In fact, it’s not that I’m being particularly virtuous. But I know it’s going to be a tricky conversation and that I need to keep a grip on my faculties.
‘Honestly, James,’ Rhona starts when Luc has had the goodwill to leave us alone. ‘I can’t believe you ridiculed Miles’s haircut when he was a teenager. D’you remember whatyourhair was like in 1989?’
‘That’s not the point, is it?’
‘It’s the year we met,’ she reminds me. ‘Remember you had a fluffy quiff you’d dyed blond yourself and it looked like a little yellow pom-pom?’
‘You must be thinking of someone else.’
‘No, I have the pictures,’ she says with a sly grin. ‘Remember when that flatmate of yours – the one who used to eat spaghetti with Marmite – tried to dye it brown for you and it wentcarrot?’
‘This is great,’ I remark, ‘getting together to do a full inventory of my terrible hairstyles. But is that why you asked me to come over?’
She chuckles and smooths back her sleek dark bob. Rhona was stylish, even back in the decade that style forgot. Jeans and a crisp white shirt were her uniform back then, with hair worn in a boyish crop until fairly recently. Now Luc has reappeared and places a Bloody Mary, Rhona’s preferred tipple, in front of her. ‘Thank you, darling.’ It has some kind of woody herb sticking out of it, which he lights with an oversized match. They like this here, the decorating of drinks with sprigs of things that they then set fire to.
‘I just wanted to know why you felt you had to attack Miles like that,’ she explains.
‘I didn’tattackhim. I might’ve wanted to but—’
‘That’s the way Esther sees it,’ Rhona cuts in.
‘So why hasn’t she talked to me about it instead of filing her grievance through you?’
‘We were just talking,’ Rhona says defensively. ‘It happened to come up.’ She picks up her drink and sucks hard on the straw.
‘You don’t like him either,’ I remind her. Of course we’ve discussed Miles numerous times. I thought we were allies in this.
‘You know I’m not crazy about him,’ she says, ‘but they seem to have worked through their difficulties—’
‘Their difficulties? You mean him shagging someone else?’
‘—And I have to admire them for that,’ Rhonacontinues, giving me a stern look. ‘Don’t you think that’s admirable? And they are quite sweet together …’
‘What does that mean? That he can’t sit near her without twiddling with her hair?’
‘That’snotwhat I mean,’ she snaps.
‘Or that he got some friend to make her that leotard thing covered in Quality Street wrappers—’
‘It wasn’t a leotard, it was a basque …’
‘… which was obviously highly flammable, yet he sat her in front of a load of church candles to take her photo in it—’
‘The thing is,’ Rhona cuts in sharply, ‘he’s her partner and we have to accept and respect that, like it or not.’ Luc reappears and places a highball glass containing a curious pastel pink liquid in front of me.
‘Non-alcoholic,’ he booms, as if to make a point.For the guy who needs to live a little!
‘Thanks, Luc,’ I say as he plonks his gigantic frame in the booth with us, next to me.
‘Luc foraged the meadowsweet for that,’ Rhona says, jabbing a manicured nail towards my drink.
‘Really?’ I ask, keen to get back to the matter in hand, so I can go home, call Esther and try to smooth things over with her. I no longer care who was in the wrong. I just want to get along with my daughter.
‘Yeah, there’s a bit of marshland by the River Lea where it grows like crazy,’ Luc enthuses. ‘I could have filled a juggernaut with the stuff. Isn’t that amazing, in a city like London, that places like that exist?’
‘It really is,’ I reply. It’s not that I dislike Luc. It’s just that everything about him is sobig: the booming voice, the muscular arms straining at the sleeves of his T-shirt and the hair that sits in a silvery swoosh like a giant metallic meringue. Mercifully, one of their young bartendershas arrived, busying away behind the bar, and is now waving over to Luc, wanting his opinion on some new concoction. He jumps up and bounces over.
After another fortifying swig of her drink, Rhona leans towards me across the table. ‘Look, James, it’s not just the mullet thing she’s concerned about.’
