The instinct to take out my phone and send a picture to her was almost overwhelming.At your fave. Wish you were here.
But I jammed the pad of my thumb into my engagement ring instead. A picture of some vines did not rise to the level ofIf you ever really need me – you can call.
Satoshi led us to our table.Fisher family, 6 people, was written on the reservation sign. Jonah draped his arm over the back of mychair, fingers brushing my shoulder supportively, and Fiona beamed at me from across the bread plates, so I pasted the smile back on my face. I might be miserable, but I wasn’t going to drag them down with me.
‘I thought we’d do lunch a tiny bit out of order!’ Satoshi announced. ‘Rosie, this is for you – Georgia, for you – Lex, my buddy, my pal, are we feeling in a party hat mood? All right. I’m relying on you all, because I’m a terrible singer.Haaaaaaaaappy birthday…’
He beckoned to one of the waiters, who put an exquisite birthday cake down on the table in front of me.
Once the cake had been cut and we’d all eaten a slice and the girls were clearly summiting an Everestian sugar high, Satoshi took them outside. ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said firmly, when Fiona got up to follow them. ‘Rosie and Georgia and I are going to take a walk through the sculpture garden and we’re all going to criticise how ugly Isamu’s flower choices are. Lex, you’re going to help, right?’
‘Just how much wine have you bought from him?’ Jonah asked, as Satoshi let the girls pull him away, one attached to each wrist, Lex trailing after them.
‘A lot,’ Fiona said, topping up our water glasses. ‘Like,a lot.’
Isamu came over to our table, setting a white and a red wine glass down in front of each of us. ‘I’m going to run your tasting today,’ he said in his low growl of a voice. ‘We’ll move through it slowly, so you can drink the appropriate wine alongside our tasting menu.’
I had a sudden, unsettling feeling. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I turned to look behind me.
‘What’s wrong?’ Jonah asked.
‘Nothing, nothing.’ There was no one behind me, just the buzzy chatter of people at other tables and the waitstaff bustling to and froand the serious presence of Isamu, standing in front of us. ‘Just – you know when it feels like someone walks over your grave?’
‘Thirty-two isn’tthatold, Shaw.’
I rolled my eyes.
Jonah grinned, then pressed his lips to my temple. ‘Happy birthday, darling.’
There was a flash in front of us. Fiona. ‘You two are the cutest,’ she said, showing us the photo she’d taken.
If I hadn’t known better, I never would have guessed that the couple in the picture – him smiling into her hair, her trying her best not to do the same into the crook of his neck – were a lie.
The sun was dipping low over the vines by the time we left, deep orange fading into deep blue as the crisp winter day turned slowly into night. In the back, Rosie and Georgia’s chatter slid into sleepy silence. In the passenger seat, Lex kept up a conversation with Satoshi for a while, but then they fell quiet too. I was sitting between Fiona and Jonah in the middle, and after a while, both their heads lolled onto my shoulders. They each started snoring softly, slightly out of time with each other.
Satoshi’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. ‘Sugar and booze,’ he said. ‘A lethal combination. You’re clearly made of sterner stuff than the Fishers.’
‘…’m not asleep,’ Fiona mumbled.
‘Sure you’re not.’
Jonah didn’t stir.
His left hand was resting on my knee, heavy and warm. I traced the line of each long finger and ran a fingertip over the gold band of his ring.
How many times, I wondered, would I have to do it before the finish wore off this one too?
He’d been so good to me. So, so good.
But how long was it going to take before I wore him down, like I’d worn down Chess? Before he realised what a burden it was – how exhausting it was – looking after me? Before this friendship, or this affection, or whatever it was that he’d come to feel for me, turned back into loathing?
‘Did you have a good birthday?’ Satoshi asked me.
‘It was lovely,’ I lied. Here was another person who did not deserve my misery. ‘Thank you for everything you did to make the day so great. You really went above and beyond.’
‘My pleasure. But it was nothing, really. Isamu did most of the work.’
Isamu hadn’t been the one babysitting the world’s most energetic seven-year-olds, but I wasn’t about to say that out loud. ‘I guess we’re his favourite tenants.’
