The Last Goodbye (9 page)

“Damn it!” she said. The pork belly that she had been slowly cooking was now nicely charred on top.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “We can just cut that bit off.”

“I’ll just try and ring him again . . .”

Ben and I pretended to be deep in conversation while Nat phoned Will.

“There’s no answer . . . I hope nothing has happened . . .” She bit down on her bottom lip nervously.

“Don’t worry – I’m sure he’s on his way.” I rubbed her arm. She had gone to a lot of trouble for this evening – I hoped he wasn’t going to let her down. The table was set and the tea-light candles that she had scattered around the room flickered softly. Florence & The Machine was playing in the background.

Nat topped Ben’s and her glasses up again. The bottle was nearly gone now. I felt desperate for her. I wanted to go and give her a big hug. Plus I was starving and Pip was thrashing around inside me, complaining about the delay to her dinner.

“Do you think we should eat?” I finally asked when it was close to nine. I thought I was going to collapse if I didn’t eat soon.

“Yeah, I suppose we’d better – no point in letting it all go to waste.” She sighed.

Ben uncorked the bottle we had brought over with us and handed a glass to Nat.

Although she hadn’t said it, I had seen Nat phoning Will twice more but he hadn’t answered.

“Are you –” I was interrupted by the buzzer.

Nat rushed over to it and pressed the button to sound the intercom.

“I’m so sorry, Nat!” Will was panting on the other end.

She buzzed him up and went out into the hallway to let him in.

“I’m so sorry!” I could hear him saying to her over and over again breathlessly.

They came in the door then.

“Sorry, guys – I hope you weren’t hungry?” he said. “It was Noah’s birthday party today and of course some of the parents didn’t get the brief that the party was over at six and we couldn’t get rid of them. Cue fourteen overtired, screaming four-year-olds and, even worse, their hyperactive parents getting excited at the sniff of free wine and the chance to compare every mundane milestone in their kids’ lives! I’m so sorry.” He turned to look at Nat forlornly. He gently brushed a piece of hair out of her eyes. A look passed between them. Ben and myself might as well not have been in the room.

I wondered what lies he had told his wife to get here.
‘Sorry, darling, I promised to meet some of the lads for a few drinks’
? Or maybe, ‘
Sorry, darling, I’ve got to entertain some clients who are in London for the weekend’
? I don’t think
‘Sorry, darling, I’m going to meet my mistress and her friends for a quick bite to eat’
would have washed somehow.

“Well, don’t worry, you’re just in time. We haven’t started yet. Here –” She handed him a glass of wine before hurrying into the kitchen to put the pork belly back in the oven to warm it up again. She started plating up the now cold starter of fried halloumi with cherry tomatoes. We all sat down around the circular table.

“God, this is good,” I said through a mouthful. “You can nearly taste the sunshine from those tomatoes. Where did you get them?”

“In the market up the road.”

“Did you see the footie today, Ben?” Will asked. He was necking back the wine – he’d only been here for five minutes and already his glass was empty.

“No, I didn’t get to see it – myself and Kate were out looking at buggies.”

After breakfast we had decided to tackle the minefield that was buggy-shopping. Ben had done a lot of research into the different types of buggies – manoeuvrability, ease of folding and tyre specs – but I, being a bit more shallow, just cared about what looked best. We had gone to a nursery store to road-test a few before we made up our minds.

An awkward silence lapsed between the two men.

“So how did the meeting go yesterday?” Nat turned to Will.

“It was a fucking nightmare. The whole thing is a mess – it ended up being complete carnage and old Smithy was shown the door.”

“No way!”

“But I told them that was what was going to happen – our customers don’t want to deal with a computer interface no matter how ‘real time’ it is. These are people that are investing a lot of money with us and they want to get a real person on the other end of the phone to answer their questions, no matter what time of the bloody day or night it is.”

Nat was nodding in agreement.

“We’ve spent millions on installing this system and no one wants to use it now!” Will went on. “The whole thing is a damp squid. I said it all along but Smithy was too far up the board’s arse for anyone to notice. It’s such a complete waste of money.”

“It’s ‘damp squib’ actually,” Ben said.

“What?” Will looked at him irritably as if he was a fly on his arm that he couldn’t manage to swat.

“The phrase – it’s ‘
damp squib
’ not ‘squid’.”

“Whoa there, teacher boy!” Will raised his hand to Ben. “Relax, would you, mate – you seriously need to get out more.” He put the glass to his lips and drank more than half of it back in one gulp.

We all sat in awkward silence until Nat pushed back her chair and got up to serve up the main course. I got up to help her.

Soon we were busy eating the overcooked pork belly.

“This is great, Nat,” Will said.

“Are you sure it’s okay? I won’t be offended if you can’t eat it.”

“Once you cut away the burnt bits it’s great,” I said.

It was after midnight by the time we finished the lemon meringue pie that she had made for dessert.

“That was amazing, Nat – I’m stuffed,” Ben said.

“You did really well – you’re not just a pretty face. Sorry again for being late, sweetheart.” Will put his hand over hers on the table and gave it a squeeze.

When Nat got up from the table and started clearing plates, Will stood up to help her.

“Can we do anything? I feel bad looking at you two cleaning up,” I said, standing up.

“Sit down, Kate – you’re our guests for heaven’s sake!” Will said.

Nat cleared the leftovers into the bin and then passed the plates to him to stack beside the sink. There was something about them working together, doing the most banal of chores. Even I had to admit that there was a certain tenderness between them.

To look at them there, they were like any ordinary couple that had invited friends around for a bite to eat and were now doing the clearing-up. I found myself wondering if Will helped out like that at home. I seriously doubted it – I’m sure, with his money, he had cleaning staff to take care of things like that.

When they had finished the dishes, Nat made Irish coffees for everyone, while I just had a regular coffee. I needed it – the meal had made me sleepy. I was trying hard to stifle my yawns. They sat back down at the table again and Will topped up everyone’s glass with more wine. He sat back and draped his arm over Nat’s shoulders.

I watched them, relaxed in each other’s company, as we chatted. The lamplight glinted off Nat’s hair so you could see its reddish tones. They were a good-looking couple – they matched each other in the beauty stakes. His six-foot-two height complemented Nat’s five-foot-ten. When you were out with them, eyes naturally followed them. They attracted attention wherever they went.

“Would anyone like the last slice of pie?” Nat asked.

“Maybe Kate would like it – she’s eating for two after all?” Will suggested.

“God no, I’m grand.”

“I love the way you still say ‘I’m grand’ after fifteen years living here,” Ben teased.

“What part of Ireland are you from?” Will asked.

“Mayo, in the west.”

“Do you go home much?”

I squirmed on my chair. “Now and again.”

I could see Ben looking at me open-mouthed. I shot him a look.

“My mum was Irish,” Will said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, she was from this tiny little village called Inistioge in County Kilkenny.”

“Oh, gorgeous spot.”

“Yeah. We went over there once on holidays when I was thirteen and, coming from a council estate in Slough to a farm in rural Kilkenny, I thought we’d arrived in the most backward place on Earth. The first day we arrived I witnessed a man sticking his hand up inside a cow’s you-know-what to artificially inseminate her!” He laughed.

“
Euggghhh!
” Nat said.

“But it wasn’t all bad. I did have my first kiss there . . .”

“Oh yeah?” Nat said sitting up.

“Yeah, her name was Cathy. A fiery little thing she was – jet-black hair and cool blue eyes. She took no shit, did Cathy. She was a real eye-opener. I thought we’d do a long-distance relationship – y’know, wait by the payphone at five o’clock on a Tuesday because she said she’d ring, or write letters to each other – but my cousin rang me a few weeks later and told me she had met another boy from the town and it was ‘Bye-bye, Will’.”

“Ah, my poor Will!” Nat laughed as she tousled his hair.

They were so touchy feely. They couldn’t keep their hands off one another.

“Yeah, I was heartbroken, I really was. Absolutely gutted. There’s nothing quite like your first love,” he said wistfully.

“Do you think there’s only one person for everyone?” Nat asked.

“Hardly,” I said.

“Do you know what, Nat?” Will said. “I think there might be. I mean, I think that you can love a lot of people but there’s an ultimate one out there for all of us.” He smiled at her and there was a look exchanged between them. “But one wrong decision can change how things work out for the rest of your life . . .” He sounded sad.

“But if that’s the case what happens if ‘the one’ is living in a yurt in Outer Mongolia?” I said.

“Well, then you just have to hope that destiny intervenes and brings you together,” said Will.

“But what happens if ‘the one’ is already dead?” I said.

“I never thought of that,” Nat said. “God, that’s very sad, isn’t it? To think of someone spending their whole life looking for ‘the one’ and not knowing that they’re never going to find them!”

“Nah. I’m pretty sure there are lots of ‘ones’ out there for us,” I said.

“Thanks a lot, Kate!” Ben said, feigning indignation.

“Oh, you know what I mean . . .”

“You are such a cynic, Kate Flynn!” Nat said.

“No, I’m not, I’m just realistic. We can’t all be hopeless romantics like you.” I smiled at Nat who was looking very comfy cuddling up to Will.

Everybody was well on, Ben included, but I had hit the wall of tiredness. I couldn’t help myself from yawning. I tried swallowing them back but I couldn’t stop – it was like my body was trying to search out the last of the oxygen in the room. Finally I couldn’t fight them any longer.

“Sorry, guys, I’m falling asleep – I’m such a lightweight.”

“Well, you’re also nearly six months pregnant,” Ben said.

“Yeah, maybe we should start making tracks.” I yawned again.

“Really? Ah, that’s a pity!” Nat said.

They both saw us out to the door. Will had his two arms around Nat’s waist from behind and was lightly kissing her hair.

“Well, thank you for coming,” she said.

“No, thank
you
– we had a great time,” I responded.

They closed the door behind us and Ben turned to me and said, “Asshole.”

Chapter 10

On Monday morning I had a meeting with Charlie, the graphic designer we used whenever we needed to get artwork designed for our exhibitions. I wanted to talk to him about the booklets and the postcards. He was waiting for me outside the door of the gallery.

“Sorry, Charlie,” I said, rushing up and opening the door to let him in. Usually Nat was there first but she wasn’t in yet.

“No worries, I was a few minutes early,” he said.

He took a seat while I got myself organised. A few minutes later Nat came in.

“Morning!” she said breezily. “Oh hi, Charlie. How are you?”

“I’m good, thank you, Nat.”

She was wearing a burgundy dress with a repeating cat pattern, knitted mustard tights and brown suede ankle boots. Her hair was tied up loosely on top of her head.

While Charlie set up his laptop, I went down to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.

First Nat talked him through the theme of
Silence
and what photos we would be displaying. Charlie flipped open his notepad to take notes. Then I talked him through the practicalities, the number of artists displaying work, the style of booklet we wanted, the colours and fonts. Rather than use a standard template, we liked to have it newly designed for each exhibition to keep it all looking fresh.