Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Twenty-nine
Eddie
‘We’ve got to be really on it this next couple of days, guys. New menu rolling out tomorrow. I think we’re all au fait, right?’ Near the end of a hectic shift, head chef and proprietor Marius is addressing his team in the restaurant kitchen. A bearded bear of a man, he is perpetually red-cheeked with jet-black hair slicked back, his chef’s whites immaculate.
‘Yep, we’re all set, boss,’ says Kim, his second-in-command.
‘Excellent.’ He beams around at the team. ‘And now I have some exciting news for you all …’ A respectful hush settles. All eyes are on Marius.
‘Spit it out then,’ Kim teases.
He grins. ‘Well, we’ve got someone very special booked in for lunch on Friday. Using a fake name of course. But we know who it is.’ He pauses, building the tension. ‘It’s Jill Gilbert —’
‘Oh my God!’ Kim gasps. ‘How exciting!’
‘Yeah.’ Marius nods, brown eyes shining under bushy dark brows. ‘So tomorrow’s a trial run if you like. Five new starters, six mains. Not that I expect less than your best on any day. But Friday lunchtime I need you all to be absolutely on it …’
‘Jill Gilbert,’ murmurs Paulina, the pastry chef.
‘Wow,’ Eddie breathes, trying to look as if he knows who they’re on about. But he’s bluffing again. Living a big fat fib, like he’s had to since Lyla’s announcement. Will this go on forever? Eddie wonders. Will his entire life be a lie until the day he drops dead?
‘… Need everything to be slick and on the money,’ Marius goes on. ‘No one shambling in late. No sneaky breaks. This is a big deal for us, I think you all know that …’
On and on he goes with the half-dozen team members all paying rapt attention. Apart from Eddie, that is. Eddie’s attention is wandering. Who’s Jill Gilbert? He’ll have to google her and get up to speed. But right now, as Marius starts on about their new supplier of fresh herbs – ‘You’ve never seen chervil like it!’ – it’s Lyla who is infiltrating Eddie’s mind.
They’ve started meeting up now and again, always on her instigation. And Eddie obliges, because he wants to see her and this is a way for it to happen. He doesn’t feel he can suggest meeting, because it might sound like he’s asking her out on a date and they’re not dating.
How mental it all is, he reflects as Marius homes in on Paulina, suggesting a small finesse to her signature chocolate tart. Eddie and Lyla are having a child together, yet he doesn’t feel he can just call her, to ask how she’s feeling, and to check what size the baby is now and what it’s doing in there, inside her. Because he should know this, shouldn’t he? He should know if his unborn child is the size of a pea, an egg or a Starbucks muffin. What he does know is that her belly is growing, her body softening in a way that causes an actual pain in Eddie’s heart.
Because pregnancy is making her … bloom , is that what they say? She is glowing, all soft and pink cheeked, her golden hair lustrous and shiny. And he wants to kiss her, every time they’re together. That’s what he’s thinking about now at 10.27 p.m. as Marius starts to wrap up his pep talk.
The first time Eddie kissed Lyla, when she’d slid a hand around the back of his neck to pull him close, rockets had gone off in his head. Because in all of his twenty-two years he had never been kissed like that. The actual sex part is a bit blurry now, and next morning Lyla had made it clear that she needed him to leave. She wasn’t rude exactly, just direct. I’ve got stuff to get on with, okay? She took his number, saying she’d text him – but she never did. Not until a few weeks later, when he’d given up hope of seeing her again.
‘I have something to tell you,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t freak out.’
Eddie freaked out.
‘Eddie!’ Marius fixes him with a hard stare. ‘D’you have any idea who we’re talking about?’
‘Er … sorry, what?’ He snaps to attention, sensing his cheeks blazing.
His boss’s shiny round face breaks into a grin. He’s not a bully, not at all. Marius took a shine to the new kitchen porter, teasing him when he went all pale and clammy at the sight of a bowl of liver and a side of beef, dripping blood. ‘Get used to it, mate!’ He did too, working hard and rising to the challenge. From day one, when he still couldn’t quite believe his luck, all Eddie wanted was to impress his boss. And now, in turn, it feels vital to impress the girl he’s besotted with. He’s going to be a dad, for fuck’s sake. It’s time to make something of himself.
‘ Jill Gilbert ,’ Marius announces. ‘She’s a critic, Eddie. You should know that. Don’t you read restaurant reviews?’
‘’Course I do,’ Eddie fibs. He’d no more read the ingredients list on a packet of Wotsits.
‘Then you know who I’m talking about, right? And the influence she has? I’ve met her, she’s bloody terrifying—’ Marius breaks off and laughs. ‘But we needn’t be scared ’cause we’ll be prepared, won’t we, guys?’
‘Yeah, ’course.’ Eddie nods as the team all murmur in agreement.
‘So make sure you all get your beauty sleep tonight,’ Marius commands. ‘We need everything to be absolutely slick tomorrow, and then by Friday we’ll be a hundred per cent up to speed.’ He widens his eyes at Eddie. ‘No twenty-four-hour bug crap, okay?’
‘Definitely not,’ Eddie says, meaning it. Because this time he won’t let Marius down.
*
And this thought is burning fiercely in Eddie’s mind as he wakes at eight on a crisp, bright Thursday morning. He sits up in bed, propped up by a flat pillow – he’s known naan breads that are puffier – and reaches for his phone.
Two messages. The first from his mum: Remember it’s Granddad’s birthday on Saturday! Did you send a card?
No, he didn’t send a card because that would have involved going to the shops and buying one, and a stamp, and then posting it – in an actual postbox – which feels like a logistical nightmare to Eddie. He doesn’t even know where any postboxes are.
I’ll text him, he replies.
Could you send a Moonpig e-card?
For fuck’s sake, Mother! He doesn’t bother replying to that.
The second message is from Lyla. Can you come to a PV with me tonight?
Eddie blinks at it. He doesn’t know what a PV is, any more than he knew who Jill Gilbert was until Marius told him. So he googles it. How would he survive without Google? He can’t understand how his granddad manages with that ancient phone.
Eddie frowns. ‘Photovoltaic’ is the top result, something to do with converting sunlight into electrical energy. He’s assuming Lyla didn’t mean that.
Surely PV isn’t short for PVC and she’s taking him to some kind of sex club? He wouldn’t have thought she was the type. But then he doesn’t know what type she is, not really. Eddie rubs at his face, under pressure now.
Fuck it, he’ll just call her.
‘It’s a private view ,’ Lyla says, with emphasis.
‘What?’
‘An art opening, Eddie.’ Oh, of course. He goes to them all the time! (He doesn’t really. She might as well have asked him to the ballet). ‘Mum’ll be there,’ she adds. ‘The artist’s a friend of hers. She likes seeing us together. It’ll be nice—’
‘Sorry, I can’t do it,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m starting work at twelve. I won’t finish till midnight …’
‘It’s only a couple of hours,’ she protests.
‘I can’t just take a couple of hours off in the middle of a shift! We’ve got a new menu—’
‘—Dinah’s an amazing artist,’ Lyla goes on, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘She’s a psychotherapist. Like a really top one. And she channels her clients’ traumas and it all pours out into these amazingly powerful, intuitive works.’
Eddie wonders if he could actually do with some psychotherapy. It feels like it sometimes. Would this Dinah woman do him a special rate?
‘Eddie?’ Lyla prompts him. ‘Can you come, or—’
‘Are we going to keep this going?’ he blurts out, shocking himself with his directness.
In the pause that follows he can tell he’s shocked her too. ‘Keep what going?’ she asks.
‘Pretending to be together, like a normal couple?’ His left eyelid is flickering now, through stress.
‘Uh, I don’t know …’ For once, she sounds hesitant. ‘It’s … difficult,’ she murmurs. Talk about understatements. Then: ‘Are you going to work right now?’
He checks the time. ‘No, I’ve got a couple of hours before I start. Why d’you ask?’
‘You don’t … fancy coming over, do you? For a quick coffee?’
Eddie frowns. Of course he wants to. He wants that more than anything – but what does Lyla want?
‘You really want me to come over?’ he says hesitantly.
‘Yeah, I’d just like to see you,’ she says. ‘That’s all. Would that be okay?’
It takes Eddie a moment to digest this. ‘Right. Yeah, of course.’ His heart is lifting now. Then something occurs to him. ‘I … don’t actually have your address.’
Lyla emits a small laugh. ‘This is so mad, isn’t it?’
‘It is, yeah.’ His mouth twists into a smile.
‘I’ll text you it. See you soon.’ And with that, she’s gone. Eddie lies there, grinning, for a moment. Then he scrambles out of bed, deciding this is it. He must seize the day! He remembers Mr Crowther, his English teacher, barking at him when he was having a little nap on his desk.
‘Wake up, Mr Silva! Carpe diem! Know what that means?’
‘Something to do with carpets?’ he’d wondered aloud. The whole class laughed, including Mr Crowther – and now Eddie is going to do just that.
‘Carpe diem!’ he announces out loud in his dismal room. Grinning now, Eddie reaches up to his window, rips down the faded bath towel and blinks, joyously, as sunlight streams in.