‘None.’
‘You’re not a vegetarian?’
‘Not any more.’ Was there a smirk in his tone?
‘Fine.’ I hung up and yelled, ‘Well, fuck you!’
Quin was good at restaurants. ‘Not too cheap but not too showy,’ I told him. ‘No tasting-menu bullshit and plenty of bland food.’
‘“Bland food”？ No way, Rach.’
‘Just do it!’
‘Okay, don’t take my head off. Can I just ask …？ How about Peruvian?’
‘No.’
‘Schezwan?’
‘No. Quin, seriously. No! Okay, what about Jake’s Place? They bring extra potatoes and vegetables with the main course, that’s the sort of thing he likes.’
Quin blinked. ‘Wow. That’s –’
‘– I know. But that’s who he is. Or was …’
‘The tables are very close together in Jake’s Place – you sure about this?’
‘Definitely. They’re always quick there, wanting to get you out to ship another crowd in. Quick works for me.’
When the table was booked, Quin began vacillating between angst about Luke’s good looks and strutting around, making muttery threats about ‘putting some hurting’ on him.
‘Should I feed you across the table?’ he asked.
‘Do.’
At least we were able to have a laugh about it.
33
Dennis’s wife Juliet was a surprise – high heels, expensive handbag, alluring perfume, excellent blazer. Her look was modern, very cool. I was wondering who she reminded me of and I realized it was – of all people! – Claire.
Okay, she wasn’t as fashion forward as my eldest sister but she wasn’t the downtrodden woman with red-raw hands I’d expected. The mistake was on me – Dennis was such a charmer it should be no surprise that his wife was a prestige version.
As for their seventeen-year-old daughter Joya, she was fabulous. Long lavender hair with two tight angel horns. Fabulously baggy jeans, a graffitied hoody, a neon-pink neck-purse and car-tyre sandals, worn with stripey socks.
Abigail, the elder daughter, hadn’t come. But getting Juliet and Joya counted as a win. And because there was no way I was chancing a rerun of Patch’s visit, I’d coached them until we were all blue in the face.
When Juliet and Joya followed me into the Abbot’s Quarter, everyone looked startled at the onslaught of glamour. The high heels, the lipstick and the hair – these weren’t things they saw much of these days.
Dennis stumbled to his feet. ‘Joya –’ he stuttered, moving towards her.
‘Dad, no.’ She gave him the hand. ‘Don’t touch me.’
You could almost taste the shock in the room – this fabulous creature was Dennis’s daughter? This stylish, yoga-toned woman was his wife?
Juliet and Joya weren’t even settled in their chairs when Dennis started, ‘Before anyone says anything, can I –’
‘No, Dennis, you can’t.’
‘What about my side of the story?’
‘You’ve been here two weeks. We already know your side.’
‘But how will –’
‘Please stop talking. Start listening.’
I began with Joya, who was twisting her body into a pretzel of reluctance. ‘I don’t want to be here,’ she murmured.
‘Shur, g’wan away home!’ Dennis exclaimed. ‘No harm, no foul. Good girl, off you go.’ He half stood, wrenching a fat roll of soiled-looking fifties from his hip pocket. ‘Let me just give you some –’
‘Stop,’ I said. ‘Joya is staying. Sit back down and put that money away.’
When everyone had settled, I asked, ‘Joya, what kind of father is Dennis?’
‘It depends.’ Her voice was hesitant. ‘On which version of him you get.’
‘What does that mean?’ Dennis sounded wounded.
‘Like, he can be in great form. On those days you can ask him for anything and he’ll say yes. On the bad days he yells a lot. Yells at Mum.’
‘About what?’
‘Stuff like, one of his constituents, her washing machine broke, so he said Mum would do it. But he didn’t ask Mum, just came home with two bags of other people’s laundry. Mum told him to do it himself but he said that it wasn’t his job.’
‘So who did it?’
She shrugged. ‘Dunno. But not him, I bet. But that wasn’t out of the ordinary, he’s always making promises. Then breaking them. Like, a while ago, he gave Abigail and me each a credit card, with a limit of four hundred euro. He said we could buy whatever we wanted and he’d pay it off every month. But that never happened, not even once.’