‘Not bad,’ Pete answered her. Standard answer to a question asked too often but always kindly meant, he knew that. ‘So coffee for three then, is it? Sit yourselves down.’
‘Not interrupting you are we?’ asked Lucy. ‘We were just passing en route to the supermarket and saw you were home.’
‘You have eternal permission to interrupt me, Lucy,’ said Pete, meaning it. Lucy was as close to him as his brother was. He could never tire of their company.
‘So, what’s happening?’ said Griff, scraping the chair back from the kitchen table. He was incapable of doing things quietly, always had been. The much noisier of the two, bigger, louder, stronger. Everything ‘-er’.
‘Not much,’ said Pete, pulling three mugs out of the cupboard. One said ‘Pete – My One and Only Valentine’ on it. Something flicked his heart, like an elastic band pinging against thin skin.
‘Any funny work stories?’ asked Griff.
‘Not really.’
‘Juice not got his head stuck again?’ Everyone in the town knew Juice.
‘Not that I know of.’
‘I heard he was in the Trumpet for pelting the mayor with sausage rolls.’
‘Yep. A protest about Brexit, apparently.’ Pete pulled a ‘WTF?’ face.
‘Pass the biscuits while you relate said tale,’ said Griff.
‘I’ll get them.’ Lucy reached for the red tin that looked like a dustbin.
‘Nothing much more to tell. He asked the magistrate to take into consideration that they were veggie sausage rolls as the mayor and his missus are vegans. It wasn’t exactly a valid defence.’
‘Poor Juice,’ said Lucy, who recognised that there was a lost soul inside the laughing-stock he had become.
‘I still have no idea how he got his head in those bars in the playground. Not even you could have bent them,’ said Pete.
Griff beamed, lifted his arms into a pose, kissed his guns.
‘Oh, please,’ said Lucy with a tut.
‘But you’re okay, yeah?’ said Griff. Concern always there, threaded through his frivolity.
‘Okay as can be,’ came the reply as Pete stirred milk into the cups. He contemplated telling his brother about the meeting at the teashop he’d been to yesterday then thought better of it, especially as he wouldn’t be going again.
‘Any visitors recently?’ asked Griff. The word had a weight to it which Pete understood immediately and he gave his brother a glare of disapproval.
‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to ask that,’ said Griff, drawing even more attention to what he shouldn’t have said.
Lucy jumped straight on it. ‘What’s this?’
Pete brought all three mugs across together. He sat down then, opposite his brother.
‘Well?’ Lucy prompted. ‘Don’t you two dare keep secrets from me.’
‘Ria,’ said Griff, as if that explained everything. It didn’t.
‘What do you mean “Ria”? Do you mean Tara’s sister? That Ria? What about her?’
‘I’ve told you, haven’t I?’ said Griff.
‘Obviously not, or I’d know what you were talking about, you numpty,’ Lucy replied.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Pete.
‘It’s not nothing,’ said Griff.
‘Will one of you please tell me what is going on?’ Lucy growled.
‘Ria’s been bringing Pete food parcels,’ said Griff, stroking Pong, who had leapt upon the table now, sitting between his human aunt and uncle like a porcelain ornament.
‘And?’ The tilt of Lucy’s eyebrows implied that she needed more info to assess what that meant.
‘I’m not ungrateful, Luce,’ said Pete. ‘But . . .’ he scratched his head. ‘I might be wrong . . .’
‘You know you aren’t,’ said Griff.
‘I’m presuming you don’t mean the problem is the food,’ said Lucy.
‘It’s just a feeling. I don’t want you thinking I’m a prick,’ replied Pete.
‘I do that anyway,’ said Lucy. ‘Go on, tell me what you mean.’
Pete gave a resigned sigh before opening up the fridge, returning seconds later with a foil container. He ripped off the top and put it on the table.
‘Is that a heart?’ said Griff, peering at the sprinkle of herbs on the top of the lasagne.
‘It’s not an ink-blot test,’ said Lucy. She looked again. ‘Actually, you might be right, Griff. So what’s it all about then?’
‘About three months ago, Ria called in to see how I was,’ said Pete, putting the container back in the fridge. ‘I hadn’t seen her since the funeral. I opened the door and nearly dropped. She had one of Tara’s dresses on. And she was wearing Tara’s perfume. I took Tara’s stuff around to her parents’ house for Ria and Alana, so her turning up like that wasn’t too left field, even if it did give me a bit of a shock.’
‘Okay,’ said Lucy, in a tone that suggested she was processing all the information.
‘It’s only a feeling,’ Pete went on. Then he buried his head in his hands. ‘God, Luce, I really hope I’m wrong but I wonder if . . . I think Ria is . . . trying to get close to me. She’s been five times since, always with food, which is really nice of her, but . . .’ He made a sound of exasperation. ‘I know what you’re going to say—’
‘No you don’t,’ said Lucy, cutting him off. ‘She’s becoming “sticky”, is that what you mean?’
Pete’s head snapped up. He had expected Lucy, who was the epitome of common sense, to tell him his perspective was well off and not to be so stupid or ungrateful.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly it.’
‘Pretend you aren’t in,’ said Griff.
‘I don’t want to sit here hiding though, Griff,’ said Pete. ‘On Tuesday she was parked outside waiting for me to get home from work at half-eight in the morning. She was just passing on her way in to the salon, she said. She must have my shift patterns written down. She stayed nearly an hour and in the end I had to tell her I needed to get to bed because I’d had a hard night and was knackered.’
‘She didn’t offer to join you?’ said Griff.
Lucy smacked his arm. ‘That really isn’t helpful, Griff,’ she admonished him.
‘It was awkward as hell. Do I tell her not to come round? That would be rude, wouldn’t it? I’ve possibly got all this wrong.’
‘And you possibly haven’t,’ said Lucy. ‘I think you may have to . . . not be so nice, Pete, if this isn’t helping you. It might be that she feels close to you because you were close to her sister, but then again, maybe it’s more and I’m presuming you don’t want that.’
‘No I don’t,’ said Pete vehemently. ‘It would be like you and me getting together.’
‘Oh, cheers,’ said Lucy.
‘You know what I mean.’
Lucy’s hand cupped over Pete’s.
‘Yes of course I do. You have your own grief to deal with, Pete. You aren’t a plaster for anyone else’s.’