The Love Square

by Laura Jane Williams

  Deciding to hate him was the only thing that finally stopped her crying.

  10

  Six Months Later, in November

  ‘Service!’ Penny called out from behind the pass, where four plates were lined up, ready to be delivered to the table they called Bar Four.

  ‘Yes chef!’ replied Agnieszka, a Polish waitress with alabaster white skin and feline, blue eyes.

  Penny spoke quickly but firmly. She had two more tables to plate up. ‘We’ve got the Sri Lankan King Prawn and Cod Curry,’ she said, using a cloth from her shoulder to wipe a small dollop of liquid from the side of the bowl. ‘This is Derbyshire Lamb Rump, that one is the Club Sandwich, and that one,’ she said, pointing to the final dish, ‘is the Pork Chop with Apples. Sides are seasonal veg, creamed savoy cabbage, and two portions of parmesan truffle fries. Thank you.’ She turned to her sous chef, Manuela. ‘How long on the sauce for the braised beef, chef?’

  ‘Thirty seconds, chef,’ Manuela replied, not looking up from the pan she was vigorously stirring.

  Manuela was a small fifty-something-year-old Filipino woman who Uncle David had hired seven years ago for her quiet demeanour and steady work ethic. Penny had met her in passing over the years as she’d come to visit, but hadn’t truly understood Manuela’s capabilities until she took over from her uncle. It turned out Manuela had been running the kitchen more or less herself since last Christmas, when Uncle David started to slow down, so she thought like a head chef – making her the best sous Penny could have asked for.

  Penny plated up another curry and pork chop, called service, and then started in on the last dishes of the day.

  ‘Bar One say that was delicious, chef,’ Agnieszka trilled, as she sailed by the pass carrying dirty plates she’d just cleared.

  ‘Ahhh, thank you!’ Penny replied, wiping sweat from her brow.

  Hair stuck to the side of her face. She’d cut it all off just after moving, so that it was shoulder length, and now she had the last remnants of a fringe that – it turned out – hadn’t suited her. How many women would have to suffer the ill-fated ‘fringe after a romantic devastation’ before a less strident expression of malaise was found?

  Penny added: ‘How many covers tonight?’

  ‘I’ll check with Charlie,’ Agnieszka said, her accent thick and delivery efficient. Penny adored her – she never complained, the customers loved her, and she didn’t take any shit.

  Penny flicked off the lights opposite the cookers, instantly feeling relief from the heat.

  ‘That must have been more than seventy people we served tonight,’ Manuela instructed. ‘Maybe seventy-five.’

  ‘It felt like a hundred and seventy-five,’ replied Penny, slipping her foot out of her Croc so she could stretch out her ankle. ‘I still can’t get used to the leap from thirty or forty plates a day to this. This is kicking my ass.’

  ‘They’re all coming for you, Pen,’ Manuela grinned. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. You’re putting this place on the map.’

  The Red Panda was going from strength to strength under Penny’s command, and her impact on staff morale, the kitchen, the décor – all of it was immediate. Profit was up, overheads were down, but more than that: she was good at running a bigger place. There’d been a few early issues – she’d not known how to work the till, and screwed up the rota the first three weeks she’d been there, not to mention sleeping in one Sunday and almost missing service because she was used to Bridges being closed on a Sunday and having the day off – but mostly, she’d hit her stride. Maybe it was because there wasn’t much else to focus on – no men to distract her, no big city to seduce her and occupy her time – but Uncle David had been right that she’d thrive under a different sort of pressure. Penny had updated the menu and streamlined how service was run, as well as laying out training days and enforcing ‘Family Dinners’ so that staff got fed together between lunch and evening service.

  She missed Sharon, and Stuart, and the tiny kitchen at the back of Bridges. She missed her routine, and the rhythm of her days. She missed so much of her old life, but took comfort in being surrounded by lush green hills and the almost obscene friendliness of everyone in the village. It was lovely to go for a walk and see people who knew her name and asked after her uncle. There weren’t many people she’d gone to school with left – loads had moved to Nottingham, or Leicester – making the median age of the immediate demographic closer to sixty than thirty. But Havingley was where her mother was buried and being there made Penny feel close to her. She was enjoying the change of scenery, too, and the physical space around her meant she felt physical space in her mind as well.

  Especially from him.

  Penny had been steadfast in her promise to herself: she’d never cried over him, and hadn’t spoken to him since she’d left, either.

  That prick, is how Sharon referred to him. She’d been even more furious than Penny. That. Prick. Penny tried not to think of him by name, either.

  That prick is all he got.

  That prick had tried to text and tried to call over and over again for weeks after Penny had left. He’d even sent a letter to the pub. He’d started out hopeful, wondering how she was, if they were allowed to talk – they’d not discussed any ‘rules’ around communication, but friends stayed in touch so this was him staying in touch, he’d said.

  Stay in touch with that woman you were kissing, Penny had thought, darkly.

  She’d examined that whole situation from every perspective, trying to make sense of what had happened. It could have been his ex, but after what he’d said Penny was sure he’d never get back with her. Had he been dating somebody else at the same time he’d been dating her? Clementine said she just couldn’t believe it. Sharon said at least they’d found out he was an arse sooner rather than later. Stuart said he’d seen nothing, but he did have a vague recollection of a woman with big curly hair asking after Francesco once, which he’d thought was odd because how had she known Francesco had been spending time at Bridges? Not that it mattered anymore. Penny had a job to do: get The Red Panda in tip-top shape, and in only six more months, once Uncle David was fully better, she could be back at home. She didn’t hate having to be there, but she knew it wasn’t the place for her. London was her heart and soul’s true home.

  Uncle David had come to visit once, but otherwise he’d stayed at Eric’s sister’s second home on the Cornish coast to convalesce. He was still mildly grey in complexion, even months after his heart attack, and Penny had tried to suggest to Eric that maybe he was depressed. Penny had experienced it herself – the feeling of total helplessness when the body betrays, when it feels so out of your control to do anything other than rest, and go slow, and accept the help of everyone around you. Penny knew there was no way he could have continued to work. There was no way this could have played out any differently. She was always going to end up here, so she just had to make the best of it. She kept her head down, all of her attentions on the pub, and pressed on.

  Penny’s favourite person at The Red Panda, even considering the strong contenders of second-in-command Manuela and efficient Agnieszka, was her old friend Charlie.

  After Penny and Clementine had moved from a village ten miles away to be with their uncle in Havingley, they’d often walk to school with Charlie or hang out after homework club eating jam sandwiches and watching TV. Charlie’s mother was a cleaner at the pub, and had taken Penny and Clementine under her wing, never asking questions about their mother or talking ill of their father, but simply being there as a routine, a benign figure in the background who never overstepped the maternal mark but provided reassurance through continuity. As an adult, Penny recognized that was half the battle of feeling okay on any sort of day-to-day basis: continuity. She’d spent so long in her twenties trying to eschew any kind of banality in routine, and yet it was inevitable as she got older that banality was often the sweetest kind of refuge.

  ‘You stay here,’ Charlie said to Penny from where they waded
through old bottles and kegs in the cellar, in between lunch and dinner service. A voice had infiltrated where they were hanging out whilst also working, and immediately Charlie had identified it as belonging to Priyesh, their wine merchant. Penny rolled her eyes.

  ‘I’ll deal with him,’ Charlie insisted. ‘I know how. We don’t want him lingering for a whole hour like he did last time he held you hostage.’

  Penny fixed her mouth in a traumatized straight line at the memory – Priyesh was a man who liked a monologue, and an audience for it. Not long after she’d taken over, Penny had been cornered by him out by the recycling bins and returned back to the kitchen with visible sunburn she’d been out there that long. She’d avoided him ever since, under the excuse that she didn’t need to interfere with the bar when Charlie was so capable. Really, she simply didn’t like him.

  Charlie was gender non-binary and recently had explained – patiently, Penny had thought – that they didn’t want to be referred to as ‘she’ or ‘her’. Charlie was ‘they’ or ‘them’, and had clarified that they didn’t need Penny to understand them in order to respect them, which Penny understood implicitly.

  Penny pulled bottles from the wine-rack on the furthest wall as Charlie clamoured up to the bar. She blew dust off of a 2016 bottle of Tignanello Antinori Toscana and admired her find. ‘I might keep this,’ she thought, that prick’s face elbowing its way into her head. She had a sudden image of them by the fire, drinking it together, him taking in the surroundings and admiring this new place she called home. There are a lot of things she would have liked to have told him about the past six months – if they were speaking.

  ‘Well, I was rather hoping to see the proprietress,’ Penny could hear from up in the bar. His voice was booming and commanding, and it was Penny’s default response to roll her eyes. She couldn’t help it. ‘It seems rather improper that I don’t deal with the person in charge.’

  Penny stepped a few inches closer to the ladder up to the bar where he was talking with Charlie. She knew she should see the wine merchant, but she couldn’t be bothered to paint on a smile and be charming today. Not when her perfectly capable front of house manager was there and was much better at getting rid of him quickly. What was it about men who liked their own voices and could never take a hint? He should respect Charlie’s authority, Penny thought.

  Charlie said, ‘Unless you want to scramble down those steps through the cobwebs and into the underground cellar in your three-piece suit, I don’t think today’s your day.’

  Good on ya, thought Penny. You tell him.

  ‘David always gave me the time,’ the man continued. ‘This is the second time I’ve been by and she’s busy. I’d hate to take it personally.’

  ‘Priyesh, are you after a free lunch? Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘Hardly,’ Priyesh replied. ‘I can buy my own lunch, and you know that. Although David did often try out his dishes on me. I’ve got a very attuned palate, you know.’

  ‘I am sure you do,’ Charlie said. ‘Listen. We need a minute before we figure out the last seasonal order, if that’s okay. I just found out we’re closing after December twenty-fifth and Penny has discovered whole crates of stuff we didn’t know we had, so we’re getting the lay of the land.’

  ‘Perhaps I could assist …’ Priyesh began.

  ‘We’ll let you know if we need anything. Penny is pretty au fait with wine. David taught her a lot.’

  ‘Well, we know who schooled David.’

  Penny made a gagging noise from the floor below him. He truly was the most boring person to have ever crossed The Red Panda’s threshold. She had no idea how Uncle David managed him – she’d have to ask next time they spoke.

  ‘Thanks so much for understanding, and for dropping by unannounced personally. That’s quite the service,’ Charlie smiled, and Penny could tell from their voice it was through gritted teeth.

  ‘Well, as I said. I was rather hoping to see Penelope.’

  ‘She just goes by Penny,’ Charlie sighed. ‘I don’t think we’re supposed to rename people without their permission.’

  ‘I see,’ Priyesh said. ‘Penny. Very well. Please do pass along my calling card to her and tell her I look forward to an audience just as soon as we might find a time of mutual convenience. I’m doing my best not to take offence, and yet here we are.’

  ‘I’ll pass the message along.’

  ‘What a twat,’ said Penny, as Charlie re-entered the cellar.

  ‘I’ve never wanted to colour your opinion,’ they said. ‘But yeah.’

  ‘Tell you what,’ grinned Penny, pulling out another bottle of the Tignanello. ‘Make sure he gets an invite to the staff Christmas party, so I can give him a bit of attention, but also have a get-out clause. If I have to relive our summer interaction again I’ll die. Actually cease to exist on this mortal coil through sheer boredom of interacting. And Penelope? Urgh. Nobody has called me that since my mother.’

  The mention of her mother made her heart beat in double time. Tug, tug, tug – never would she be able to refer to her mother without feeling the loss all over again. Grief was like that. There was no end point.

  ‘Priyesh at a party,’ marvelled Charlie. ‘I can’t picture it.’

  ‘He really is that bad, isn’t he? Even that first time I met him I thought so. I can’t believe we haven’t talked about this!’

  ‘He’s just … buttoned up. He’s all business and doesn’t really laugh a lot and there’s a distance he keeps you at. You can ask him how his weekend was or whatever and he always just says, “Fine, thank you,” and never returns the question or gives you any details. I’ve known him maybe seven years now and I couldn’t even tell you anything beyond his name. And he doesn’t seem interested in anything other than my name. I just find it a bit odd.’

  ‘How old do you reckon he is?’

  ‘Forty-five, maybe fifty?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so too. The thing is, he’s actually quite fit. But boring. But also … fit! Do you think he’s married?’

  ‘Oh, that’s something I do know about, actually. Not from him. I think he was married a while ago – before I started working here full time – and she left him. He has this huge estate and lives there alone and sells wine. Let the record show that I’ve never seen the estate, and all of this is pure rumour. But yeah, jilted appaz.’

  ‘I would say something cutting about small minds gossiping, but here I am, getting the gossip myself.’

  ‘I’ll make sure he gets an invite to the party, anyway,’ Charlie said. ‘I can’t believe it’s nearly Christmas already.’

  ‘And we’ve hit our financial target for the year already too,’ Penny said. ‘Which means only one sitting on Christmas Day. I can’t wait to close right through to the second week of the new year. I need a proper break.’

  ‘Yeah, all this change has been a lot,’ Charlie agreed.

  ‘Hasn’t it just?’ said Penny, flopping down on a beer barrel to take a breath. ‘I’m so thankful you’re here, though. Have I told you that lately?’

  ‘Well, you haven’t told me in at least forty-five minutes.’

  Penny laughed. ‘How would you feel about this bottle of red tonight? They’ve just put The Notebook on Netflix again if you want to cry like a baby with me. It’s one of my favourite pastimes. Lights out by midnight, though, otherwise I’ll be no good to anyone.’

  ‘I’ll bring the Minstrels,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Oooooh, maybe some sweet and salty popcorn too?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  Penny ended up with a hangover from the bottle of red she’d shared with Charlie, and a margarita they’d had beforehand, too, as an aperitif. That was all it took – one cocktail and half a bottle of wine – to feel murderous the next day.

  ‘Well darling,’ Uncle David said. ‘That’s not exactly a small amount, is it?’

  ‘Oh piss off,’ Penny shot back, to which Uncle David looked hugely shocked across FaceTime, making Penny promptly bur
st into tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sniffled, pathetically. ‘I’m sorry Davvy.’

  ‘It’s okay darling. Are these hangover tears? Or something else?’

  Penny shook her head. Uncle David looked unwell still, and it upset her. She could tell just by looking he was still weak, still not himself. She just wanted him to be better already.

  ‘Hangover tears,’ Penny said, hoping that that was true. She’d woken up feeling like something was sat on her chest, suffocating her. Not literally – emotionally. Maybe it was because she’d been drinking the night before, but she felt anxious about everything as she made her morning coffee and switched on the news. Anxious about Uncle David, anxious about her life, and weirdly anxious about that prick. Surely it wasn’t normal to obsess over a fling for this long, she worried. Surely she was over-dramatizing the whole thing. She hated how he could barrel into her imagination and demand her attention. She probably didn’t even cross his mind. Penny who? he’d say, if somebody asked about her.