Scratch (42 page)

I grinned. A comment like that would have had me booking a flight to
Venezuela
if it had come from anyone else. With Paula, the idea of kids wasn’t even remotely scary (other than the financial implications, obviously). ‘Taylor and Max?’ I said.

‘I’m going off Max,’ Paula said. ‘How do you feel about Sam?’

‘I’m sure Sammy would be delighted.’

‘Well we can’t name him after my dad; the poor kid would be confused.’

I laughed. ‘I never did figure out what all that Simon/Joe stuff was about.’

‘He does it to mess with people. His middle name’s Joseph. He reckons that if you keep people off guard by changing the parameters all the time they’re more likely to be honest by accident. It’s a psychologist thing.’

That sounded like something the old bastard would do. ‘So why does your mum call him Joe?’

Paula shrugged. ‘She went to school with a boy called Simon who was a prick, apparently.’

‘Your parents are weird,’ I said.

‘Yes, they are,’ she said proudly. ‘But I like them.’

I did, too. ‘I’m jealous.’

‘That’s a terrible thing to say. Your mum and dad are lovely; they were always so good to me.’

‘That’s because they don’t think you’re a sad and worrying waste of oxygen.’

‘Well isn’t that a big mountain of pathetic, self-pitying bollocks. You need to get past that nonsense, Jim. You sound like the bad sort of wanker when you say stuff like that.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll shoot up in their estimation as soon as they find out I’ve managed to get you back.’

‘It won’t be long.’

‘I know.’

We had agreed to tell both sets of parents at the same time, and figured another month or so should be about right. Paula had admitted that, when she did finally open up about us, she would end up telling Simon and Louise the whole story anyway. She just wanted them to get used to the idea of her not being with Ingo first. Simon was fine, but Louise was struggling a little with the idea of a failed marriage in the family (bloody Catholic guilt).

‘So,’ Paula said, seeming to recognise a change of subject was required (or at least a change back). ‘Taylor and Sam, are we agreed?’

I nodded. ‘As long as they get your looks, your brains, your personality and your common sense we can call them anything you like.’

‘Back to being the good kind of wanker,’ Paula said with a smile.

‘It’s what I do best, apparently.’

‘We’ll find out if that’s true on Friday night,’ she said, arching her eyebrows. ‘I’m hoping you’re good at a few other things, too.’

And the gibbering wreck returned. ‘Hah,
pfff
, eh, here’s hoping.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle,’ Paula said.

‘You might have to be.’

***

I may be giving a false impression of Paula’s state of mind. For every conversation we had about renting flats and naming children, we also had less pleasant ones about how guilty she still felt about Ingo and the way things in
Germany
had turned out.

Although these were difficult things for me to hear, I don’t think I could have loved her as much as I did had she been able to shrug them off with ease.

‘Ingo phoned this morning,’ she said to me in The Basement on the Tuesday before her parents went to Ireland. She came in with Sammy, having stayed over at his place the previous night. Sam was in the office with Kate, no doubt discovering that her abilities as a stock-taker and calculator of profit-margins had mysteriously improved.

‘How was he?’ I asked. The pub was fairly quiet and I had attended to what few customers we had. I had a good ten minutes before table five would be thinking about coffees.

‘Yeah, okay,’ Paula said. ‘A bit too okay, actually.’

‘How do you mean?’

She finished her coke. ‘It’s really strange. Apart from not mentioning coming here, he acts like nothing’s changed. He just talks away about Isaak, about everything that’s going on over there.’

I’ll re-emphasise at this point that these were difficult things for me to hear.

‘Are you sure he understands it’s over?’

‘Yeah,’ Paula said. ‘I think he needs a friend, more than anything. I’ve been his best pal for years. We were so busy with the school neither of us had much of a social life away from work.’

‘
You
didn’t have social life? I find that hard to believe.’

‘There’s a difference between having mates and seeing them. Neither of us had a day off in the last year, plus we were skint. The odd bottle of wine back at Ingo’s parents’ was as exciting as it got, and we usually ended up asleep after the first glass.’

‘I hope you won’t mind that I’m glad to hear that.’ My heart turned into a cannonball whenever I thought about Paula being with Ingo, and it helped to be reminded they hadn’t been ‘close’ for a long time.

Paula smiled. ‘No, I don’t mind. You do understand I’m going to be talking to him a fair amount, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, you’ve still got a lot to sort out, I know that.’

‘Even after that, Jim. He’s still my friend and always will be. I can’t cut him out of my life.’

Of course she couldn’t. Paula kept in touch with everyone she’d ever met (apart from me for twelve years), so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised she’d want to stay in contact with a guy she’d been married to. That didn’t mean I liked the idea, though. ‘No, of course, yeah,’ I said. ‘Until he finds someone else, anyway.’

Paula looked uncertain. ‘We’ll see. I can’t abandon him after doing all this, it would be really unfair.’

‘I know,’ I said. I was about to say more, but stopped myself.

‘What?’ Paula said.

Damn. ‘No, nothing.’

‘Jim, what?’

Oh well. ‘I was just thinking, maybe he won’t be so keen to stay in touch when you tell him about us.’ Stupid thing to say, I know. But also a legitimate one, I thought.

‘I can’t tell him, Jim,’ Paula said. She didn’t look happy about it, but she still said it (as I’d known she would).

‘Not now, I understand that.’ Might as well get it out in the open. ‘But you’ll have to, somewhere down the line.’

‘It would kill him,’ Paula said. ‘I can’t, not for a long time, anyway.’

‘When you say
long
?’

‘Oh come on, Jim, I don’t know. That’s not fair.’

Maybe it wasn’t, but a small part of me wouldn’t believe this was all really happening until everyone knew about it; and
everyone
included Ingo, unfair or not.

‘I know you can’t tell him everything, but he’ll need to find out you’ve moved on eventually.’

‘I
know
that, Jim.’ She always used my name more when she was angry. ‘But
eventually
doesn’t mean soon, okay?
Isaak’s
on his deathbed and I’ve just told Ingo our marriage is over, which also means he’s unemployed and homeless, I think that’s enough for him to deal with, don’t you?’

‘Yeah, okay, okay,’ I said. The topic had been raised, that would have to be enough for now. ‘Sorry.’

‘Just,’ Paula began. ‘Just let me deal with it my way, okay?’

‘Okay, no bother.’

I understood Paula’s point about Ingo and Germany not having much to do with me; I also thought, though, that if she was my girlfriend (not the right word, but I hate ‘partner’), the person I was going to spend my life with, then I kind of
was
involved already. She seemed to think she could draw a dividing line between her recent past and our burgeoning future, but the truth was that I had been ‘seeing’ her, if only in the literal sense, for the last three months, so that line was already blurred if it existed at all. That’s the way I saw it anyway.

Sammy came out of the office, breaking the tension. ‘Can I borrow Jim for a minute, doll?’ he asked Paula.

‘As long as you don’t hurt him,’ Paula said.

‘No promises,’ Sam said. ‘Jim?’

I looked at Paula, who shrugged to say she didn’t have a clue what this was about. I shrugged back, and followed Sammy into the office.

Kate was camped behind the desk as usual, and looked up at me with a resigned smile.

‘Grab a seat,’ Sammy said. He had pulled up two grey plastic chairs next to the desk, and we took one each. Sammy lifted some of the papers spread in front of Kate. ‘Kate tells me you had a hand in this.’

He was holding the stock report I’d helped Kate with the previous week. ‘Eh.’ I looked at Kate, who nodded. ‘Maybe a bit,’ I said.

 
‘More than a bit, I’d say.’ Sammy raised his eyebrows at me, which was never pleasant.

‘It’s okay, Jim,’ Kate said. ‘I explained.’

That was no bloody use.
What
had she explained, exactly? ‘Okay,’ I said.

‘Kate has made me aware of my deficiencies as an interviewer,’ Sammy said.

Oh
, she really
had
explained. Brave girl. ‘Okay,’ I said again.

‘And,’ Sammy went on. ‘She’s also reminded me you could do more than pour a pint when you worked here before.’

I know it was getting boring, but I said, ‘Okay,’ again. Where was this heading?

‘What she had no need to point out, although she did anyway, was that she is much,
much
, better looking than you.’

‘O …
kay
.’

‘So I’m thinking maybe we could do some re-division of labour,’ Sammy said.

I tried not to, but could only say, ‘Okay,’ once more.

‘Now, I’ll look like a dick at head office if I sack Kate, even if she does deserve it,’ Sam said matter-of-factly. Bizarrely, Kate smiled and nodded. ‘Plus, the main reason I hired her in the first place, and possibly didn’t check her references as diligently as I should have, was because I wanted her behind the bar, not stuck in here messing up the paperwork.’

‘That’s pretty shallow,’ I said.

‘It’s not shallow, it’s
catering
, Jim. Pretty boys and girls serving means more money in the till.’

‘He’s right,’ Kate piped in.

‘So what are you suggesting?’ I asked.

‘The idea was that Kate would take over as manager when I go back to my proper job. Then, with Mark leaving for
Uni
soon, we would have had to look for either an assistant manager or another charge-hand, depending on what head office was willing to pay.’

‘Okay,’ I said, getting back to normal after my
pretty shallow
experiment.

‘You’ve got half a brain, so I’d already figured I’d offer it to you,’ Sammy said.

‘Really?’
Okay
, I thought. This was starting to get interesting.

‘But after Kate’s revelations today,’ Sammy said. Kate smiled again, totally Teflon. ‘I’m thinking we could maybe merge the jobs and have co-managers, both getting a bit more money than assistants but a bit less than sole managers. The takings have been getting better, so I think I could swing it with the high
heid
-yins. Kate’s up for it, so are you interested?’