‘No you choose, I’m not really savvy with Sunday lunch time pubs.’
‘Okay, how about The Willow Tree, they do a carvery?’
‘That sounds nice, where is it?’
‘Well it’s out a bit, takes about twenty minutes to get there, on the river out Richmond way. It’s really nice in the summer sitting outside, but it’s probably a bit cold for that today, but the view’s nice.’
‘Okay great.’ I said hoping I wasn’t drooling too obviously.
He pulled out and we remained silent while he negotiated town traffic that was almost as busy as if it had been a Saturday. But once we were on the other side of town and things relaxed a bit traffic-wise Rob said ‘so what is this thing you’ve been working on all week?’
I explained, then told him that my payment for the job was going to buy me, or more accurately my daughter, her pushchair. I was still getting to grips with thinking of the bump as my daughter, the whole idea of a little baby girl was thrilling, magical even, it was just the ‘daughter’ bit that felt a bit strange and awkward on my tongue.
We lapsed into silence once more as he pulled into the car park at back of The Willow Tree. It turned out I did know about this place, I’d passed it a few times but never been inside. It was quite old, and had all the typical charm of an old pub, with dark wood and bits of polished brass everywhere. Rob led me through the saloon area that was fairly crowded, and straight into the dining area at the back that had a couple of large French type glass doors that opened out onto a paved patio area, although today they were firmly closed and no-one was sitting outside, where you could get a front row view of the river Thames.
It was busy in here too, but we managed to grab a table just as a couple with their two children, both boys, were leaving.
‘That was lucky.’ Rob said pulling out a chair for me to sit down. ‘You usually have to wait.’
‘Usually? You’ve been here a few times then.’
‘I did some photo’s for an article, some twaddle about country pubs, although I don’t quite see how Richmond qualifies as the country, it’s not exactly my idea of the country. Anyway for two days I was snapping away, here and up the road at The Swan, and this is where we stayed, and ate, me and the journalist and a gofer.’
‘A gofer?’
‘Yeah you know, go for coffee, or go for my other lens, or go . .’
‘Oh a gofer, okay get it now. Was this for the magazine you used to work for?’
‘Yes. So what do you want to eat?’
‘Actually I’m starving, is it alright if I have a proper Sunday roast with all the trimmings?’
‘Why not. I’m pretty starving myself and it is Sunday after all, so I think I’ll have a Sunday roast too. It’s serve yourself, would you like me to do the honours?’
‘Yes, great, but no sprouts please, don’t know how people can eat those things, but anything else is fine.’
‘Okay then, roast beef, Yorkshire pud, roast potatoes, a few veg no sprouts, gravy?’
‘Yes a bit of gravy, but not swimming.’
‘Not too much gravy, anything else?’
‘No that’s it.’
Rob walked over to the long table they had set up that was overloaded with food and the largest roast joints of meat I’d ever seen, and waited in line to get served.
Who’d have thought I’d be sitting here waiting for the luscious Rob, that we’d be here in a place like this together on a date. Okay I really need to get a hold of myself, I still didn’t know if this was a date, I mean there’d been nothing so far that suggested it might be, or give me any clue really one way or the other. It was still early days and so far I’d managed to have a coherent conversation, but I could feel myself floating up to cloud nine and then some, just like I had that night at Zee Zee’s, and if I wasn’t on my guard I’d slip into open mouthed adoration and be incapable of any sort of conversation at all, coherent or otherwise. Maybe after lunch he’ll declare his undying love for me . . yeah and maybe pigs can really fly and one’s going to ask me what I want for desert. I’ve really got to stop thinking so much.
Rob came back with two plates laden with Sunday roast goodies, and I was embarrassed to see that his plate had an abundance of sprouts. He saw me scrutinizing the sprouts and said ‘sorry but I love them, it wouldn’t be a proper Sunday lunch without Brussels,’ then grinned at me impishly.
I really was starving and tucked in straight away, well I was eating for two, and everything tasted as good as it looked. Having satisfied my initial hunger I asked him about his work and if he’d got any more jobs lined up. I was interested of course but if I’m honest what I was really doing was classic get them to talk about themselves, isn’t that what Cosmo would tell you to do and who am I to argue?
‘One or two,’ he said. ‘Nothing I can get really excited about, but anything’s better than nothing.’
‘Will you have to stay away again, or is it local?’
‘The first one’s in Newcastle and will probably take about a week, so I’ll have to stay up there for that one, and the other one’s going to be your average seaside town, location yet to be decided on, so no idea if that’s a stay over or not yet.’
‘Must be nice, going to all these places, never knowing from one day to the next exactly where you might be or end up.’
‘Trust me there’s not much that’s nice about Newcastle, well not the bit of it that I’ll be staying in.’
‘Why what is the job, what are you taking pictures of?’
‘Don’t laugh but it’s classic shots of the bottling plant at a local brewery, so where else would it be but Newcastle, for a monthly brewery magazine.’
‘I didn’t know there was such a thing as a brewery magazine.’
‘Oh yes, Brewers Are Us, or something of the sort, it’s an in house thing for some brewers union. Pretty crap job really, but a jobs a job so I shouldn’t complain.’
‘Do you miss working for the magazine in London?’
‘No, it was the right thing to do leaving all that, I just wish I could get on to the more serious stuff, but I suppose if it all goes belly up I could always resort to weddings and christenings, or maybe passport photo’s.’
‘I can’t imagine you doing that somehow.’
‘Yeah maybe you’re right, and yes I do kind of like the not knowing from one week to the next where I’m going to be, I just wish the money was a bit more . . you know, reliable, steady.’
‘Personally I’m sick to death of going to the same place, same building, meeting the same people day after day.’
‘Yeah but at least you know you’ve got a job tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong it is nice being paid to go out and about, but it would also be nice to know for sure where my next pay cheque was coming from, or even if there was going to be a next pay cheque.’
‘Couldn’t you get a job on a paper, you know taking pictures of the news?’
‘Mm that’d be ideal, but it’s a tough market to crack and nowadays it’s mostly freelance, so I’ll just keep plugging away at it.’
We carried on eating and Rob cleared his plate, including all the sprouts, while I was still struggling with mine, obviously I hadn’t been quite as hungry as I thought I was.
‘Sorry I can’t finish, it tasted great but it’s just a bit too much for me?’
‘Do you fancy desert?’
‘No way, I don’t think I could manage another mouthful of anything.’
‘How about a drink of something, wine, lager, tea?’
‘What I really fancy is lemonade.’
‘Okay . . lemonade? Are you sure?’
‘Yes positive, It’ll help this dinner go down a bit.’
‘Alright then lemonade it is.’
Rob went to the bar in the saloon, and while he was gone a waitress cleared the table. Okay I thought, this is it. The dodgy bit on any date is not the meal itself, I mean at least you’ve got the food to talk about, there’s all that deciding what you’ll have, and
then whether the food turned out to be as good as you’d hoped it would be. No it was after the meal that things could get a bit hairy and was the real test, you had no distractions so were forced to talk about yourself, or listen to him talking about himself. That’s if you could manage it, sometimes it was at this point that the conversation just dried up completely and you found out how much of a mistake going out with whoever it was, had turned out to be.
Rob came back with a half pint of beer for himself and a glass of lemonade for me. ‘I wasn’t sure if you wanted ice or not,’ he said depositing the glasses on the table.
‘No, ice is fine.’
‘We could take this into the bar if you’d like, it’s not as busy now.’
‘I quite like it here, you were right about the view.’ I said looking out at the river as one of those long rowing boats with ten or more oarsmen, like the Oxford and Cambridge boat race boats, streamed along, and some guy on the end of the boat shouted at them to row harder, or faster, or whatever it was.
‘When’s Mac off on his travels again?’ I said.
‘Thursday I think.’
‘Must be a bit crowded when he’s home.’
‘You’re not kidding. Marsha’s been really good about it, letting me stay I mean, but I’ve got to get a place of my own soon.’
‘Have you been looking?’
‘No, but I really should start.’
‘If only I’d known you could have had my old place.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well when you do get somewhere maybe I’ll come and paint it for you, return the favour.’
‘While I look after the baby I suppose?’
‘Mm maybe not then.’
‘I could look after a baby,’ Rob said defensively at my implied hint that he might not be able to. ‘I looked after Harry for two days when Marsha went into hospital to have Flora and Mac was trying to get home, and then he practically camped out at the hospital so he could be with her.’
‘Did you?’ I said surprised but nonetheless impressed.
‘Yes I did. Didn’t do a bad job either. There were no visible scars afterwards anyway.’
‘Okay then you’ve convinced me, when you get a place of your own you can look after the baby and I’ll paint.’
We lapsed into silence. Crap. Think of something to say. Anything. ‘So when are you off to Newcastle?’ Okay it wasn’t brilliant but it was something.
‘Monday week, and with a bit of luck back again by the following Friday.’
More silence. This was not good. I racked my brains but clearly I wasn’t racking hard enough because I was coming up with zilch.
‘When will you stop work?’ Rob asked and I offered up a prayer of thanks to the God of uncomfortable silences.
‘End of January probably, I don’t know really, it depends how things go.’
‘Will they keep your job for you until after . .’
‘They said they would, but I . . I’m not sure if I want to go back after.’
‘What will you do then?’
‘That’s the question, what will I do? It’s going to be hard trying to juggle a full time job and a baby, although Fishers did say I could go part time for a bit if I wanted to.’
‘Well what about what you were doing this week, you know tax stuff. There must be lots of people who haven’t got a clue about that sort of thing, I know I haven’t, and you could do that at home.’
‘Yes it’s an idea. I’ve thought about it but I don’t know if I could earn enough doing that.’
‘Well you could do mine, that’d be start. I could ask around for you, or you could just put an ad in the paper or something.’
‘Yeah maybe, I’ll think about it.’
‘At least you’re not worrying about having twins anymore.’
‘Yes that was dreadful, I’d convinced myself I was having two. Thank God I was wrong.’
‘So you thought of any names yet?’
‘No not yet, I haven’t really thought about it, but I should shouldn’t I?’
‘Well what’s your mums name?’
‘Celia, and I’m not naming my baby after my mum, even if her name wasn’t Celia, which is pretty dread, I still wouldn’t name the baby after mum.’
‘You don’t get on with your mum?’
‘Oh we get on alright I suppose, but she . . well she’s just so . . right all the time and thinks I’m so wrong all the time. I think she thinks I’m still twelve.’
Rob looked at me with one eyebrow raised as if to say ‘well?’
‘Hey you’re supposed to be on my side.’ I said with mock outrage.
‘What did she say about the baby?’
‘Nothing good, just a lot of I told you so’s. She got it into her head that when I was younger and started going out with my friends, you know to clubs and . . well that I was going to end up a pregnant lush mixing with all sorts of dodgy people, drug dealers and murderers or something. She hated me going out. If she’d had her way I’d have stayed home all the time until I was about twenty five and then some Prince Charming would come along, sweep me off my feet, and marry me. Course how I was ever going to meet this Prince Charming was a bit of a mystery if I never went anywhere, but I swear that’s what she thought.’
‘So getting pregnant didn’t go down too well then?’
No I thought, it wouldn’t have if I hadn’t invented you as the father. For a split second I considered telling Rob about the big fat lie I’d told my mother, but it was only a momentary blip on my sanity radar.
‘No not really.’
‘What about your dad?’
‘Oh he’s fine about anything. Since him and Mum split up he’s chilled out no end, and as long as I’m alright about stuff then he is too, even having a baby.’
‘So if you can’t have your mums name, what then? Have you got any aunties or a grandmother you could name her after?’
‘No aunties, and I really don’t want to saddle my daughter with any old fashioned names like either of my gran’s. I want something pretty.’
‘What about calling her Judy after her mum?’
‘God no, I hate the name Judy. All those jokes I had to endure at school.’
‘Jokes?’
‘Yeah like Punch and Judy, even now after all this time I swear if one more person says ‘that’s the way to do it’ in that nasal tone, I will kill them.’
Rob laughed and said ‘okay not Judy then’.
‘I’ll think of something, I’ve always liked the name Ella maybe I’ll call her that.’
‘I like that.’
‘Yeah I quite like it.’ I said dreamily trying to imagine a tiny baby with the name of Ella.
Rob had finished his beer and I had almost finished my lemonade, so Rob asked if I’d like another. I was torn, I didn’t really want another drink but if I said no would that be it, the end of the could be a date? But maybe he wanted the other half of his beer which kind of meant I’d have to have another lemonade, so maybe I should say yes.
‘Or we could go for a bit of a walk along the river if you like and if you’re feeling up to it?’ He said looking pointedly at my stomach.
‘I’d love to.’ I said, automatically resting my hand on my bump.
I made a quick trip to the loo while Rob paid, and we met up just inside the entrance. ‘Are you going to be warm enough? He said.
‘Yes it’s not that cold.’
‘Well it is a bit. I’ve got one of my old jumpers in the back of the car if you want to borrow that.’
I dreaded to think what it might be like or more importantly what I’d look like in Rob’s old jumper, so I said no thanks. But Rob went to get the jumper anyway and ran back to meet me now standing outside the entrance. I could feel the goose bumps rising on my arms already, even after only a couple of minutes, but I was in denial telling myself it wasn’t cold at all, and that I’d warm up after we’d started walking. I mean after all my effort to look half way decent given my pregnant state and all,
and after the arm and a leg it had cost me to buy my black shirt, the last thing I wanted was to have to cover it up with an old jumper of God knows what colour or state, that had been slung in the back of Rob’s car for who knew how long. And what if, horror of horrors, it was too small anyway to go over my bump, how embarrassing would that be?
Rob held out the jumper as he approached, but it wasn’t a jumper at all. It was a pale grey zip up hoody of the sweatshirt variety. God sometimes men are thick, I mean if you can’t tell the difference between a jumper and a sweatshirt, and how could it be a jumper anyway if it zipped up?
I gratefully accepted the sweatshirt, and Rob helped me put it on. I didn’t really need any help, but hey it gave him a chance to do his chivalrous bit, and me a chance to feel the heady closeness of him. I needn’t have worried that it would be too small, it was bigger even than my extra large fat clothes and almost reached my knees. I felt warmer straight away, and had my fingers crossed that I looked vaguely cute in his huge not a jumper. I did draw the line however on zipping the thing up, I mean that really would have looked stupid.
Rob left his arm round my shoulders, and I tried to pretend I hadn’t noticed but I can’t say it was easy, and we ambled slowly towards the footpath that ran alongside the river.
‘This is nice.’ I said after we’d gone a few yards. Of course nice hardly covered it, the sun had come out so even though it was chilly it was bright and looked warm, and the river twinkled and the ducks quacked, and Rob had his arm round me. It was heaven.
Another one of those long Oxford and Cambridge row boats went by, or maybe it was the same one going back the other way, and the guy on the end was still shouting at the rowers to work harder, and we stopped to watch, but all I could think about was the feel of Rob’s arm along my shoulders.
‘Did you ever think of calling me?’ Rob said without looking at me and still intently studying the rowers as they went through their paces.
‘Calling you what?’ I joked, not daring to think what he might really mean.
But Rob didn’t laugh. ‘I mean phoning, after we met that night and you disappeared without even leaving your number, did you ever think of phoning me?’
39 Weeks Page 20
