Page 97 of Has Anyone Seen My Sex Life?
Seriously? Polly giggles then regurgitates all her Weetos on to the tray in her highchair.
‘What the hell were you drinking last night, Stu?’
‘Lord knows.’
I’m sat next to Stu in the artisan café next to my office. I should have made him shower and change before we came here as there is a strong scent of rum wafting off him but time was tight. I wonder if there’s time for us to dash over to the chemist and douse him in body spray. Given what had been shared with me over breakfast, the school run was less eventful than I’d imagined. I got a wave from Mike McArthur from across the playground. I saw Ian Tipperton roll into the out-of-bounds staff car park to drop his boys off. No sign of petitions, and because he smelled and looked like a tramp, Stu really wasn’t in a place to be on the pull. I learned a few things though. Stuart and Eve have a special handshake now. And Stu watches both girls as they walk away with a look that shows he might actually care and enjoy their company. We then made our way over to the cafe for our meeting, Polly in tow. At one point, we stopped as Stu thought he was going to throw up. He didn’t. But he has made two visits to the bathroom since we got here.
In the corner of the café is Sarah, the last person who needs to be here but at least she’s the other end of the room with another childminder and an array of kids who seem to have free reign of the place. She waved when she entered, fake smile plastered across her face, looking Stu up and down suspiciously. It wasn’t hard to see why. I look over and wonder when he last washed his hair.
‘Do I dare ask about last night?’
‘Messy. All you need to know.’ His face is pained. I push a glass of water in his direction.
‘Do you still do drugs?’
‘On occasion.’
‘Keep that shit away from my girls, yeah?’
‘Why yes, Baroness Mintcake,’ he replies teasingly.
I look around in case anyone heard and gesture my disapproval for him to be saying it in public. I like the weight of that title though – we’ve not played around with the idea of nobility yet. I look over at Polly. Does that make her Princess Mintcake? Who knows? The fact is we sit here both slightly nervous at what we’re about to do. Today is the day we launch a new plan, though when your fellow conspirator smells of booze and is having trouble keeping the contents of his stomach intact then you wonder about the success rate of said plan. Today hinges on us putting a lot of trust into one person and it has the potential to go very badly. Do we risk it? Or do we just sit on what we know? I spy the person we need entering the front doors and gesture him over.
‘Is this going to work, Meggers?’ whispers Stu.
‘It’s a start, try and stand upright.’
‘Tim,’ I say quietly as he approaches.
Stu nods and shakes his hand. I try to catch Tim’s eye but nothing. He just takes his coat off and sits down, quietly. Not the best start. To be honest, Tim and I haven’t really spoken since the exhibition furore two weeks ago. He made it clear I’d breached his trust and he distanced himself from me as a result. He stopped making me tea in the office. He stopped offering me biscuits. And it hurt. He had felt like a protégé up to that point. He’d confided personal information to me and I knew he was here, in the Lakes, totally alone. I was that person once. Today I want to greet him with clichés but he seems hesitant. A waitress with a fondness for gel nails and a magenta lip fills the awkwardness.
‘What can I get you, dears?’ she hollers at us.
‘I’ll have a green tea with ginseng and a slab of that hazelnut coffee cake,’ I say.
‘Like a pavement slab?’ The waitress laughs. I nod.
‘Macchiato, almond milk if you have it,’ replies Tim.
She nods politely knowing that neither of us are from these parts. Stu rectifies that.
‘Vat of tea, love. Full English, black pudding as extra and sub mushrooms for extra beans.’
‘White or brown toast?’
‘You joking me? White and some of them extra packets of butter.’
She laughs and wanders off. I allow Tim to get comfortable and greet the baby. Even if this meeting doesn’t end well then we have the baby to distract us.
‘One piece of cake between two. You’re stingy,’ Tim remarks.
‘We can get seconds…’
‘Good.’ He jokes with antagonism in his tone. This could heal or be very painful.
‘So…’
‘So…how’s Danny? The kids?’
