Page 61 of Between Us

Roisin rolled her sleeves up and said, like slipping into a native language, ‘Hi there, what can I get you? Two Harvest Pales, coming up,’ as she reached for a pint glass on the webbed rubber matting on the shelf above her head.

Mariah Carey’s ‘Fantasy’ pealed from the jukebox in the corner, the selection last updated in about 2005.

Lorraine swung her hips and sway-bopped as she sang along, word perfect while serving, waving her hand and closing her eyes during the high notes, as if she was Mariah. It was distilled Lorraine: half ironic-humorous, half completely committed showing off. An audience of several enchanted men were hanging around to watch, as per.

‘Got the band back together – my daughter Roisin’s with me tonight,’ she said, as if she was George Michael introducing Elton John, pointing with both fingers at her, over her head, to a smattering of applause and ripple of interest on the other side of the bar.

‘Can see where you get your looks from,’ leered an old boy in a golf sweater, and Roisin thought,yep, I’m back on guest vocals in The Mallory supergroup alright.

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‘Your mum says your fella makesSEEN, is that true?’ said a thirty-something man in coloured ski glasses like an oil spill rainbow.

‘Yeah,’ Roisin said guardedly. ‘£19.98, please.’

‘Is Harry Orton dead?’ he said, flapping his card on contactless.

Roisin remembered that was a secret she was keeping for Joe, and Joe’s approach to her secrets.

‘You really want to know?’ she said. ‘You want to be spoilered?’

‘Yes!’

‘No, they fish him out of the Thames alive and the bullet miraculously missed any major organs. He’s signed up for another two series at least, so don’t expect them to kill him off anytime soon.’

‘Woah, thank you!’

Roisin watched him return to a large table to delightedly report his classified intel.

Another episode ofHunteraired tonight. Roisin dreaded it and its potential revelations. ‘Becca’ probably decided to doa PGCE and dye her hair mauve. She was extremely glad this shift would keep her and her mother busy, amply covering its time of transmission.

What about Sesso, and Gina’s point that Matt could sleuth it for her?

In the sober light of another day, Roisin hesitated at involving a blameless third party.

Then she pictured seeing Joe in a couple of days’ time. Caught once again in his verbal conjuring tricks and scathing brand of gaslighting. The only reason she’d called him out so hard on the lawn that morning was because she knew for sure he’d committed at least one crime. It had taken grit and mental dexterity to pin him to the wall for it, and she still wasn’t sure she’d succeeded. Once you knew someone could betray you over something that serious and try to bluff their way out of it, how could you trust a word out of their mouth about anything else?

Perhaps, in one respect, Roisin had become like Joe. She had to prove he was lying, because now she had to win.

She slid her phone out of her bag, underneath the bar.

Hi Matt! Don’t send me a heartsick turd emoji for this – unless you really want to – but, with dubious timing, I need to ask you a favour. A considerable favour, which you have every right to decline. It comes with a complicated context that I will have to give you over a pint. Can I tempt you to hear me out, if I buy the pints? R x

PS I don’t need sperm

When she checked her handset while pulling a pint of lager shandy, fifteen minutes later, she had a response.

Hi R! YOU WANT MY SPERM, EH. This is all fine, except is this some bait & switch about rejoining Brian C? The lady is not for turning, on that.Mx

Roisin let her mother serve the next customers and typed back.

No, absolutely not, and we can make that a forbidden topic if you want. I’m helping out at my mum’s short-staffed pub in Webberley tonight, driving back tomorrow. Shall I shout you in Manchester sometime next week?

Hmmm … or I could come out to Webberley tomorrow? I fancy some fresh air. Arrive late morning, say 10.30, you drive me back? We could do a Sunday yomp, whatever one of those is. X

PS please find Tupperware with a lid that fits for the sperm

Roisin hadn’t expected this request. Her instinct was to deter him, as she never invited her friends out here. Yet she couldn’t think of a single decent reason to say no, and she was about to ask quite a lot of Matt.

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