We dont die of love, p.16
We Don't Die of Love, page 16
‘Yeah, you should sell up,’ she was saying for something like the fortieth time. ‘You don’t even like running the café. You lack passion.’
Years ago Zoe had come across an article about why cafes fail. Lack of passion was number one ahead of poor position, poor service and poor pricing. It had made us laugh at the time, the very idea of being passionate about serving breakfasts.
She told me now that I couldn’t cook, couldn’t chat to the customers and couldn’t do the bookkeeping. Couldn’t do the basics.
‘What Dad is good at,’ said Grace, woozily, ‘is delegating. He finds decent people to do the stuff he doesn’t want to do.’
‘Yeah, you are probably right,’ I said. See, too fatigued to argue. Anyway, I wasn’t thinking about the café. I was thinking about all the things I’d been no good at, all the things I’d given up or delegated. Pretty much everything. Work, love, life. I wondered now if I had even somehow delegated care of my wife to Jacob. Conjured him up to do the things I could no longer be bothered with. Right then it seemed possible.
I noticed – eventually – that the table had fallen silent. I made an effort to be a sport, to join in.
‘I don’t feel great about delegating Ernies to the likes of Tony bloody Hobbs though.’
I saw Zoe and Wes exchange a look. Now? her face seemed to be saying. Yes, now, his seemed to be saying back. They did this a lot these days, this talking in glances. It’s a useful skill.
Zoe took a breath. ‘You shouldn’t delegate old Ernies to their care. I – we – have a better idea. You should leave it to me, to us.’ She gestured to herself and to Wes.
She was rehearsed. Had clearly been preparing for this moment. She told me she had a business plan and more than this she had money, savings. She blushed slightly as she admitted to the shame of having access to even more cash if she needed it. A good line of credit.
‘Bank of Grandma.’ She laughed as she took in our gobsmacked faces. ‘We have that in Hungary too. I never said I was poor. I’m an immigrant not a beggar. Totally bourgeois, me. I went to Tuscany on holiday growing up. I ate hummus as a child.’
People are never quite what you think and almost never how they present themselves. All of us our own inventions.
‘How much are you offering?’
She named a figure. It was less than half what Tony Hobbs would pay. Definitely not silly money.
I thought about it for a full half-minute. Thought about all the trouble that selling the café to Zoe would cause. Thought about the danger it could put everyone in.
The others were looking at me wondering what I would say. To be honest, I was wondering that myself. I couldn’t be certain of anything any more.
‘Okay,’ I said.
‘Really?’ She seemed astounded. Her mouth dropped open comically. I laughed for what felt like the first time in ages. Something else occurred to me then.
‘Yes, really. Or sort of. That figures gets you Selena’s share, plus one per cent, enough to buy her out and put you in charge. And, luckily for you, I happen to know that your new business partner – the new owner of the remaining 49 per cent share – will be amenable to you taking over and running things.’ I turned to Grace. ‘That’s you, by the way. I’m going to give you my share.’
Grace was grinning now too and I realised, with a pang, that I hadn’t seen her smile like this since before her A level exams. We hadn’t done a lot of a lot of smiling in our little family for some time. None of us.
Wes stood up, tall and lean in his loose white shirt and jeans. He had new shoes, I noticed. Campers. He’d looked a lot more put together since being with Zoe. His whole look was stronger.
He called across the pub to the barman. ‘Hey, Stevo, we’re going to need some more of that fine fizz. Fact,’ he says, ‘break out the crate. We’ll all have a glass.’ He gestured to the whole pub. The living dead shifted in their seats. One or two raised a slow glass in thanks. Truly a day of days for them.
Later I asked how Zoe was going to deal with Tony Hobbs and with the council, with the proposed redevelopment of the café. As I said this, I realised it was maybe a conversation we should have had earlier.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought about that. It’ll be fine. We’ve got a couple of things on our side. Your daughter’s come up with a scheme actually. We’ve got it all worked out.’
For the last hour I’d been chatting films and music with Wes, while Grace and Zoe had been gossiping and giggling together like kids. I’d been vaguely wondering what it was they’d been talking about.
‘I should just tell him that Ernies is not for sale to him. That it will never be for sale to him. That he should just accept that.’
‘Don’t do that. Not yet anyway. It’ll cause more trouble before we’re ready to deal with it. I’m hoping that in the end he’ll just give up of his own accord.’
‘What if he doesn’t?’
‘I think he will. We’ve got a plan and we’ve got something on our side that is 100 per cent reliable. Something you can always count on.’
‘Oh, yes? What’s that?’ said Wes.
‘Male vanity!’ Zoe and Grace said this together – shouted it almost – and they laughed because of this. They embraced and then high-fived. Zoe spat fizzy wine across the table.
‘Great minds,’ said Zoe. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, dug out a paper hankie to mop the table.
The girls looked so young, so happy, so full of life that I felt a chill. I glanced at Wes. He was frowning and I knew that he felt it too.
24
A WORD
‘Virgin’s piss, mate. I can’t drink that.’
Micky Pitts was in Ernies watching me pour the almost colourless tea. It was true, I had gone too early with it. Nerves, I guess.
‘It’s hot and it’s wet and you’re not paying for it,’ I snapped. ‘It’ll have to do.’
Nevertheless, I stopped pouring, replaced the big brown pot on the table to let it brew some more. I saw Pitts’s eyes roam the café. They lingered on Grace as she wiped a table near the window. She had her back to us. She was wearing tight black jeans, not really suitable for a long shift in a café. I thought I’d maybe get Zoe to have a word.
‘Now there’s something I’d like to see hot and wet,’ Pitts said, and laughed unpleasantly. ‘Where did you find her? She’s bloody gorgeous.’
I was about to tell him that she was my daughter when Grace turned round and caught him staring. He looked away. I thought he might even be colouring slightly. She just shook her head, turned back to the table. I imagined her smiling to herself. Imagined her expression. It would be amused and faintly baffled all the same time. Oh, men, why are you all so feeble? Something like that.
Micky Pitts was here to repeat Tony Hobbs’s offer one last time and, if I still didn’t seem inclined to accept it, to threaten me with yet another escalation in the campaign against the business: the full legs have been known to break, cafes have been known to spontaneously combust. Children of recalcitrant proprietors have been known to end up paralysed. All that.
It was this knowledge of why he was there that meant I stopped myself revealing that Grace was my daughter. She’d be a whole lot safer if Pitts and his boss thought she was just a random waitress.
‘Look,’ I began. I stopped.
‘Yes?’ said Micky, his voice mild. His tongue did a snaky little flicker out of his lips. ‘I’m gasping here, mate. Shall I be Mother?’ He picked up the teapot. I took a long breath.
I wanted to cut to the chase, to get this over with. Whatever Zoe had said, whatever her plan was, I felt I should just tell him that that he was wasting his time and that he should just drink his tea and go. That he should tell the puppet-master that can’t you win ’em all, that the pickings from the Stonebeck redevelopment were going to be rich enough without our little bit, God knows.
It wouldn’t do any good saying this, of course. People like Hobbs, people who like to see themselves as winners, they don’t think like that. They take any thwarting of their desires as a kind of assault, an injury, something that cuts right at their sense of who they are. A wound that must be avenged before it can heal. That’s the difference between narcissists and the rest of us.
Anyway, I didn’t get to deliver my spiel because Grace materialised at our table. I noticed that her red Ernies T-shirt seemed to be a size too small. Pitts looked her up and down. Yes, Zoe should definitely have a word. As soon as.
‘Can I get you gentleman anything else?’ she said. ‘A buttered scone, perhaps?’
There was this sort of playful light in her eyes. I didn’t like it.
‘Stop it,’ said Pitts. ‘You’re getting me all hot and bothered.’ So predictable. So lame. He went on to say that – regrettably – he’d have to decline the scone. He had to watch the old figure. He did a little paradiddle on his belly with his fingers.
‘Oh, and I should warn you, love, there are no gentleman at this table. Are there, Lukey, old mate?’ he said
I didn’t say anything. What could I say?
‘That’s okay. I’m not mad keen on gentlemen anyway.’ Grace gave the word ‘gentlemen’ just a touch of emphasis.
Pitts pushed his chair back from the table. It scraped on the floor. He lounged back, his chest expanded, he spread his legs. He grinned.
‘Not mad keen, eh? Now is that because you’re keener on the ladies, like,’ he jabbed a thumb over his shoulder towards where the two Jennies sat, ‘or is it because you like men but ones who ain’t gentle.’
She gave him a frank, appraising stare. Answered his question by not answering it.
‘So I can’t tempt you to anything? Anything at all?’
‘Oh, you can tempt me all right, darling.’
I know. This was the standard of the dialogue. At this point in the twenty-first century. Painful.
That’s another thing to ban when I am CEO of the UK. Thick middle-aged men doing flirtatious banter. Should be punishable by serious jail time.
Micky Pitts kept his hungry eyes on her as she sashayed all the way back to the kitchen. She took her time too. Knew the effect she was having. Something else Zoe could have a word about.
I was a bit disappointed in Grace, to be honest. Up to now she’d been professional, hard-working, a quick learner. She’d been an asset to the team, but she seemed to be in a funny mood today. Not herself.
‘Fuck me, she’s a minx, your new waitress. Saucy as hell. Definitely up for it. You’re going to have trouble there, mate. She’s going to be driving the old geezers crazy.’
‘Just say what you’ve been sent to say, Micky,’ I said.
He finally poured that tea. It was a rich soupy brown. ‘You already know what I’m here to say, Lukey. Don’t you?’
‘Yeah, I do.’
‘So all I can do is urge you to be sensible. Tony’s patience is wearing very thin. You know, I think I will have a scone after all.’
He headed up to the counter and I watched as he had another little exchange there with Grace. I wondered where Zoe was. I hoped this wasn’t going to be the way things were in the future, Zoe taking things easy. Sitting on her arse while Grace did all the work. Dealt with all the reptiles. I was thinking that it was maybe that Zoe felt she’d done her time taking that crap. Seemed almost like she’d decided to take her maternity leave early anyway, she’d hardly been around at all the last few days.
Grace and Pitts were too far away for me to hear what they were saying. The radio, the rattle and clank of cutlery and crockery, the hum of the punters’ talk, it all meant that their conversation didn’t carry, however hard I tried to tune into it. I could see the body language though. Lots of teeth. Lots of eye contact held just a little too long. Pitts leaning on the counter in a way that suggested both familiarity and ownership. Their hands touched as she passed him a plate with a scone.
When he came back to the table I noticed that she had given him way more whipped cream than we usually allowed customers. Wanton acts of largesse of this sort eat into the tight margins of any well-run café business. I added this to my list of things to tell Zoe to have a word with Grace about. I wondered idly if maybe I could suggest that we introduce a formal Performance Management procedure with employee targets and development plans and all the stuff that Selena used to talk about of an evening.
‘Very glad I popped in here today, Lukey. Very glad.’ Pitts took a big forkful of scone. ‘Only thing that would mean my trip had gone absolutely perfect would be if you could tell me that you were going to say yes to Tony.’
I looked at his big, ruddy face with its rumours of collapse making themselves known around his cheeks and under his eyes. I watched as he chewed. That careless chomping with big square teeth. There was cream at the corners of his mouth. Jam on his chin.
‘Can’t do that, Pittsy-boy,’ I said. His eyes bulged. Pittsy-boy. It’s done his head in. ‘No can do.’
Yep. Pittsy-boy. No can do. I actually said that. Did the job. Enraged the man. Result. Past a certain point tiny victories are the only kind you can hope for.
25
LONDON ROAD
Grace was going out. She was a bit secretive about it. Said it was just a night out with the girls and then batted away any further questions by calling me Victorian Dad and suggesting, quietly and firmly, that I just butt the fuck out.
‘I’m a big girl, Dad,’ she said.
But she wasn’t really. Still isn’t. We parents, all of us everywhere, we agree on this. At some level our children stay small and tender-skinned forever.
When she finally emerged from the bathroom claiming that she was ready to go she looked . . . well, she looked unsubtle, let’s put it like that. The first thing you noticed was the hair, and the hair was actually okay. Glossy as the coat of a well-fed Afghan hound and dropped in ringlets like you might see on some stately home portrait of a restoration duke. Some real libertine. It was sort of amazing actually. A work of art.
Yes, the hair was fine – but the rest of her . . . Shoulders bare, midriff bare, legs bare. Leopard print skirt hardly more than a belt. High-heeled sandals revealing toes painted a neon pink. Full warpaint. Skin everywhere. Cleavage, probably the result of some wardrobe engineering. Her collar bones on display and looking as fragile as the legs of a hedgerow bird.
This was a whole new get-up for Grace. She looked like one of the girls we occasionally gave free tea to after they’d had a hard day’s night giving blow jobs in a variety of dull cars and vans. I was distressed by it, to be honest.
She didn’t ask me how she looked. This was just as well because an honest answer would have caused a row. I don’t think I’d have been able to avoid sounding like a victim-blaming high court judge in a sexual assault case. Say nothing, I told myself. Really. Say nothing, Luke. Nothing.
I said something. ‘You’ll catch your death.’
Grace smiled briefly and put on a – very bad – Southern American accent as she paraphrased Dolly Parton: ‘Do you know how much money it takes to look this cheap?’
‘Yeah, most of a student loan,’ I said.
Her mouth twisted. ‘Funny guy,’ she said. She tottered forward on those ludicrous heels and hugged me so hard the breath was almost squeezed out of me. She rumpled my hair.
‘Love you, Dad,’ she said. Then, ‘Oh, bloody hell, you’re not going to cry, are you?’
It was true that I was welling up. ‘Just be careful.’
She looked at me oddly. ‘I always am.’
A taxi did a nagging honk. She moved towards it carefully. On those heels she was like a newborn giraffe not yet in control of her limbs. I wondered what her brother would say if he could see her now, deliberately making walking hard for herself.
I took the dog for a run, a long one. I ran along the London Road. Maybe it’s not surprising that the longest street in every English town and city is the one called London Road, but do they need to be such shitty streets? Every London Road I’ve ever seen has been a grubby ribbon of traffic crawling past ugly houses, Brewers Fayre pubs, and filling stations. A series of small parades of shops. Each with a bookies, a hairdressers, a newsagents. All of them looking like they’re about to close forever.
The fact it was drive time didn’t help. The gleam of LED headlights through steady rain made this road look like the set of some dystopian feature film aimed at adolescents. Easy to imagine zombies haunting these parts of the city. Cost-cutting by the council meant half as many street lamps as there used to be a few years back, and those that were left had these new bulbs that seemed to give out half as much light as the old ones did. When the city council was not handing over the city to private speculators, it was busy investing in gloom.
It was hard going. There was a stabbing pain in my back just beneath my shoulder blade, an odd sensation in my lower gut, my left eye felt twitchy and I had a mouth ulcer coming. My legs were heavy. Juliet kept up with me easily, and she’s a lazy dog. All of these things made me think of cancer. I was at that age after all. Jogging painfully into sniper alley. Reaching that zone where you could be taken out at any time. Heart attacks, embolisms, aneurysms. The age where it was still a surprise that our bodies let us down. But not very much of one.
It shouldn’t be any kind of shock really. By fifty-eight we all have a lot of dead friends after all. By fifty-eight we’ve already been to too many funerals.
I struggled to overtake mothers with baby strollers. Pensioners gave me concerned glances as I wheezed past them. Most worrying thing? Teenagers not giving me lip. Fact, they also looked a bit worried, as if they feared this gasping wreck lurching towards them pre-figured the kind of apocalyptic horror show they spent so much time scaring themselves about. It was like they were anxious in case I collapsed at their feet and did something embarrassingly adult like die in front of them while begging for the CPR which they didn’t know how to do.
Whatever, their forbearance told me that I must have looked almost as bad as I felt. The teens were anxious about me. Could there be anything more humiliating?
