‘Oh, okay then.’ Lyla smiles.
Acknowledgement of why we’re all here today –finally– gives me a mental shake, and I catch Frank eying the bottle with blatant regret. Not because of the cost – if he has money he’s happy to blow it, and he’s always been a generous man. No, I can see in his eyes that he’s gasping for a proper drink, and perhaps I should have piped up, ‘You have some, Frank. I’ll drive home.’ But I’m sorry, right now I need alcohol like air, and by the time we’ve learnt that Lyla is an only child – ‘I’d have loved more but my marriage was over by then’ – I have already guzzled a glass.
‘So, what d’you do, Carly?’ Suki asks.
‘I’m a librarian,’ I reply.
‘How lovely. Such an amazing service and terrible that so many are shutting down … and you, Frank?’ She turns to him.
‘I’m a garage mechanic,’ he says, mechanically, and it strikes me that we’re acting like particularly unconfident contestants on my dad’s favourite quiz show – stiff and awkward, hardly ourbest selves. I haven’t built up the courage to tell my father about the baby yet. I can only imagine how he’ll react, and I’m putting off the conversation for as long as possible.
‘A practical man!’ Suki beams. ‘Fantastic. The best sort.’
She chatters on, barely drawing breath, wanting to know how we met: ‘A holiday romance? How romantic! A proper love story …’ She should have seen us an hour ago when Frank was shouting about pulling rabbits out of hats.
Our food arrives, by which time I’m sweating like a racehorse. Recently, I’ve decided I must be perimenopausal. At night I often lie awake, clammy and churning over people who wronged me twenty-five years ago. Not to mention recent events: Eddie’s shock announcement and Frank pulling away from me, refusing to discuss anything at all.
I look down at the entire fish on my plate. It seems to be gawping at me with its dead eye. Having picked the first thing on the menu that jumped out at me, I’ve never felt less hungry in my life. I couldn’t face breakfast either, and now, unsurprisingly, the champagne has rushed to my head as I hack at my bream or turbot or whatever it is. Gills, tail,eyes– the inedible bits seem to have takenover the plate. I’m making a hash of it as if I’ve only encountered fish in the form of fingers before. Meanwhile Suki removes her fish’s entire skeletal system in one slick move, and Frank is stoking his mouth with hand-cut chips, as if trying to fuel himself through this crisis.
‘And I hear you’re a chef, Eddie?’ Suki rests her fork on her plate.
‘Yeah. Uh-huh.’ His first words at the table.
‘Which restaurant?’
‘It’s called Bracken,’ he starts.
‘Oh, I know Bracken! A gorgeous place and the food’s amazing,’ she enthuses, clearly familiar with tasting menus and wine parings. ‘We must go soon, Lyla,’ she adds. ‘But I guess you two go there all the time?’
‘We haven’t actually,’ Lyla says, addressing Eddie directly for the first time today.
‘Um, no, we haven’t.’ He affects surprise, as if it’s been an oversight. ‘We should, though. Yeah.’
‘Great.’ I catch her shooting him a look:could you act a bit more enthusiastic?Although just twenty-two, like Eddie – apparently he’s now managed to confirm that much – Lyla is a world away in terms of confidence and poise. Yet there’s something fragile about her, physically. She’s so pale and delicate, like a china doll in a simple long-sleeved pink top, her long hair loose, barely any make-up apart from a touch of lip gloss. I can’t imagine how that tiny body will cope with a baby growing inside her. But then, that’s what women’s bodies are designed to do.
Eddie forks in a broccoli spear. So he’s tolerating green vegetables now! That’s nearly as surprising as the washed hair and smart trousers. Just as I’m thinking, perhapsheismature enough to handle night feeds and colic and surviving on forty minutes’ sleep a night, he coughs and splutters, seemingly uncontrollably, his face reddening and eyes filling with panic and tears.
‘Are you all right?’ I exclaim across the table.
He nods, still spluttering and coughing. He grabs wildly for Lyla’s napkin, knocking over his full champagne glass and flooding the table as he presses it to his mouth. ‘Shit!’ he cries.
‘Oh, Eddie—’ I start.
‘Sorry,’ he croaks through the thick linen.
‘Eddie, are you all right?’ Frank barks as I jump up from my seat. To do what, I don’t know. Wind him like a baby? Am I going to have to do the Heimlich manoeuvre today on top of everything else?
‘I’m fine,’ Eddie manages, waving me away. As I sit back down, he removes the napkin from his face, gulps some water and wipes dribble from his chin. Finally, the coughing subsides.
‘Oh, Eddie. Are you okay now?’ Suki asks kindly.
Eddie nods, still flushed a violent pink.
‘Poor Eddie,’ Suki says, obviously trying to defuse his embarrassment with humour as she turns to Lyla. ‘Does he always do this in restaurants?’ she teases.
‘Yeah, all the time,’ Lyla says, with an indulgent eye-roll.Can’t take him anywhere!
The waitress glides over to blot the sodden tablecloth. We finish the champagne, and Suki chatters on, ordering a bottle of Chablis now as if this is all perfectly normal; five unlikely people thrown together for lunch.
