Page 85 of Between Us

She needed her heart to heal a little before she exposed herself to all that noise. Shedidtell Meredith and Gina, wondering if they were tiring of theone leg in, one leg outhokey-cokey of this separation, and explaining they were currently the only ones informed.

Meredith

So sorry. It’s sad, but it clearly needed doing and you’ve done it now. You can’t stay with someone just cos you might go to the Oscars. Xx

Gina

Absolutely, though I probably would. Hope you are both ok. Should we message Joe? Xx

Roisin

Yes I’m sure he’d appreciate that xx

It was probably for the best for Joe to know she’d shared the news. Could she delegate his breaking it to Dev and Anita? That was the one she resisted the most. He’d had no preparation, making it a longer conversation that Roisin didn’t anticipate with pleasure. She was announcing the effective end of the Brians format to the person who held the Brians dearest.

Roisin then got a one-to-one communique from Meredith, which put telling Dev on temporary hold.

I bring glad tidings of Anita’s uterus. Her stomach bug wasn’t morning sickness, but the prospect spooked her enough to do a test. In the time it took to turn negative, she realised she absolutely didn’t want to be breaking the surprise news to Dev and her family this many months out from a wedding. She’s back on the pill and she and Dev have scrapped Italy. No word on Miami, but hopefully your tactful intervention has caused deeper thought there. They’ve gone on a break to Sóller to thrash out the details.

ALSO, having finally banished the spectre of McKenzie, Gina’s going on a date with a fella in her office called Aaron. She’d mentioned him a lot in the last year & I’d wondered if anything could happen there, and I think now it finally can.

So, corners being turned, tides turning, leaves turning. I am still getting absolutely none, mind you. Hope Matt shaped up well as an employee. I miss him. Hopefully one day Gina will find herself indifferent to his WASPy erotic power and we can have him back. <3 M xx

Matt reappeared in The Mallory before opening, late Saturday morning, looking so good in an blue Oxford shirt that Gina would likely not have been indifferent to his WASPy erotic power, had she seen him. He was carrying a couple of boxes.

‘What happened with work?!’ Roisin asked.

‘Oh,’ he said, looking oddly gratified she remembered. ‘It’s quite a bizarre reversal of fortune. Former CEO found out his son sacked me. Went bananas. Has reinstated me, saying I can keep my gardening leave as a bonus and take the rest of August off. I’d have said no, because who wants to bewhere they’re not welcome, right? But the son persuaded me he’d come to see it his dad’s way. I think it helped that the restaurant chain I had brought on board kept asking where I was.’

‘That’s incredible! Well done.’

‘It is a bit. Given your mum’s insisted on paying me, I’m going to give my wages to a worthy charity. The worthy charity of the Webberley fête. I’m running a bar in the garden, stocked with some wholesale I’ve ordered, that should be arriving’ – he checked his watch – ‘in an hour, if you’re OK to sign for it?’

‘Yes, of course. Matt, this is Superman stuff. What’s in your boxes?’

‘Fripperies,’ Matt said. ‘We’re going to make the beer garden a magic grotto. These will form a starlight canopy. If the necessary iron poles get here later today, that is.’

He set the boxes down and pulled out reams of festoon lights, Edison bulbs on a black wire.

‘Ooh, nice.’

‘That’s not all, young lady,’ Matt said. ‘I had these made.’

He unshouldered and unzipped his duffle bag, producing a stack of leaflets. They advertised The Mallory’s fête efforts: BBQ, garden cocktails and games.

‘Haha! Did Lorraine sign all this off?’

‘Oh yes. “Knock yourself out, it can’t go any bloody worse,” was the direct quote.’

Roisin laughed and thought what how transformative Matt was to this place. His enthusiasm for The Mallory had gone some way to detoxifying it, for her. He turned the flyer over.

Guess Meatball’s Weight!was printed next to a photo of the scowling, portly cat.

‘Lucky find on my camera roll,’ Matt said, tapping his nose. ‘Decided to go for it.’

‘What if Meatball doesn’t turn up?’

‘I know celebrities can be temperamental, but I suspect the smell of sausage fat hitting sizzling charcoal briquettes will lure Webberley’s greatest networker out to mingle with his constituents.’

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