Page 30 of Between Us

‘Another fifteen minutes, it’ll be reet,’ said Meredith, looking similarly doubtful. ‘How long’s it had?’

‘Half an hour! More than!’ Gina screeched.

‘Any second now, honestly,’ Meredith said. ‘Let’s have a wine and wait it out.’

She sloshed red into three fresh glasses.

‘If it’s not cooked in half an hour, I don’t see why a bitlonger is any guarantee,’ Gina said, and Roisin thought she had a point.

‘Let’s not panic,’ Meredith said, stoutly. ‘Here,’ she looked at the wall clock. ‘Testing again, at dead on half seven. The lads can play another game of pool.’

The alcohol had the required sedative effect as they chatted, and it was closer to quarter to eight when they remembered to try it. They chewed gingerly this time, in foreboding: yep, stubborn ropes of inedible semolina.

‘FOR FUCK’S SAKE!’ Gina said. ‘What are we going to do? Joe’s show is on at NINE! Why have they sold me TWAT SPAGHETTI!’

Roisin looked anxiously at the clock. She did not want an agitated Gina trying to ladle out a dinner of twat spaghetti at a whisker to nine p.m., Joe refusing to stay and eat, and another huge fight. Gina’s mood felt knife edge as it was.

‘OK. I think we have to accept the pasta may not cook, or it may be some strange masochist’s variety that is never going to taste cooked,’ Roisin said. ‘Contingency plan. Meredith, any other options, carbohydrate wise?’ Roisin asked.

‘Bread. Lots of loaves of bread, and two bags of oven chips,’ Meredith said. ‘I think Dev used the potatoes up in his saag aloo.’

‘How about … bruschetta, using the tomato sauce, and a load of chips, and the salad?’ Roisin put her hands up. ‘Call me a goblin, but I’d eat it.’

‘Yes!’ Meredith said. ‘Also, we have butter and garlic? Garlic bread!’

Roisin made a fist pump gesture.

‘What’s everyone going to think at me serving them fucking TOAST?!’ Gina said.

‘Delighted. It’s fashionable simplicity, like the radishes,’ Roisin said. ‘I’ll fetch Anita.’

Roisin, Meredith and Anita worked hard to give Gina a sense of Blitz spirit jollity in the food they put out, but Roisin could see Gina was crushed by the dinner bork.

The less said about the profanities she unleashed when they finally gave up, drained and binned the Magical Never-Cook Spaghetti, the better.

‘I’m sending that deli the mother of all customer complaint emails!’ she stormed. ‘They will gaze into my abyss!’

‘When you’re sober though, yes,’ Meredith said. ‘I don’t want you going domestic terrorist on the only place I can get burrata.’

18

Roisin decided that two of the most beautiful words in the English language were ‘make ahead’. She gave real praise to God for the beauty of the safely assembled and refrigerated pudding.

The main course was a tense experience, but the tiramisu at least tasted wonderful. There was nothing like a hefty bowl of fat, cocoa and sugar for reconciling you to your current circumstances. Roisin could feel her calm and stoicism increasing as she took her first mouthfuls.

‘This is the best tiramisu I’ve ever had,’ Matt said to Gina, ‘And I’ve had tiramisu everywhere.’

‘I bet you have,’ Joe said.

‘Thank you,’ Gina said, without meeting Matt’s eye.

‘No one’s going to talk about Doshi’s boring curries after this.’ Dev raised his glass of cranberry juice. ‘Gina’s Italian banquet smashed it. To Gina. Happy belated birthday, beautiful. We love you.’

They raised their glasses and repeated ‘we love you’ as Gina cast her eyes down, Princess Diana style, and said thank you.

‘Ey up, have we got visitors?’ Joe said, turning in his seat.

In the encroaching dusk, the panorama afforded by the dining room windows meant they could see the headlights on an approaching vehicle a mile off. ‘A mile off’ was barely a figure of speech, in fact.

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