Читать книгу Crow Stone - Jenni Mills - Страница 13

Chapter Seven

How much a girl’s taste in men changes over the years. When I was at university, we liked wispy, fairy-looking men. Not men like Martin–Martin was never wispy. He could never have fitted the bill, being gay and built like a prop forward. The men who were popular had no chests to speak of, were practically concave, with narrow little shoulders and bony wrists. They looked like stick men, malnourished, but we thought they were sensitive, intellectual types. Ha.

I married one. Stupid. Martin told me not to.

Then, later on, all the nice girls liked a stockbroker. Well, perhaps not literally. Most of them were wankers. But somehow the fashion changed to big butch shoulders, solid jaws, smooth well-cut suits, even a bit of a comforting tummy. Lots of business lunches; it told you he’d be a good provider.

I missed out on that phase. I was still stuck with Mr Sensitive. Only by then that wasn’t the best description of Nick. We were still supposed to be living together, in the Chiswick house we could only afford with my money. But increasingly I was spending time in Cornwall, at the weekend cottage bought out of my overtime when I was on the oilrigs. I hated Nick’s clever media friends, I hated my job with Shell. So, suddenly it was a weekday cottage, and I was learning how mines work.

By the middle nineties, rough was in. Horny-handed artisans. Muscles, cropped heads, even the odd tattoo. It wasn’t a bad time to be in the digging business. Lots of opportunities. Martin took most of them, but I had my moments. Mr Insensitive, as we should call my ex-husband, had now left for the west coast to write his media novel, witty and ironic, never completed. He thought of himself as living life in the fast lane, but it was only Aberystwyth.

I’m thinking all this, sitting opposite Gary Bennett in the restaurant he’s chosen. This afternoon Gary had looked like Rufty-tufty Millennium Man in his hard-hat and faded navy sweatshirt, but tonight he’s staggered me by turning up in a suit, charcoal wool, well cut, well pressed. By comparison I feel scruffy, even if these are my best trousers, with a black cashmere jumper. It’s a relief to discover that he hasn’t bothered to clean the mud off the 4x4.

His taste in restaurants doesn’t fit either. It’s not exactly my sort of place. Rather too much dark red velvet and wood panelling. We’ve been tucked into a cosy corner, so the waiter doesn’t have to pay us too much attention. The food’s OK, classic French, a bit heavy on the sauces, but what’s underneath tastes fresh.

Gary’s chewing his way enthusiastically through steak au poivre, which is exactly what I would have expected him to pick off the menu. I’m toying with duck, and a very big glass of red wine. His hands have long, sensitive-looking fingers and he keeps his nails neat and clean. I can’t remember when I last filed mine: the usual mixture of lengths and serrated edges. I lay my fork on the plate and tuck my hands under the table.

In a moment I’m going to have to say something, but I can’t think what. The conversation hasn’t been too agonizingly stilted so far–his time in Northern Ireland, with the Army, my two years in Canada–but it’s not exactly flowing. I’d better have some more wine.

His head comes up from his steak just in time to see me reaching for the bottle. He halts his fork before it gets to his mouth, balances it carefully with its morsel of bloody meat on the side of his plate, and says: ‘Let me.’

Glug glug glug. A lovely smell of blackcurrants comes out of the bottle. But I have a horrible feeling I’m not going to find it such a lovely smell in retrospect. It tastes like Ribena tonight, but it will be battery acid in my gut tomorrow morning. I try to put my hand over the glass, but Gary is intent on filling it to the top. ‘Whoa. You’ll get me drunk.’

‘You’re not driving. Someone’s got to finish the bottle.’

‘Let the waiter have it.’

Gary looks outraged. I can’t think why: he told me the company’s buying this meal. Or do they have one of those miserly policies where employees have to pay for alcoholic drinks themselves?

‘It’s Gevrey-Chambertin.’

‘The waiter’ll probably appreciate it a lot more than I do.’

‘Don’t you like it?’

I feel guilty. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s lovely wine. It’s just that I don’t like getting drunk.’

‘On less than a bottle?’

‘My ex-husband was an alcoholic. Is an alcoholic, I mean. Leaving me didn’t cure him.’

‘Oh. Right.’ Gary ponders this, masticating the last mouthful of steak. He lays down his cutlery. ‘I’m divorced too.’

Oh, no. I’ve let myself in for an evening of post-marital angst. The polite thing would be to ask him about it, but I can’t bear the thought of hearing how someone else screwed up. Luckily at this moment the waiter pays us his hourly visit. He has that obsequious look on his face that tells you he’s about to ask how we have enjoyed our meal.

He doesn’t know what he’s got coming.

‘Waiter!’ I say, quite loudly, with as much outrage as I can muster at short notice.

His head snaps up. His hand hovers uncertainly near my plate. ‘Madame?’

I can’t stand pseudo-French waiters. Especially those who spend most of the evening ignoring you, then expect a giant tip because they remembered to ask you if everything was all right.

‘This wine’s terrible. It’s corked.’

The waiter stares. He can’t believe I’ve just said that. The bottle is more than three-quarters empty. I watch confusion and suspicion dance backwards and forwards across his face. He’s wondering if he dares contradict me.

‘But, Madame, the bottle—’

‘My husband drank most of it. He’s got a palate slightly less sensitive than pre-cast concrete.’

You can almost see Gary’s palate, his jaw has dropped so much.

‘I took my first mouthful just now,’ I go on, ‘and I can tell you this wine is definitely corked.’

The waiter looks at my almost full glass. He’s certain I’m lying, but the restaurant’s dark, and he hasn’t been near enough to see me drinking. He looks at me. I see him weighing it up: Tip, no tip? It’s a dodgy moment. If he says he’ll get the manager, I’m stuffed. I try to hold his eyes, not my breath. ‘Would Madame like another bottle?’

Phew.

‘No, thank you. I just expect not to be charged for this one.’

‘Of course, Madame.’ He picks up the bottle as gingerly as if it held liquid gelignite. As he walks away, I see him sniff it suspiciously.

Gary almost has control over his jaw again. ‘What the fuck was that all about?’ He’s trying not to laugh, in case the waiter hears us, but I know it’s all right, he doesn’t mind me making him look like an idiot.

‘It’s a trick I learned from my ex-husband. How to drink in posh restaurants for free. It only works in the really snobby ones, where the customer is always right, and a fuss embarrasses them. Of course, Nick would have had the second bottle.’

Gary is laughing openly now. ‘I really buggered things up, didn’t I? You didn’t like the wine and you don’t like the restaurant.’

‘I did like the wine. And the restaurant’s OK …’

‘Just pretentious?’

‘Yeah. Well. Sorry–is it your favourite?’

‘I’ve never been here in my life before. I usually stick to Pizza Express.’

‘You could have taken me there, you know.’

‘On company money?’

‘You’re right, we should sting the bastards. Anyway, we’ve saved them the price of a bottle of wine.’

‘Saved me the price. They’re Welsh Methodists–they have a policy you can’t claim expenses for alcoholic drinks.’

‘Thought so. You were taking it way too personally when I suggested letting the waiter finish it.’ I lean back in triumph. ‘Anyway, we’d better get the bill and go before he’s brave enough to get stuck into the remains of that bottle.’

Gary leaves a generous tip, I notice. As he helps me into my coat, those long, sensitive fingers brush my shoulder then jump nervously away–a bit like this evening’s conversation. It hadn’t occurred to me before: why is the site foreman taking me out for dinner, and not the mine manager?

He’s still laughing when he orders drinks at the hotel bar. ‘You’re not going to play the same trick here, are you? I don’t think my blood pressure can take it twice in one evening.’

‘Nick’s rule was never do it anywhere you wanted to go back to.’

‘He sounds like quite a character, your ex.’

‘Take it from me, he wasn’t.’

Gary carries the drinks over to a table on the veranda, overlooking the weir. At least, I assume it overlooks the weir, because we can hear it, white noise in the background. The view must be lovely on summer evenings, but all that’s visible tonight is our own reflection in the window glass, Gary with his square, solid face, as full of dents and clefts in the lamplight as limestone, me with choppy hair that will never sit smooth however well it’s been cut, and a heart-shaped face too sharp to be pretty. I look a bit less sad tonight, but still tired and secretive. We could be a couple who have known each other so long we’ve run out of conversation, or two strangers too shy to know what to say to each other.

‘So what does he do, your ex?’

‘He was a journalist, of sorts. He could have been quite good, but he spent too much time in the bar.’

‘I thought that’s what journalists do–and still manage to write.’

‘Slurring doesn’t show up on a page. Nick was a broadcaster.’

‘Ah.’

‘He still does some freelancing, but mostly he sits in the pub he bought with the proceeds of selling my house, and drinks away the profits. Aberystwyth doesn’t have a lot of hard news.’

Gary’s on fizzy water, I notice. He follows my eyes to the bottle, and shrugs. I’m on decaff. Nick would have been laying out the lines of cocaine by now. I live dangerously, and pop into my mouth the chocolate mint that comes with the coffee.

‘Do you have kids?’ asks Gary.

‘No, thank God. I’d probably not have had the nerve to throw Nick out if I had.’

‘I can’t believe that. You don’t exactly strike me as submissive.’

‘It’s different when you have children to think about. I couldn’t have done this job, for instance. We’d have been dependent on Nick. You got kids?’

Something unreadable crosses Gary’s face. It might be indigestion, revenge of the steak au poivre, but I don’t think so.

‘One. Living with my ex-wife.’

‘You get access, though?’

‘No.’

I wait, but he doesn’t elaborate. Asking outright seems rude, but I ask anyway.

‘It’s complicated. She’s with a South African driving instructor, who keeps an Alsatian dog he calls Ripper. Jeff claims he taught it to tear the balls off black men. I keep away, just in case. It looks colour-blind to me.’ He swallows a big mouthful of fizz, and his eyes crinkle, in the way they seem to do when he’s searching for the proper way of putting things. ‘But that’s enough about me. Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘Only if you don’t give me one.’

He pulls a pack of Extra Mild out of his jacket pocket and proffers it.

‘I’m supposed to be giving up,’ I say, bending towards his lighter. ‘I always try at the start of a new job. Never succeed.’

He snatches the lighter away. ‘Then don’t let me encourage you.’

‘Fuck off.’ We’re already sparring, like I do with Martin. I grab his hand and pull it back. He clicks the wheel and I light the cigarette, fingers still curled round his hand, protecting the flame. Why am I doing that? I don’t like touching people. I let go, and take a long pull on the filter.

He lights one for himself.

He’s looking at me. ‘Why did you pull that trick in the restaurant tonight?’

I don’t know.

‘I told you, I get pissed off with pretentious.’

I wanted you to notice me.

‘Doesn’t anyone ever call your bluff, Kit?’

‘Sometimes. That’s what makes it exciting.’

He taps ash off the end of his cigarette, very carefully, on to the edge of the ashtray. ‘I just hope you don’t behave like that underground.’

‘It’s because I don’t behave like that underground that I need to play games in posh restaurants.’

‘I see.’

He doesn’t. He’s looking at me very intently now, as if he’s trying to get inside my mind, and although I’m trying to hold his gaze, all my instincts tell me to pull the shutters down and look away.

‘Bloody hell, Gary, these cigarettes taste of nothing.’ I have to keep talking; there was almost a moment there. That couple I can see in the window looked very serious. ‘If you’re going to kill yourself, you might as well do it on something you know you’ve smoked. I need a refill of coffee to get some sort of buzz going.’

He gets up, putting his cigarette carefully on the side of the ashtray. ‘Are you sure you don’t want something a bit stronger with it? A brandy? Whisky, maybe?’

‘Oh, go on, then. Laphroaig, if they’ve got it.’ My weak spot, rough and smoky. ‘And another chocolate,’ I add.

‘Please.’

‘Please.’

I watch him going to the bar to fetch the coffee. Not many men would jump to it like that. He has nice shoulders in the charcoal jacket, a comfortable walk. There are muscles shifting under the material. But he probably loathes me by now for being such a madam. The cigarette he left in the ashtray twists a long spiralling thread of smoke into the air, then stutters a set of little puffs, like an SOS.

It feels too hot in here. My jumper’s damp from perspiration, sticking to my back.

– walking slowly down the steps towards him, my eyes fixed on that deep pale V of his chest, his long hair curling on to his collar-bones. He would smell my sweat as I held out my hand, just like I smelt his—

For a moment I almost forgot I’d known him before, in another life.

It couldn’t be clearer that he’s forgotten me. If he remembered, there’s no way he’d have invited me to dinner tonight or any other.

What the fuck am I doing? I must have been mad to come back to Green Down. Suddenly I’m tired, too tired to understand why I took this job against my better judgement.

I know, I know, it’s Friday night, not yet gone eleven, Saturday tomorrow. I don’t have to be at work, I can stay up late and then lie in. But I’m knackered. I’m going to drink the Laphroaig he’s bringing back to me, smoke another of his tasteless cigarettes, say, ‘Thank you for a lovely evening,’ and head for bed.