by Fallon, Jane
Sally, when he'd called her to break the bad news, had been incredulous. ‘You're kidding, right?’ she'd said, seemingly thinking at first that maybe this was some kind of bizarre practical joke. When it had become obvious that James was, in fact, deadly serious, she had given way to tears of indignation. ‘But what have I done wrong?’ she'd cried. ‘Just tell me what it is and I can try to put it right.’
James had stuck to his guns. It wasn't her work so much, it was her attitude. He had received several complaints from clients, he'd said, thinking on his feet. This wasn't true, of course. Sally was generally well thought-of in the local community.
‘From who?’ she'd asked.
‘I can't tell you that. It's confidential.’
‘But it's so unfair,’ Sally had wailed. ‘Do Malcolm and Simon know?’
‘We're all in agreement about this, I'm afraid. You can work out a month's notice, obviously, to give you time to look for another job.’
Once off the phone Sally had stormed into Malcolm's room. Before she'd had a chance to say anything he'd put his hands in the air to stop her. ‘It's nothing to do with me or Simon. I'd sue him for unfair dismissal, if I were you. There are laws about this kind of thing.’
‘I would never do that,’ Sally had said. ‘I'll just look for another job and then go quietly. I just wish I understood what I'm meant to have done.’
‘You and me both,’ Malcolm had said, giving her a hug.
Half an hour after he'd made the phone call James was feeling like he might have overreacted a little. After all, Sally had only been having a joke with him: she wasn't to know she'd hit a raw nerve. He considered calling her back and telling her that he hadn't meant it, or that he'd found out the complaints had been made up so, of course, he had changed his mind, but he felt like he had gone past the point of no return when he'd said her attitude stank so he decided he was better off just leaving things be. He would give her a good reference and he was sure she'd have no trouble finding another job. Besides, he would look weak in front of Malcolm and Simon if he backed down and that would never do.
With the twin horrors of both Sally and the dinner-party fall-out, not to mention his visiting parents, James felt a sense of impending doom on Saturday that threatened to completely overshadow his precious day off. It was a feeling he didn't think he had experienced since school when the last few glorious days of the summer holidays would be wasted, given over to depression at the thought of the new term.
He ended up staying in bed far too late, like a sullen teenager, emerging from the bedroom at eleven thirty to find Finn sitting huffily on the top step of the stairs, just outside the bedroom door. ‘I thought you were taking me to the park,’ he said accusingly. ‘I've been waiting here for one hour and eleven minutes…’ he looked at his watch. ‘… and twenty-seven seconds.’
James felt a rush of guilt. He saw Finn little enough as it was and he had indeed promised to play football with him in Regent's Park if the weather was fine. ‘Well, why didn't you wake me up?’ he said, ruffling Finn's hair.
Finn squirmed out of reach. ‘Because Mum told me not to. She said you must be tired if you were sleeping in this late so I should leave you alone.’
‘Tell you what,’ James said, ‘next time you wake me up anyway. I promise I won't be cross, however tired I am. OK?’
Finn tried to stay looking angry. ‘OK,’ he said.
‘Now, let's go and find Mummy and see if she'll let us take a picnic. What do you think?’
‘Just me and you,’ said Finn, who loved his mother but was desperate for a bit of father-son bonding…
‘Of course,’ James said, confident that he had won his son back over. ‘Just us.’
22
The journey from Cheltenham to Lincoln by train took three and a half hours and involved a change at Nottingham. Pauline had studied the timetable and there didn't seem to be any quicker or easier way to do it so she had stocked up on sandwiches and bottles of water for emergencies and made sure John had kept the review and sports sections from the day before's papers to keep him occupied. She was intending to finish the Maeve Binchy she had started a couple of days ago. They would get a cab from home to the station, which was a bit of an unnecessary expense but John couldn't really manage the bus these days with his knee. They would get there in good time to buy their tickets and find the platform without needing to panic. It would be an adventure.
They were seasoned travellers on the route up to London. They visited James, Stephanie and their grandson maybe three or four times a year, usually spending one night in the guest room. It was years since they had stayed away from home for any longer — Stephanie had persuaded them to have two nights in London this time because she was worried they'd be tired out after the long car journey from Lincoln. That along with the two nights they were going to spend at the hotel in Lincoln added up to four nights away, almost a proper holiday. Jean from next door was going to go in and feed the canary.
Stephanie had found the hotel — typical Stephanie that she had wanted to book it for them to save them the bother. Pauline considered herself very lucky with her daughter-in-law. She had friends who had barely managed to sustain a relationship with their sons once they had got married, but Pauline had liked Steph from the first moment they'd met, and fortunately that affection had always been reciprocated.
Indeed, Pauline sometimes felt that Stephanie was keener on her company than James was. She could understand why James had never invited them up to Lincolnshire before — although, obviously, they had been up there several times when the whole family was still living there, and stayed in the large, rambling house in a village near to where James's practice was. Now that that house had been sold to pay for the London home, half the size and without the land, James was having to live in the flat above the surgery and, of course, there was no room to put his parents up. The hotel idea really was a stroke of genius, and Steph and James had been so generous offering to pay for it because there was no way Pauline and John could have paid for it themselves. Plus he'd bought them seats at the theatre. She really was very fortunate.
When James had arrived home on Sunday night Katie had made sure she was standing in the doorway to greet him looking sweet and soft and unthreatening.
‘What have you done to your hair?’ he'd said, looking horrified.
Katie, who had had a few days to get used to it, had almost forgotten what a shock it would be to him. ‘I just fancied a change,’ she'd said.
‘But why red? I love your blonde hair.’
‘You'll get used to it,’ she'd said lightly, and he had been huffy and said he didn't want to get used to it, he had liked her as she was. ‘Don't you like red hair?’ she'd asked, and he'd changed the subject.
‘That top, on the other hand’, he'd said, slipping his hand up inside the new low-cut floaty thing she'd bought earlier that day, ‘is driving me crazy.’
She'd pushed him away, laughing. ‘Later,’ she'd said, hoping that, in fact, he might be too tired later. She'd asked him about his week while she poured him a glass of wine and stirred a sweet-potato casserole. She'd quizzed him about what the coming few days held in store for him and he'd said, ‘Oh, you know, the usual,’ and, of course, had failed to mention his parents’ upcoming visit.
Katie had decided she wanted to expand the range of services she offered to her clients and so had signed up for a reflexology evening class at a college in Lincoln. She had been wanting to do something like this for ages but the classes were held on Tuesday nights and James had always persuaded her it would be a shame — ‘unfair’, she thought she remembered him saying — for her to be out on one of their few evenings together. Now she had decided she was going to do it anyway. She no longer cared what he thought.
James, after making a couple of disgruntled noises (‘Really? On Tuesdays? I thought we'd agreed our time together was precious’) and having realized she wasn't about to give in as she usually did, had suddenly changed tack. �
��It starts this week?’ he'd said. ‘This Tuesday?’
She'd told him it did, and then he'd asked, ‘What time?’ and it had occurred to her that he was thinking maybe he could see his parents for dinner, after all. She told him the class began at seven and ended at nine thirty. It was a small white lie. In fact, the session was due to start at seven thirty but she could explain to him later that she'd made a mistake.
They had had an early night and by-numbers sex, and Katie had found herself thinking how strange it was that you could love someone one day and then the next you found it impossible to imagine what you had ever seen in them in the first place. It was like you had been wearing blinkers, and suddenly they were removed, leaving you completely exposed to all your loved one's unattractive and even faintly repugnant qualities.
James, of course, had to face Sally when he arrived at the practice bright and early next morning. He had been mulling over how he would handle it and had decided to be friendly but business-like. He wouldn't be apologetic for the decision he had made. He was expecting Sally to be belligerent, to confront him about the unfairness of it all, but she just looked at him with sad, reproachful eyes and said, ‘Good morning,’ which was much more unsettling. James's guilt factor edged up a few notches.
He was thankful that his first couple of appointments were home visits. The atmosphere at the surgery was a little tense and it was a relief to get out of there and remind himself why he did this job in the first place.
Malcolm and Simon had been shut away in their rooms when he'd arrived, which was just as well because he had a feeling that they both — Malcolm especially — were upset with him. He would get an advert in for a new receptionist-cum-would-be-veterinary-nurse as soon as possible. Once Sally had gone and a new girl had settled in, things would quickly go back to normal. He had no idea, though, what the etiquette was for asking someone to arrange for an ad to be placed looking for their own replacement. Maybe he could ask Katie to do it as a favour, he thought.
At about ten past one he set off for Lincoln. He had arranged to meet his mum and dad in a small café in the city centre for a late lunch, and then he was intending to take them round the cathedral. An hour or so spent pottering round and then a pot of afternoon tea before he made his excuses and said he had to head back. That should do it.
His mother spotted him before he'd even got his hand on the door handle and was standing up waving frantically as he entered the café. Every time he'd seen her recently she had seemed to be growing smaller. Now, as she rushed over to hug him, she looked minute, a small child in a Marks & Spencer trouser suit. He bent down and kissed the top of her head then held out his hand for his father to shake. John was wearing his age better than his wife. He still looked like the big strong man James remembered from his childhood only with less hair and all of it grey.
‘You look tired, love,’ Pauline said. Pauline always said this whenever she saw him. Later she would almost certainly ask him whether he was eating enough and whether he shouldn't think about moving down to London permanently to be with Stephanie and Finn. ‘You're a family, you should stick together,’ she would say, and he would have to stop himself saying, ‘Well, tell her she should have stayed up here, then.’
They managed to keep the conversation on neutral and non-confrontational ground throughout their lunch of lasagne and chips: work, the garden, Jimmy the canary (‘I wish you could have a look at him, he's gone bald all down one side’). Pauline expressed a desire to come over to Lower Shippingham to give the flat a good clean, which gave him an anxious moment, but he managed to convince her that time wouldn't allow it.
‘Oh, I've managed to get out of working tomorrow night, so I've booked us a table at Le Château,’ he said, naming one of Lincoln's most fashionable and expensive restaurants. He regretted it immediately. He'd never get a table at such short notice, but he had wanted to make it sound as if the arrangements were already made so that his mother wouldn't suggest eating at the Cross Keys in Lower Shippingham where they were bound to bump into someone he knew who would give the game away about Katie.
‘How lovely,’ Pauline said, her face lighting up. ‘Are you sure you can spare the time?’ she added in that irritating way mothers have of making you feel guilty all over again that you were usually too busy to see them.
‘I'm looking forward to it,’ he said, squeezing her hand. Shit, fuck, bollocks. Who did he know who could pull a favour at Le Château? He had no doubt that Hugh and Alison Selby-Algernon would be friends with the restaurant's owners, they seemed to be on first-name terms with most of the local movers and shakers, but he couldn't bring himself to call them and ask for help. He hadn't spoken to either them or the others since the fateful dinner party, and although he knew that if he didn't make contact soon the friendships, such as they were, would fizzle out, he couldn't face the teasing to which they would undoubtedly subject him. Plus he couldn't ask anyone who might later bump into Katie and ask her how she'd enjoyed her meal. He would have to take a chance and call the restaurant himself as soon as he was alone.
After a fight over who was paying for lunch (Pauline and John won once James realized that they would be offended if he didn't let them), they ambled over to the cathedral and spent a perfectly pleasant hour looking at the tombs and the frescos, and then had tea in the Cloisters Refectory. At four o'clock James made a show of looking at his watch and said he ought to be hitting the road. The table for the following night, he told them, was booked for seven thirty. He would meet them at their hotel at seven and they could have a drink at the restaurant before they sat down to eat. He feigned disappointment that he wouldn't be able to see them during the day on Tuesday (he had, he told them, agreed to cover some of Simon's appointments in exchange for having the evening free) and left them deciding what they were going to do with the next few hours before The Importance of Being Earnest began at seven thirty.
Back at his car he pulled out his mobile phone and called directory enquiries, who put him straight through to the reservations desk at Le Château.
‘I'm sorry, sir, we're fully booked in the evenings for the next two weeks,’ the supercilious man, with what James strongly suspected was a fake French accent, said when he had put in his request.
‘But it's for my parents. They're elderly. Tomorrow is the only night they can do.’
‘May I suggest you bring them in to lunch? We have a table at three.’
‘No, it has to be the evening. Oh, forget it,’ he said, and rang off. He'd just have to book somewhere else. It didn't matter where, as long as it was far enough away from Lower Shippingham. He'd just tell his parents when he picked them up that there had been a change of plan.
‘So apparently he's booked a table at somewhere called Sorrento for seven thirty. It's right by the hotel, he said. Do you know it?’ Stephanie had sneaked out to the kitchen to call Katie while Finn was watching CBBC. She couldn't risk saying anything in front of Finn, who had an antenna for secrets. He hated to be left out.
‘Never heard of it,’ Katie said.
‘Well, he's meeting them at the hotel first so they shouldn't be too hard to find. Are you scared?’
‘Terrified,’ Katie said convincingly.
‘Just remember, don't give too much away and don't say anything that'll upset Pauline and John.’
‘I know, I know. Just him seeing me ought to be enough to give him a coronary.’
‘Exactly,’ Stephanie said emphatically. ‘And call me when it's over.’
The next day Katie cooked James a large early dinner of chicken wrapped in Parma ham with Jersey Royal potatoes and asparagus. He had almost given himself away when he'd got home from work to find her standing over the stove. ‘It's a bit early for me,’ he'd said. ‘Will it keep warm? Maybe I can eat it later, after you've gone out.’
‘Not really,’ Katie had said. ‘Besides, it's six o'clock. We often eat at this time. And I didn't like to think of you sat here all on your own having beans on toast.’
<
br /> She plonked the dishes on the table.
‘Maybe I'll just have a shower first,’ James had said, clearly thinking that if he delayed the start of the meal she would have to leave to get to her class on time, never knowing if he'd finished it or not.
Katie hugged him, steering him towards the table as she did so. ‘You've got all evening to have a shower. Sit down with me for a bit.’ She watched as he picked at the food on his plate. She pulled a disappointed face. ‘Don't you like it?’
‘It's great. I told you, I'm not very hungry yet. I had a late lunch.’
At six thirty James was still pushing his food round, eating the occasional small mouthful. Katie cleared away her plate, picked up her bag, kissed him lightly on the forehead and said, ‘I have to go. I'll be back by ten at the latest. Are you sure you'll be OK?’
‘I was thinking I might go down to the pub for one.’
‘Good idea,’ she said, and as she left she realized that he hadn't even wished her luck with her class.
She drove into Lincoln and parked up near the hotel. Sorrento was a couple of doors down, a sad-looking Italian with torn tablecloths and half-dead flowers in jars on the tables, their brown leaves drooping into the sugar bowls. A distraught fly buzzed around in the window, trying to find a way out. James had obviously struggled to get a table anywhere decent so last minute.
She sat in the car waiting for him to arrive, trying to go over in her head what she was meant to be doing. She needed James to see her and to see that she had seen him. Ideally she wanted to put him in a position where he'd have to admit that these people were his parents without, of course, anyone giving away the fact that he was still married to Stephanie. They didn't want to blow the major surprise this early on.
She looked at her watch. It was five to seven. Assuming that James had rushed out of the house almost as soon as she had left — pausing only to throw his uneaten dinner in the bin, of course, and to cover it up with other bits of rubbish so that Katie would never guess he hadn't eaten it — then he should be here any minute. She sat low in her seat. She didn't want him to spot her on the way in.