Page 29 of Blow Down (The Plumber's Mate)
“Thank God. Pork scratching?”
I held up a hand to ward off the snacks of the devil. “No, ta.”
He snorted and shoved the crisps in my direction instead. “Worried you won’t fit into your wedding dress? How’s all that going, anyway? The wedding preparations, that is, not your bleedin’ love life ’cos I do not want to know. Have you even set a date yet?”
“Nah. Sometime next summer, that’s all. Got to get my sister hitched first.”
“Yeah, well, don’t leave it too late.”
“Christ, why does everyone seem to think time’s running out for me?” Not that Mrs. G. had been talking about weddings, of course. Still, I was starting to get a bit paranoid, what with the way the whole world seemed to be singing the same tune.
“Bloody hell, when did you turn into such a drama queen? Jen reckons the best places get booked up two years in advance, that’s all.” He huffed at my look of surprise. “She’s only planning the christening already. Wait until the baby’s born, I keep telling her. Don’t count your chickens. Will she listen? Will she bollocks.”
What with my brother and sister both being childless, and most of my mates of the nonbreeding persuasion, I hadn’t had a right lot to do with christenings up until now. “How much planning does a christening take? Don’t you just turn up at the church, splash the sprog with a bit of holy water, and God’s your uncle?”
“She wants a bloody reception.” Dave shuddered, his belly doing a weird ripple thing. “Posh finger food and piano music. Like the baby’s going to give a crap.”
“Thought that was mostly what they did. That and the sleeping and crying.”
“Eff off, or your name’s going right to the top of the babysitting list.” Dave took a long swallow of beer. “Ah, that’s better. So you and Morrison, you planning to adopt or something?”
“Jesus, let us get hitched first, yeah?” I fixed him with a stern look. “And don’t bloody tell me not to leave it too late, yeah? I’ve had about as much of that as I can stand.”
Dave laughed, the bastard. “Mortality creeping up, is it? Christ, just wait till you get to my age. Everything sodding aches, and if it doesn’t, it’s ’cos it’s bloody dropped off.” Then his smile turned misty, which was disturbing. “It’s gonna be good for us, this nipper. Me and Jen. Keep us from getting old and sad.”
There was only one possible response to that, so I made it, Dave told me to eff off again, and then we got another round in. Good times.
I slept like a baby Monday night, despite (or maybe because of) being on my own. Well, like one of the babies in an advert for expensive, brand-name nappies designed by NASA, anyhow. Dave reliably informs me real babies aren’t like that and prefer to spend most of the hours of darkness puking, pooping, and having a paddy.
Course, if they were that bad, he wouldn’t be having another one, would he? I lay in bed for a mo in the morning and wondered what it’d be like having a kiddie of my own.
Then Merlin jumped on my stomach and Arthur gave my foot a friendly scratch, both of then miaowing fit to wake up the dead ’cos breakfast hadn’t been served, and I reckoned I might have a fair idea already.
My phone rang just as I pulled up outside the first job of the day. (Washbasin down the road for the newly single Mrs. Z. She didn’t volunteer how the last one had got cracked, and I didn’t ask.)
“Paretski Plumbing,” I answered breezily.
“Tom Paretski? This is Vi Majors. I need to talk to you.” She was one of those people with a telephone voice that could carry across three continents without the need for 4G. I moved the phone further away from my ear.
“I’m listening,” I said cautiously.
There was a barely audible tch. “Not on the phone.”
Bloody hell, not her as well. “Yeah, see, I’m not sure I’m gonna be out your way for a bit—”
“I’ll come to you. Where do you live?”
“Fleetville. St. Albans. But—”
“Where’s that? Oh, never mind, I’m rubbish with directions anyway. Just give me your postcode, and I’ll set the satnav. You’ll be there tonight?”
I hesitated, not sure if Phil would be free to come round—I had a feeling this might be just his area—but sod it, she might be a big lass, but if it came down to a fight, I was fairly sure I could take her. And she had just lost her stepmum, never mind that she hadn’t exactly broken down with grief last I’d seen her. Actually, that brought something else to mind. “What about your dad? Are you sure you should leave him? He looked a bit cut up about it all on Saturday.”
“Oh, he’ll be fine.” She dismissed all five stages of grief with the airy confidence of someone who’d never lost someone they cared about.
Then again, Alex had been a widower before the advent of Amelia, hadn’t he? So she’d lost her mum sometime in the past, and presumably she’d actually liked her.
Jesus, poor Alex. He must be devastated, going through it all a second time around. “Maybe he could come with?” I found myself saying, when I hadn’t meant to agree to her coming round at all.
