15
The next morning, Dev was ladling out fried eggs and bacon in the kitchen with the sang-froid of a man who’d once carried on making full Englishes in Flatmates when the police had turned up after a report of common assault by a drag queen, Margaret Snatcher, on a vegan sex toy manufacturer.
The offensive weapon was a bullet vibrator in the shape of a chilli pepper, and the footage of officers inspecting and bagging it saw some of the show’s highest ratings.
Everyone was extremely perky at the sight of a breakfast line cook in the stunning kitchen and Anita mixing virgin Bloody Marys – Bloody Shames, as Dev called them. Once again, Roisin felt guilt that the Gina trauma seemed to have cleared something among them: like a rainstorm in a heat wave.
Was it because they’d been on their best behaviour, stilted, and the spell had been broken?
Either way, Roisin was glad of the cheer as she zig-zagged sriracha onto her fried egg, praising Dev’s cooking and Meredith’s forethought regards the groceries. None of your communal holiday, two miserly allocated Weetabix and off-brand tea bags, UHT milk; she’d thought of every luxury.
(And Dev had insisted on tons of bog roll, with the immortal words: ‘I won’t play a game of chicken with my own arse.’)
They were chatting amiably and discussing the route they’d take exploring the grounds, when Gina appeared in the doorway, wild eyed, looking as dramatic as if she was bursting in for the female solo in a Meatloaf video.
‘Matt, what the FUCK?’ she said, in a ragged voice, and Matt physically started. Everyone else looked at each other in amazement, too. That Matt could’ve committed fresh atrocities and be down in the kitchen, freshly showered and crisply shirted by half nine, seemed improbable.
‘What have I done?!’
‘Your message. Was that meant to be funny?’
‘What message?’
‘YOU KNOW WHAT MESSAGE! Those texts!’
The collective gaze fastened on Matt, whose mouth was open, his brow knitted. The toast that had been heading towards his mouth was replaced on the plate.
Gina turned her phone towards him and held the screen in his face.
He frowned, silent for a second. ‘I didn’t send that! Why would I send that?!’
‘You tell me. Fourteen times!’
Matt raised his body out of his chair, back straight, so he had pocket space to fumble his phone out.
‘I didn’t! I don’t know what’s happening here …’ Matt said, tapping at the screen and frantically scrolling to his messages. Another brief and exquisitely taut pause. ‘Fuck. It looks like I did send them, but I didn’t mean to, I promise! It’s a bum dial! A pocket dial!’
‘What did you send?!’ Anita said, unable to contain herself any longer. ‘Dick pics?’
Arm extended fully, Gina marched the length of the table and held her phone up in front of each of them in turn, giving them a second to focus. As if she was a prosecution lawyer, making sure every member of the jury was informed. Roisin squinted. On her iPhone screen was a poo emoji sticker, with hearts for eyes and large grin. A sort of jaunty, laughing turd, a brown Mr Whippy. Unfortunately, Roisin could see how his hearts-for-eyes could be construed as tactless joy in beholding something.
‘Fourteen in a row,’ Gina said, in a stage whisper, as if the number had Illuminati significance.
None of them knew what to say as comfort. Roisin guessed Gina must know it was a cock-up but had been trying to decipher the meaning long enough that her jangled nerves had turned it into conspiracy. Every time her phone pinged, she ratcheted up another notch. Jet fuel couldn’t melt steel beams and Matt couldn’t have missent a coiled pile of anthropomorphic faeces.
‘How could it not have been a mistake?’ Matt said. ‘What message would I have been conveying with those pictures? They’re nonsensical!’
‘I’m supposed to believe you sent this to me, by chance, after what happened last night?! Bit of a coincidence,’ Gina scoffed.
‘Not exactly a coincidence!’ Matt was flushed the colour of beetroot raita. ‘I had my phone open to message you earlier. I couldn’t think what to say. I didn’t send anything. I put my phone away. I must have put it in my pocket unlocked, and then … pushed on it.’ He gestured with open palms at his trouser area, in his seated position.
‘You’re making excuses because the joke has misfired! Because I’ve called you out in front of everyone!’
‘I’m not! Why the hell would I send you a picture of laughing shit?!’
‘I don’t know! YOU TELL ME!’ Gina bellowed at the top of her lungs. She ran from the room, making audible noises of distress.
A pall descended.
‘I don’t know if I should go after her?’ Matt said, looking genuinely upset. ‘I don’t know how to explain if she’s going to insist it was intentional?’
Meredith put down her egg and bacon roll and also stood, wiping her hands on a piece of kitchen paper.
‘You’ll make things worse if you go up to her. I will talk to her and fix it. Gina will be OK for the walk in’ – she checked her watch – ‘half an hour’s time. This is my pledge. But, Matt, while I know you didn’t mean any harm, please, no more incidental … incidents? Give her a swerve entirely, until she’s calmed down. And everyone leave my bap please, I am coming back for it.’
‘Thanks, Meredith. Really appreciate it,’ said a crestfallen Matt.
Meredith headed off. The convivial atmosphere had dissipated like a needle scratch in a jukebox sound effect.
‘Bit of fresh air will sort this out, it’ll be over by lunchtime,’ Dev said, consolingly, to Matt. ‘You know Gina adores you, she’s absolutely besotted with you.’
Roisin cringed.
‘She can’t stay radge for long.’
He toasted Matt with a Bloody Shame, stirring it with the stick of celery and gulping.
Silence fell.
In his ‘puppy in the china shop’ way, Dev’s instinct towards generous overstatement had, on this occasion, merely stated facts. He’d no doubt been trying for a ‘thinks the world of you’ blandishment, off the cuff, and instead had inadvertently spelled out the thing they never said.
‘It’s hard to know what to say to her when she thinks I’d hurt her on purpose,’ Matt said eventually, sounding slightly hoarse.
‘Simply stop attacking Gina’s mental health by accident, then,’ Joe said.
‘Cheers,’ Matt said. ‘Great to have your positive input, as always. A man who himself has never suffered a tech error, I’m sure.’ He raised his eyes to meet Joe’s directly, his anger finally breaking the surface of the water. Joe purposely avoided meeting it, mopping up some egg yolk with his crust.
‘Well, the unsavoury ogling poo farce is definitely not Gina’s fault.’
‘Yeah, and you’re never slow to point out my faults. I wonder why.’
Joe shrugged. Roisin sensed Joe felt a mixture of satisfaction and apprehension at Matt’s hostility. Like a kid pushing their luck, angling for a telling off, and feeling just a little scared at finally getting one.
Matt stood up, abandoning his half-eaten breakfast. He took his plate to the sink in a tense silence.
‘I know I messed up last night, but as if I’d harass her when I know she’s upset. Is everyone’s opinion of me really this bad?’
‘No no no, mate, not at all,’ Dev said and Anita chorused, ‘No!’
Roisin said forcefully, ‘Of course not. You’d never be unkind to Gina.’
Joe was pointedly silent.
She felt the truth of Meredith’s words, nevertheless. Deliberate or not, Matt had thoroughly used up his honest mistakes quota.