Madagascar, Angouleme, Frittata, Morgan Freeman, Gerund, Mackerel, Holly Willoughby, Spatula, Bagpipes, Tintin… all these and many many more were mooted until they settled upon Pancake, Daisy (unwisely) revealing it would be easy to remember because it was her password, “for, like, everything.”
Antoni says, “I’m picturing one of those blond boys with too much hair from the perfume ads. A moody faraway stare, but you know what he’s really thinking about is chips.” The pastry chef was working abroad during Daisy’s relationship with the Golden N. This will be their first encounter.
“Fucking hell,” says Daisy, “my hands are shaking.”
They are. Her glass trembles on its way to her lips. Antoni tries to lighten the mood by talking about a comedian he watched on the TV the night before.
“He said, My brain knows when a wig has come into the room before I do.”
“That’s extremely true.”
“You always know.”
“Did I say extremely true? I’m gibbering, Ant!”
“Listen. I have news. I’m writing a mystery novel,” he says. “Or am I?”
“A cake-based mystery. It’ll be brilliant. Murder by Cake.”
“It was a joke! Jesus. But I like that title!”
“Death Came to Battenberg. The Lemon Drizzle Affair.”
“All a Bit Rum Baba.”
There is nervy giggling. And then—as when a wig enters a room—her fitness tracker reports a sudden spike half a second before she clocks him and the smile falls from her face. In three strides he is at their table.
“Daisy Parsloe. I’d know you anywhere.”
She stands up. Sits down again. Offers a hand. Seems flustered. Introductions are effected.
Nicky smiles. Even in the murky shots from the pub CCTV, the teeth are sensationally white.
“What will you guys have?”
When Nicky goes to the bar, Daisy drains the rest of her G and T.
“I’m as nervous as a kitten,” she hisses to Antoni.
“I’m catching it off you; I’m as limp as a vicar’s handshake.”
While he is being served, the pair take the opportunity to study the long-lost golden figure; as do I. Desert boots, skinny jeans, brown canvas jacket with many pockets, skier’s buff. From the camera over the optics, blue eyes flick in a narrow English face darkened and creased by its years in the sun. In the mirror behind the bottles, he fixes a straggly piece of pale hair and fires a blazing grin at the barmaid.
“Cheers!” they clink collectively on his return.
“God, I miss the old place,” says Nicky after a deep dive into his pint of London Pride. “Wales is lovely and everything, but all the conversations are about rainfall. Or what’s been stolen from whose yard.”
He begins rolling a cigarette from a battered leather tobacco pouch, nicotine-stained fingers adroitly doing the business with the impedimenta.
“You never used to smoke,” says Daisy, a bit of an edge in her voice.
Nicky sends his crinkly-eyed beam to all corners of the lounge bar.
“I only do free-range tobacco.”
He tucks the slim cheroot behind an ear and turns his gaze upon Daisy.
“I want to hear all about you.”
“Pulse rate is through the roof,” says the fitness tracker, who we have asked to sit in on the encounter.
Daisy—and I never thought I would write this sentence—is struck dumb. But Antoni, trouper that he is, rides in to the rescue.
“But we want to hear all about you! Especially about the sea pirates and the teeth!”
A flicker of irritation from The Man Who Never Was (in the eyes of a well-known financial institution). But he knows he has to be nice to Daisy’s friend, and so embarks upon a long, colorful and highly fictitious account of a journey through the Arabian Sea into the Indian Ocean, where Somali pirates attacked the ship, robbed the passengers and badly beat selected members of the cast. As he warms to his narrative, Daisy visibly begins to relax, the knuckles of her left hand un-whitening, something close to a smile breaking out on her notably wide face.
“My mistake,” says Nicky, “was getting a bit pompous and using the phrase Her Majesty’s Government. They were high on khat, of course, and HMG doesn’t cut a lot of ice in those latitudes, as I found out to my cost.”
Comically, he bares the gnashers.
“They come in useful finding my way home in the dark.”
There is something insidiously likable about him; charming, articulate, and still handsome in a life-bashed sort of way. Okay, he’s gone a bit off-grid at the edges, if I may put it like that, but even a fridge-freezer can sense his appeal to someone like Daisy, who, like her namesake the flower, is capable of being blown four ways before breakfast. I sense danger.
“You still want me to email you that pancake recipe?” says Antoni, draining his drink.
Daisy smiles. “Thanks. Maybe catch up next week.”
Released from any further part in the scene, Antoni brushes cheekbones with Daisy and goes in for a manly handshake with the visitor.
“Great to meet you, Antoni,” says Nicky, gripping the pastry chef’s right hand and firing up a presidential candidate smile. “I hope we’ll be seeing you again.”
Antoni says, “Enchanté,” and does a funny walk toward the exit, pouting comedically over his shoulder before vanishing into the street.
Finally, the lovers—ex-lovers—are alone in their golden bubble.
“Anyone else have a bad feeling about this?” I ask.
Nicky has been “explaining” that he has been something of a “gadfly” since they were last in contact. The financial world wasn’t for him, he recounts. There was a lot of travel, especially in the East, where he played with spirituality. “I even thought I might become a Buddhist,” he says (apparently truthfully).
“Why couldn’t I find you on the internet?” asks Daisy.
“Were you looking?”
“Just occasionally.”
He taps the side of his nose.
“You had a nose operation?”
“I’ve signed the Official Secrets Act, I’m afraid.”
“Shut. Up!”
“Can’t really talk about it.”
“You’re a spy?”
“It’s a long story. You’re familiar with the phrase work of vital national importance…?”
Can you believe the fellow? Is she actually buying this absolute crock of
