Chapter 42 Bardy
BARDY
A bright particular star.
“Lucky guess?” Bardy suggests.
Lou and Bardy are in Luigi’s—newly reopened—trying to work out how Kate knew about Bardy’s . . . talent? Affliction?
“You’ve not told anyone else?” Lou presses.
“Nope, only you and Hana.” Hana’s laughter had put an end to that. Lou hadn’t mocked him. Just pursed his lips and nodded. Same as with his surname.
“Doesn’t really matter how it happened,” Lou concludes. He follows this up with, “You’ve got a bit of a thing for her.” This hangs suspended between statement and question.
Bardy shrugs.
“And Hana? You’ve been seeing a bit of her.”
Bardy shrugs again. No clue what is happening there. Just a feeling. Hana is building up to something, but never quite getting there. Just glowing deeper yellow.
“You’re sure, you and Kate . . . ?”
He wonders if he should tell Lou about silver-bright Kate. But what’s the point?
“No good. She’s going out with that bloke.” He adds, “The one you like so much.”
“No mate, just said he wasn’t such a tosser as you were saying.”
Yeah, he had been pretty vocal about that. But that was after The lady doth protest too much. Was feeling bruised. Wanted to kick something. Or someone.
“Look at that.” Lou nudges Bardy in the arm.
From where they are sitting—it is early and the café isn’t open yet—they’ve got a clear view of the street. Simon is walking on the opposite side of the narrow road.
“It’s like one of those . . .” Lou struggles.
“Those tossers,” Bardy suggests helpfully.
Lou snorts. “No, you know, one of those coincidences, but more like, you think it and then it happens. Tina had them all the time.”
Bardy’s thinking about Simon flying back to Dubai, but he’s not sure that’s going to happen anytime soon.
“Better get opened up.” Lou rises slowly from the chair. Most of the bruising has faded, but Bardy can see that some movements still give him pain.
“I’ll do it.”
He is at the door when Pia and Kate appear from the other direction.
They meet Simon, framed on the opposite side of the road by the café window.
Bardy opens the door slightly, then sidesteps so he is out of direct view.
Behind the counter, Lou sidesteps in the other direction.
They glance at each other, stifling their laughter. Never far from ten-year-olds.
“Told you, one of those thingies Tina was always on about.”
Bardy hushes with a raised hand. He’s trying to listen. Maybe Simon will mention when his flight is.
“Hi, Simon, how are things?” Kate says, airy. Interested? Couldn’t care less?
“Ah, great to see you, Kate. We need to get another date in the diary.”
“This is my friend, Pia,” Kate responds. Avoiding a date? Or just being polite?
Simon isn’t staring at Pia like most idiots do. Bardy will give him that. But he is staring at Noy. “God, dogs in jumpers. You don’t see that in Dubai.”
Bardy thinks it’s not too bad today. A more tasteful Aran rather than a dinosaur or a vicar.
Simon lets out a loud guffaw. “Looks like he could do with a good meal. I always think those dogs are more like rats.”
And that is it.
Pia’s face registers her outrage. But Kate’s expression is the one that he will replay in his mind.
The thing is, they’ve all grown to love Noy.
He’s one of the gang. Bardy thinks he might even write a poem about the color of the scales that fall from a woman’s eyes.
He’s thinking of an off-white cream. A bit like the color of an Aran sweater.
He has his back to the window, grinning at Lou, fist clenched to punch the air, when the door opens.
“Bardy?” Pia says, sounding confused.
He spins around, arm still outstretched.
She doesn’t come all the way in. Behind her, he can see Kate and Simon on the opposite side of the street, having what seems like an argument. Voices are strident, but subdued.
Good.
In fact, fucking fabulous.
“Kate and I had coffee with Satya yesterday, and I think she’d really like to host our musical evening at hers.
I talked to Leonard, and he’s happy to bring his keyboard.
So Satya is going to message everyone their address.
Tonight at 8:00 p.m., and she’s going to do food.
” Pia grins. “I think it might be a bit of a party.”
Bardy turns his half-finished air punch into an awkward thumbs-up.
But he doesn’t care if he looks like an idiot.
He is an idiot who can dance.
Bardy, Lou, and Tay arrive together, and with them is Tay’s friend Uzma.
Bardy has been trying to play it cool. Not bear-hug the short, smiley girl who doesn’t stop talking and who clearly—despite the teasing—thinks Tay is awesome.
He’s gone into friendly teacher mode, nudging the conversation along without bombarding her with questions.
It seems Uzma works in underwriting and is doing pretty well.
She is four years older than Tay but looks incredibly young.
“I’m thinking of having my ID tattooed on my head, I have to show it so often,” she grins.
“I keep telling her she’d look awesome with a tat,” Tay responds.
“I’ll get one, if you get I Love Jonathan tattooed on your arse,” Uzma teases.
“Only place for it,” Bardy suggests as he rings the doorbell. Earlier, Tay told him that Jonathan had been given a formal warning and someone had been brought in over him.
Satya and Jack’s house is at the top of the town, not far from Lou’s café.
It is a double-fronted Georgian house with a navy door, facing onto a large green surrounded by similarly sized houses.
There are also a few smaller brick cottages along with a number of pubs and restaurants.
The green is edged with large shady trees and is a popular spot for dog walkers and, in the summer, picnickers.
Tonight, there are very few people out. After a spell of nice weather, it has turned cold.
Just in time for school break, Bardy had heard one visitor comment testily.
But it seems the pubs and restaurants are doing brisk business, and the lights showing through the windows on either side of Satya and Jack’s front door glow warm and inviting.
Bardy is taken back to the afternoon of looking at paintings. The glow of that lamplight. The virtual gallery had worked. Good idea of Kate’s. Silver-bright Kate. He can feel his pulse quicken as Satya opens the door.
“Come in,” she smiles.
Things better with her and Jack?
As she ushers them through the broad hallway and takes coats, Tay introduces Uzma. They then follow her down the corridor. Bardy hangs back slightly. “How are things?” he asks Satya quietly. Keeping it vague.
She gives him a quick look. “We’ve called a truce for this evening. Jack got the boys to clear up the basement, and I promised I wouldn’t nag if it wasn’t perfect.” She adds defiantly, if untruthfully, “I don’t nag.” She perks up. “Anyway, come and see. They made a real effort.”
As they pass the kitchen, there is the sound of laughter—the boys—and the murmur of conversation and chords from a piano from further in the house. “We are down here,” Satya tells them, pointing to a half-open door at the end of the hall. “All the others have arrived.”
They descend a flight of narrow stairs into a large room that runs the length of the house.
Bifold doors, the width of one end, look out onto what Bardy suspects is a sunken garden.
There are small rectangular windows at the other end, at pavement level.
At this end of the room, old sofas and chairs are scattered in a rough circle.
Around the walls, a number of posters are displayed—Bardy recognizes a couple from Jack’s old band—and also big, colorful abstract paintings.
IKEA or made by the boys? Christmas lights have been looped over these, and a large table to one side of the room is loaded with food and drinks.
The others are gathered around Leonard’s keyboard, which is set up at the far end of the room.
Jack is sitting on a barstool with a guitar, his foot up on a chair.
He is reading music over Leonard’s shoulder.
He is clearly in his element. Bardy glances at Satya.
Is her expression a bit softer when it rests on him? Maybe.
Linda hails them. “Leonard’s got his ending.” She is wearing a mellow plum–colored dress. It is as if she knows.
Kate is in jeans and a shirt threaded with silver.
Perhaps she knows too.
He knows this is nonsense, but somehow it gives him hope as he steps forward. “Spill the beans, Linda.”
Leonard is rattling out a jaunty tune with an attractive repeating melody, Jack following him on guitar.
“Very catchy,” Lou says.
As Satya gets drinks for them and refills for the others, Tay introduces Uzma, and Bardy greets Linda, Pia, Brenda, and silver-bright Kate.
Brenda is looking nervous, with Noy keeping close to her side.
It is as if he knows. Intelligent dogs, whippets.
Slim. Just the right size. Not like a rat at all. Bardy goes over to talk to Brenda.
“Good to see you again.” He smiles.
“They’re very talented,” Brenda returns, sipping her glass of fizz, her other hand stroking Noy’s head.
Jack, who is focusing on keeping up with Leonard, gives Bardy the briefest of nods.
Nice to see the lad smiling. Much more like Tom’s school friend who used to hang around their house.
This makes him think of Hana. This hanging around they’ve been doing since Lou’s accident is strange.
A weird limbo. What did Pia call it, a liminal space?
Maybe it’s a liminal time. Part of him wants her to go. Part of him wants her to stay. Forever.
Leonard finishes with a flourish and bows self-consciously to the enthusiastic applause. “So, what’s the ending of the musical?” Bardy calls, glad to be back to whatever is happening right now.
“Ah, it came to me the other evening, eating a trifle.” He smiles fondly at his wife.
Hearing aids seem to be doing their stuff.
“You tell them, Leonard,” Linda encourages.
“Well, the trifle got me thinking how much I like jelly.”
“Jelly?” they chorus, except Tay and Uzma, who are a duet of, “You’re joking me.” They then fall about laughing. Tay giggling.
You’re joking me.
“Yes,” Leonard continues undaunted, “it occurred to me that most things have been franchised: ice cream, burgers, cupcakes, sandwiches, frozen yogurt—all have been tried. I’ve got my main character giving a few of them a go after he gives up running the factory.
No luck, of course, until his young son says he wants a jelly for his birthday shaped like a rocket.
Well, they can’t get one anywhere. Not even a mold for one.
But our hero is an expert in extruded plastic, so he knows just what to do.
He makes the mold and his wife makes the jelly.
Soon they realize you can make pretty much any shape out of jelly, and in any flavor. ”
“Sweet or savory,” Linda chips in. She laughs. “And we should know, we have been trying them out. Orange jelly lobsters, blackberry and lemon jelly dinosaurs, and a rather large reclining jelly nude.”
“Milk jelly. Delicious,” Leonard says, winking at his wife.
Hidden depths, Leonard.
“We’ve also been experimenting with jelly shots and cocktails, and we’ve brought a few for you to try,” Linda says, nodding toward the table.
“So is this real or just for the musical?” Satya, the entrepreneur, queries. Bardy thinks her eyes are glistening with interest.
“Oh, just research,” Leonard replies.
“It sounds fun,” Pia says.
Linda raises her eyebrows. “Oh, it has been. You would be amazed at what you can do with jelly.”
Too much information, Linda.
“So, the musical?” Lou prompts, now settled in a comfy armchair, sipping a large glass of red wine.
“Ah, the musical. The man sets up a jelly empire, a chain of shops. Hugely successful. Even supplying the royal family. Jelly shaped like palaces and carriages.”
“I love it,” Kate enthuses.
“Have you got a name for the musical?” Pia asks.
“Oh yes,” Leonard cries, and he launches into a rousing, bouncing tune. “Wobble.”
Jack joins in, and to everyone’s surprise, Pia moves beside them and starts singing the words over Leonard’s shoulder.
Blimey. Amazing voice.
Kate is at his elbow. Arm just touching his. Silver shimmers, doing untoward things to his mind and body. She is laughing. “You know the ridiculous thing is I can imagine this in the West End. I think I’d actually go and see it.”
“Not King Lear?”
Too much of a dig?
“Not a chance!” She glances at Noy, who is now sandwiched on a far sofa between Tay and Uzma. “You know Simon called Noy a rat!”
“No, really?! Did he?”
He risks it.
“Tosser.”
“He certainly is,” Kate agrees.
And Bardy kicks back, floating in her silver light.