I didn’t really. I looked OK. I had on my usual Jigsaw black, which had seen better days, and a bit of make-up, but I hadn’t made a huge effort. Not because I didn’t like Luke, but because I was flat inside. Odd.
These last few days, instead of rallying a bit after Sam’s revelation, getting angry even, I’d dipped. Dived, perhaps. Yesterday I’d even found myself mechanically going through the motions. Of living. Having been there once before, I was terrified. My hands froze on the tin of beans I was opening. Second tin that day. I ran upstairs, riffled through my drawers and found the old bottle, which was empty, of course, because I’d flushed the pills away. But then I rang the nice GP and she prescribed some more, surprised I’d stopped taking them so soon. We had a bit of a chat over the phone and I assured her I was fine really, just feeling a bit low. But I’d come off the phone exhausted. At the effort of sounding fine. Had to sit on the side of the bed for a few minutes, holding my knees.
Yet now, here I was, cranking up a smile in this softly lit, plushly carpeted dining room, taking my chair opposite Luke, who looked for all the world as if Angelina Jolie had sat down to join him.
‘I thought we’d have champagne.’ He indicated a bottle already chilling in a bucket beside him. ‘Is that OK with you?’
‘Perfect,’ I assured him.
Within moments, a suave sommelier had glided noiselessly across to pour some for me, purring, ‘Madame,’ as he did. The King’s Head was a bit like that: gliding waiters, melba toast, elaborately arranged pink napkins, puddings from the trolley. Expensive, but old-fashioned and parochial. The sort of place where, if you had the right parents, you might easily have been taken as a child. All quite easy to mock these days but, having not had the parents, I rather liked it, I decided, as the waiter slid away as if on roller skates. Luke raised his glass.
‘To a lovely evening,’ he murmured, smouldering over his glass, eyebrows waggling.
Relieved he was playing it for laughs, I raised mine back in mock salute. ‘A lovely evening,’ I agreed with a grin.
‘Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say in this sort of joint?’ Luke’s eyes roved around incredulously, taking in the flickering candlelight, the napkins in the shape of swans, the throne-like chairs, the well-heeled couples chatting politely over aperitifs. He leaned in. ‘Then you’re supposed to ask me if I had a good day at the office,’ he hissed, ‘and I ask you how your day has gone. If you got the ironing done.’ He grinned and popped a large chunk of bread roll in his mouth, chewing hard. ‘How was it, anyway?’ he asked out of the side of his mouth, amidst a few crumbs.
My day was like all my days: hear Archie cry, get up, give him a bottle, get Clemmie out of my bed, where she’d been sleeping the last few nights, take her to school, put Archie down for a nap, collect Clemmie, entertain children, push push push that buggy, bed.
‘Oh, you know, pretty hectic as usual. Every day is different, which is so nice.’ I tried to sound breezy. ‘How about you?’ I was keen to turn the tables; didn’t want to talk about myself. Didn’t want to talk much at all, really. ‘D’you know, Luke, I’m not entirely sure I even know what you do. What exactly is re-insurance?’
‘Re-insurance?’ He looked surprised. ‘Oh God, it’s bollocks. You borrow a shed load of money, and then you lend it to someone, and then you borrow some more and lend it to someone else, and then it all comes back to you, and everyone takes a cut along the way. Pretty cynical, if you ask me, but am I bothered?’ He gave a dazzling smile as he chewed hard. ‘Not remotely!’
I laughed despite myself. No way would Phil have described his job in such derisory terms. No way would he have not wanted to sound important, either. But then, if I compared every man I met to Phil, they’d be bound to look good, wouldn’t they? I must stop using him as a sounding board.
‘I’m just a little cog in the wheel,’ Luke went on, popping in more bread. ‘A minion, who’s shunted from pillar to post rather like the cash. But who isn’t, in a financial organization these days? Unless you’re up there with the fat cats, you’re bound to be taking orders. Course, come the revolution, it’s guys like me who will rise up and give the management a run for their money.’ He tapped his chest. ‘The real workers.’
‘I thought Angie said you had your own business?’ I said without thinking, then realized it sounded as if we’d been talking about him, which of course we had. I blushed.
‘Did she?’ He looked up from buttering his bread, surprised. ‘Oh, well, I suppose I did start Parkers with some other guys, but no way do we own it. That’s just Chinese whispers got out of hand. No, as ever, there’s a brace of Ruperts at the top, typical old-school types, although my immediate boss, my particular cross to bear, is called Gary, who’s definitely comprehensive material. In fact my mum would have him down as secondary modern. Sweet man, he’s got a dotted line tattooed around his throat saying: Cut.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I am not. He’s a barrow boy made good. He had that pleasing feature adorned on his body on his eighteenth
