The Sunday Lunch Club

by Juliet Ashton

  ‘I’m hopeless at them,’ said Luca.

  Was that a warning? He’d certainly become very sombre very quickly. ‘What do you want, Luca?’

  ‘That’s a big question.’

  ‘And that’s an evasive answer.’ Anna was tired with the nebulous nature of their future. Was he in or out? ‘You do realise I’ll have a baby in my arms by the end of December.’

  ‘Well, I knew it wasn’t wind,’ said Luca. His face had closed down. His arms were folded. His shoulders raised.

  ‘You said you didn’t like children, Luca.’

  ‘Are you noting down everything I say? Are you the secret police? Jesus, Anna, why are you asking me what I want from life at half past six on a Sunday? I’m working it out, like everybody else.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ From us. Anna would soon be a Buy One, Get One Free offer.

  ‘I want this.’ Luca raised his arms, looked around. ‘You. Me. The dog. The papers. Nothing fancy.’

  He didn’t mention the baby. Luca was too intelligent to leave out the B-word by mistake. ‘And if that’s not what I want?’ Anna swallowed the words even as she said them. They didn’t illustrate how she felt; too late she remembered that bitter sentences coined mid-argument rarely do.

  ‘That’s up to you.’ Luca was curt. Clipped.

  They were on a precipice. Anna didn’t dare look down. ‘I have something for you,’ she said, turning away from the brink.

  ‘Is it a punch in the face?’ asked Luca. He’d lightened up, recognised the change of tone.

  Anna brought him a small package, wrapped up in palest pink tissue stamped with Artem. ‘For you.’ She was sorry. She’d let daylight in on magic. She didn’t want to lose him, to lose this, the scene he’d described. Her. Him. The dog. The papers. ‘It’s time you had an Artem Accessories wallet, don’t you think?’

  It was deep blue leather, sensually pliable. ‘It’s so cleverly designed,’ said Luca, exploring the pockets and slits. ‘I wonder who did that?’ He wanted peace, too; when she sat beside him, he put his arm around her, kissed her. ‘I don’t know what happened there,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe it’s your—’

  Don’t say hormones!

  ‘Hormones.’

  ‘I’m not a walking womb, Luca. Maybe I was genuinely upset about something.’ Anna heard herself, heard her tone, felt Luca shrink away. She put her hands up. ‘Let’s pretend I didn’t say that. Let’s get on with enjoying our evening.’

  ‘If there’s something you need to talk about . . .’ Luca didn’t sound keen.

  ‘It’ll keep.’ She slapped her lap. ‘Let’s fill your new wallet. I put a tenner in it already. For luck.’ Dinkie had taught her that superstition; it was bad luck to give somebody a purse without money in it. ‘So you’ll never be poor.’

  ‘You loony,’ said Luca affectionately. He pulled out his old wallet, opened it like a fan. Notes, coins, debit cards rained onto the coffee table. Along with a Polaroid.

  She saw his face change. Saw panic scamper across it. ‘What’s that?’ she said, her hand reaching it before his.

  The snap was clear, colourful. It was a happy picture of a happy couple. They posed on a chichi street – west London, probably – relaxed, leaning into each other. The woman wore a floppy hat. Luca had a protective arm around the woman’s shoulders, their faces grinning cheesily, their heads inclined towards each other.

  ‘An old girlfriend. Nothing.’ Luca put out his hand, but again Anna was faster. She held it to her chest.

  ‘You’re wearing the shirt I bought for you.’ Anna paused. She didn’t want to be the one to strike the killer blow but he’d given her no choice. ‘Two weeks ago.’

  Luca chewed his lips. He held her gaze. ‘Give it back, please,’ he said.

  There was a handwritten message on the white rectangle beneath the image. Anna read it out. ‘For Luca, you made me the woman I am.’ She read out each X. ‘Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.’

  Luca made no attempt to downplay it. The wording could be explained away – possibly – but he didn’t try. He put his hands over his face. ‘Don’t do this,’ he said.

  ‘Do what? Ask you who you’re fucking as well as me?’

  ‘Anna . . .’ Luca put his head back, closed his eyes.

  As if, she thought furiously, I’m the problem! ‘I remember the day you wore that shirt and those linen trousers. You came from her to me!’

  Luca jumped up. He was mute, as if his lips had been sewn shut. He searched out his wine, downed it in one. He was seething, as if holding back a great flood of anger.

  ‘Say something!’ roared Anna, waving the Polaroid. ‘Are you still seeing her?’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Luca, ‘for the benefit of the doubt. I’m allowed to have friends, Anna.’

  ‘That’s not a friendly pose. That’s not a friendly comment. Those kisses aren’t friendly.’

  ‘She and I are close, yes, but—’

  ‘You said this was an old picture, an ex-girlfriend. If it’s innocent, why lie?’

  ‘This isn’t a courtroom.’ Luca’s eyes blazed. ‘I refuse to be cross-examined.’

  ‘And I refuse to be made a fool of!’ Anna couldn’t sit down. She couldn’t stand up. She crossed to the kitchen window, pressed her fists against her forehead. ‘What is this? Am I one of many? Are you kinky for pregnant women or something?’

  ‘Kinky?’ Luca took a step back. As if repulsed. ‘How can you say that to me?’

  Anna held the photo aloft, like a flag. ‘How can I say this to you? What’s going on? I suppose you needed somebody lined up for after the birth.’

  ‘I didn’t realise you had a cut-off point. Thanks for telling me.’

  ‘Stop thanking me, Luca. You sound like a sarcastic schoolgirl.’

  ‘And you sound like a madwoman.’

  ‘Men always say women are crazy when in fact the woman is furious!’ The volume of that last word startled them both.

  ‘Look,’ said Luca, into the silence that followed. ‘I’ve been taking this as it comes. Building one day on top of another.’

  ‘With me and this woman?’ spat Anna.

  He ignored her. ‘My patients talk to me every day about their lives. It’s easy to go wrong. So easy. Pain falls like rain. I don’t make assumptions. I don’t even make plans. And I can’t be around chaos, Anna. I live in the moment.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ Anna said it defiantly. ‘You do make plans. You planned to two-time me.’

  Luca looked at the floor. ‘Anything else you’d like to accuse me of, while we’re at it?’

  ‘Defend yourself, then.’ Anna wanted him to. More than anything, she wanted to see Luca half-smile, and explain it all away.

  He didn’t do that. He said quietly, still not looking at her, ‘Where do we go from here?’

  ‘Let me help you with that,’ said Anna. ‘We don’t go anywhere. I’m in a completely different place to you, Luca. I should have never let you in.’

  Luca’s head snapped up. ‘You’re not the only one who let somebody in!’ He added, through gritted teeth, ‘And then regretted it.’

  They were in a cul-de-sac. It wasn’t just that Anna wasn’t prepared to share Luca; she didn’t want him any more. He was a cheat. He was a liar. She’d idolised his strength of character, congratulated herself on finding a decent man.

  They snorted, like horses after a race. Both of them blinked, astonished to find themselves at this place. It wasn’t a kiss-and-make-up moment. Anna couldn’t kiss a man who kissed another woman the moment her back was turned.

  ‘Look,’ she said, dragging the words up from the bottom of her. ‘Let’s not do this. No explanations. No excuses. No blah blah blah. We made a mistake. It’s done. Goodbye.’

  Anna didn’t know how Luca took that, because by the time she’d finished, she’d turned away, closing her eyes and letting tears roll from under her lashes.

  ‘You really are something else, Anna Piper.’

&nbs
p; She heard a door slam.

  Chapter Ten

  Lunch at Sam’s

  TWIGLETS

  QUORN SPAG BOL

  AFTER EIGHTS

  Anna’s premonition that a big love was heading her way turned out to be right after all, just not in the way she’d expected.

  The big love was her baby.

  Luca had written himself out of her life story. Presumably he had sloped back to the other woman. Or was I the other woman? Whatever: the floppy-hat tart was welcome to him.

  Yeti knew better. He crept to her when she cried on the sofa in front of a movie, laying his long snout on her lap. He joined her on the bed when she woke up in the middle of the night. The dog knew that Anna had made a terrible discovery.

  I held nothing back. The plan to withhold the last portion of her heart had failed. Like Napoleon, Luca had conquered all he saw.

  Now, four weeks later, the tears scarcely dry on her face, it was another Sunday Lunch Club.

  Dinkie looked confused. ‘Aren’t you meant to be at Sam’s today, darlin’?’

  ‘You’re on my way.’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ admitted Anna. ‘There’s something I want to ask you, Dinkie.’ She turned to face Sheba. ‘Something private.’

  ‘I—’ Sheba opened her mouth. Her expression was fierce. It lasted only a second before she decided against speaking and backed out of the door of Dinkie’s room.

  ‘She’s peculiar,’ said Anna.

  ‘Never mind Sheba. Sit.’

  Anna did as she was told, pulling a low upholstered chair over to Dinkie’s side.

  Tranquilly knitting, Dinkie’s voice was sharp as she said, ‘So? What’s up, young lady?’

  ‘Dinkie,’ said Anna. The word hung there. She couldn’t find a way in. Her grandmother let the silence swell, broken only by the clacking of knitting needles. ‘Dinkie, did you know about . . .’ Anna’s mouth dried up.

  ‘Your first baby?’

  Anna felt her vision swim. ‘Oh,’ was her underpowered, overwhelmed response.

  ‘I wanted to have her live with me. I wanted to bring her up.’

  Anna struggled to process this alternative reality.

  ‘Your father wouldn’t hear of it. Didn’t want her to be part of the family.’ Dinkie stopped, cleared her throat. ‘I wondered when you’d come and ask me about this. Has the pregnancy stirred it all up?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Anna was scooped clean. She was glad that Dinkie wanted to talk because she was unable to say anything.

  ‘I told your father that you’d never forgive him for giving away that poor little chick. I told him he was cutting a scar into the family. I never forgave him either.’ Dinkie patted Anna’s hand. ‘I know what it’s like having a child when you’re not much more than a child yourself. I knew you couldn’t manage on your own, but you could have managed with our help. I said, “Sure, isn’t that what we’re for? To look after each other?” But, well, you know better than I do how your dad felt.’

  ‘Would you really have brought up Bonnie?’

  ‘Is that what you called her? Aw, now, isn’t that a grand name. Yes, chick, of course I would. She was the image of you, you know.’

  ‘Was she?’ Anna felt absurdly happy with that paltry nugget.

  ‘Why ask now, musha? Why today?’

  ‘I’ll tell you another time.’ No need to burden Dinkie. ‘You had a baby at sixteen, didn’t you?’

  ‘Indeed I did. But my situation was different.’

  ‘You had a husband.’ Anna rallied. ‘Thank heavens for Grandpa, eh?’ She crossed to the photograph, looked at it, and said sadly, ‘Grandpa wouldn’t have made me give up my—’

  ‘Oh whisht, Anna!’ said Dinkie passionately. ‘That man was a pig!’ She put her hands to her face. ‘God forgive me, I tried to bring your father up differently, but no, like father like son.’

  ‘Dinkie? I don’t . . .’

  ‘That train journey,’ said Dinkie, a pleading look on her face. ‘The one I always tell youse about? That Storm loves so much?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Anna sank to the floor in front of her grandmother.

  ‘He forced himself on me.’ Dinkie looked up at the ceiling.

  Anna felt sick. ‘Grandpa?’

  ‘All the charm was for one reason only. He liked fear, you see. I wasn’t just a virgin, Anna. There’s no word for how naive I was. My ma never taught me about ess ee ex. All I knew was that it was a sin.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t,’ said Anna, yearning to comfort Dinkie.

  ‘I didn’t even tell anybody. I was too ashamed. He kept sniffing round me. I even went for a bit of lunch with him now and then, but I was never alone with him. It was like he was a snake and I was a mouse.’ Dinkie balled her tiny fists in her lap. ‘I wish I could get a hold of me younger self and tell me to kick him in his you-know-whats.’

  ‘Don’t be angry with yourself,’ said Anna. ‘Be angry with him.’

  ‘I didn’t even realise I was pregnant. That’s how green I was. Me bump was out here before I cottoned on. So I wrote to me da and he came over on the first boat and he sought out your grandpa and he told him to marry me.’

  ‘What? Why would your own father want you to marry . . .’ She couldn’t say the word ‘rapist’ in front of her grandmother. No longer a cherished widow, Dinkie was a survivor.

  ‘That’s how it was then, chick. Da thought he was doing right by me. He sobbed all through the service. Don’t judge him, darlin’. Religion had Ireland by the throat back then. Appearances meant everything. Ma . . . Ma just wanted me home, in her warm kitchen, safe again. But women didn’t have voices then the way they do now. The way you do. Always use that voice of yours, Anna. Never be quiet because a man says so.’

  ‘Not my style, Dinkie,’ smiled Anna. ‘Was Grandpa a good husband?’ The question was ridiculous.

  ‘He beat seven shades of shite out of me, pardon my French.’ Dinkie pointed to her face. ‘I wasn’t born with this queer nose, Anna. That was a punch for not having his breakfast on the table.’

  That was why Dinkie had looked subtly different in her wedding photograph. Anna wanted to crawl back through time and save her grandmother.

  ‘He never stopped resenting me for getting meself pregnant, as he put it. Some days he wouldn’t use me name. Called me Peasant. Thought he’d married beneath him, but truth be told, there was nobody beneath him. Souls never change, Anna. He was as bad a father as he was a husband. The only favour that man did me was dyin’.’

  ‘The stories . . .’

  ‘I made them up. Because I wanted to nourish you all. I wanted my little boy to be proud of where he came from.’ Dinkie frowned, as if yearning to get this point across. ‘When your grandpa died, it was as if God had given me a break at last. He’d taken away this horrible role model. There was a chance for little Alan. He didn’t have to grow up tough and hard and arrogant. So I made up an alternative father for him. One who was kind and showed love.’ Dinkie bowed her head suddenly. ‘I kind of fell for him meself, to be honest with ya.’

  ‘Oh, Dinkie.’ Anna said it again. ‘Oh, Dinkie Dinkie Dinkie.’ There weren’t any words to do the situation justice. Well, maybe just three. ‘I love you.’

  ‘I know you do, darlin’. I love you right back. Don’t go feeling sorry for me!’ She was fierce; Dinkie in warrior mode. ‘I’ve made a grand life out of what I was given. Sure, don’t I have you?’ She reached out and stroked the curve of Anna’s cheek.

  ‘You’ll always have me.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if your father is the way he is because of Grandpa’s genes.’

  ‘The way he is . . .?’ Anna had never heard Dinkie openly criticise Dad before.

  ‘Domineering. Hard. Always in the right. He silenced your voice, didn’t he, when he cut Bonnie adrift.’ Dinkie’s small face puckered. ‘Jesus, I hope that scrap knows how much she was wanted. I hope her new people were good to her.’

  ‘Me too.’
Anna couldn’t tell Dinkie about Bonnie’s bitterness. Couldn’t even tell her Bonnie was now called Carly.

  As Dinkie waved Anna off, having insisted on coming to the front entrance on Sheba’s arm, she called out, ‘Only five weeks to the eleventh of November! I’ll light a candle at St Jude’s as usual.’

  All that love bottled up for Bonnie – surely it had to mean something?

  ‘Is it possible,’ said Sam, taking the bottle from Anna, kissing her cheek, ‘that you’ve expanded since the day before yesterday?’

  ‘I think it might be quintuplets.’ Anna was wearing maternity jeans with an expandable insert at the front. They were the exact opposite of sexy. ‘You look odd.’ She stood back, not easy in Sam’s boxy hallway. ‘Haircut!’ She followed him into the sitting room. ‘New jumper!’

  ‘It’s time,’ said Sam with a sigh as he threw knives and forks in the general direction of the table Isabel had made him buy. ‘I have to face facts. Rejoin the human race. She’s not coming back.’

  He’d stopped texting Isabel. Stopped drunk-dialling her at two a.m.

  ‘Whatever happens, it’s nice to see you looking after yourself again.’

  ‘I’ve been a bit . . .’ Sam looked ashamed. ‘I was mean to you, wasn’t I?’

  ‘Nothing I didn’t deserve.’ Anna had confronted her own behaviour about Isabel.

  ‘Look at the pair of us.’ Sam plonked a kitchen roll on the table; Fancy, thought Anna. ‘Sad singletons again. But . . .’ He smiled. A poignant, last waltz of a smile. ‘I still have you.’

  ‘You’ll always have me.’ That was the second such promise Anna had made that day. She looked down at her tum. ‘I’m going to need you soon.’

  ‘What will the baby call me? I’m not an uncle. There’s no official title for the man who used to be married to your mother.’

  ‘You’re an uncle, and that’s that.’ The baby needed as many uncles and aunts as it could muster. Anna gravitated towards the sofa; soft furnishings had begun to exert an irresistible pull. Caruso leapt onto her lap with a happy yowl. Raking through her sadness for a silver lining to Luca’s defection, she had realised that she could now act as ‘pregnant’ as she wanted to. I can let out a loud ‘Oof!’ when I sit down. I can wear slippers all day. I can nod off in the middle of sentences.