Page 33 of Don't You Forget About Me

I mean, she’s his granny so he’s going to be defensive, but Mark is an incredibly nice person anyway. Mild, kind, sees the good in everyone, always interested in others, in a self-effacing rather than nosy way.

When Esther first told me she was seeing someone on her accountancy degree ‘and I think he’s the one!’ I was like:ruh roh,he’ll be at worst a ruthless bastard and at best a crashing bore. She had a taste for mean jocks at school. Thank God, given he turned into husband and father of her child, that Mark is lovely – witness his job-giving generosity with me. He wears hand-stitched moccasin slippers around the house and yet I would lay down my life for him.

‘Don’t wait for me then,’ is Nana Hogg’s version of ‘hello’ and ‘sorry I’m late’, when she sees the laden table.

‘Glad you could make it,’ Mark says, leaning in to give her a peck on the cheek. His modus operandi is to simply ignore her tone. And her words. And her behaviour.

She has her silver hair in tight roller curls and the sort of bust that rolls out like the swelling tide.

‘Hello!’ I say, with a small wave. ‘Nice to see you again.’

She doesn’t acknowledge me, though she might not have heard during the manoeuvres to get her seated.

‘Oh it’s beef? I can’t digest beef,’ she says, and Esther looks like she’s been tasered up the birth canal.

‘But we asked if …’

Mark puts his hand over Esther’s. ‘You can have lots of everything else. Geoff, if you’ll hand me the peas and carrots …’

‘We’ve met before, I’m Geoffrey,’ he says smarmily to Nana Hogg, getting up to offer his hand to shake across the roast, ‘Patsy’s husband.’

‘Yes I know who you are, I’m old but I’m not crackers,’ she says, ‘not seeing’ his hand, and I have to plug my mouth with a parsnip to stop myself from laughing. Why did I contemplate crying off this lunch? Carbs, more alcohol, hot gravy and Nana Hogg lols. It’s the perfect distraction from my distress.

‘Gog’s been sacked from the restaurant,’ Esther says, conversationally, throwing me to the wolves as distraction.

‘Oh no, Georgina!’ Mum says, putting her cutlery down with a bump, ‘What did you do?’

‘I didn’tdoanything, the restaurant critic fromThe Starcame in and complained and Tony the chef made a show of binning me. A sacrifice to the gods, to stop him from writing about the grim food.’

‘The vicissitudes of still being casual hire-and-fire labour,’ says Geoffrey, with evident pleasure, lifting a glass to his mouth. ‘So few rights, unfortunately.’

I almost pull a face at him. Geoff has been retired from vice presidency of a central heating firm since forever, on a giant pension.

‘It’s time to buck your ideas up. Go on a shorthand course and get yourself something in an office,’ Mum says.

‘I don’t think anyone cares about shorthand anymore, Mum. There’s no typing pool. There’s no bosses chasing secretaries around desks.’

‘Well you’re soon going to be past the age where you’re chased around anything anyway.’

Whump. Right in the solar plexus.

‘We called you “jail bait” in my day,’ Nana Hogg says to me, and Esther gets up abruptly to refill the gravy boat, which I know is an excuse because she’s fuming about inappropriate talk in front of her young son. What about the inappropriate talk in front of her younger sister.

‘Georgina’s not likely to land anyone in jail now,’ Geoffrey says, with what he imagines is a twinkly-eyed look. Creep.

‘There’s still plenty that’s illegal, Geoff, what with women no longer being property,’ I say, and Mum shushes: ‘Careful!’ with a sharp look towards Milo.

‘Oh yeah it’s my fault, I brought this stuff up.’

‘What was the restaurant called?’ Mark asks.

‘That’s Amore!. The Italian in Broomhill.’

‘I don’t like Italian food. I had a mushroom soup at an Italian restaurant once and it tasted like they’d put something in it,’ Nana Hogg says.

‘What had they put in it?’ Mum asks.

‘I don’t know. It tasted like there was something in it.’

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