to a snake phobia. George asked him to imagine an anaconda in his lap for a couple of hours. David laughed and said George had a point.
Jean’s fear ebbed away and was replaced by something odder but equally uncomfortable. It was ridiculous but she didn’t want them to be getting on this well. George was warmer and funnier than he was when they were alone together. And David seemed more ordinary.
Was this how they’d been at work? And if so, why had George not mentioned David once since leaving the company? She began to feel rather guilty for having painted David such a bleak picture of her home life.
By the time they decamped to the dining room George and David seemed to have more in common with one another than she had with either of them. It was like being back at school again. Watching your best friend striking up a relationship with another child and being left out in the cold.
She kept muscling into the conversation, trying to claw back some of that attention. But she kept getting it wrong. Sounding far too interested in
Great Expectations
when she’d only seen the TV series. Being too rude about George’s previous culinary disasters when the risotto was actually very good. It was tiring. And in the end it seemed easier to take a backseat, leave them to do the talking and give her opinion when asked.
Only at one point did George seem lost for words. David was talking about Martin Donnelly’s wife having to go into hospital for tests. She turned round and saw George sitting with his head between his knees. Her first thought was that he’d poisoned everyone with his cooking and was about to vomit. But he sat back, wincing and rubbing his leg, apologized for the interruption, then headed off to do a circuit of the kitchen to ease a muscle spasm.
By the end of the meal he’d drunk an entire bottle of red wine and turned into something of a comic.
“At the risk of boring Jean with an old story, a couple of weeks later we got our photos back. Except they weren’t our photos. They were photos of some young man and his girlfriend. In the altogether. Jamie suggested we write ‘Do you want an enlargement?’ on the back before we returned them.”
Over coffee David talked about Mina and the children, and as they stood on the steps watching him drive away on a little cloud of pink smoke, George said, “You wouldn’t ever leave me, would you?”
“Of course not,” said Jean.
She expected him to put an arm round her, at the very least. But he just clapped his hands together, said, “Right. Washing up,” and headed back inside as if this were simply the next part of the fun.
26
Katie had had a shitty week.
The festival programs arrived on Monday and Patsy, who still couldn’t spell
program,
shocked everyone by knowing a fact, that the photo of Terry Jones on page seven was actually a photo of Terry Gilliam. Aidan bawled Katie out because admitting he’d cocked up wasn’t one of the skills he’d learnt on his MBA. She resigned. He refused to accept her resignation. And Patsy cried because people were shouting.
Katie left early to pick up Jacob from nursery and Jackie said he’d bitten two other children. She took him to one side and gave him a lecture about being like the meanie crocodile in
A Kiss Like This
. But Jacob wasn’t doing recriminations that day. So she cut her losses and drove him home where she withheld his yogurt until they’d had a conversation about biting, which generated the same kind of frustration Dr. Benson probably felt when they were doing Kant at university.
“It was my tractor,” said Jacob.
“Actually it’s everyone’s tractor,” said Katie.
“I was playing with it.”
“And Ben shouldn’t have grabbed it from you. But that doesn’t give you the right to bite him.”
“I was playing with it.”
“If you’re playing with something and someone tries to grab it you have to shout and tell Jackie or Bella or Susie.”
“You said it’s wrong to
Jean’s fear ebbed away and was replaced by something odder but equally uncomfortable. It was ridiculous but she didn’t want them to be getting on this well. George was warmer and funnier than he was when they were alone together. And David seemed more ordinary.
Was this how they’d been at work? And if so, why had George not mentioned David once since leaving the company? She began to feel rather guilty for having painted David such a bleak picture of her home life.
By the time they decamped to the dining room George and David seemed to have more in common with one another than she had with either of them. It was like being back at school again. Watching your best friend striking up a relationship with another child and being left out in the cold.
She kept muscling into the conversation, trying to claw back some of that attention. But she kept getting it wrong. Sounding far too interested in
Great Expectations
when she’d only seen the TV series. Being too rude about George’s previous culinary disasters when the risotto was actually very good. It was tiring. And in the end it seemed easier to take a backseat, leave them to do the talking and give her opinion when asked.
Only at one point did George seem lost for words. David was talking about Martin Donnelly’s wife having to go into hospital for tests. She turned round and saw George sitting with his head between his knees. Her first thought was that he’d poisoned everyone with his cooking and was about to vomit. But he sat back, wincing and rubbing his leg, apologized for the interruption, then headed off to do a circuit of the kitchen to ease a muscle spasm.
By the end of the meal he’d drunk an entire bottle of red wine and turned into something of a comic.
“At the risk of boring Jean with an old story, a couple of weeks later we got our photos back. Except they weren’t our photos. They were photos of some young man and his girlfriend. In the altogether. Jamie suggested we write ‘Do you want an enlargement?’ on the back before we returned them.”
Over coffee David talked about Mina and the children, and as they stood on the steps watching him drive away on a little cloud of pink smoke, George said, “You wouldn’t ever leave me, would you?”
“Of course not,” said Jean.
She expected him to put an arm round her, at the very least. But he just clapped his hands together, said, “Right. Washing up,” and headed back inside as if this were simply the next part of the fun.
26
Katie had had a shitty week.
The festival programs arrived on Monday and Patsy, who still couldn’t spell
program,
shocked everyone by knowing a fact, that the photo of Terry Jones on page seven was actually a photo of Terry Gilliam. Aidan bawled Katie out because admitting he’d cocked up wasn’t one of the skills he’d learnt on his MBA. She resigned. He refused to accept her resignation. And Patsy cried because people were shouting.
Katie left early to pick up Jacob from nursery and Jackie said he’d bitten two other children. She took him to one side and gave him a lecture about being like the meanie crocodile in
A Kiss Like This
. But Jacob wasn’t doing recriminations that day. So she cut her losses and drove him home where she withheld his yogurt until they’d had a conversation about biting, which generated the same kind of frustration Dr. Benson probably felt when they were doing Kant at university.
“It was my tractor,” said Jacob.
“Actually it’s everyone’s tractor,” said Katie.
“I was playing with it.”
“And Ben shouldn’t have grabbed it from you. But that doesn’t give you the right to bite him.”
“I was playing with it.”
“If you’re playing with something and someone tries to grab it you have to shout and tell Jackie or Bella or Susie.”
“You said it’s wrong to
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