Page 4 of Go Now
Tavone shook his head.‘I’m feeling a little… kind of embarrassed now. Gonna just, y’know.Walk it off.’ He nodded formally to them both, then got out of the car.They watched him walk away, hands thrust deep in his pockets.
‘Sweet kid,’ Kate said.‘Feeling a little embarrassed right now.Not what I’d imagined.Thank God.’
‘Sweet?The guy’s clearly not normal.’
‘Normal?Marcus, what does that even mean?He’s a bit… naïve, that’s all.I think his heart’s in the right place.And when I think of all the reasons someonecouldbe following me, I’m very glad he was doing it for his career.’
‘Hmm.’
Marcus’s famous grunt.It was a way of ending the argument, without admitting that the other person was right.It drove Kate crazy.
‘Marcus.What does Cynthia do when you make that grunt?’
Marcus stared down at his hands.‘She used to get pissed off.’
‘Used to?’
‘Mm.’
That was another variety of grunt: Marcus’s way of saying that he didn’t want to say any more.But rather than annoying Kate, this one worried her.It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like this. Three, maybe four times, over just as many weeks, Marcus had said something about his fiancée that suggested all was not rosy in the garden.And he clearly wanted to get something off his chest.Why mention it, otherwise?
‘Listen -’ she began.Then her phone rang.‘Mom’ flashed up on the screen.Great timing.
‘Mom!How was Oxford?’
‘I’ve been burgled!’hissed her mother, Dr Catherine Valentine, in a theatrical stage-whisper. ‘Someone seems to have slept on the sofa and they’ve gone through all of your clothes, it’s like a tornado.’
‘Mom, there’s no need to whisper, it was –’
'I meant to go fetch Sapir and Whorf straight from the airport, but now I'm thinking I should ring the police.I mean, it's a crime scene, isn't it?'
‘Mom the dogs are w -’
As her mother continued speaking, Kate put her hand over the microphone and mimed a kind of ‘catch you later’ message to Marcus, who gave a puzzled look. Now it was Kate’s turn to do some explaining.
+ + + + + +
‘I just took one look at the kennels, Mom, and they’ve gone seriously downhill,’ Kate said, through a mouthful of a sticky English delicacy called ‘parkin’. Her mother, Dr Catherine Valentine, had returned from a linguistics conference in England, laden with souvenirs and sticky treats, some of which, like the delicious, treacly parkin, probably should have stayed where they were.‘It’s dirty. They’ve got new staff, who are all very young and not particularly communicative.And there was not one happy dog in the place. When we came in, I swear they all started crying.Literally.All of the dogs in that place thought we’d come to take them home.’
'Oh, don't, I don’t want to hear it,’ said Professor Valentine, putting protective arms around her twin red setters, either side of her on the sofa.‘So where were they today?’
'Rosa over the street – she's home studying for exams, so I asked her if she wanted to make a few bucks. Honestly, I couldn't have left the dogs in that place a minute longer. And we wouldn't all fit into my apartment.'
Catherine gazed at her daughter.‘You were so insistent that you were going back to work.’
‘I know.But once I had the dogs with me… Anyway, it was pretty clear they didn’t have anything for me to do in the office.’
‘It seems like you’ve been busy here,’ Catherine said, moving a folded sweater from the arm of the chair.
'I'm sorry the place is such a mess.Honestly, I thought I had all of today to get it done.I was sorting out clothes to take to the goodwill.'
‘Well, if you’ve topped up the gin with water, I’ll know.’
‘Mom.I was a total square.When would I ever have donethat?’
'I know.That was your father when we were kids. And it was worse.He topped up the anisette with tap water, and that turns it a kind of cloudy yellow. So he thought the best option would be to drink it all.He was sick as a dog. All over this couch, actually, I don't suppose you knew that.It belonged to my parents.'
'Euww.'Kate moved instinctively.Since as long as she could remember, the corduroy couch had smelled of dogs and cinnamon candles.She didn't really want to think that her father's stomach contents were part of the mix.But it was nice to be reminded that her parents were childhood sweethearts.She realised, in the same instant, that she'd never be able to say that.She'd spent more time with the choir and her textbooks than she had with boys.In that sense, what had changed?
