Chapter Six #2
Keith and I arrive at The Perch – a big barn of a place, all flagstone floors scattered with Persian rugs and high, timber-framed ceilings.
It’s Saturday, so it’s busy, warm and bright.
I feel both at home in such a noisy, crowded place (thanks to my clubbing days) yet simultaneously not really that used to it, because I live on my own and interact mainly with the postman and a half-French child.
As Keith goes to the bar, I find a too-small-for-three table, dragging an extra chair over.
I scan the bar to see if I can see Gabe, and wonder if the lighting is too much for my trompe l’oeil make-up, which I’m now, thanks to said half-French child, concerned hasn’t worked.
Annoying really, as the YouTube video (Hide Sagging Jowls With This Simple Contour Trick!) was quite an investment, at fifteen minutes long.
I’m just wondering if I should go to the loo and check it in the mirror when Josie appears.
‘You okay, Erica?’ says Josie.
‘Yes… why?’
‘No reason, just checking in on you.’ Josie is always checking in.
‘Thanks Josie. I’m fine. I’m good.’
‘Gabe’s over there by the way.’ Josie directs her gaze in a diagonal direction behind me, just as Keith returns from the bar and puts down his pale ale, Josie’s G I think he wanted to make it look more homely.
The dancefloor disappeared, and he bought some of those giant round paper lampshades from the new Swedish furniture warehouse that had opened in Bristol, not too far from my parents’ house.
They’d met Kofi once, at a carvery lunch.
Simon was there too. It didn’t go well: Kofi and I had smoked a joint on the way and arrived watery-eyed, giggling, hungry as hell.
Mother and Father Pells exchanged glances.
But we didn’t care; we were in this together.
It was so good to feel like someone was on my side. Until, of course, he wasn’t.