Knowing Me Knowing You

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘She’s as good as body bagged,’ Lynn said.

  Sixteen

  ‘Thanks for this Mione, I know I’m taking advantage of you at the moment and…’ Kate began as she raced around the living room and then the kitchen looking for a missing earring, one shoe on her foot.

  ‘How many more times Sweetie? I love spending time with Bethan and believe me, once she’s gone to bed your house is going to be my little sanctuary. I’ve bought a book, I have fennel pastries and Philip is taking care of my noisy tribe.’

  ‘Well I won’t be late, I mean I expect we’ll just play one round and then head back and there’s only so much questioning you can do in one evening. Unless he throws me to the floor again and won’t let me go,’ Kate said, finding her earring and putting it in her ear.

  ‘You’re making that sound like it would be a bad thing.’

  ‘I suppose the floor of the bowling alley would be kinder on my clothes.’

  ‘Are you going to speak to him about it? I mean it isn’t quite normal behaviour is it?’

  ‘It was when the car backfired, I’m presuming it has something to do with him serving in a war zone and that topic of conversation is off limits. I don’t want to piss him off and have him pull out on me,’ Kate spoke.

  ‘Well, you take as long as you like, we’ll be just fine here won’t we Bethy,’ Hermione responded, bouncing Bethan up and down on her knee.

  The doorbell rang and Kate squealed, scanning the room for her other shoe.

  ‘I’ll get that for you, I have to see him in person. I’ve heard so much about him I almost feel like I’ve met him already,’ Hermione spoke, leaping off the sofa and practically running down the corridor in a bid to reach the door before Kate.

  She opened it and smiled widely at Joel.

  ‘You must be Joel,’ she purred, extending her free hand for him to take.

  ‘And you must be Hermione, Kate’s always talking about you. I feel like I’ve met you already,’ Joel answered, taking her hand and kissing it lightly.

  ‘Oh my God you have a psychic mind; I just said the very same thing to Kate,’ Hermione answered excitedly.

  ‘Let the poor guy in will you and stop drooling over him,’ Kate called from the living room.

  ‘Hmm, I do hope she’s only told you the good bits about me or her childminding fee will be going up,’ Hermione said, tickling Bethan’s tummy and making her giggle.

  ‘Joel, Joel,’ Bethan shouted, waving a hand at Joel.

  ‘She’s remembered your name! Clever girl Bethy!’ Kate exclaimed as she joined them all in the hallway, now wearing both shoes and putting on a coat.

  ‘Hello Bethan,’ Joel greeted, taking hold of the little girl’s chubby hand and giving it a squeeze.

  ‘OK, shall we go? Mr Crisps is in her cot, her milk’s in the fridge and help yourself to anything, although not the microwavable faggots because I’m having those tomorrow,’ Kate instructed Hermione.

  ‘They sound so disgusting there’s no way I would even touch them let alone put them near my mouth. Have a good time both of you and no need to hurry back,’ Hermione insisted, opening the door for them and almost shooing them out.

  ‘God, sorry about that. Did she take hold of your hand? She does that to get a look at your life and love lines on your palm. She will have you half sussed out by now,’ Kate spoke, leading the way down the path and stopping at the gate.

  ‘I was more distraught at the thought of microwavable faggots,’ Joel admitted.

  ‘I highly recommend them.’

  ‘Well, I hope you like steak too. I couldn’t get a lane until nine so I booked a table at the Ranch House. Have you been there before?’ Joel enquired, opening the car door for her.

  ‘Is that the place where you cook your own food?’

  ‘Yes it is. It’ll be fun,’ Joel replied, shutting her door for her.

  ‘But you know I’m no good with cooking,’ Kate told him.

  ‘I’ll help and if we get into real difficulties there’s always KFC,’ Joel said with a smile.

  Half an hour later they were sat at a table cooking steak and sausages on a grill set into their table. They were wearing cowboy hats and neckerchiefs and had been served by a waitress called Darlene. Kate was convinced it couldn’t be her real name.

  ‘Do you think they’re done yet?’ she asked with a sigh.

  The novelty of cooking your own food had worn off twenty minutes ago. The grills seemed to take forever to cook the meat and there were a set of triplets sat at the table next to them who had screamed ever since they got there. Kate had slight sympathy for the parents because she was a mother and she knew how hard it was to look after children, particularly in a public place where they were liable to be on their worst behaviour. But when they started to bang their knives and forks on the table and the parents seemed completely oblivious to the din, all sympathy quickly evaporated.

  ‘A few minutes more, unless you want yours rare. See how easy it is to make steak and salad?’

  ‘Is this my nutrition lesson? I feel like an experiment or one of those sad cases on Freaky Eaters,’ Kate replied, leaning on her elbow and looking glum.

  ‘It’s just a misconception that ready meals are quicker to make. You can steam vegetables in a few minutes you know.’

  ‘How fascinating. It’s a good job we’re not on a real date; you would have bored me rigid by now.’

  ‘Bethan would have great fun helping you prepare a salad. Kids love anything with colour in and they’re more likely to eat things they’ve helped prepare,’ Joel carried on.

  ‘That’s very good information Jamie Oliver, but is the meat on this grill cooked? If not I’m tempted to suggest a self-service spit roast to the management, starting with one of those kids,’ Kate told him, indicating the badly behaved trio who were now shaking condiments all over the table and flicking salt and pepper at each other.

  ‘Let’s see. Yep, I think that’s fine. Here you go,’ Joel said and he put a piece of steak and a sausage on Kate’s plate.

  ‘So, d’you come here often?’ Kate asked, adding salad to her plate and dousing it all with dressing.

  ‘Cheesy line,’ Joel remarked.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘No, I haven’t been here before, well not to this particular one. They have one of these near where I lived with my parents. They used to take me and I loved it. I thought cooking food at your own table was so cool! I still do. I guess that makes me about twelve,’ Joel admitted with a smile.

  ‘It is quite cool, I suppose, if you have all night and aren’t sat next to the Devil’s offspring,’ Kate admitted.

  ‘Kids will be kids,’ Joel replied unfazed by the unruly behaviour as the three boys started to stamp their feet on the floor.

  ‘Not at a restaurant. I would die if Bethan behaved like that.’

  ‘People spend a lot of time these days worrying what other people think of them. We should just be who we are and people can take us or leave us,’ Joel told her.

  ‘God that was profound for a steak house in Highbridge.’

  ‘Well I just think you should be genuine, not pretend to be something you aren’t. What’s the point of that?’

  ‘Speaks the man who’s pretending to be my boyfriend to win a relationship contest,’ Kate spoke with a laugh.

  ‘There are extenuating circumstances for that situation and it’s only temporary,’ Joel reminded.

  Kate smiled and desperately tried to ignore the three boys who had now mounted the backs of their chairs and were pretending to wave lassoes in the air and shoot each other, their fingers stuck out like pistols.

  ‘So what sort of stuff did you do with your parents?’ Joel asked.

  ‘We weren’t the going to the restaurant sort of family if that’s what you mean,’ Kate replied.

  ‘Then what stuff did you do? Any great family holidays?’ Joel asked.

  ‘I only remember going on one family holiday, to Bognor Regis. I had one perfect day
on the beach building sandcastles and chasing my dad with seaweed. The next day my mother said she was ill and we had to go home. She said she was ill a lot so Dad would take me off somewhere.’

  ‘So if I was Larry Rawlins would you be a sun seeker or a snow lover?’

  ‘Oh sun, definitely, you won’t get me on skis, ever. The salopettes look hideous and having two planks of wood attached to your feet is just unnatural,’ Kate replied, trying desperately not to let salad dressing drizzle down her chin.

  ‘So have you travelled?’ Joel asked.

  ‘I went to Spain with some girlfriends once - Torremolinos. It’s all a bit hazy, well it was a hen weekend and they’re supposed to be hazy aren’t they? I came back with food poisoning and a straw donkey. And then I went to Cuba on honeymoon. Matthew didn’t like it, he said it was too hot and he got diarrhoea on the third day - I was pretty much on my own after that. I saw the sites though. I did Havana and smoked cigars, well one and it made me sick but I had to do it, it was Cuba,’ Kate informed him with a grin.

  ‘I would love to go there, it’s such a one-off place and so full of history.’

  ‘Well, where have you been? Apart from touring all the major war zones which we definitely aren’t going to mention again.’

  ‘I am so sorry about yesterday, the whole throwing you to the ground thing, I thought…’ Joel began his face flushing.

  ‘That it was a bomb going off?’ Kate offered.

  ‘Yeah, something like that,’ Joel admitted.

  ‘Did scare me a bit too.’

  ‘But you didn’t take cover,’ Joel responded.

  ‘I might have done, if you weren’t there coming to my aid and putting me to the pavement in double quick time.’

  ‘Now you’re being too kind,’ Joel responded with half a smile.

  ‘So where have you been? Tell me about the nice places.’

  ‘I lived in Germany for a while, great sausages and excellent beer.’

  ‘But what about the sites and the history? The Rhine and the Danube?’

  ‘They were good too but the beer and sausages were more spectacular in my opinion.’

  ‘Philistine.’

  ‘After Germany there was Croatia, Czech Republic, Netherlands…’

  ‘Now you’re just showing off.’

  ‘But I fell in love with France. The country and the scenery, the cafés, the food, the slow pace of life.’

  ‘The cheese, the onion sellers, the Eiffel Tower, Gerard Depardieu…’

  ‘Don’t mock it; it’s a fantastic country. I try and go at least once a year to this little village in the south. I stay at this ancient farmhouse surrounded by the greenest fields you can imagine and I spend my time letting the peace and quiet soak into me,’ Joel spoke.

  Kate watched his expression, saw tranquillity washing over him as he conjured up obviously very happy memories.

  ‘Sorry, you must think I’m crazy. It’s just I can’t seem to find that feeling here. When I’m in Marchette there just seems to be so much space and time. Everything seems so stripped back and simple and that’s what I like.’

  ‘It sounds lovely but I can’t afford to even think about a foreign trip anywhere at the moment. I want Bethan to see everything and do everything but when you’re a single mum you have to concentrate on the essentials, luxuries have to take a back seat.’

  ‘But when we win the competition and the money, the world will be your oyster,’ Joel reminded her.

  ‘That money will be going on the mortgage; I don’t want repossession knocking on my door.’

  ‘Bethan would love Euro Disney. I did and I was twenty three when I went,’ Joel said.

  ‘You don’t look like a Disney kind of guy.’

  ‘And what does a Disney kind of guy look like?’

  ‘Goofy.’

  ‘That’s lame.’

  ‘Who did you go with?’

  ‘My girlfriend at the time and no, before you ask she didn’t look like Minnie Mouse.’

  ‘Why did you break up?’ Kate asked directly.

  ‘She wanted to wear costumes in the bedroom.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘No,’ Joel confirmed with a laugh.

  ‘So why?’ Kate asked him seriously.

  ‘I don’t know really, it just wasn’t right,’ Joel told her thoughtfully.

  ‘Obviously that’s how Matthew felt about me. I just wish he’d concluded that before we exchanged rings and had a baby,’ Kate said with a sigh.

  ‘More salad?’ Joel offered.

  ‘Oh no thanks, I’m saving myself for pudding. Is that chargrilled too? Because if it is I can’t wait to see what they come out with.’

  ‘I’d better warn you,’ Kate said later, when they were preparing to start their game at the bowling alley, ‘we had an outing at school once and out of my whole year, I won.’

  ‘I feel threatened and, if I was competitive, I would care - but I’m not and I don’t,’ Joel replied, picking up a ball.

  ‘I don’t believe you aren’t competitive, I saw you at Knowing Me Knowing You, you were desperate for us to do well.’

  ‘I was making sure everyone believed we were a couple, I wasn’t concentrating on anything else.’

  ‘Yeah sure. OK, here goes,’ Kate spoke and she approached her lane.

  She lined up her ball, looked down the alley and with one forceful flick of her wrist she threw it.

  It smashed against the pins and knocked eight of them down. Kate screeched excitedly and jumped up and down like a child, throwing her arms in the air as she celebrated.

  ‘See! Still got the touch,’ she spoke, blowing on her fingers and picking up another ball.

  ‘You won’t get the other two down, too spread out,’ Joel told her.

  ‘Watch and learn,’ Kate replied, approaching the line.

  She took a deep breath, looked up and prepared to throw the ball. She swung her arm back and was about to deliver a shot down the alley when her attention was distracted by action on another lane. She had to look twice. It couldn’t be. The person she was looking at turned around and seemed to look straight at her. Kate dropped the ball on the wooden floor, narrowly missing her foot.

  Two lanes across from where Kate stood were Matthew and the woman who had punched her. She was definitely Amanda, the new girlfriend. He was wearing the navy jeans she had bought him last Christmas and her favourite shirt of his, blue with a thin stripe. Seeing him made her heart lurch.

  The ball made a loud crash and everyone in the centre looked in her direction.

  ‘Kate,’ Joel called to her.

  Kate stood, unmoving, unable to keep her eyes off the couple. Because of the noise of the ball smashing on the floor both of them were now looking over at her.

  ‘Do you want to go?’ Joel asked, recognising who it was.

  ‘He never took me bowling,’ Kate spoke quietly, still staring at them.

  ‘Come on, let’s go and get a drink,’ Joel suggested.

  Kate didn’t reply and stood her ground as Matthew and Amanda left their game and started to approach them.

  ‘So this is how you’re going to spend my money is it? Nights out bowling with your new boyfriend?’ Matthew asked, standing in front of Kate.

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Joel spoke, moving closer to Kate protectively.

  ‘Oh you don’t do you?’ Matthew retaliated.

  ‘No,’ Joel replied, standing his ground.

  ‘I’d take some advice from me if I was you. Ditch her now while you have the chance because if you’re not careful she’ll be knocked up and after you for maintenance before your six month anniversary,’ Matthew snarled.

  Kate didn’t say anything. She couldn’t bring herself to; it was like there was a bowling ball stuck in her throat. All she could do was look at Matthew, narrowing his eyes and looking at her with hatred. She wondered whether he had ever been the person she thought he’d been.

  ‘Stop hounding Matt, ringing up and begging
for money, it’s pathetic,’ the red-haired woman joined in, glaring at Kate.

  ‘I won’t be paying the CSA more than I can afford. I never wanted a kid and I don’t want one now,’ Matthew spat, moving his face closer to Kate’s.

  Kate looked up at him, her eyes stinging with tears at the cruelty in his tone and manner. She was back to being a doormat again, taking the comments, soaking them up and not having the guts to fight back.

  The very next thing she knew, there was a yell, a loud crash and Matthew was on the floor of the bowling alley, Joel’s knee in the back of his neck.

  ‘Get off him! You’re hurting him!’ Amanda shrieked, pulling fruitlessly at Joel’s sleeve.

  ‘I suggest you go back to your own lane and stop harassing Kate before I talk her into pressing assault charges against you for the other night,’ Joel spoke, looking up at Amanda.

  ‘Let him go. Please, you’re hurting him!’ Amanda said as Matthew yelped, his face pressed into the ground.

  ‘Joel, let him go,’ Kate spoke, clearing her throat and hurriedly wiping the tears away from her eyes.

  Joel got up and stood next to Kate as Matthew dragged himself up off the floor and glared at them both.

  ‘You’re a maniac! And you, I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re nothing but a money grabbing…’ Matthew yelled, pointing his finger.

  ‘Do you want to go back on the floor?’ Joel questioned, taking a step towards Matthew.

  ‘Matt, let’s just go,’ Amanda spoke, taking hold of her boyfriend’s hand and pulling him away.

  ‘He’s a psycho! What did he do to me? Did you see?’ Matthew muttered as Amanda coaxed him from the scene.

  ‘Just forget them babe, she’s nothing to you remember? Just some girl who forced you to marry her and then got pregnant to try and keep you,’ Amanda told him.

  Kate watched them leave, arms linked together, heads close. The tears were stinging her eyes now.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Joel asked Kate.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that. In fact why did you do that? It’s nothing to do with you,’ Kate spoke, trying to regain some of her composure.

  ‘What he said about Bethan, that was uncalled for and…’ Joel began.