‘Or rosé. I know some people like rosé,’ Annabelle added, as if it were an odd and slightly distasteful foible.
‘Red please,’ Kate said and then watched as everyone else had a glass of white.
The conversation was dominated by Annabelle asking Jake interminable questions about his work and how so-and-so colleague was doing and what his plans were for the future and how was the flat and had he bought that bookshelf he liked and so on and so forth, all of it designed, Kate felt, to show how well she knew her son and how intimately involved she was in every aspect of his life and how there was no room for anyone else.
Jake, who had no side to him, who couldn’t spot an ulterior motive even if it ran straight for him and wrestled him to the ground, chatted away easily and then helped himself to seconds while Annabelle commended his appetite.
‘Will you have some more, Kate?’ she asked, pushing the chicken dish towards her. ‘Please,’ she gestured. ‘You could do with some feeding up.’
‘I’m fine thank you, Annabelle. It was delicious though.’
Annabelle drew herself up, shoulders pushed back and slid the dish back along the table.
‘Such a shame to have leftovers. I’ll give you some to take back with you, Jakey.’
‘Mmm, yes please. Thanks Mum.’
Under the table, Kate clenched a fist and dug her nails into her palm.
‘More wine?’ Chris asked, and he started to pour even before she’d said yes. Kate quickly understood that her relationship with Jake’s mother would be made palatable by alcohol and wondered how long it had taken Chris to reach the same conclusion.
They had coffee in the drawing room accompanied by a musty box of chocolates, presumably fished out from the back of a cupboard where they kept household presents they didn’t much care for. Kate picked up a praline truffle to be polite but noticed it had a coating of white sediment around the outside, suggesting it was several months out of date. She swallowed it in two bites, quickly so as not to taste it.
Annabelle continued her conversational assault, while Chris, who had by now graduated from wine to whisky, nodded his head at various junctures to show he was listening. Annabelle outlined their plans for summer (Provence, then maybe ‘a jaunt’ to Seville although it was very hot at that time of year) and gave a comprehensive run-down of what Jake’s sisters were up to (Millie had just been promoted, Julia was enjoying Hong Kong more than she’d expected and Toad was heading up her university department in Dublin).
‘Why’s she called Toad?’ Kate asked.
Annabelle, taken aback to be interrupted in full flow, gave a little cough.
‘Well, it’s her family nickname and we’ve never called her anything else, have we, Jakey?’
‘To be fair, I do tend to call her Olivia now.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘It just sounds odd if you call your sister after an amphibian in polite company.’
Kate laughed.
‘It’s affectionate!’ Annabelle protested. ‘Anyway, Kate, in answer to your question, it’s because as a baby she used to make the strangest sound when she burped. More of aribbit, really, and Julia was still so young she couldn’t say the name Olivia, so Toad seemed easier and quite sweet … you know how these things are.’
Annabelle waved her hand, showing that what she meant by ‘these things’ could encompass all or none of the room’s contents.
Kate didn’t actually know how these things were at all. She had never met a family willing to call their adult daughter Toad. It was a peculiar privilege of the posh to be able to give their progeny the most unflattering nicknames and for it not to affect their life chances. Kate had never had a nickname and found them infantilising and stupid. She even shuddered when Jake called her ‘babe’.
The after-lunch chat dragged out for two more hours, during which Annabelle asked Kate precisely one question about her job, then talked over the answer. Eventually Jake found a gap in the conversation to say, ‘We’d best be going. It’s getting dark,’ and he walked over to Kate, took her hand and when she stood, he kissed her briefly on the lips right there, in front of his parents. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered into her ear.
He didn’t let go of her hand as he led her into the hallway to pick up their coats. Annabelle was fussing over Jake and handing him an old Waitrose carrier bag filled with leftovers boxed up in Tupperware while Chris smiled benignly in the doorway. He was probably seeing double by now, Kate thought as she smiled back at him.
‘Darling,’ Annabelle said, as she pressed Jake to her in a lingering hug. ‘It was so wonderful to see you.’ Her voice started to break. ‘I miss you, you know. You must come home more often. I don’t like thinking of you up there in London all on your own.’
‘I’m not on my own,’ Jake said, pulling away. ‘I have Kate.’
‘Of course you do, but it’s not quite …’ Annabelle stopped herself. She dutifully gathered Kate up in an embrace. Kate could feel thelocket of Annabelle’s necklace jut into her collarbone. She barely came up to Annabelle’s shoulders.
‘It’s been lovely to meet you, Kate,’ she said and sounded more sincere than she had for the entire day up to that point.
‘Thank you. It’s been really … nice to meet you too, Annabelle.’
