‘I can find you some shoes,’ Tom’s mum tells me.
And then she marches me off towards where a terrace merges seamlessly into an enormous kitchen, which is a slightly odd mix of farmhouse units and an expanse of modern, shiny-tiled floor so huge that it brings Heathrow Terminal 5 to mind. And also makes me wonder how long it would take to clean.
Back to the essentials, I do not want to play tennis this afternoon.
But never mind, all in a good cause, and how bad can it be?
8
TOM
I don’t know what I was thinking when I suggested this fake-plus-one thing. It’s a stupid idea.
I’m effectively lying to my family. I mean, I didn’t explicitly say that Nadia’s my girlfriend, but that’s clearly what they all think. That is what I very obviously implied.
And now Mum’s taken Nadia inside and is going to make sure she gets into tennis kit, like it or not (I’m guessing not, and I’m also guessing that Mum will literally manhandle her into the kit if she objects), and then we’re going to play tennis together and Nadia clearly does not want to do that. And then we’re going to chat to my whole, entire family over the barbecue and I will eventually extract us but by that time we will have been tacitly lying to them for many hours.
And then there will be questions in the future. Which will be no less annoying than previous questions, just different. They’ll be of the ‘when are you moving in together and trying for babies; the clock’s ticking’ genre rather than the ‘when are you ever going to start a new serious relationship; the clock’s ticking’ type.
And then if they like Nadia they’ll be disappointed if they hear that we drifted apart.
And if they don’t like her, well, that would probably be quite a good thing.
But realistically theywilllike her, because even though she clearly has quite different tastes in Sunday activities from my family, I think it would be really difficult to spend time with her andnotlike her. She has a very sunny personality. Like, my mum was looking quite frosty just now, and then she melted (as far as she does); she almost smiled at Nadia.
This feels like a mess, entirely of my own creation. I’m such an idiot.
I’m almost tempted to own up right now. I’m really not enjoying the guilt.
‘You’ve ruined all Mum’s plans.’ My brother Jake is grinning next to me. ‘She was going to invite the new neighbours to pop in laterwiththeirdaughterwho Mum was definitely planning to set you up with.’
‘Wow.’ That would explain why she checked so many times that I was definitely coming this afternoon.
‘Yeah. Guessing she won’t be calling them now.’
‘Wow,’ I repeat, not sure how to deal with that information. Should I now be pleased that I brought Nadia or feel even worse about the implicit lying?
I can see Nadia in the kitchen standing talking to Mum.
Oh God. I think Mum’s grilling her about something. Her moral compass? Her background? Does she want babies and if so how many and how soon? Who knows? It can’t be good, though.
I’m going in.
‘Hey.’ I walk a little too grenade-like fast into the kitchen and slightly skid to a halt. Mum and Nadia both stare at me. ‘Hey,’ I repeat.
Mum smiles at me, kind of fondly, which alarms me.
‘What are we talking about?’ My fake chirpiness is utterly ridiculous, making me sound like an awkward sitcom character.
‘Jam,’ Nadia says.
I raise my eyebrows.
‘I’m just describing my mixed berry compote recipe to Nadia,’ Mum elaborates.
Well there you go. Jam recipe sharing. I did not expect that.
‘Great.’ I look between them and decide they’re looking dangerously chummy and that I will not be leaving them to it.
