‘Giving him up?’ I laughed at that.
‘New business? New restaurant? Come on, Jess, you’ll be seeing a lot more of him than I will. I shall be known as The White House Widow.’ She grimaced slightly and then laughed herself.
‘Well, you’ll be pretty busy yourself, Robyn, won’t you?’ Mum said, patting her hand. ‘You know, with this performance you’re putting on at school?’
‘Keep up, Mum,’ Robyn said. ‘We talked about this only the other day. It’s not happening now.’
Mum brought a hand to her forehead. ‘Duh! Sorry! Sorry, Robyn! So many other things on my mind at the moment.’
‘Robyn,’ Sorrel put in heatedly. ‘Youknowit can all still go ahead if you’d just look for another Danny Zuko.’ Sorrel glanced across at Joel, who was talking to me on his other side, bringing me up to date with what was happening in his life.
‘So,’ Robyn asked again, pointedly ignoring Sorrel. ‘The White House, Kamran?’
‘July.’ Kamran, Fabian and I actually all spoke as one and I felt that little surge of pleasure I was now beginning to feel every time I thought of the new restaurant and the part I was going to be playing in the venture. ‘And then, we’re discussing “a grand opening” where we invite the press and food critics in August,’ Kamran went on.
‘Oh yes? And who’s going to be looking after our Lola then?’ Pat Butterworth, her ears on stalks, sniffed. ‘While you lot are all gallivanting up at some fancy restaurant.Ican’t have her with me all the time…’
‘I don’twantto be withyouall the time,’ Lola said rudely, pulling a face. ‘I just want to be with Dad’ – she paused – ‘seeing as how Mum’s abandoning me for her new restaurant…’
The whole table turned in my direction, and I shook my head at Lola before standing to clear plates.
‘Hang on,’ Pat said crossly, clutching determinedly onto one side of her plate as I attempted to take the other. ‘I’d like another couple of those tatties if you don’t mind. Not like proper roast tatties of course, but they’ll do.’ She piled the last remaining three potatoes onto her plate, giving me one of her speciality looks at the same time.
‘Kamran, d’you think I could have a Saturday job at The White House?’ Lola wheedled.
‘When you’re fourteen.’ Kamran smiled. ‘Come back in three years’ time, Lola, and we’ll set you on.’
‘And maybe you could get some practice in now,’ Mum added pointedly, ‘by helping your mum clear some of these dishes? Hmm?’
‘Oh,she’sOK,’ Lola said sulky at being turned down by Kamran and called out by Mum.
‘Hmm.’ Pat sniffed an aside to Lola. ‘I can’t see your mum’s going to be up to much, running a top fancy restaurant.’
What was wrong with the woman? Over the years, I’d visited Pat regularly, taking Lola down to see her granny, and always accompanied by little cakes and other goodies, hoping, I supposed, for her approval. Bloody people-pleaser that I was. Well, no more. I was racking my brains to come back at the old harridan with a smart and witty response when someone did it for me.
‘Jess? Jess will be perfect. Absolutely perfect working alongside myself and Kamran! Sheisperfect! A really fabulous cook: look at what she’s put on for us this lunchtime; so well organised. I’ve seen her running Hudson House like a military campaign, and the residents there adore her. And caring; what a great mum to Lola…’ Fabian trailed off, not because he was embarrassed at standing up and toasting me, but because I was so patently flustered, not sure where to put myself except back at the fridge where my puddings waited.
Mum came to the rescue, standing with her glass of wine. ‘A toast please to this clever, talented and utterly gorgeous daughter of mine. You will be absolutely perfect up at The White House, my darling. A new future, a new career… To Jess…’
‘To Jess.’
‘Well.’ Fabian grinned, moving to help me at the fridge and worktop. ‘That shut the old biddy up.’
‘Did you have to go so over the top?’
‘That was nothing,’ he said almost seriously. ‘You should have heard me in court when I was defending an alleged murderer – extravagant in the extreme.’
‘I’ve not murdered anyone,’ I protested, laughing now.
‘You must have come pretty close with that nasty woman for a mother-in-law, Jess. I sometimes think my own mother has an evil tongue, but she’s at the bottom of the class compared to that one over there.’ He nodded his head slightly back towards the table where Pat was now holding forth that she wasterrified to go out, down her own street, in her own town, for fear of beingmugged, mauled and molestedby gangs of foreigners who shouldn’t be allowed here in the first place…
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ I shook my head. ‘Who the hell would want to molest Pat Butterworth?’
‘So, all hands on deck in the next few weeks then, Jess?’ We stood side by side, working almost in synchrony sorting puddings in the tiny space.
I was aware of every movement of Fabian’s hands and, not for the first time, realised that, in my current single state, I was probably a little bit in love with my sister’s partner myself. Well, we all need a bit of a fantasy to get us through the day, don’t we?
Pushing these daft thoughts to one side, I nodded, pouring jugs of vanilla-infused custard and thick cream as well as reaching for the dishes of chocolate and ginger home-made ice cream.
