41
The circular route Roisin chose around the fields and along the ramblers’ paths, by the brook where she threw stones with her dad as a kid, was nearly three miles in total. They felt hearty and vibrant as they stamped back down the shallow slope towards The Mallory.
‘You’re lucky to have grown up here,’ Matt said, and Roisin smiled and nodded, because that was too much of a conversation.
As they crunched across the gravel, Lorraine came barrelling out of the pub, dressed to the nines in a billowing, translucent smocked blouse, tucked into claret-coloured narrow trousers and Louboutins, hair wound up on her head in a loose bun. Roisin almost laughed out loud. The look was: when you’ve got a Sunday lunch shift at midday and serving the crab dip on a billionaire’s yacht at three.
‘I need to intercept you,’ Lorraine said, gesturing for Matt and Roisin to gather round, ‘to warn you that Terence has had plugs. Keep a straight face, he’s very sensitive. Some of the regulars have been putting “Wig Wam Bam” on the jukebox to … what do you call it? I want to say GNOME him, but that’s not right. When you’re trying to upset someone else on a computer, on purpose?’
‘Troll him?’ Matt said.
‘That’s it!’
‘He’s had plugs?’ Roisin said. ‘As in a hair transplant? Terence is my mum’s longstanding barman for the day shifts,’ she explained to Matt.
‘A weave,’ Lorraine said. ‘It’s not well judged. He’s overdone it. He’s gone from a hairline like an old tennis ball to a thatch that looks like it’d come running if you shook a packet of Dreamies.’
Matt burst into laughter and Roisin couldn’t help joining in, much as she knew her mother was performing for the visitor.
‘Act casual,’ Lorraine said in a hoarse whisper, beckoning them back into the pub. Roisin could feel how thoroughly beguiled Matt was. Lorraine hadn’t lost it.
‘Matt, let me get you a pint before you go. Can’t visit a pub and not have a drink,’ her mum added, as they walked in.
‘Given I’m not driving, thanks, Lorraine – if Roisin doesn’t mind?’ Matt said.
‘ONE,’ Roisin said, mock-stern.
Lorraine poured Matt a Carlsberg and made Roisin a Diet Coke, flinging ice into a tall glass from the bucket with tiny tongs. The jukebox was thundering away with The Verve’s ‘Sonnet’.
Her mum’s only menu was sandwiches with chips (her nonchalant manhandling of the baskets in the deep-fat fryer had frightened Roisin for decades now), so it was relatively quiet. Even the hardened drinker Mallory fanbase would only get going by mid-afternoon.
‘The wanderer returns! Finally found your way back,’ Terence said, appearing from the back, holding a crate.
‘Hi, Terry,’ she said, in friendliness with a tiny top note of weariness. She made sure she kept her eyes on his, with no drift upwards to the new mane. ‘This is my friend, Matt.’
Terence was harmless, her mum always said, in that way British people used harmless to mean often annoying but not actively malicious. He was also, and this was a crucial virtue that many lacked, able to rub along with her mum. This, despite Terence’s wife Julie always agitating for another pay rise due to his outstanding contribution, as if Terence was an underappreciated VP to the CEO of a City trading firm with massive turnover.
‘Ahhh, good to see you,’ he said, hulking the crate down and appraising her. ‘You never look any different to when you were a sulky teenager doing your A-levels. Still the same hair, the jumper, the boots. Remember when you went at your clumpy shoes with Tippex, like a lunatic?’
Terence had never encountered a youthful fashion trend that didn’t baffle him.
‘Daisies on my Doc Martens,’ Roisin clarified to Matt.
‘Plus those hieroglyphics.’
‘CND symbols and yin-yang symbol,’ Roisin said, to an amused Matt.
‘And names of boys!’
‘MH in a heart, because the hot lad in my year was called Mike Hennessey,’ Roisin explained, glad she was no longer as embarrassable as she had been at seventeen.
‘Oh, that bastard,’ Matt said, and she laughed.
They settled at a corner table, under the sepia photo of the village’s tragic explorer of Mount Everest. He had often stared down in withering judgement upon Roisin’s youthful hangovers.
‘This place is an absolute belter. I love it,’ Matt said, gazing around. ‘It must be popular?’
Roisin looked at him as he sipped his lager, levelly, and was surprised to detect zero sarcasm. She’d perhaps spent too long around Joe.
‘Not really,’ she said, quietly so as to not be overheard. ‘This village has the Bib Gourmand food pub, the trendy Espresso Martinis pub, and The Mallory.’
‘That’s exactly it’s charm though, right? It’s what it is, proper boozer of its era. It’s not trying to be what it thinks will impress well-heeled clientele. No off-black walls, wanker’s art of Wonder Woman as Joan of Arc, menus on brown paper on clipboards. Cocktails with a dehydrated fruit slice and half a shrub sticking out of it.’
Roisin smiled. ‘Yeah, it’s definitely not that.’
After they’d finished their drinks, she grabbed her bag from her room and tried to make a hasty farewell to her mother and Terence. Unfortunately and inevitably, Lorraine suddenly needed to walk her daughter out to her car.
‘Can I really not persuade you to do a few more shifts? Everyone loves you,’ Lorraine pouted. ‘Dennis said it was like a show you loved returning! Like the Friends reunion. Honestly, I’m on my arse here.’
‘Show is about right,’ Roisin muttered.
‘You really struggling?’ Matt said.
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ Roisin interrupted. ‘Bye, Mum, see you soon!’
Her mum shaded her eyes against the afternoon sun and said, ‘She’s awful to me, Matt, what can I tell you? Give my love to Joe, won’t you. When’s he back, Tuesday? SO nice to meet you, Matt.’
Roisin tensed as her mother leaned in for a peck on the cheek with her and then Matt.
As she pulled out of the car park, Matt said, ‘Tell me to piss off by all means, but … you’ve not told your mum? About you and Joe?’
Near six feet of him was folded into her passenger seat so it wouldn’t have been easy to tell him to piss off, not that she wanted to.
‘No, because he flew straight to California after the fight. We’ve not agreed on how and when to announce the news.’
Matt said nothing and a silence developed. Because he was usually good at putting people at ease, Roisin sussed it was an unvoiced thought.
‘You think I shouldn’t wait?’ Roisin said.
‘I think … be clear in your own mind what you want. Or Joe will be clear in his mind what you want.’
‘Thanks, but I’ve reached a level of cynicism where nothing’s going to work on me.’ Roisin indicated at a junction and pulled out. ‘Which is just as well, ’cos nothing’s what he’s giving me.’