‘Are you okay, you sound stressed?’
‘I have to go. See ya.’
I hang up my phone and slip it back into my pocket.
‘Hey,’ I say, as brightly as I can. ‘I was actually looking for you.’
‘Hello,’ he says flatly, narrowing his eyes ever so slightly at me. ‘Your friend’s name is Heather too?’
‘I know. Funny, right?’ I reply, uneasily. ‘Are you on a break? I didn’t see you leave.’
‘I snuck out. Wanted to think about everything,’ he says. It’s the first time he’s ever been a bit off. Is it what I said about Tim? Or is this about the review? Either way, I want to reassure him. Soothe him. Make him smile.
‘Yes, same,’ I say, looking at him and then out to the water. ‘Can I join you? Can we think together?’
‘Sure,’ he says, without looking, and we sit together on the pebbled shore. It’s cold on my bum, but the sun is intensely warming and it feels for all the world like summer at last. James looks out pensively over the water, and I want to ask him if he heard everything I said, but this could also be about the review, so I decide to start there.
‘Are you okay about the review?’
‘Of course not. But what can you do?’
‘I spoke to your mum and she sounded, I don’t know, kind of defeated?’
‘Well, we gave it everything Russell asked for, and we weren’t good enough, I suppose.’
‘But don’t you think the real heart of that review was that they didn’t like all the pomp and fanciness? Isn’t that how you feel too?’
‘I guess.’
‘Well, you can’t honestly feel like you failed, if you didn’t agree with the test.’
‘Yes, it’s true this isn’t my kind of food. But I thought I was good enough to deliver it.’
I can hear the deflation in his voice and I want to touch him, but I’m terrified it will instigate a conversation about what he’s heard, and right now I can’t do that.
‘Youaretotally good enough. You’re an amazing cook.’
‘Cook– exactly.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Ah, nothing. Youreallydon’t know much about food, do you? It’s weird.’ He shuffles up on his elbows and looks me in the eye. ‘A cook is not what you call a chef. I don’t work in a camp kitchen. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.’
I feel tired suddenly. I don’t need another person on my case right now.
‘Are you angry with me?’
‘Everyone was called out for something, even Mum,’ he says, and then he bites the inside of his cheek. ‘I’m not angry about that, no.’
About that. Great. Here we go.
He pulls himself up and dusts the stones off his jeans. He looks down at me, sitting there. ‘I need to be on my own for a bit. To think.’
‘Sure,’ I say.
James looks at me for a moment, and then to the sky and then back to me. It’s coming. He wants to know …
‘Have you not broken up with …him?’ he says at last.
