‘If that’s okay with you. I know you’ll just have finished work too so I won’t keep you long.’
‘It’s fine,’ he said and secretly cursed himself for being brought up too well by a mother who was incapable of making a guest in her house feel unwelcome. She’d invite Jack the Ripper in and get out the Madeira cake, his dad once said.
At the sound of the key in the door, Pong ran downstairs from the bedroom miaowing wildly and Pete picked him up, gave him a head rub and set him back down again.
Ria followed Pete into the kitchen and Pong followed them both with his majestic tread that made him appear as if he was walking on air.
Pete pulled two mugs out of the cupboard and filled up the kettle and while it was boiling he tipped a pouch of food into Pong’s bowl which the Siamese tore into as if he hadn’t been fed for a week. Pete hoped Ria wouldn’t draw out the visit until it became uncomfortable because he didn’t want to entertain or talk, just to let his brain power down so he could rest properly. It was exhausting trying to pretend to the rest of the world he was on an upward trajectory when he knew his inner satnav was dragging him further south. He hated being alone, lonely but he wasn’t the type to bung up the hole in his life with the wrong size plug.
‘I bought us a couple of pastries from the French patisserie that’s around the corner from where I work. I’ll probably put on a stone, but I don’t care,’ said Ria, who wouldn’t put on a stone if she mainlined lard twenty-four seven for a fortnight.
‘You fill your boots,’ said Pete. He could see Ria reflected in the glossy cupboard door as he waited for the kettle and she appeared to be dabbing her face. It registered but he thought no more about it until he brought the mugs over to the kitchen table to find Ria mid-munch with a flake of pastry stuck on her cheek – there by design, not accident. The modern-day equivalent of a handkerchief artfully dropped to hook attention.
Ria slid the second pastry across the table towards Pete. ‘Nice but messy. Have barely had time to draw breath today. I was starting to get that shaky feeling you get when you haven’t eaten. Sugar shakes, I think they’re called.’ She grinned and took another bite of the bun, or rather a delicate nibble with her neat, perfect teeth. She chuckled as a flurry of small flakes scattered over the table but that big flake adhered resolutely to her skin.
Now there was a quandary – should he tell her about it or pretend he hadn’t seen it? He didn’t need these sorts of dilemmas: tiny ones that still carried too much weight.
‘Come on, eat up,’ she urged, her voice gentle and serious now. Her large Bambi brown eyes holding him in their firm embrace. She tapped the bag that the pastry sat on, reminding him of its presence.
‘I’ll have it later if that’s okay. I ate something at work and I’m full.’
‘Oh . . .’ a note of disappointment before a quick recovery ‘. . . of course. Throw it away if you like.’
‘No, I won’t do that.’ He would. He’d never liked flaky pastry. For some unknown reason it annoyed him. Tara had found that freaky-odd and was convinced there was something in his childhood that had made him like that, but there wasn’t. No abuse centred around puff pastry, though Griff had once chased him around the garden pretending to shoot him with a vanilla slice.
‘So how are you?’ Ria asked again, patting her lips with her fingertips. Her hands were like Tara’s, small with impossibly long nails that never featured a chip from the varnish. ‘Sorry, just asked you that. I mean, how are you really.’
‘I’m getting on with things. I have no choice,’ he said, his tone more clipped than he intended. He batted the question back over the net. ‘How are you? How are Bob and Pam, and Alana?’
Ria sighed. ‘Don’t think Mum and Dad will ever be the same again. Alana’s a closed book, always has been. She’s on holiday in Spain with Rick at the moment and the pics on Instagram report she’s having a good time.’ She gave a little huff, then a sniff. ‘I miss Tara so much. I’ve been to see a therapist.’ She fumbled in her bag and brought out a business card. ‘She’s very good if you need someone to help you over a hurdle.’ She slid it across to him, in much the same way as she had slid the pastry.
‘Thanks, but I don’t need anyone.’
‘Pete, I didn’t realise I needed someone to talk to as much as I did, until I saw her. She’s called Jackie Crawford and she’s really helped me.’ Her voice dropped in volume. ‘You could always talk to me, of course. I won’t tell you to pack all your troubles away after fifty minutes.’
‘I’m good. Really,’ said Pete. Now it was his turn to lie because he did need some help. Griff would have been first call but he had his own stuff going on. His dad would have been gutted to find that his son wouldn’t talk to him, but Pete didn’t want to open up Nigel’s old wounds when he was in a new life with Cora. He knew that Sal would have listened, but she was in a great place with a new girlfriend and he didn’t want to bring anyone’s mood down. Nor did he want to sit in a chair opposite a counsellor on a one-to-one basis, open up the floodgates for fifty minutes and then have to pack it all back up inside him until the following week. Ria Ollerton might have listened to him droning on about his miserable state but he didn’t want to let her in any more than she was. There was no one he could open up to. Or maybe there was. Perhaps Sal was right in that he should give the group in the teashop another shot.
‘Are you getting out, you know, socialising?’ asked Ria, still wearing that pastry flake that Pete tried to ignore. ‘Going out for meals, to the pictures, that sort of thing? Isolating youself socially is the worst thing you can do, Jackie says. Misplaced guilt can make you believe that you don’t deserve to enjoy yourself any more.’
‘I know. I had this conversation with my father when Mum died,’ said Pete.
‘Yes of course, I’m sorry, I forgot.’
It was so much easier to give advice than to take it. That’s one thing he realised. He remembered his dad being crippled with guilt that he’d asked another woman out for dinner and Pete had told him that it was the right thing to do because he had to carry on living, not just existing. If only he’d known he was having dinner with Cora, he might not have been so encouraging.
‘There are loads of good films on at the cinema at the moment. I miss going there, you know, since Josh and I split up.’
‘I’ve never been one for the cinema,’ Pete said, another lie. They were being pulled from him like tissues from a box. He did like a night out at the cinema; Tara wasn’t keen so they didn’t go.
That damned flake of pastry was still welded onto Ria’s face, waiting for him to lean across romantically and stroke it away, he guessed.
‘You might want to just wipe there,’ he said, jabbing his finger into his own cheek, mirroring the place.
‘Oh.’ Her finger tips fell straight on it and it dropped. He saw the beginnings of a blush suffuse her skin, her plan thwarted.
Pete yawned, apologised. ‘Sorry, it’s been a long day. I’m ready for bed.’
Probably the wrong thing to say, said a voice inside him.
‘I’ll go,’ Ria said without moving.