Chapter 13 Fish and Chips
Fish and Chips
Lily-Anne
I’ve barely set the scones down on the wrought-iron table when Rupert pulls up beside me with a boisterous, “I haven’t even said a proper welcome yet!” He pushes a small basket into my hands. “A gift for you, my dear—garden stuff, from Barb and me.”
The ‘garden stuff’, as he proceeds to show me, includes home-grown pears, herbs, and an assortment of useful items: a bottle opener, a hand balloon pump, a roll of duct tape, a mesh laundry bag for delicates containing—oh God, pink lacy knickers?
—and, most peculiarly, a rosy-cheeked garden gnome.
It’s one of the friendly storybook varieties, with a blue coat and a jaunty red cap.
“Brandon isn’t fond of garden gnomes, but we thought he could use a bit of luck,” Barbara explains.
“Oh. Well, thank you,” I begin, searching for a compliment while wondering why she’s giving it to me. “It’s…cute.”
Or terrifying.
“Benjamin,” Barbara corrects. It takes me a moment to realise she means the gnome. She plucks it from my hands and walks into the garden, murmuring to Benjamin that she’ll find him a place to hide.
Meanwhile, Rupert produces a beer bottle from the cooler bag strapped to the side of his wheelchair. “Here,” he says, waving it insistently at Brandon until he takes it.
“And one for you, Lily,” Rupert says to my right, cracking open a beer and passing it to me. “Drink up, drink up, now. Get it down ya.”
I take a polite sip.
Barbara returns and lets herself into the kitchen through the sliding door, reemerging a minute later with dessert plates, forks, and butter knives.
I exchange glances with Brandon as the scones are served. He looks equal parts amused and resigned.
Biting back a smile, I turn to Barbara as she sits to my left. “These smell amazing. Did you bake them?”
“I did. First thing this morning.” She indicates the bowls of strawberry jam and cream that have materialised out of nowhere, her tone brisk. “Jam first, or cream first?”
“Oh. I, err…don’t know.”
“You have to choose,” Rupert says, staring at me intently. “Jam or cream?”
“There’s no right or wrong answer,” Barbara adds, giving me a reassuring smile that makes me suspect there very much is.
I throw Brandon a helpless look. “Does it matter?”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m afraid it does.”
“Okay, well…” I shrug. “Jam first, I guess?”
“Ha! The Cornwall method. Excellent.” Rupert beams, slapping the table so hard the cutlery rattles. “Told you, Barb. What’s good enough for the queen is good enough for the rest of us!”
For a moment, Barbara’s smile slips, and it’s a little terrifying the way her eyes shoot daggers at her husband. She smooths her napkin carefully and merely says, “Well,” before proceeding to eat her scone in silence.
That silence doesn’t last long, however, and they’re soon bickering loudly about the ‘proper way’ to eat scones.
Brandon leans across the table and murmurs, “For future reference, when at all possible, it’s usually safer to side with Barbara.”
“Got it,” I say, then add with a touch of disappointment, “So, we’re not having oysters?”
“Let’s wait until Rupert and Barbara have gone. I only brought a dozen, barely enough for the two of us, really.”
It’s just as well. Beer doesn’t pair particularly well with scones. I’m not sure I’d want oysters in that mix.
“I’m hoping they won’t stay long,” he adds, though he looks doubtful.
After the first hour, I begin to share that doubt. By the second, I’m restless. The scones disappeared ages ago, and I’ve devoured all the ones on my plate, but I’m still hungry, craving real food.
“Whitstable is easily the best seaside town in England,” Rupert is saying. “A top holiday destination.”
“Top,” Barbara agrees.
He leans close and whispers to me, as if imparting a great secret. “The calm waters are perfect for children.”
“Are they?” I ask weakly.
“Oh yes. We’ve been blessed with grandchildren,” Barbara says proudly. “Teenagers now, you see. Too busy with their phones to come and see their poor old grandparents.”
“They were here last week,” Brandon says.
We exchange another smile, and it’s as if we’ve tripped a wire, because the couple’s attention instantly snaps to us.
“Now, Lily,” Rupert begins in a business-like tone, even as he not-so-subtly elbows Brandon. “You seem like a sensible, well-put-together sort of girl.”
“Woman,” Barbara interjects.
“Woman.” He nods. “And Brandon doesn’t bring guests around often, let me tell you. Hardly ever, in fact.”
“Never,” Barbara chimes.
“Never. We were beginning to think he’d turned into a hermit!”
I glance at Brandon, but his face is very still, gaze carefully averted.
Barbara lays down her knife with a delicate clink and adds, “All the more reason we’re glad you’re here, Lily. It’s nice to see him with company.” She gives me a knowing smile, her fine-boned hands deft and graceful as she sets another scone before me.
Where on earth did it come from?
Her keen eyes fix on me, unwavering, and I feel compelled to take another bite.
That’s when she strikes. “So, tell us, Lily…are you single?”
I freeze mid-chew, clotted cream and jam that’s suddenly too sweet congealing in my mouth.
Brandon sighs heavily.
Our eyes meet—just for a second—before he looks away, a flicker of embarrassment crossing his face. I can’t help wondering if this has happened before. If neighbours are forever trying to set him up with someone they think might ‘cheer him up.’
“Single?” Rupert barks a laugh. “Well, of course she is! Why else on earth would she be visiting our Brandon, eh?”
Brandon interrupts. “Say, Rupert—tell us about the paintball competition. Didn’t you just take home another trophy?”
Rupert puffs up instantly. “We did indeed, we did indeed. The boys did a fantastic job, though I knew they would…”
He launches into a lively account of his team’s victories, the medals lined up in his shed, and the tournaments he runs for the ‘troubled youths’.
“That’s amazing,” I remark. “You run a team for them?”
Barbara beams. “Most are local kids who simply needed something positive to throw themselves into.”
Rupert waves a hand modestly but can’t quite hide his pride. “Gives them a bit of direction. And keeps me young, or so I tell myself.”
The corner of Brandon’s mouth barely lifts, but it says so much. His pride, affection, and amusement for Rupert are all there, though his eyebrows lift in exasperation when Rupert starts showing me photos of his trophies on his phone.
“Sorry,” Brandon mouths.
Rupert’s still talking. “See these medals here, Lily? From the mid-eighties, before eye protection became mandatory. It was a different world back then, let me tell you—a real Wild West.”
Barbara nods along, smiling fondly at her husband and echoing his words whenever he pauses for breath.
Across the table, Brandon’s watching me with concern. I give him a quick smile to show him I’m fine. And I am. Though the neighbours’ matchmaking still hums between us, it's impossible to ignore.
And then, in the same whirlwind they swept in with, the couple sweep back out. But not before Barbara invites me on a shopping trip to Canterbury—ignoring my protests that I haven’t even seen Whitstable properly yet—and Rupert finds and confiscates Brandon’s oysters as ‘recompense for the beers’.
When Brandon objects, Rupert lifts a hand. “Now, now, none of that. You let me and Barb deal with these. You ought to be taking Lily out to a proper restaurant. Relax and let others cook for you! We can’t have you two slaving away shucking shellfish.”
“Actually, I really don’t mind—” I begin, ready to convey just how much I was looking forward to having the oysters we’d brought home. Rupert, however, ploughs ahead, jabbing a finger at Brandon with well-meaning authority.
“Go to one of those nice places with white tablecloths and wineglasses.”
“And music,” Barbara adds. “Did you know Brandon is a musician, too, Lily?”
“She’s aware,” he says dryly.
“You two ought to play a duet,” Rupert calls over his shoulder as he wheels down the side path to the gate. “But another time, of course. A nice dinner out at a nice restaurant is in order, Brandon. Yes, that will be far more romantic than eating in. One with tablecloths, don’t forget.”
“Brandon doesn’t have a tablecloth,” Barbara says to me gravely as we follow. “I’ve tried to give him one, but he’s too modern, apparently.”
“I just don’t think it necessary,” Brandon says, bristling.
I might find the sight funny if I weren’t also the target of their meddling.
For a split second, I picture it anyway, sitting across from him at some quiet restaurant with wineglasses and candlelight instead of a crowded pub.
The image feels impossibly out of reach. Thrilling, and a little terrifying.
And one I quickly dismiss.
Rupert holds the gate open for Barbara and winks at me.
“He doesn’t care much for flourishes, our Brandon.
He’s the plain sort—meat and potatoes, you know—but steady as they come!
” I begin to nod, at least until he adds, “Which is why he needs a woman like you about. Bring a bit of colour to the place!”
Brandon lets out a strangled cough before the gate clangs shut in our faces. They’re gone.
I let out a shaky breath and sink onto the bottom step of the fire escape. My stomach is roiling, either from hunger or the combination of cream, sugar, and beer—but that’s the least of my worries.
Brandon goes still beside me, the smallest muscle ticking in his jaw. I avert my gaze, my cheeks on fire.
He locks the gate, then slowly turns to look at me. “I suppose I should apologise on behalf of my neighbours.”
I huff a laugh. “They’re really quite lovely.”
“They are many things.” He surveys the garden with narrowed eyes. “I don’t suppose you saw where she hid that gnome?”
“No, sorry.”
He sighs and leans against the railing. “I really don’t like gnomes.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t trust them.”
“Fair enough. Still, it was nice of them to bring us gifts.”