15
Harriet was unsurprised to find that Roxanne did not consider her landlord’s identity reveal to be either here, or there. Lorna low-whistled, but Roxy, the inadvertent matchmaker of this blind date from hell, was thoroughly indifferent.
‘Did you do something wrong at the wedding?’ Roxy said, plunging around with a spoon in a Kilner jar of ice cream sundae so crammed with Flakes, strawberries and marshmallows that it looked like some sort of edible terrarium.
They’d decided to spend Sunday afternoon watching a hangover comfort film staple, Top Gun, at the Everyman Cinema. It was exactly the soothing relief Harriet needed – camaraderie, quiet, and velvet seats, with Prosecco bussed to their tiny seat-tables. Like being first class on a plane but with no jet lag or latent fear of going nose cone into a mountain range.
‘Nothing other than witness it.’
Roxy licked the back of her spoon.
‘It’s one hundred per cent for him to feel bad then, isn’t it? Enjoy your en suite.’
‘… Yes, I suppose,’ Harriet sighed. Being so very much not wanted as a tenant had made her feel responsible, somehow.
‘Are you making other people’s feelings your problem again?’ Lorna said.
As she spoke, a message from Jon dinged on her mobile screen and she opened it. ‘Can I have your address?’ Harriet couldn’t remember the postcode off the top of her head.
‘I overheard a chat with his best mate which made it clear he irrationally resented me for it,’ she said, as she fiddled with her phone, making sure it was on silent. ‘Plus he said I was a suspicious tramp lady due to my lack of owning furniture by my grand age,’
‘Ask him why he’s not got a wife by his age,’ Lorna said.
‘The house is great?’ Roxy asked.
‘The house is great,’ Harriet conceded. ‘I am very pleased with that part.’ She didn’t want to sound ungrateful, although she was.
One thing was for sure, if Harriet moved on, she’d not involve Roxy and break the news tactfully.
Harriet had seen very little of Cal in the weekend since she overheard the ‘Sam in garden’ contretemps. He made a comment about how he’d not seen a Breville sandwich toastie-maker like hers since his childhood, in a way that implied she was the dowdy pensioner of the parish. ‘I do a mean Nutella one,’ she’d said, and he looked revolted. Otherwise, they exchanged courteous, terse exchanges about whether the other wanted a cup of tea or coffee, given they were making some (they never did).
Every time Harriet looked at him, she heard the tone in which he’d spoken about her. And I will feel every second of it. She shivered anew.
As the lights dimmed, a man approached their seats, doing the crab-like scuttle beloved of roadies trying to remove something unwanted from a stage while the gig was underway. The: if I bend over, no one can see me stance.
‘Lorna? Lorna Everett! I knew it was you!’ he said.
He knelt down in front of them. He was thirty-something and attractive, in a careless sort of way: mid-length brown hair pushed back from his face, five o’clock shadow, jeans with trailing hems.
‘… Gethin?’ Lorna said, putting her drink down with a bump. ‘Oh my God! How are you?’
‘Good thanks! I’ve not seen you since the accident!’
‘The one where I fell down a manhole, broke my leg in three places, and chipped my kneecap?’
‘Yes! Oof. Hope it’s healed now?’
‘My career in the Royal Ballet was over, but yes I can walk.’
‘Fuck, that’s awful. I felt so responsible as we were both messing around at the time,’ Gethin said.
‘So responsible you failed to visit me in hospital,’ Lorna snorted.
Hmm. It must’ve really bothered Lorna, as she wasn’t the resentful type.
‘I did come to visit you,’ Gethin frowned.
‘… What?’
‘I came to see you on the ward!’
‘Bollocks you did! Did you …?’
Harriet and Roxy sipped their Prosecco with wide eyes.
Gethin lowered his voice further out of deference to the adverts starting.
‘You seemed quite out of it. You’d had a lot of morphine. You told me you were Catherine of Aragon, Henry the Eighth’s first wife. You accused me of being infatuated with Anne Boleyn and plotting to behead you. Then you screamed at the nurse for more “special syrup” and told me to fuck off.’
Harriet and Roxy stifled considerable laughter and Lorna appeared temporarily, and deeply uncharacteristically, speechless.
‘Ah …’ Lorna said, after a pause. ‘While obviously I was not a Tudor queen, had I been Catherine and had you been Henry, this would have been correct.’
‘It was Leeds General Infirmary, but yes, your grip on the fifteen-hundreds was sound. I did try to message as well but your phone got smashed in the fall and I assume you had a different number afterwards? Or blocked me, hah. For my wife-murdering.’
Oh dear. Harriet could see Gethin from IT – who’d legendarily disgracefully withheld a shag, and then pastoral care – might have been misrepresented. A revised history must be written.
‘Oh … this is a cock-up,’ Lorna said, weakly.
‘You run a restaurant, I heard on the grapevine? Stalked you on Twitter, if I’m honest.’
Ooh, Harriet thought.
‘Yeah.’ It was hard to tell in this light but was Lorna … blushing? ‘Divertimento up on Otley Road in Headingley.’
‘That is so cool. It’s yours? You’re the owner?’
‘The debt-ridden owner, but yes, it’s mine.’
‘Wow! I’m still doing shitty corporate IT jobs. You are really living your dream.’
‘Come! Bring your wife and kids.’
‘I don’t have a wife and kids. It’s only me and my wee pal, Bubbles Hussein.’
‘Your pet name for your penis?’
Harriet and Roxy were now gripping the seat arms.
‘That is my rescue chihuahua, thank you very much. Half old lady’s treasure, half fearsome dictator.’
‘Well, you and Bubbles Hussein are very welcome.’
‘In that case I’ll be straight in there! Great to see you again.’
‘And you,’ Lorna said.
He crept back to his seat.
A slightly tense silence settled among the three of them afterwards, entirely unrelated to the trailer for the spine-chilling psychological thriller of the year which was booming out.
‘Really nice of him to come and say hello, given what had in fact transpired,’ Harriet said, in loud whisper.
Lorna hoarse-whispered back: ‘No. That was a passive-aggressive charge sheet disguised as a hi how are you.’
Harriet grinned. Lorna didn’t mean a word of that.
‘Fuck, I knew I was high as a kite, but to have had visitors I don’t remember?!’ Lorna continued. ‘Fuck the NHS! Someone must lose their job over this.’
‘You were very stoned, early doors,’ Roxy said, ‘You kept asking me and Harriet if they’d been able to save your leg and we’d point at it in the sling and you’d say, “where’s the other one?”’
‘Unbelievable,’ Lorna huffed. Harriet sensed her furiously processing this alternative version of Gethin.
‘Thank God I’ve had my roots done. And am, obviously, ravishing,’ she whispered, only to Harriet, as Roxy was sat on the other side of Harriet and would’ve at this stage required too much projecting of voice. ‘Though I’m not sure this was the right outfit.’
This was how Lorna admitted feelings for men, only by implication.
‘I love that outfit, it’s one of my favourites,’ Harriet said. It was a black high-necked dress, with black-and-white striped tights and red shoes, as a reference to the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz.
‘“Is that your pet name for your penis”,’ Harriet repeated, and started shaking with laughter again. ‘Poor Gethin.’
‘I knew I needed to take it down by at least twenty-six per cent but I was startled,’ Lorna said.
Harriet felt excited on Lorna’s behalf. She’d not seen her this discomposed by a member of the opposite sex for a very long time, and from what she’d seen, Gethin was a worthy sparring partner.
As the film began, Harriet saw another WhatsApp from Jon ding noiselessly on her phone screen.
Read, but no reply. Is there any reason you’re avoiding me?
Harriet scowled and switched her mobile off completely, in a snap of irritation. What was this creepy, resentful tone about?
She wasn’t sure she understood Jon anymore. Perhaps she never had.