Chapter 40
IM SOOOOO SORRY EVRYONE, Bridge messaged the following morning as I was logging into my Zoom meeting. Which I took as a sign that her in-person conversations with Peter and Jennifer and the James Royce-Royces had gone non-disastrously.
To which Priya replied I can’t believe the one I skipped was the one where things finally got interesting.
THEY WERNE T INTERESTING THEY WERE VERY URTFUHL WHICH IS WHY IM SO SORRY
I’m sorry too. That was James Royce-Royce.
So am I. That was James Royce-Royce.
Alex popped into view with a cheery, “Hullo, Luc! Marvellous technology this, isn’t it?”
We’d been using it for literal years at this point. And he made the observation at least once a week. “Yeah,” I said, “amazing.”
Stop being mature, Priya was saying on my phone. I want fucking blood. Polyamorous childfree lesbians repre-fucking-sent.
We’re not childfree. That was Andi. We have stepkids.
Adult children don’t count.
They fucking do. That was Theresa.
“Okay,” I said to Alex, looking away from what I really hoped wouldn’t be another your-life-choices-are-bad-and-you-should-feel-bad conversation. “What cheese is made backwards?”
“Edam,” he replied at once.
“Oh, you’ve heard that one?”
Alex looked blank. “No, just good at word puzzles. Have you got a joke for me?”
The joke, as always, was on me. “Not today, I’m afraid.”
Barbara Clench, who had popped up two seconds earlier, wasted no time in giving me a disapproving look. “Good, we’re meant to be having a meeting, and don’t think I can’t tell when you’re stalling.”
“This isn’t stalling,” I told her, “this is just regular wasting time. It’ll become stalling when the rest of the team get here.”
Still a bit concerned where things stood after Saturday, I glanced down and sent a Yeah I’m sorry too message to the chat followed by a No more dinner parties for a while maybe?
“I can see that you’re texting, Luc,” Barbara Clench told me. “You aren’t being subtle about it.”
“I would never,” I protested.
“Your phone is plainly visible on camera.”
Shit, this was why I needed one of those background things that made everything blurry.
Conversation in Dinner Party Survivors’ Club continued to be pretty amicable, with Jennifer sending Peter and I are also sorry, and Brian following up with Amanda and I realise we might have said some things that didn’t come across how we meant them to.
Which, from what I knew of the two of them, was about as close to an apology as they were going to get.
And you know what, that was fine. I was past the age where I could be arsed to police the way other people said sorry for stuff.
Besides, Dr. Fairclough had just logged in, which meant I should probably actually start doing my job.
Especially because her greeting—as was pretty typical for Dr. Fairclough’s greetings—went, “I’ve budgeted seventeen minutes from my afternoon for this, and if we go over, I’ll be late with my samples.”
I didn’t want to know what they were samples of.
“Okay,” I began. And I was suddenly beginning to wish I had been stalling because this was going to be a horrible conversation and having a good bit of stall set up in advance would probably really help me.
But I’d never been one for planning in advance, so I just had to launch into it.
“I don’t want to do the good-news-and-bad-news thing—”
“Then don’t?” suggested Barbara Clench, with the hostile playfulness that had become our relationship.
“But I’ve got good news and bad news,” I finished.
“What kind of news?” asked Rhys Jones Bowen, who’d just appeared that second. “Sorry I’m late, got my dongle trapped in the hoover.”
Alex looked pained. “I say, how did you manage that?”
“Oh, you know, I was just cleaning up around the back of the old workstation and wouldn’t you know it, my dongle popped out, and before I could put it back in, it had shot up the hoover like a mouse up a skirting board.”
“You mean your Wi-Fi dongle?” I clarified, “which is why you couldn’t connect until now?”
Rhys Jones Bowen looked confused. “Well, what else would I mean?”
“Honestly,” replied Alex, “I thought you were talking about your old chap.”
“No.” Few people could give a drawn-out no like Rhys Jones Bowen. “My old chap wouldn’t fit.”
“Doesn’t do to brag, Rhys,” Alex chided him.
And once again, Rhys Jones Bowen looked confused. “I’m not bragging. Just saying my old chap wouldn’t fit up a hoover. He’s not an especially large man, although he’s put on a bit of weight since he retired, but the nozzle isn’t that wide.”
“You might be thinking of old man,” I told him.
To which Dr. Fairclough said, “Twelve minutes.”
“Right, right.” I tried to force myself back to professionalism. “So the bad news is that Saint’s band didn’t want anything to do with him, which means he isn’t going to keep funding us and we’ll probably lose our jobs.”
“That does seem like quite bad news,” Alex observed.
“So the good news,” added Barbara Clench, “better be pretty spectacular.”
“I know,” I said, a little meekly. “And if it’s any consolation, I really did try to keep Saint on board. I took my foster kid on an impromptu tour of the country to keep Saint on board. Hell, I nearly got fucking arrested to keep Saint on board.”
“Language, Luc,” said Barbara Clench.
Alex, on the other hand, seemed less bothered by the swearing and more inclined to gee me up. “Still,” he said, “chap does his best, that’s to a chap’s credit, eh what?”
“You tried,” Rhys Jones Bowen agreed, “and that’s the most important thing.”
“The most important thing,” said Dr. Fairclough, “is this country’s declining population of dung beetles. But I do agree it was irrational to expect Luc to reverse that trend single-handed.”
“Anyway,” continued Alex, with the air of a sunflower about to get shafted by a snap frost, “things could be worse. Luc has good news for us, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly aware that the good news sounded way less good in the context of You’re probably all still redundant than I’d hoped.
“The good news is that my mum has agreed to use CRAPPstonbury to launch her comeback tour, so we should actually have a good final year. Plus, it’s not completely impossible that we’ll do well enough that we won’t need Saint’s money at all. ”
“Not completely impossible?” asked Rhys Jones Bowen.
“Not likely,” I admitted. “But in a lot of ways, it’s the best shot we’ve had since the earl died.”
“Wait a minute,” replied Alex, completely and utterly predictably, “when did the earl die?”
“Last year?” I reminded him. “You were at his funeral?”
Alex frowned. “I’m sure I’d have remembered something like that. Old Hilary’s a friend of the family, you know. Although I hear his son’s a fearful oik.”
“Well,” I said, “then the good news is you’ll never have to deal with his fearful oik of a son again.”
Something attached to Dr. Fairclough’s computer, or possibly just to Dr. Fairclough, beeped.
“Zero minutes,” she said. “I’m deeply sorry that we were unable to preserve the Coleoptera Research and Protection Project for future generations, but I take some comfort that when the inevitable mass extinction event eradicates humanity, the Blattodea at least are likely to outlast us. ”
“I don’t think that’s very comforting,” I pointed out.
“It probably is if you’re one of the Blattodea,” replied Barbara Clench.
“True,” I conceded. “But the thing is, I’m not.”
Rhys Jones Bowen was looking contemplative. He usually looked at least a bit contemplative, probably as a result of being so infuriatingly secure in himself. Or having a beard. “Well,” he said, “I can’t say I’m not sad to see it go. But I also can’t say it wasn’t a laugh while it lasted.”
Alex bowed his head solemnly. “Fare thee well, C.R.A.P.P. We shall not see thy like again.”
“I mean, there’s still about four months left until CRAPPstonbury,” I pointed out.
“Fare thee well, C.R.A.P.P.,” Alex corrected himself. “We shall carry on seeing thy like until around the middle of June, and then we shall not see thy like again.”
Dr. Fairclough had, of course, already gone, which meant it was up to me and Barbara to officially call things to a close. And it felt weirdly final, even though it strictly wasn’t. Even though we’d be back in the office the next day, and the day after, and the day after that.
But it was getting really close to being over. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
Not that I had much time to feel anything. Because I had a social worker’s visit to prepare for.
* * *
“You said what?” asked Esther at the emergency post-letting-your-foster-daughter-get-arrested meeting.
“Somewhat rashly,” replied Oliver, “and to my deep regret, I said something approximately along the lines of ‘Take the car and go for all I care.’ It was foolish and I should have realised that at her age, Jasmine would take me literally. But unfortunately, I had lost my temper and wasn’t thinking clearly. ”
Esther flipped her notebook shut and frowned. “You know a more cynical woman might point out that it’s a bit of a coincidence how you said almost exactly the minimum amount you could have said for Jaz not to be guilty of twocking but also for you not to be guilty of child endangerment.”
One of Oliver’s eyebrows curved into an arch. An arch presumably aimed at the nonexistent more cynical woman. “Now you mention it, that is quite the happy accident, isn’t it?”
“Still”—Esther gave both of us a don’t-fuck-it-up look that RuPaul would have been proud of, or possibly would have failed to recognise the value of and kicked off the show in episode three—“I hope we’re agreed that you’re never going to say anything like that ever again.”
Oliver gave a slightly exaggerated headshake. “Absolutely not. I have learned my lesson and will be far more careful with my language in future.”
“Well then.” Esther put her notebook in her bag. “I think that’s everything.”