4
‘Staff WiFi’ was one of Joe’s more recent nicknames for Matt. Whenever they were in a venue with crap coverage on public WiFi, Matt would be merrily messaging away. When asked how come it was possible, he would shrug oh, I got the password for staff WiFi, doing a hand flap in the direction of front of house.
There was absolutely no reason why a customer who wanted the staff password should get it, other than the fact the customer looked like a cowboy as imagined by Cosmopolitan.
They clustered around the window to see Matt striding up the hill towards them in a Crombie coat, large boots with yellow laces (half unlaced), a canvas duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He’d have a look of a man out of time, who’d clambered through a torn rift in space, apart from the fact he had a pair of headphones clamped round his ears.
‘Why’s he on foot?’ Meredith said.
‘Look at this absolute plum,’ Joe chortled. ‘Like he’s auditioning for the next Doctor Who.’
‘He was getting an airport taxi. He’s been in Portugal with …’ Roisin, in vain, ransacked her mind for the name. ‘Cassie?’ She held her hands out in hopeful prayer, teeth gritted.
‘Hah, Cassie is LONG gone,’ Meredith snorted. ‘You’re so April-May.’ She tutted. ‘This was … does it begin with an L …’
The trouble was they didn’t file Matt’s glamorous girl pals by names so much as salient detail for the post-fact analysis.
They were like Friends episode titles. The One Whose Grandad Invented Striped Toothpaste. The One Who Kept A Chinchilla Called Shamone. The One Who Naked Video-Called Him At Three A.M.
‘Ruby,’ Gina supplied, in a calm yet smaller voice.
‘Ruby! Of course,’ Meredith said. ‘The … hot yoga enthusiast. Or maybe that was the other one.’
Conversation moved abruptly to who was going to let Matt in. There was often this shift in tone, in unspoken deference to Gina’s feelings.
Gina’s love for Matt was as powerful and constant as it was unrequited. The group stepped around it delicately while simultaneously not acknowledging its existence. Every so often, they’d try to persuade each other, unconvincingly, that it was long past.
There was nothing to be done. Matt was very fond of Gina. No matter who Gina got involved with – and there was no shortage of men falling at her Barbie-sized feet – they could tell she still yearned fruitlessly for him throughout.
It’s toxic hope, isn’t it? Meredith had said. Who knew there was such a thing.
His carousel of meaningless flings was like artillery fire to Gina’s heart. Yet equally, they dreaded the day when Matt met The One, as it would hurt even worse.
Dev darted off to intercept Matt. After a minute, he presented a similarly awestruck guest.
‘This is a bit of alright, eh?! Dev, you’ve outdone yourself. Hello, everyone.’
‘The ensemble is complete! It’s like Peter’s Friends but with even worse people,’ Joe said. ‘Wait, what is going on with your face?’
At closer range, it seemed Matt, sharp haircut and otherwise clean shaven, was sporting a thin pencil moustache. Matt put his fingers to his top lip.
‘Is it bad? Ruby told me it looked good.’
‘Ruby is clearly working for your enemies, sorry to say,’ Joe said.
‘Why have you walked here?’ Gina asked.
‘I asked the taxi driver to drop me off when we got closer. Looked too nice to drive through. I wanted to take it all in.’
‘What a good idea. I might have thought of it if I wasn’t so lazy,’ Meredith said.
‘We did stop the car briefly, which is kind of the same.’ Roisin said. ‘Lisbon good?’
‘Lovely. Sunny. Though the hotel gym was below par. Had to queue for the rowing machine. It was quite dehumanising.’
‘Who goes to the gym on holiday?’ Roisin said.
‘Now you know,’ Joe said.
‘Given Matt’s here – a toast!’ Dev said.
Anita had clearly been primed for this moment, already behind the bar and easing a cork from a bottle of champagne, slopping it into a row of glasses. Dev had a cloudy kombucha.
‘To THE BRIAN CLUB!’ Dev declared, once they were handed out. They knocked flutes and echoed him, saying, thebrianclub! while laughing, and in a split second, Roisin understood what this weekend was really about.
She’d been so busy assessing her and Joe’s drift, she hadn’t spotted the group possibly becoming looser at the seams, too.