Odd Socks (24 page)

‘Well, I'm not sure, I –'

‘See? Like, that's
exactly
the reason I wanted to stay here for a bit.' Bronte jumps up and heads over to the foyer, where she starts putting the pram together. I finish off my coffee and get up to carry it, and my plate, to the kitchen sink. I rinse out the mug and the plunger then sit them on the bench ready for my second cup.

‘Another coffee, Bronte?'

‘No, haven't finished this one yet.' Bronte comes back in, pushing a navy-blue pram with a sparkling silver framework and enormous wheels. She parks it next to the capsule and, bending down, lifts Sherry up gently and deposits her within. Then she covers the baby warmly and rocks the pram until she
settles again. While she is occupied, I turn the kettle back on and then sit at the table with my pad and pen.

‘There we go.' Bronte leaves the pram and joins me. She grins. ‘Still making your lists?'

‘Of course.' I pick up the pen and start writing. ‘Your father's coming for lunch today, did you know?'

‘Yeah, he rang yesterday. He said you were, like, cooking something special?'

‘Fat chance.' I glance at the microwave clock. ‘Actually, you could give him a ring and tell him to bring lunch with him. For all of us.'

‘Cool.' Bronte drains her mug. ‘I'll get him to bring pizza. So did you want me to do anything else this morning, Mum?'

‘No, all taken care of.'

‘Great. Then I'm off to play on the computer.' Bronte pushes her chair back and heads upstairs, leaving the pram parked beside the table. I look at it with interest. Does that mean I'm in charge? Well, there's not a peep coming from that direction so I turn to my list and start to put it together.

I come out of my fuguelike trance and stare down at what I've written with open-mouthed amazement. Where did all
that
come from? The last thing I remember was writing about the library function and then tapping my pen on the table as I idly wondered who would be there. Next thing I know, I've zoned into an artistic fifth dimension where the pen moves of its own free will! Maybe this is what Joanne was referring to when she was carrying on about leaving her body. I look again at what I've written and grimace.

‘Mum! The kettle's boiling!' Bronte ducks into the kitchen, turns the kettle off and looks at me accusingly. ‘And, like, it's boiled totally dry!'

‘Hell.' I rip my piece of paper off the pad and screw it up. ‘I didn't notice.'

‘No kidding.' Bronte gingerly lifts the kettle off the stove and puts it on the sink. ‘I think you'll have to let it cool down for a while.'

I wait at the table while she fills a glass with water and then, with a wry grin at me and a cursory glance at her daughter, takes it back upstairs with her. After she leaves, I get up and cross over to the sink with my scrunched-up piece of paper still in my hand. I smooth it out, re-read it, and then use the gaslighter from the stove to set it alight. I watch the edges burst into flame and then curl in on themselves as they blacken and crumble. The glow creeps towards the centre and I drop the burning paper into the sink just before it is totally engulfed. It sizzles when it hits and then the blackened ashes break apart and scatter themselves across the damp metallic surface.

Flaming hell.

‘Hey, listen to this, Dennis.' I start reading from the gilt-edged menu before me: ‘A pastille of salmon pate peeks coquettishly between a fan of sensitively cooked slivers of lobster and fibres of crystallised seaweed.'

‘Sounds delicious,' replies Dennis as he tucks the bunny-rug a little closer around Sherry and readjusts her on his lap.

‘I bet the lobster didn't think it was all that sensitive.'

‘Still sounds delicious.'

‘Have you always been such a pretentious prat?'

‘Yep – you just never noticed,' replies Dennis equably as he tops up each of our glasses with white wine. He is dressed in his usual conservative fashion: a light-grey suit with a deep-blue shirt and matching tie. It's a style that flatters his large frame and almost conceals the few extra kilos that he's carrying nowadays. But, all things considered, he's ageing quite gracefully. A few years older than me, he isn't particularly jowly or wrinkly and still has a full head of sandy hair that's showing no intention of receding in the near future.

‘Why'd we have to come here, anyway?' Bronte looks around the restaurant disparagingly. ‘Like, I left a message for you to bring pizza and some wine over to our place.'

‘But when I heard your mother didn't want to cook, I thought I'd take you out for a treat. And this is a great place!'

‘You didn't
take
us out,' Bronte mutters, playing with a corner of the discarded menu. ‘I had to drive here myself!'

‘Well,
I
could have driven,' I comment righteously. ‘I did offer.'

‘Yeah, right.' Bronte rolls her eyes.

Dennis winks at Bronte, probably in an attempt to cheer her up, but it has little effect. ‘Besides – pizza and wine! You
must get that from your mother's side. Tell me, love, exactly what wine would you choose to go with pizza?'

‘When you haven't been able to drink for nine months,' replies Bronte smartly, ‘any wine'll do.'

‘Definitely from your side,' Dennis says to me as he lifts his glass and holds it up to the light before taking a sip. ‘Mmm, delicious.'

‘And no more for me, Dad, because I'm breastfeeding.'

‘Fine, love.' Dennis grins at Bronte before tickling Sherry under the folds of her chin. ‘And I'll just have to take it upon myself to train you to appreciate the finer things in life, won't I, precious?'

Precious doesn't answer, choosing instead to yawn wetly and then squint her slate-coloured eyes at her grandfather. Her head flops to one side as if she can't quite believe what she's seeing. I don't much blame her.

‘Dad,' says Bronte, reaching over to straighten her daughter out, ‘watch her head, she needs support.'

‘Sorry, love.'

A ridiculously cheerful young waitress bounces over to our table to deliver the meals. She gets the order right first time and departs with a smile that shows more teeth than seems humanly possible. But the food smells delicious. Angel-hair pasta draped with a chicken sauce for me, chicken schnitzel for Bronte, and medallions of something brown and glutinous with a pasta salad for him. No sensitive lobster or coquettish pate to be seen.

‘Great teeth,' comments Dennis, watching the waitress leave. ‘Not bad at all.'

‘Are we still talking about the teeth?' I ask sweetly.

‘Of course. And how about some of my pasta, you adorable little thing, you?' Dennis tucks Sherry in a little more securely so that he can eat around her. ‘Do you like pasta?'

‘Dennis, don't feed her pasta.'

‘What about peas then, my little sweet-pea? Do you like peas?'

‘Dennis, don't feed her peas.'

‘How about Grandma's pasta then – angel-hair pasta for an angel-haired girl.'

‘Dennis, don't feed her angel-hair pasta, don't call me Grandma, and look, she doesn't
have
any hair.'

‘Okay, what
can
I feed her then?'

‘Nothing! She's a baby, you dork!'

‘Now that's what I call a bummer,' Dennis coos down into Sherry's face, and she responds by blowing several saliva bubbles in his general direction. In deference to the occasion, Bronte has changed her into an orange and white polka-dotted pair of cotton rompers and a matching skivvy. Unfortunately, Bronte did not extend the same courtesy to herself and is still clad in the jeans and windcheater she had on earlier. I, on the other hand, have dressed to kill, with my waterfall hairstyle set off by gold-hoop earrings, a low-cut peasant blouse and snug black jeans. I've even disguised the smell of Dencorub with a liberal amount of perfume. Because, although the last thing I want is a rekindling of intimate relations between us, that certainly doesn't mean I don't want
him
to want a rekindling of intimate relations between us. I think that's a rule of thumb when any female is meeting with an ex. Especially when the ex in question spent the latter half of the relationship propositioning anything wearing a skirt. Or not.

Like most females, Sherry has quickly fallen for Dennis's rather superficial charms. He's got a way about him that makes whoever he's with at the time feel very, very special and, if there's one thing women of all ages love, it's being made to feel very, very special.

‘So, Bronte –' Dennis turns to his daughter ‘– how's it feel being a mother?'

‘Cool, actually.' Bronte brightens for the first time since we got here.

‘No regrets?'

‘None at all,' says Bronte emphatically, no doubt remembering the grilling she went through when we found out about the pregnancy. ‘Like, no–none at all.'

‘Well, that's good anyway.' Dennis looks at his daughter impassively for a minute or two before turning to me. ‘And how are things these days for you, Terry? You're looking well, I must say.'

‘Why, thank you.' I pause as I swallow my pasta and replenish my fork. ‘How kind of you to notice.'

‘It's hard not to,' replies Dennis as he leers at my peasant-shirted cleavage. ‘You have obvious assets.'

‘Gross, Dad!' says Bronte, putting her cutlery down in disgust.

‘Don't be a pig, Dennis.' I unload the fork into my mouth and savour the taste of the creamy pasta sauce. ‘It's terribly old-fashioned.'

‘Okay,' he laughs good-naturedly as he tickles Sherry again. ‘So, still got that Fergus hanging around?'

‘Of course I have,' I reply defensively. ‘Why wouldn't I?'

‘Let's see – holidays are over and he's back in school?'

‘It's holidays now, you pillock.' I note with disappointment that I've almost finished the entire contents of my plate. And I'm still
very
hungry.

‘Oh! So he
is
on school holidays then?'

‘That's not what I meant and you know it.'

‘Well, kick up your heels – enjoy. You go, girl.'

‘Fergus is okay,' says Bronte with a frown at her father. ‘Better than some.'

Dennis laughs and I glare at him across the table but he busies himself with trying to keep Sherry still while he butters
a roll one-handed. I take a sip of wine and wish, not for the first time, that I'd never introduced Fergus to Dennis. Ever since, I've had to put up with smart cracks about his age, his height, his accent, and especially his taste in clothes. I wonder what Dennis would have to say if I turned up with someone like Richard on my arm? Anyway, it's just so damn hypocritical.

‘You've got such double standards, Dennis. You spend most of your waking hours drooling over blondes half your age and making a total idiot of yourself – but when
I
do it, well, that's totally different, isn't it?'

‘Actually, yes, it is.' Dennis looks at Bronte quickly before smiling at me like the cat that's got the proverbial cream. ‘It's a man's world, my love. And a successful older guy with a good-looking young woman on his arm isn't going to raise eyebrows like a good-looking older woman with a pink-clad little handyman just out of grade school. It might be double standards but it's also life – face it.'

‘Oh, shut
up
, Dennis.'

We sit there in non-companionable silence while Bronte picks at her food, Dennis finishes off his roll and I occupy myself by imagining how he would cope if someone did a Lorena Bobbit on him. It doesn't help that I know Dennis has a point. I mop up the remainder of my pasta sauce with half a bread roll and then glance over at Dennis's pasta salad and indistinguishable lumps of meat. I wonder if he is going to eat it before it goes cold.

‘I wonder if you're going to eat that before it goes cold?'

‘Well, I would if I could manage. As you're finished, why don't you take bubs here and I'll have something to eat.' So saying, he gently hoists Sherry up and passes her around the table to me. ‘Ah, that's better. I suppose she's too little for a highchair but why didn't you bring the pram? We could have propped her in there while we ate.'

‘I didn't think of it,' replies Bronte as she pushes the vast majority of her vegetables off to the side. ‘Because, like, I didn't realise we were going out till the last minute, you know.'

‘Well then, what about the capsule? You must have it in the car.'

‘Of course I do. But it's bad for her back.' Bronte turns away from her father to look at me. ‘Do you want me to take her, Mum?'

‘No, wait till you've finished eating.' I readjust Sherry and tuck her into the crook of one arm. Then I concentrate on mopping up the remains of my chicken sauce with the remains of my bread roll. I've got to say, for a place specialising in pasta dishes, they're a tad skimpy with the actual pasta. Instead it looks like they have spent this month's food budget on dental work for the waitresses – every single one of them is walking around beaming as if she has had surgical implants. Perhaps Dennis was here.