I asked.
‘When you like.’ She was expansive. ‘How about tonight?’
Mentally I surveyed the contents of my fridge. Olives and semi-skimmed milk would test the powers of the best TV chef. I put majesty into my voice: ‘All right, where?’
‘What do you want to eat?’
‘Italian?’ I ventured.
‘There’s a good Korean restaurant near here.’
‘I said Italian.’
‘I know you did.’
I wondered who had stood her up. I could hear the olives calling me, pathetically, tragically. The milk, I knew, was sour.
‘Chinese?’ I was willing to compromise. I always had been. There was silence. ‘I don’t want to eat Korean,’ I complained. ‘The only thing I like are those flowers carved out of carrots and turnips, and you can’t eat those.’
She sniffed.
‘Think Italian,’ I continued. ‘Think of red wine and garlic and crusty bread and a cheerful companion. We can go to that place on Upper Street and you can drive me home after.’
‘I’ll see you there at seven.’ I didn’t like her resigned tone of voice. ‘I’ll bring your brief,’ she added.
‘And your happy face,’ I pleaded. I put the phone down and said, ‘Damn.’ I’d been so close to getting through a phone call with Kay without whingeing. I began dabbing Tipp-Ex over the tea stains on the instructions to prepare Mrs Morris’s notice of appeal.
I always forget where Gino’s is and I got off the bus at the wrong stop just as it began to rain. When I arrived at the restaurant I was very wet. And late. I was not cheerful.
As I opened the door, warmth, candlelight and the smell of garlic embraced me.
‘Buona sera, signora,’ Gino bustled up, his hair a new alarming shade of aubergine. ‘Comment allez-vous? Very very wet, I see. Table for … ?’
I looked round the room. Kay was late too.
‘Two.’
‘And some vino tinto, signora? Asseyez-vous.’ He put me next to the huge open fireplace.
‘Yes.’ I was puzzled. Kay was never late. I sat down, absently giving Gino my dripping coat. My long black jacket, bought expensively from Ede & Ravenscroft, suppliers of wigs and robes to the legal profession, was wet too. I took it off and hung it on the back of the chair. My trousers would have to stay where they were. It was my favourite court outfit, and I was pleased I was wearing it when Kay suggested going out. I always liked how I looked in it, slick but professional. Except that at the moment I looked slick like a wet rodent looks slick. And so much for my fabulous new haircut – my lowlights had slid into my highlights and they all looked just wet. In the back of the spoon I could see spikes of my long fringe sticking damply to my forehead.
Perhaps her car had broken down in the rain, although that was unlikely. She always had a new car; being a successful solicitor, it was a business car. I was still driving my L-reg Renault. Not that I’m bitter, but she wouldn’t have got where she is today without me. I was the one who sat up with her at nights testing her on criminal procedure and client/solicitor relations. Huh!
Perhaps she hadn’t come because she’d had a better offer. She had done that to me before, but not for seven years, and she was meant to be bringing me my brief. Kay would never be unprofessional in that way, she’d never leave me without a brief. Although, as she had said, there was nothing in the brief. It would be merely a piece of white paper with a pink ribbon round it. My instructions would be: ‘Counsel will do her best.’
The red wine came. I ordered some garlic bread. To hell with what it did to my stomach.
She didn’t come.
It was eight o’clock. I didn’t have my mobile with me – I wondered whether I’d left it plugged into the charger – so Gino let me use the phone on the bar and I rang her office. The answerphone wasn’t on. I thought about ringing my flat to pick up my messages but I couldn’t remember my secret code number. I rang Kay’s home, she still lived in the small Victorian house in Stamford Hill which we had shared during our relationship, and left a concerned and only slightly irritated message. I ordered spaghetti à l’amatriciana and my clothes and my hair began to dry. The house red which Gino had poured solicitously into a large glass was soft and full and tasted almost as if I was in Italy. And as I sat, steaming gently by the fire, waiting for my pasta, I thought nostalgically back to me and Kay on our last holiday in a tent in Tuscany.
I had just passed my final exams – yes, OK, she had done her bit and had tested me on revenue and trusts – and she had just been taken on by a law centre in North London. We were both very pleased with ourselves and bursting with success and ambition. The weather in Tuscany was glorious and we visited wonderful cities and ate fabulous food. Then, on our last night, as we walked back to the tent after a silent meal in a small restaurant, she told me our relationship was over. As I stumbled along the grass verge trying to take in what she was saying, she told me she wanted her freedom. We both needed different things, she said, at this new time in our lives. We had had five good years and now we should move on. I assumed that she’d met someone she fancied at her interview.
Of course, the trouble with being on holiday in a tent is that you can’t put physical distance between you. We crept into our individual sleeping bags, but by the first light of day we were in each other’s arms for warmth. By the time we got to the airport we had reconciled, and we bought joint olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes in the duty-free shop. The relationship had limped along for another eighteen months until the night of the women’s sixties do when she had gone home with a woman who probably thought ‘Green Onions’ was something you threw out of your kitchen cupboard.
Gino brought me my pasta. ‘Everything OK, signora?’ he asked, concern filling his soft, round face.
I probably would have burst into tears but I took a mouthful of my food and nearly choked on the chilli.
‘Everything’s fine, great,’ I said, breathing in.
I drank almost the whole bottle of wine. Kay had still not appeared and I was worried.
I asked Gino if he could bring the bill and check again whether anyone had rung me. He went to confer with the chef and brought over my damp coat and the bill with a sad shake of his head.
It was still raining and cars hissed by me as I walked back to the tube. I felt peculiar and it wasn’t the effects of the alcohol or the mix of red wine, garlic bread and green salad. Upper Street was almost deserted and as I approached Highbury Corner, with the little alleyways leading off and the dark looming pub on the corner, the strangeness increased so that if anyone had asked me I would have said that I thought I was being followed. Just by the bus stops someone behind me coughed, but when I turned round there was no one there.
A taxi was passing on the other side of the street. I shouted at it, gesticulating, and narrowly avoided being crushed by a number 19 bus as I ran across the road.
The driver had to go some way in the wrong direction before he could turn off for Stoke Newington and I was pleased. When we got to the house I asked him to wait until I’d got
