Page 26 of Between Us

‘She can’t stay radge for long.’

He toasted Matt with a Bloody Shame, stirring it with the stick of celery and gulping.

Silence fell.

In his ‘puppy in the china shop’ way, Dev’s instinct towards generous overstatement had, on this occasion, merely stated facts. He’d no doubt been trying for a ‘thinks the world of you’ blandishment, off the cuff, and instead had inadvertently spelled out the thing they never said.

‘It’s hard to know what to say to her when she thinks I’d hurt her on purpose,’ Matt said eventually, sounding slightly hoarse.

‘Simply stop attacking Gina’s mental health by accident, then,’ Joe said.

‘Cheers,’ Matt said. ‘Great to have your positive input, as always. A man who himself has never suffered a tech error, I’m sure.’ He raised his eyes to meet Joe’s directly, his anger finally breaking the surface of the water. Joe purposely avoided meeting it, mopping up some egg yolk with his crust.

‘Well, the unsavoury ogling poo farce is definitely not Gina’s fault.’

‘Yeah, and you’re never slow to point out my faults. I wonder why.’

Joe shrugged. Roisin sensed Joe felt a mixture of satisfaction and apprehension at Matt’s hostility. Like a kid pushing their luck, angling for a telling off, and feeling just a little scared at finally getting one.

Matt stood up, abandoning his half-eaten breakfast. He took his plate to the sink in a tense silence.

‘I know I messed up last night, but as if I’d harass her when I know she’s upset. Is everyone’s opinion of me really this bad?’

‘No no no, mate, not at all,’ Dev said and Anita chorused, ‘No!’

Roisin said forcefully, ‘Of course not. You’d never be unkind to Gina.’

Joe was pointedly silent.

She felt the truth of Meredith’s words, nevertheless. Deliberate or not, Matt had thoroughly used up his honest mistakes quota.

16

True to her word, Meredith had a subdued but cooperative Gina at her side as they assembled by the outhouses for their walk. Roisin was relieved to see her in a better state; she’d had visions of their hearing an engine and leaping up to see Ethelred tearing away towards the horizon. However, Gina was still treating Matt as if he was radioactive. He loitered at a distance.

Dev insisted on going in to say hello to the hens, who were much less interested in saying hi to Dev and crowded into a far corner, clucking irascibly at the intrusion.

‘They have a groundskeeper-type guy who pops in twice a day to feed them,’ Dev said.

‘Can you imagine what he thinks of the absolute nobbers that regularly pile into this place?’ Joe said. ‘Hopping from the helicopter, busting out the Freixenet and spraying it all over the rooster.’

‘No rooster. Sir Drumstick recently passed.’ Dev touched his forehead, chest and both shoulders in a cross. ‘You’d know about him if he was still with us, I’m told. Screeched the joint down at dawn.’

‘Was his death a murder?’ Roisin asked.

‘Sir Drumstick, I love it,’ Meredith said.

‘Tasteless,’ Gina sniffed.

‘Why?’ Joe said.

‘Because it’s a cut of meat! Like calling him Lord KFC.’

‘Ah yeah, I see what you mean,’ Joe said. ‘Like prawns don’t think of themselves as lollipops.’

He grinned and Gina pushed, ineffectually and coquettishly, at his shoulder.

She alone won a conciliatory, warmer tone from him. All in all, Roisin was grateful that someone did.

---