never trust you again!” She started to shut the door.
“It was like I had two noses!” Matt shouted through the rapidly closing gap.
“Forget it Matt. It’s over.”
And the door slammed in his face.
Stunned, Matt stood there for a while until the hoots of laughter from inside propelled him into movement. He turned round slowly and walked, not knowing or caring where he was going. It was only when he found himself ordering a pint that he even realized he was in the Gnat and Parrot.
He stood at the bar, staring into his glass, blinking and sniffing, blinking and sniffing, blinking and sniffing until, after a while, he realized someone was staring at him. Someone who looked vaguely familiar.
As his size tens thundered on the treadmill, Hugh looked down at the clock. Bloody hell, this was amazing. He’d never run this far in his life, not even before uni. It did help being able to watch all the MTV babes while you did it. Much better than boring old countryside.
In all the years he’d been a member of this gym, he’d never come in on a Saturday afternoon and he’d been amazed to find it so full. It had been like entering another world. Madness really, when you thought about it, considering how much his membership cost, but Maxine had always wanted them to spend their weekends together: shopping or seeing friends or family, even just eating out or going to the cinema.
As he ran, he realized for the first time that being alone might actually be a liberation for him. He could start living the bachelor life he’d thought he’d missed out on. While getting fit at the same time. God, he could actually lose his stomach. This could be the best thing in his whole life. He slowed down the treadmill and got off. He sat on it catching his breath and wiped himself down. There was more sweat than body.
On his way home, he decided suddenly, he’d buy himself one of those lads’ magazines and maybe read it in the pub. Or a cookery book! And a bread maker! He’d really wanted to buy one but Maxine had said they’d never use it. Oh my God—he could buy all the things for the house that she’d vetoed. He wasn’t really that broke. Yes. That’s what he’d do. He ran down to the changing rooms. First stop, the kitchen shop.
Back at the café, three full hours after her audition, when Sukie’s mobile finally rang she could barely answer it for nerves. Luckily she wasn’t serving anyone, and she squeezed back through the kitchen and sat on the back stairs. She held her breath before answering.
She knew instantly from Greta’s voice.
“Darling, it’s shitty news.”
Her tears came fast and furious.
“You were so close,” soothed Greta. “You’ll get it next time, I just know.”
Sukie sniffed loudly.
“They loved the retch,” said Greta. “They’ve asked Miranda to put that in. The director said it suddenly made him ‘get’ Lucie. Called it a pivotal moment.”
If Sukie had had the energy, she’d have retched now. Instead, she hung her head on her knees and allowed herself time to let this sink in. The thought of going back outside and serving customers, of pretending she cared about a bloody restaurant review in Time Out, of coming in day after day and doing everything again and again suddenly wore her out. She started sobbing.
“You have got to be kidding,” Dan said to Geraldine, staring at an eggshell-blue teapot with turquoise birds on it and a gold-leaf spout. “That is grotesque.”
“I am most certainly not kidding. It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” repeated Geraldine. She turned to him. “Can you imagine having friends round and pouring them tea from that?”
“Not friends of mine, no.”
“Well it’s a darn-sight less grotesque than the bloody naked woman vase.”
“That was art.”
Geraldine sighed heavily and crossed her arms. “Why must you fight me on everything?”
“What?” Dan managed to exclaim without raising his voice above a whisper.
“You do,” hissed Geraldine. “Everything’s a fight.”
“Because believe it or not it’ll be my dinner service too!”
“You don’t care about a dinner service as much as I do.”
“Why not?” Dan choked.
“You’re a man.”
He stared at her as a couple walked behind them, the man spluttering in sotto
voce staccato, “If we get that, then I get the fucking flat screen.”
Dan tried a smile, but Geraldine didn’t flicker. “It wouldn’t be in Harrods if it was grotesque,” she said.
He let out a snort of laughter. “They’ve got exotic pets but that doesn’t mean I want an elephant.”
She stared at him like he was mad. “You do talk rubbish sometimes, Daniel.”
Slowly, Matt turned round and faced the vaguely familiar someone who was still staring at him.
“Hello there,” she said. A slender, attractive, dark-haired woman was smiling at him.
“All right?” he mustered.
“They give you Saturday afternoon off, do they?”
He blinked at the woman. She smiled. “Where’s lover girl?” she asked. There was a pause and then she leaned on the bar. “You don’t recognize me, do you?” He frowned. “I’ll give you a clue,” she said. “You usually have eyes for someone else when I come into the café for lunch.”
His eyes widened. He gasped. He tried to remember her name. He failed.
“Eva,” she said drily.
“Eva! Of course.”
“Blimey, I knew it was bad, but I hadn’t realized how bad.”
“You look different.”
“Oh yeah?” she grinned.
“Yeah. Much older.”
She gave him a look. “Thanks.”
“No, no, it’s a compliment.”
“I’m only twenty-one.”
Twenty-one? Twenty-one? She was twenty-one!
“Want a drink?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Well?”
There was a pause.
“Oh sorry,” he rushed. “Yes please.”
“No, I mean what would you like?”
“Gin and tonic, thanks.”
Matt stared as Eva bought him a drink. She asked about Jennifer and he told her the extraordinary twist of the story, but to his amazement, she didn’t seem half as surprised as he had been. In fact, she apologized.
“Why are you sorry?” he asked.
“Because I work with her, remember? I know the real Jennifer. I know what she gets up to. I could have warned you.”
“Yeah but you’re her mate aren’t you?”
The Waitress Page 31