Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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London SE1 9GF

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Mhairi McFarlane 2019

Cover design: Holly MacDonald © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover illustrations © Abbey Lossing

Mhairi McFarlane asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008169336

Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008169329

Version: 2018-10-30

Dedication

For my niece, Sylvie

A small superhero

Epigraph

Love’s strange so real in the dark

Think of the tender things that we were working on

Simple Minds

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Then

Chapter 1: Now

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Mhairi McFarlane

About the Publisher

Then
Tapton School, Sheffield, 2007

‘You loved me – then what right had you to leave me? Because … nothing God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart – you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.’

My most truculent fellow pupil, David Marsden, looked up and wiped his chin on his sleeve. He had given Emily Brontë’s Gothic novel the emotion of reading from the menu at Pizza Hut. As a teenage male, it was important you kept it monotonous to avoid allegations from other teenage males of being a massive bender.

The room was muggy with that syrupy heat you get as you near high summer, the sort where your clothes feel grubby by midday. In our squat box of a Sixties building, the windows heaved halfway up as poor man’s air con, we could hear the liveliness of the school field in the distance.

‘Thank you, David,’ said Mrs Pemberton, as he closed his paperback. ‘What do we think Heathcliff means in this passage?’

‘He’s nowty again because he’s not getting any,’ said Richard Hardy, and we guffawed, not just as it delayed proper academic discussion, but because the person making the joke was Richard Hardy.

There was some muttering but no proper answers. It was six weeks to the final exams and the mood was a febrile stew of excitement at imminent freedom and a bottleneck of panic about the reckoning that awaited. The tortured inhabitants of these pages were starting to get on our nerves. Try getting some real problems, like ours.

‘“Then what right had you to leave me” is a bit creepy, isn’t it,’ I said, if no one else was going to break the lengthening silence. Mrs Pemberton could get testy if they ran on, and make the homework bigger. ‘I mean, the idea Cathy had to stay with him or she deserves to be unhappy is a bit … ugh.’

‘Interesting. So you don’t think Heathcliff is justified in saying that by denying her feelings, she ruined both their lives?’

‘Well,’ I took a breath, ‘it’s the thing about how her love for Heathcliff is like the rocks underneath, constant, but gives her no pleasure,’ I say this in a rush due to the inevitable mirth at the word ‘pleasure’. ‘It doesn’t sound like it was going to be much fun? It’s all about her obligation to him.’

‘Perhaps then the love they share isn’t conventionally romantic but deep and elemental?’

‘It’s mental, alright,’ said a male voice. I glanced over and Richard Hardy winked at me. My heart rate bumped.

My teacher had an annoying way of taking me seriously and making me do actual thinking. She once kept me back and told me: ‘You play down your intelligence to enhance your standing with your peers. There’s a big wide world outside these walls, Georgina Horspool, and exam grades will get you further than their laughter. Pretty faces grow old too, you know.’

I was furious afterwards, the kind of fury you reserve for people who accuse you of something that’s absolutely true. (I was quite pleased at the ‘pretty face’ bit though. I didn’t think I was pretty, and I wouldn’t be old for ages.)

A murmur of chatter spread around the class, and the air was thick with no one caring about Wuthering Heights.

Mrs Pemberton, sensing this fatal straying of attention from the text, dropped her bombshell.

‘I’ve decided you’re going to change places. I don’t think sitting with friends is doing concentration in this room many favours.’

She started going from desk to desk, swapping one in for one out, amid much grumbling. I was convinced I could smart mouth my way out of this.

‘Joanna, you can stay put, and Georgina, you’re at the front.’

‘What?! Why?’

Obviously the front row was reserved for the problematic, lazy, or outcasts – this was deeply unjust.

The seating layout respected invisible but rigid castes: swots and oddities at the front. Averagely well likeds, who worked for good approval ratings, like myself and Jo, in the middle. At the back, the super cool girls and boys, like Richard Hardy, Alexandra Caister, Daniel Horton and Katy Reed. Rumour had it that Richard and Alexandra were kind of seeing each other but also kind of not, because they were cool.

‘Come on. Shift.’

‘Aw, miss!’

I got up with a sigh and slung my pens in my bag at a speed that emphasised my reluctance.

‘Here you are. I’m sure Lucas will be glad to have you,’ Mrs Pemberton said, pointing. There was no need for that phrasing, which caused a ripple of sniggers.

Lucas McCarthy. An unknown, who kept himself to himself, like all future murderers. Not social contagion, but not who I would’ve chosen.

He was lean, with a pointed chin; it gave him a slightly underfed look. He was Irish, signalled by the scruffy-short tar-black hair and pale skin. Some wags called him Gerry Adams, but not to his face because apparently his older brother was nails.

Lucas was looking up at me, warily, with dark, serious eyes. I was taken aback by how easily I could read his startled apprehension. Would I make any disgust towards him humiliatingly public? Was this going to be harrowing? Did he need to brace?

In seeing his concern, I suddenly saw myself. I felt bad that I was the kind of person he’d fear that from.

‘Sorry to foist on you,’ I said, as I dropped down into my chair, and felt the tension ease by a millimetre. (I liked to use elevated vocabulary but in an ironic, throwaway manner, in case everyone thought I was trying to show off. Mrs Pemberton so had my number.)

‘Here’s your question to work on together until the end of the lesson, and we’ll discuss your joint findings on Friday: is Wuthering Heights about love? And if so, what kind? Nominate a note taker,’ Mrs Pemberton said.

Lucas and I gave each other uneasy smiles.

‘You’re the thinker so I best be the writer,’ Lucas said, scrawling the topic across a sheet of lined A4.

‘Am I? Thanks.’

I smiled again, encouragingly. I saw Lucas brighten. I rifled my memory bank for any stray useful fact about him. He’d only turned up in sixth form, partly why he was someone out on the periphery of things.

He always wore the same dark t-shirts with half faded-out pictures on them, transfers that had fragmented and splintered in the wash, and three red and blue pieces of string as bracelets. I recall some of the boys calling him ‘the gypsy’ for that. (But not to his face, because his older brother was nails.) In the common room, he often sat by himself, reading music magazines, Dr Marten boot-clad foot balanced on knee.

‘I agree with you about Heathcliff. He’s a werewolf more than a person, isn’t he?’ he said.

I realised I’d spent two years in the same building as Lucas, the same rooms as him, and we’d had never had a conversation before. He spoke softly, with a slight Irish lilt. I vaguely expected a local accent. I’d paid him no attention whatsoever.

‘Yeah! Like a big angry dog.’

Lucas smiled at me and wrote.

‘I don’t know, it annoys me Cathy has to take the blame for the whole story,’ I said. ‘She makes one wrong decision and everything goes to shit for generations.’

‘I suppose if she makes the right decision there isn’t much of a plot?’

I laughed. ‘True. Then it’d just be Meet The Heathcliffs. Wait, if Heathcliff is his surname, what’s his first name?’

‘I think he has one name. Like Morrissey.’

‘Or he could be Heathcliff Heathcliff.’

‘No wonder he’s pissed off.’

I laughed. I realised: Lucas wasn’t quiet because he was dull. He watched and listened instead. He was like opening a plain wooden box and finding a stash of valuables inside. Was he plain? I reconsidered.

‘It’s not her decision though …’ Lucas said, haltingly, still testing out the ground between us. ‘I mean, isn’t it the fault of money and class and that, not her? She thinks she’s too good for him but she’s been made to think that by the Lintons. They grow up differently, after that accident with the dog. Maybe it’s all the dog’s fault.’

He chewed his biro and gave me a guarded smile. Something and everything had changed. I didn’t know yet that small moments can be incredibly large.

‘Yes. So it’s about how love is destroyed by …’ – I wanted to impress – ‘… an unhospitable environment.’

‘Is it destroyed though? She’s still haunting him as a ghost years later. I’d say it carried on, in a different form.’

‘But a twisted, bitter, no hope form, full of anger and blame, where he can’t touch her any more?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘Sounds like my parents.’

I’d told jokes with some success in the past, but I don’t think I’d ever been so elated to see someone crack up. I remember noticing how white Lucas’s teeth were, and that I’d never seen his mouth open wide enough to see them before.

That was how it began, but it began-began with four words, three lessons later.

They were printed on lined A4, at the end of shared essays on ‘the role of the supernatural’. We had to swap the folder back and forth, annotating it, straining with the effort of impressing each other.

I had a second’s confusion as my sight settled on the rogue sentence, then a warmth swept up my neck and down my arms.

I love your laugh. X

It was there, in Bic blue, an unexpected page footer. It was so casual, I’d almost missed it. Why didn’t he text me? (We’d exchanged numbers, in case pressing, Brontë-related questions arose.) I knew why. A direct message was unequivocal. This could be denied if necessary.

So it was mutual, this newfound obsession with the company of Lucas McCarthy. I’d never had a spark like this before, and certainly not with a male, whose skin, I’d noticed, was like the inside of a seashell.

I’d gone from not noticing Lucas ever to being consumed by noticing him constantly. I developed the sensory awareness of an apex predator: at any time I could tell you where Lucas was in the common room, without you ever seeing my eyes flicker toward him.

Eventually, I had printed shakily underneath:

I love yours too. X

I handed the folder back to Lucas at the end of the next lesson, our eyes darting guiltily towards each other and away again. When it was once more in my possession, that page had gone missing.

I didn’t know what falling love felt like, I’d never done it before. I discovered you recognise it easily when it arrives.

We found every excuse to revise, out of hours, and the weather meant we could use the excuse of meeting outdoors, in the Botanical Gardens.

We were going on dates, but the revision aids strewn around the grass provided a fig leaf. Truly, I could’ve hugged Mrs Pemberton.

At first, we talked incessantly, devouring information. His life in Dublin, our families, our plans for the future, favourite music, films, books. This dark, serious, laconic Irish boy was an ongoing surprise. He put nothing on show, you had to find it out for yourself: not the deadpan quick humour, not the good looks he could’ve worn conspicuously simply by walking tall, not the sharp intelligence. He was self-contained. By contrast, I felt uncontained.

When I spoke, he concentrated on me intently. Through Lucas’s fascination, I saw myself differently. I was worthy. I didn’t have to try so hard.

The third time we met, in about five days, Lucas leaned over to whisper something in my ear about a group nearby, and I shivered. It was a ruse, he didn’t need to get so close, and I felt us move up a gear.

Lucas said, as he tentatively smoothed the wisps from my ponytail back into place: ‘Is your hair real?’

We collapsed in hysterics.

‘Is that the real colour! Colour! That’s what I meant. Ah, God …’

I wiped tears away. ‘Yes this wig is my real colour. I get my wiggist to match them up.’

Lucas said, unguarded and weak from the mirth: ‘It’s beautiful.’

We both gulped and looked at each other heavily and that was it, we were kissing.

After that, we started revising every day. Barrier broken with that kiss, our feelings spilled out more each time we met. Secrets were whispered between us, fears and desires, the risky intimacies piled up. He had a pet name for me. I had never been seen like this before. I had never dared to be seen like this before.

Before I met Lucas, my body had been something to angst over and regret: not thin enough, chest too big, thighs too much in contact. When grappling with him, I learned to love it. Despite being fully clothed, I couldn’t miss the dramatic effect it had on him: the heat between us, his heart rate, our rapid breathing. I pushed myself against him so I could feel the lump in his jeans and think: I caused that. The thought of being some place private where we could properly clash pelvises was almost too thrilling for me to contemplate.

We kept it all a secret. I don’t quite know why, there was no moment we agreed to it. It was simply an understanding.

There was still this giant ridiculous stigma at school about anybody getting together with anyone. I couldn’t face the whooping and applause in the corridors, the nudging, the smirking, the questions about what we’d done that would make both our faces burn. And I knew I’d get teased, more so than him. For lads, a notch was a notch, and, brutally, I was well liked and Lucas wasn’t. The boys would caw and mock and the girls would say ‘ewwww?’

It was much easier to wait, because soon the captivity, school and its cruel rules, would be over.

It’s factually accurate to say the first male to see my outfit for the leavers’ party was stunned, and his jaw dropped. Sadly, he was eight years old, and a right little toerag.

As I stepped out into the balmy early evening, dolled not up to the nines but the tens, the next-door neighbour’s son was flipping the door knocker to be let in, using the tattered stick of the ice pop he’d been gnawing on. His mouth was dyed alien-raspberry.

‘Why is your face so bright?’ he said, which could sound like he’d correctly assessed my mood, but he meant the sixty-eight cosmetics I’d plastered myself with.

‘Piss off, Willard,’ I said, jovially. ‘Look at the state of yours.’

‘I can see your boobies!’ he added, and darted indoors before I could cuff him.

I adjusted my dress and fretted that Willard – despite being no Vogue intern himself, in his Elmo sweatshirt – was right, it was too much. It was deep scarlet with a sweetheart neckline that was quite low cut, and I had the kind of bosoms that tended to assert themselves. I’d been distracted getting ready because it was the first time in my life I’d put on underwear knowing I wouldn’t be the person taking it off. The thought gave me vertigo.

Lucas and I were on a promise. As clothed make-out sessions became almost as frustrating as they were exciting, I had suggested to him that we could stay over together ‘in town’ after the sixth form prom. I acted casual, as if this was an obvious thing to do. Even tried to play it off as something I might’ve done before. I didn’t know if he had.

‘Sure,’ he’d said, with a look and a smile that got me right in the heart and groin.

I was so excited I was almost floating: I know the exact day I’m going to lose my virginity, and it’s going to be with him.

I’d gone to the Holiday Inn earlier that day, checked in, left some things, gazed at the double bed in wonder, come back and reminded my indifferent parents I was staying at Jo’s. Luckily my sister was away, as Esther could smell a fib of mine a mile off.

The party was in a plastic shamrock Irish pub in the city centre, a function room with a trestle table full of beige food and troughs of cheap booze in plastic bins, filled to the brim with ice that would soon melt into a swamp.

It was strange, both Lucas and I being there, knowing the intimacy that was planned afterwards, but pretending to be distant to each other. I caught sight of him across the room, in a black corduroy shirt, sipping from a can of lager. We shared an imperceptible nod.

Up until now, keeping our involvement to ourselves had felt pragmatic. Tonight though, it finally felt off. What was there to hide? Did it imply shame, whether we meant it to or not? Would he rather have been open? Was it an insult he had tacitly accepted?

I was a little anguished, but we’d set a course we had to sail now. I could raise it later. Later. I could barely believe it’d arrive. My head swam.

I was drinking cider and black, too fast: I could feel my inhibitions dissolving in its acidic fizzle. Richard – now, Rick, I’d learned – Hardy said: ‘You look fit.’ I quivered, murmured thanks. ‘Like a high class prozzy with a heart of gold. That’s your “look”, right?’

‘Hahaha,’ I said, while everyone fell about. This was grown-up banter and I was lucky to be part of it.

As the evening wore on, I felt like I was in a circle of light and laughter, among the halo-ed ones, and I didn’t know why I’d underestimated myself until now. I mean, OK I was inebriated, but suddenly, being liked seemed a total cinch.

Jo and I shared a wondering look with each other: could school really be over? We’d survived? And we were going out on a high?

‘Hey, George.’

Rick Hardy beckoned me over. He was calling me George, now?! Oh, I had truly cracked this thing. He was leaning against a wall by a bin of tins, with the usual gaggle of sycophants around him. Rumours were he wasn’t going to bother with university: his band was getting ‘big label interest’.

‘I want to show you something,’ he said.

‘OK.’

‘Not here.’

Rick unstuck himself from the wall in one sinuous, nascent rock star move, and handed his drink to an admirer. He outstretched a palm and gestured for mine – I could feel multiple pairs of eyes swivel towards us – and said: ‘Come with me.’

In surprise, I put my drink down with a bump, put my hand into his and let him lead me through the throng. My bets were on either a new car or a large spliff. I could style either out.

I glanced over at Lucas to reassure him this wasn’t anything, obviously. He gave me the exact same look as when I’d first been sat next to him.

How badly are you going to hurt me?

1
Now

‘And the soup today is carrot and tomato,’ I conclude, with a perky note of ta-dah! flourish that orange soup doesn’t justify.

(‘Is carrot and tomato soup even a thing?’ I said to head chef Tony, as he poked a spoon into a cauldron bubbling with ripe vegetal odours. ‘It is now, Tinkerbell tits.’ I don’t think Tony graduated from the Roux Academy. Or the charm academy.)

In truth, I put a bit of flair into the performance for my own sake, not the customers’. I am not merely a waitress, I’m a spy from the world of words, gathering material. I watch myself from the outside.

The disgruntled middle manager-type man with a depressed-looking wife scans the laminated options at That’s Amore! The menu is decorated with clip art of the leaning tower of Pisa, a fork twirling earthworms, and a Pavarotti who looks like the Sasquatch having a stroke.

He booked as Mr Keith, which sounded funny to me although there’s an actress called Penelope Keith so it shouldn’t really.

‘Carrot and tomato? Oh no. No, I don’t think so.’

Me either.

‘What do you recommend?’

I hate this question. An invitation to perjury. Tony has told me: ‘Push spaghetti vongole on the specials, the clams aren’t looking too clever.’

What I recommend is the Turkish place, about five minutes away.

‘How about the arrabiata?’

‘Is that spicy? I don’t like heat.’

‘Slightly spicy but quite mild, really.’

‘What’s mild to you might not be mild to me, young lady!’

‘Why ask for my recommendations then?’ I mutter, under my breath.

‘What?’

I grit-simper. An important skill to master, the grit-simper. I bend down slightly, hands on knees, supplicant.

‘… Tell me what you like.’

‘I like risotto.’

Maybe you could just choose the risotto then, am I over thinking this?

‘… But it’s seafood,’ he grimaces. ‘Which seafood is it?’

It’s in Tupperware with SEA FOOD marker penned on it and looks like stuff you get as bait in angling shops.

‘A mixture. Clams … prawns … mussels …’

I take the order for carbonara with a sinking heart. This man has Strident Feedback written all over him and this place gives both the discerning and the undiscerning diner plenty to go at.

Here’s what some of TripAdvisor’s current top-rated comments say about That’s Amore!

This place redefines dismal. The garlic bread was like someone found a way to put bad breath on toast, though they’re right, it did complement the pâté perfectly, which tasted like it had been made from a seafront donkey. The house white is Satan’s sweat. I saw a chef who looked like a dead Bee Gee scratching his crown jewels when the door to the kitchen was ajar, so I left before they could inflict the main course on me. Sadly, I will never know if the Veal Scallopini would’ve turned it all around. But the waiter promised me everything was ‘locally sourced and free range’ so there’s probably a Missing Cat poster somewhere nearby if you follow my drift

Admittedly I was stoned out of my gourd on my first and last visit to this hell hole, but what the f**k is ‘Neepsend Prawn’? This city is not known for its coastline. I would have the Pollo alla Cacciatora at this restaurant as my Death Row meal, in the sense it would really take the sting out of what was to come

I told the owner of That’s Amore! that it was the worst Bolognese I’d ever tasted, like mince with ketchup. He said it was the way his Nonna made it in her special recipe, I said in that case his ‘Nonna’ couldn’t cook & he accused me of insulting his family! I’m not being funny but he looked about as Italian as Boris Becker

That’s Shit more like

2

‘When did you know you wanted to be a waitress?’ Callum, my only colleague front-of-house says, trying to swill an Orangina in a cowboy manner, re-screwing the cap with a sense of manly purpose.

He has a shadowy moustache, armpit sweat rings and his only hobby and/or interest is the gym, doing classes called things like Leg Death. I often fear he’s trying to flirt. I pitch my tone with him as very ‘older sister’ to discourage it.

‘Uhm … I wouldn’t say I wanted to do this. Or want to do this.’

‘Oh. Right. How old are you, again?’ Callum says.

Callum, being a not-that-sharp twenty-two-year-old, doesn’t realise when his thought processes are fully evident. He once mentioned to me that the step machine was great ‘even for people a stone, or a stone and a half over their ideal weight’.

‘Thirty,’ I say, as he double-takes.

‘Woah!’

‘Thanks.’

‘No I mean you don’t look that old. You look, like … twenty-eight.’

Lately, I am feeling the fact that I used to be ‘of ages’ with people I worked with in the service industry, but increasingly I am a grande dame. The thought makes my stomach pucker like an old football. The future is a place I try not to think about.

When I took the job at That’s Amore! I was a month behind with my rent and told myself that it was retro, with dripping candles in Chianti bottles in wicker baskets, red-and-white-check wipe-down tablecloths, plastic grape vine across the bar, and Italian Classic Love Songs: Vol 1 on the stereo.

‘Why don’t you get a proper job?’ Mum said. I explained for the millionth time I am a writer in waiting who needs to earn money, and if I get a proper job then that’s it, proper job forever. Somewhere in the back of a wardrobe, I have my old sixth form yearbook. I was voted Most Likely To Go Far and Most Likely To Get A First. I have made it as far as the shittest trattoria in Sheffield, and I quit my degree after one term. But apart from that, spot on.

‘You’re going to be a very old waitress without a pension,’ Mum replied.

My sister, Esther, said supportively: ‘Thank God no one I know goes there.’

Joanna said: ‘Isn’t That’s Amore! the one that had the norovirus outbreak a year back?’

Having sampled the ‘rustic homely fare’, I’m not sure that norovirus wasn’t unfairly scapegoated.

Now, I could take a lump hammer to the looping CD. I want the moon to hit Dean Martin in the eye like Mike Tyson.

It turns out my role is less a waitress, more an apologist for gastronomic terrorism. I’m a mule, shuttling the criminal goods from kitchen to table and acting innocent when questioned.

They told me that a free lunch was a perk of my meagre wage, and I soon discovered that’s an up-side like getting a ride on an inflatable slide if your plane crashes.

What really sticks in the craw is that, due to a combination of confused pensioners, masochists, students attracted by the early bird ‘toofer’ deal, and out of towners, That’s Amore! turns a profit.

The owner, a really grouchy man known only as ‘Beaky’, claims Mediterranean heritage ‘on my mama’s side’ but looks and sounds totally Sheffield. He comes in every so often to swill the grappa and empty the till, and is happy to let it lurch onward with Tony as de facto boss.

Tony, a wiry chain smoker with a wispy mullet, is tolerable if you handle him right, meaning, accept his word is God, ignore the lechery and remind yourself it’s getting paid that matters.

Tonight isn’t too busy, and after bussing the mains to the lucky recipients, I sip a glass of water and check my frazzled reflection in the stainless steel of the Gaggia machine.

A call from across the room.

‘Excuse me? Excuse me …!’

I assemble my features into a neutral-interested expression as Mr Keith beckons me over, even though I know exactly what’s coming. He picks up his fork and drops it back down into the congealed, grout-coloured sludge of the carbonara.

‘This is inedible.’

‘I am sorry. What’s wrong with it?’

‘What’s right with it? It tastes like feet. It’s lukewarm.’

‘Would you like something else?’

‘Well, no. I chose carbonara as that was the dish I wanted to eat. I’d like this, please, but edible.’

I open and close my mouth as I don’t know what the fix for that is other than firing Tony, changing every supplier and razing That’s Amore! to the ground.

‘It’s obviously been sat around while you made my wife’s risotto.’

I’d make no such wild guesses, as the truth is bound to be worse.

‘Shall I get the kitchen to make you another?’

‘Yes, please,’ the man says, handing it up to me.

I explain the situation to Tony, who never seems to mind customers saying his cooking is rank. I wish he would take it personally, standards might improve.

He takes a catering bag of parmesan shavings out, flings some more on to the dish, stirs it around and puts it in the microwave for two minutes. It pings, and he pulls it out.

‘Count to fifty and give him this. The mouth will taste what the mind is told to,’ he taps his forehead. I can’t help think if it was that easy, That’s Amore! would have a Michelin star instead of a single star rating average on TripAdvisor.

Thing is, I’d argue with Tony he should whip up a replacement, but it’ll be just as bad as this one.

I sag with embarrassment. My life so far feels like one long exercise in blunting my nerve endings.

Having waited a short while to reinforce the illusion, I march the offending pasta through the swing doors.

‘Here you are, sir,’ I say, doing the Basil Fawlty-ish grit-simper again as I set it down, ‘I do apologise.’

The man stares at the plate and I’m very grateful for the distraction of an elderly couple in the doorway who need greeting and seating.

With crushing inevitability, as soon as I’ve done this, Mr Keith beckons me back. I have to leave. I have to leave. Just get past this month’s rent first. And booking that week in Crete with Robin, if I can persuade him to it.

‘This is the same dish. As in the one I sent back.’

‘Oh, no?’ I pantomime surprise, shaking my head emphatically, ‘I asked the chef to replace it.’

‘It’s the same plate.’ The man points to a nick in the patterned china. ‘That was there before.’

‘Uhm … he maybe did a new carbonara and used the same plate?’

‘He made another lot of food, scraped the old pasta into the bin, washed the plate, dried it, and re-used it? Why wouldn’t you use a different plate? Are you short on plates?’

The whole restaurant is listening. I have nothing to say.

‘Let’s be hard-nosed realists. This is the last one, reheated.’

‘I’m sure the chef cooked another one.’

‘Are you? Did you see him do it?’

The customer might be right, but right now I still hate him.

‘I didn’t, but … I’m sure he did.’

‘Get him out here.’

‘What?’

‘Get the chef out here to explain himself.’

‘Oh … he’s very busy at the stove at the moment.’

‘No doubt, given his odd propensity for doing the washing up at the same time.’

My grit-simper has gone full Joker rictus.

‘I will wait here until he has a few minutes free to talk me through why I have been served the same sub-par sloppy glooch and lied to about it.’

Glooch. Good word. Just my luck to get the articulate kind of hostile patron.

I head back into the kitchen and say to Tony: ‘He wants to speak to you. The man with the carbonara. He says he can see it’s the same one as it’s on the same plate.’

Tony is in the middle of frying a duck breast, turning it with tongs. I say duck. If any pet shops have been burgled recently, it could be parrot.

‘What? Tell him to piss off, who is he, Detective …’ he pauses, ‘… Plate?’

In a battle of wits between Detective Plate and Tony, my money is on the former.

‘You’re the serving staff, deal with it. Not my area.’

‘You gave me the same dish! What am I supposed to do when he can tell?!’

‘Charm him. That’s what you’re meant to be, isn’t it? Charming,’ he looks me up and down, in challenge.

Classic Tony: packing passive aggression, workplace bullying and leering sexism into one instruction.

‘I can’t tell him his own eyes aren’t working! We should’ve switched the plates.’

‘Fuck a duck,’ Tony says, taking a tea towel over his shoulder and throwing it down. ‘Fuck this duck, it’ll be carbon.’

Complaining about the effect on the quality of the cuisine is a size of hypocrisy that can only be seen from space.

He snaps the light off under the pan and smashes dramatically through the doors, saying, ‘Which one?’ I don’t think this pugilistic attitude bodes well.

I Gollum my way past Tony and lead him to the relevant table, while making diplomatic, soothing noises.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ Tony booms, hands on hips in his not-that-white chef’s whites.

‘This is the problem,’ Mr Keith says, picking up his fork and dropping it again in disgust. ‘How can you think this is acceptable?’

Tony boggles at him. ‘Do you know what goes into a carbonara? This is a traditional Italian recipe.’

‘Eggs and parmesan, is it not? This tastes like Dairylea that’s been sieved through a wrestler’s jockstrap.’

‘Oh sorry, I didn’t realise you were a restaurant critic.’

Tony must be wildly high on his last Embassy Regal to be this rude to a customer.

‘You don’t need to be A.A. Gill to know this is atrocious. However, since you’ve raised it, I am reviewing you tonight for The Star, yes.’

Tony, already pale thanks to a diet of fags and Greggs bacon breakfast rolls, becomes perceptibly paler.

If this wasn’t a crisis and wildly unprofessional, I’d laugh. I pretend to rub my face thoughtfully to staunch the impulse.

‘Would you prefer something else, then?’ Tony says.

Tony folds his arms and jerks his head towards me as he says this, and I know in the kitchen I’m going to get a bollocking along the lines of COULD YOU NOT HAVE HANDLED THAT YOURSELF.

‘Not really, last time I asked for you to replace my meal you reheated it. Am I going to be seeing this excrescence a third time?’

I notice Mrs Keith looks oddly calm, possibly grateful someone else is catching it from him instead. Unless she’s a fake wife, a critic’s stooge.

‘I thought you wanted it warmer?’

‘Yes, a warmer replacement meal, not this gunk again.’

Tony turns to me: ‘Why didn’t you tell me he wanted a new dish?’

I frown: ‘Er, I did …?’

‘No, you said to warm it up.’

I’m so startled by this bare-faced untruth I have no comeback.

‘No, I didn’t, I said …?’ I trail off, as repeating our whole conversation seems too much treachery, but am I supposed to stand here and say this is all my fault?

A pause. Yes. Yes, I am.

‘Are you calling me a liar?’ Tony continues, entire dining room riveted by this spectacle.

I open my mouth to reply and no words come out.

‘Oh right, you are! Tell you what. You’re fired!’

‘What?!’

I think he must be joking, but Tony points at the door. Across the room, Callum is shocked, mouth hanging open and hands frozen round a giant pepper pot.

‘Oh, hang on, this seems excessive …’ says Mr Keith, looking suddenly chastened. This is why Tony’s done it. It’s the only way to get the upper hand again, and hope his write-up doesn’t focus solely on the gusset-flavoured carbonara.

You could hear a pin drop – apart from Dean Martin crooning about Old Napoli.

I untie my apron, chuck it on the floor, find my handbag behind the bar with clumsy hands.

I dart out, without looking back. Incipient tears are stinging my eyeballs, but no way are they seeing me weep.

When I’m round the corner, fumbling for a tissue as my non-waterproof mascara makes a steady descent, I get a text from Tony.

Sorry, sexy. Sometimes you need to give them a scalp. We’ll have you back in a fortnight and if critic fuck finds out, tell him your mum died or something so we took pity. Call it a holiday! Unpaid though.

That’s Amore.

Then another realisation.

For fuck’s sake, I forgot my coat!

3

First thought: it’s a prisoner of war. They can’t torture it, so leave it behind. Second: damn it, it’s the bubblegum-pink faux fur. It’s armour, it’s my personality in textile form. It’s up there in sentimental value after my ancient tortoise, Jammy. Also, I’m shivering already.

Wait, wait – I have a man on the inside: Callum. I message him to ask, thinking he’ll surely feel sorry enough for me to do it.

Insta-ping.

I will give you your coat if you will go on a date with me

I blink, twice. You’ve just seen me get sacked in the most public, humiliating way and now you’re holding me to sexual ransom? I consider a blunt response saying, ‘I’m washing my nipple hair that night.’ Or pointing out it was only £50 in the Miss Selfridge sale three years ago so definitely isn’t worth that, concluding with the insult of a cry-with-laughter emoji.

But the objective is to get my coat back, not a load of middle fingers and a photo of it in the scraps bin.

Hahaha if I’m not too unemployed and skint to stand my round

See you at the front door in 1 min?

I would pay. Is that a yes lol?

Is there anything less charming than someone trying to push you into something unwillingly and acknowledging they are pushing you into it, and carrying on anyway?

OK, lying it is.

Sure

… LY NOT. And he knows I’ve got a boyfriend. We had a conversation where he said ‘Lol his name is Robin do you ever call him Cock Robin’ and I said no and he said hahaha, wicked bants.

Outside the door, there’s no sign of Callum. I wait for five minutes which feels like five hours and then text him a question mark. Another three minutes and he appears round the door.

‘It’s busy with only me on.’

I wonder if I am supposed to apologise for this.

I look down at the material he’s holding. A beige trench coat.

‘That’s not mine.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s pink and fluffy.’

Callum disappears back inside. Minutes pass and I think: there’s no way more than one piece of outerwear the colour of taramosalata in the cloakroom to justify this length of hold up. I bob down and peer under the tea-coloured nets in the window. Callum is taking an order for a table of eight people. He is chatting and joking and obviously in no rush.

Frustration wins out over shame and I wrench the door open and march back in. I feel multiple pairs of eyes on me as I rifle among the row of pegs on the back of the door behind the bar and claim my property.

‘Young lady – young lady?’

I turn and see Mr Keith is beckoning me over. I glance warily in the direction of the kitchen, but what’s Tony going to do, sack me again?

I approach. He’s dabbing his mouth with a napkin.

‘I’m sorry about what happened just now. If I’d known the consequences …’

‘Oh, it’s fine,’ I say. ‘It’s not your fault.’

‘In the future, remember honesty is always the best policy.’

I stare at him. He’s telling me off again? For fu—

‘I was honest. The chef was lying,’ I snap.

‘You’re saying he did cook me another meal?’

Ah.

‘No he didn’t but he told me he wouldn’t so I …’

‘Lied?’

‘To keep my job! He told me to lie!’

‘And how’s that working out for you?’

I open and close my mouth and dumbly repeat: ‘He was the one lying.’

‘Anyway. I’ve decided not to write it up, so as not to embarrass you.’

My jaw drops.

‘That’s what he wanted! That’s why he sacked me! So you’d feel bad about saying how shit the food is!’

I’ve become shrill and everyone’s looking round now.

‘Write it up! Tell everyone what it’s like, say I was sacked, I don’t care!’

‘That’s not a very collegiate attitude, is it?’

‘Or …’ I say, I feel the room hold its breath, ‘I’ll write it up for you. I could write you a great piece about this place. No conflict of interest anymore.’

Mr Keith clears his throat.

‘Well. Employee of the Month.’

I’m about to mention the time the kitchen’s tub of Stork margarine had what looked like rodent footprints in it, and Tony used an ice cream scoop to take off the top layer and carried on using it. Or, I could get my phone out and show Mr Keith the text I just received. Yes, that’d do it.

Callum is looking over with an aghast expression. When his line of sight moves to the kitchen door I know what’s coming.

Tony swaggers out holding another plate of pasta, affecting a casual air of bonhomie. When he spots me, his eyes are pinwheels.

‘Can’t stay away when you’re not being paid? Go on, Georgina, on your way. This customer doesn’t want more hassle from you.’

Tony sets the plate down. It actually looks half decent – he might’ve Googled ‘carbonara’ and cracked an egg.

‘I’m not hassling him, he spoke to me. I came back for my coat.’

Any noises of scraping cutlery in the dining room are yet to resume, so it’s us and volare, woooooaaah oh.

At that moment, my eyes settle on someone beyond Mr Keith. A little girl with pageboy hair and a disproportionately large forehead, wearing a large paper crown with BIRTHDAY on it, tomato sauce splattered across her cheeks. She’s paused in the middle of eating penne marinara and along with her awestruck family, is listening to every single word in this unseemly stand-off. We’re ruining a kid’s fifth birthday. Given everyone’s poised to see what I’ll do next, I’m ruining it.

Some of my few good childhood memories are of the excitement of being taken out for dinner, eating chicken nuggets in baskets and hustling for a second Coca Cola.

‘Forget it. I only wanted my coat. I’m done,’ I say.

‘Don’t let the door hit you etc. etc.,’ Tony mutters. Then louder, to Mr Keith: ‘I hope her drama doesn’t keep you from enjoying your meal.’

‘I hope your meal doesn’t keep you from enjoying your meal,’ I say, and Mr Keith shakes his head in dismay.

I turn and walk out, conscious of the many pairs of eyes on me. I keep my focus at the level of the SPECIALS chalkboard, acknowledging no one. I never thought this job would go especially well, I didn’t think it would end with a dignity ransacking. The door falls shut behind me and I exhale.

I stride and stride some more and I’m still too het up to fumble for my fags. I don’t want this to turn into a panic attack. I remember what the counsellor said about concentrating on my breathing when I felt anxiety rising like a sea level inside me.

My phone pings.

Keep our date a secret yeah, Tony will go well ape if he finds out and sack me too lol

Tony’s already ‘well ape,’ it seems: another ping.

DICK MOVE, princess. No job for you here now and anywhere else either once I put the word round. BLACK LISTED enjoy your next job on the pole

I stab out a reply:

LOL. Tony, your surname isn’t Soprano. You might know more about Italian food if it was

I’m not really that flippant about his threat. Sheffield’s mid-priced bistros are quite a small world and I can’t pay next month’s rent now. I’m not used to making enemies, I’m usually a champion smoother-over. Appeasement is my middle name.

Although maybe I’m kidding myself: a third text arrives from my sister, Esther, who I’ve never really succeeded in smoothing over:

Are you bringing Robin on Sunday? Sending Mark to Sainsbury’s in morning so would be good to get numbers, swift response appreciated. Rib of beef. Let me know if any allergies to Yorkshire pudding or whatever too.

That’s how Esther always communicates with me on text, like I am a lazy temp at her accountancy firm. Although the near-sarcastic last line is a particular tilt at Robin.

No he’s out of town! Thanks though x

I’m also a world-class white liar. Robin and my relatives are a bad combination. I tried two family events with my boyfriend and decided to rest the integration project indefinitely.

I turn the corner and psychologically, being out of sight of That’s Amore! helps slightly. This is fine, this is nothing. It’ll be a tapas bar in two years’ time, the sort where they microwave gambas pil pil so the frozen prawns are the same texture as contraceptive sponges.

Plus, Robin’s going to love the material from my firing this evening.

I can hear myself drafting and redrafting the key passages already, anticipating the points where I expect to get a laugh. At school, everyone used to clamour for my stories, I was good at them. If I went on a terrible summer holiday, I spun it into gold in term time. George, tell the one about …

Jo once said, admiringly: ‘Mad things always happen to you, how are you a magnet for mad!’ (that could sound like she was doubting me, but Jo is never ever snide. She only ever says exactly what she means) and I explained: I notice things. Appreciating the absurd was a useful skill in my childhood.

A snap snap snap with my pleasingly heavy silver lighter, in trembling hands, and the tip of my Marlboro Light glows. I suck in a big whoosh of nicotine and I feel better already. It’s not tenable to give up in current circumstances.

It’s an early winter evening, the sort of cold where the air in the middle distance looks smoky, and you can sense a weekend evening getting going. The swell of people in Broomhill, the scent of aftershave mingling with perfume and burble of chatter that comes with being two drinks to the good.

I can see my reflection in the window of Betfred and shift from foot to foot. As much as I argue back with Mum when she says things to me like: ‘scruffy is charming in youth but doesn’t age well, Georgina,’ I am starting to wonder if my playful taste in short dresses and liquid eyeliner is going a bit Last Exit to Brooklyn.

‘Be careful with that heavy make-up as a blonde. One minute you’re punk like Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner, the next you’re Julie Goodyear.’

Boy, how I’ll miss Tony’s beauty tips.

I open a message to Robin, then think again and press backspace to swallow the you’ll-never-guess-what-these-twats-have-done-now rant about the termination of my employment. I have a Friday evening free all of a sudden – this shouldn’t be thrown away on a prosaic text.

I want to be stylish about it.

On one of our first dates – I say dates, actually it was being invited round to Robin’s flat to drink red wine, until he eventually flapped a takeaway leaflet at me around 9 p.m. and said: ‘Have you eaten?’ – Robin said: live your life like this song.

The song playing was Elvis’ ‘Suspicious Minds’ so I asked: what, suspiciously?

He has a stack Hi Fi with a turntable at the top, which is now old enough to be a fashion statement, with volume lights that ripple.

‘The way it fades back in at the end. It’s already brilliant, but that is genius because it’s unexpected. That’s the moment that turns good into true greatness.’

Robin hunched over, rolling his joint.

‘… Everyone thinks you have to do everything a certain way. Monogamy, marriage, mortgage. Two point four kids, because what will you do with the second half of your life otherwise. Washing the car and the roast chicken in the oven every Sunday. William Blake called them “mind forg’d manacles”. People don’t want to get rid of the rule book, it scares them. We’re all living in captivity.’

I thought I could really fancy some roast chicken. I knew this was an implicit warning to me, as much as Robin sharing his world view.

(‘If he was going to settle down, he’d have done it by now, Georgina.’ Ta, Mum.) I was determined to appear unfazed.

‘Constructed reality. Like The Matrix,’ I say, picking up a menu for Shanghai Garden.

‘Yeah! So much of “can’t” and “not allowed” is an illusion.’

‘Tell that to my probation officer,’ I said.

Robin laughed, pushing the window open on its latch, before he lit his spliff. ‘Good one.’

I felt the satisfaction of being a Cool Girl.

‘… Would you share the illusion of a Kung Po rice with me?’