down? Why don’t you calm down, you spoiled bitch!’ Lali snatched her coat and turned for the door.
Vic called out and walked a few steps in pursuit of her, but she was moving too fast. ‘Lali,’ he shouted after her as she walked out. ‘What do you want me to do here?’ She wasn’t hearing anyone.
Orla, standing behind him, let an involuntary sigh. Confounded, they both watched as Lali faded away among the dim street lights, passed over the road and flitted in and out between telephone poles and the foliage of thinly erect roadside trees.
Vic was left embarrassed and angered. And flummoxed. ‘Sorry, Orla,’ he said, again, as Geoff appeared in the doorway behind her, a look of sympathy and understanding on his face. ‘Sorry about that, Geoff. Too much to drink, maybe. I’m going to go.’
The Sunday came and went. Vic refused to call her. Then Monday arrived and he was distracted by work, purposely leaving his phone in his locker. Out of sight. But still, by the end of the day, there was nothing from Lali, not a missed call or a text message. He became angrier as Monday evening developed but remained steadfast in his refusal to break the deadlock.
By Tuesday lunchtime he was feeling hurt to think that as easy as that she could walk away and he left school early, for a fictional dentist’s appointment, to travel into Greenwich. He wanted confrontation. Wanted his say.
Standing as tall and certain as possible, he entered Rococo’s with the possibility of definitive ending on his mind. Donna came to the counter.
‘She’s not here,’ Donna began.
‘When will she back?’
‘I think you’d know that if she wanted you to.’
‘So she’s not in today?’
‘No.’
‘Tomorrow?’ he asked. Donna looked at Vic, pofacedly. ‘We had a fight. I want to talk to her,’ he said.
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Donna!’
‘She’s not here.’
He was planted on the path outside when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Aldo had come out after him. ‘We haven’t seen her since early Sunday, Vic. She opened up, made up the week’s roster and called Donna. It happens.’
‘Was she upset?’
‘She looked rough. But she was okay.’
‘Okay, Aldo. Thanks. When she turns up, can you tell her I was looking for her.’
Over the next two days the stated roughness of Lali’s appearance and Aldo’s ominous declaration that, ‘It happens,’ combined to complicate Vic’s instinctive response to her disappearance. Gradually, concern came to outweigh anger. He left several voice messages on her phone. He texted her a dozen times. If her decision was for them to cease being, he confided to her answering service, then so be it, but he’d like to know that she was okay.
By Thursday evening he could think of nothing else but Lali, and when her phone didn’t ring out but instead was interrupted by her voice, he was completely at a loss. When she spoke, it was plain and unaffected. Not her, somehow. As if somebody else had come back in her stead, armed only with her accent.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked. ‘Of course.’
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