Chapter 23
Enzo knows his daughter very well. As a little girl, Mathilde was never one to accept that the beach was ‘closing’ when it was time to go home.
She believed in Father Christmas, of course, and the tooth fairy, because she was never averse to receiving hard cash.
But Enzo knew he wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of an awkward scenario like that one.
‘I can’t decide what to have,’ she announces now, hurrying along to keep up with her father’s strides.
Mathilde is small for her age and slightly built.
Today she is wearing a black corduroy dress with a bib, like dungarees, over a sparkly red top, red and black-striped tights and big black DMs. Who’s that cartoon character British kids grew up on?
The one Laura told him about? Beryl the Peril.
‘You can have anything you like,’ Enzo tells her. ‘Anything at all.’
‘Thanks, Dad.’ She beams up at him and he readies himself for the unfeasibly cheerful waiting staff and pounding music of Mathilde’s favourite restaurant.
He hadn’t planned to take her there this afternoon.
Although it’s her birthday – she is ten, quite the milestone – they have already done presents and been out for a fancy brunch involving shakshuka (Enzo didn’t encounter such a thing until the age of forty) plus hot chocolate towering with whipped cream.
They have seen a movie, as always opting for separate popcorns (Enzo: salty, Mathilde: sweet), and later a bunch of her friends are coming round for a sleepover.
He’d planned to order in pizzas. Well, Mathilde will just have to have a double dinner, he decides as they step through the arc of balloons at the entrance to Benji’s.
Because in panic he couldn’t think of anywhere else to hide.
‘Can I message Mum?’ Mathilde asks as they wait to be shown to a table.
‘’Course you can.’ He hands her his phone – she has asked for one but isn’t allowed one yet – and she speedily taps out a message, detailing the day’s events so far.
Then she forces her dad into a grinning selfie and sends that too.
They’d have all been together today if Laura hadn’t come down with a dose of flu.
In some ways, Enzo reflects as they’re led through the bustling restaurant, it’s just as well. It’s not that he’d have wished a virus on Laura. But if she were here today it would have been a whole lot trickier to make that snap decision and haul them all in here.
Benji’s is basically a fast-food restaurant with added streamers and sparklers and wackily named desserts.
Laura can’t abide it, and understandably so.
Several high-spirited birthday gatherings are happening around them and children much younger than Mathilde are charging between tables and clanging against chairs.
‘Ooh, careful there!’ a young waiter says, cheery demeanour undented.
He’s probably a philosophy student, Enzo decides, and he spends his Saturdays dodging bread roll missiles and chemical-additive-fuelled kids.
And they say Gen Z are allergic to hard graft?
As a demographic they’re much maligned, Enzo believes.
Caring about the planet, wanting a decent work-life balance and being partial to smoothies? What’s the problem with that?
In fact, he pities the staff here as the noise level is already making his brain judder against his skull.
He thinks back to Kim in the taxi last night and wonders what she’d make of a place like this.
Would she have kissed him on the mouth and asked him up to her place if she’d been sober?
He has already gathered that she’s quite a force to be reckoned with and surmises that, if Kim wants to do something, she’ll just do it.
And he wonders now whether their coffee/drink will happen and in fact whether he wants it to.
He’s become cautious – not only due to previous dating experiences but also because he’d have to be absolutely sure before introducing anyone into Mathilde’s life.
‘You overthink it,’ Nina has scolded him in the past. ‘You’re running away with yourself. A drink is just a drink.’ Hmm, he’d joked. Wasn’t that from Casablanca ?
‘So, what shall we have?’ he asks Mathilde as they are seated next to a wall entirely covered with artificial pink flowers.
Vertical gardens are everywhere, he’s noticed.
Mathilde takes a selfie against it with Enzo’s phone and then peruses the confusing array of menus, all laminated and cartoonishly illustrated: the set menu, the ‘Occasions’ menu and ‘Nibbles ’n’ Bites’.
After the speedy dash here, Enzo’s pulse seems to have just about normalised.
He picks up the ‘Occasions’ menu, thinking, well, this is an occasion, isn’t it?
Not just Mathilde’s birthday but a day when he managed to avoid?—
‘Hiiii! Hello!’
Enzo looks up with a start. A woman has barged into the restaurant and she seems to be waving at him. It’s the woman he spotted in the street and a sudden wave of dread crashes over him.
He wants nothing to do with her. At least not here, not with Mathilde sitting beside him, wondering whether to opt for the Cajun fried chicken or the crispy haddock goujons.
Enzo grips the biggest and most lavishly illustrated menu, hoping that if he focuses hard enough, then the woman will melt into the mayhem around them.
Celia. That’s her name: he’s remembered it now.
He glances up to see her heading towards them, light brown hair pulled back from her delicate face.
Why is she here? Has she followed them in?
No, he’s just being paranoid. She’s just come in to eat because that’s what people do in restaurants , Enzo reminds himself, feeling foolish now.
And she must have been waving at someone else.
No, she wasn’t. She arrives at their table, pink-cheeked and smiling apologetically and fixing him with her striking green eyes. ‘Hi!’ She seems to catch her breath.
Mathilde looks up. ‘Hi. Please can I order things from different menus?’ she asks politely.
Normally Enzo would be proud. Manners were of utmost importance as he was growing up and he tries to encourage the kids at school to at least not be blatantly foul to one another (with limited success).
But he’s not registering Mathilde’s politeness now as Celia is telling her, ‘Oh, I don’t work here, honey.
Sorry.’ She turns to Enzo. ‘Look, I’m really sorry for chasing you in here.
It’s just…’ She pushes a tendril of hair from her face.
‘I’m not sure if you remember me but I do owe you an apology. ’
He flushes. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I?—’
‘The houseplant hospital?’ she says brightly. ‘Last weekend it was, when you came round with?—’
‘What’s a houseplant hospital?’ Mathilde cuts in.
‘It’s a place where people bring their plants when they’re not very well,’ Celia explains. ‘And I work out a treatment plan for them to make them better.’
‘Like an actual hospital?’ Mathilde appears to be fascinated by this.
‘Yes, sort of.’ Celia smiles. ‘And you see, your dad – I’m assuming this is your dad…’
‘Yes, he’s my dad.’ Who else would he be? her expression says.
‘Well, he brought a very sorry-looking cactus round to my house, hoping I’d be able to help.
And I’m sorry,’ Celia continues, turning back to Enzo now, who is trying to form a calm expression although he is aware that his jaw has set.
He does not want a speciality burger now.
He wants to ditch this idea and take Mathilde home to get ready for the sleepover.
‘I sent you away, saying I couldn’t take it in,’ Celia reminds him.
‘I’d never do that normally. I’d always try to help.
But it wasn’t normal. I mean it wasn’t a normal day.
But anyway!’ She brightens now. Mathilde is staring at her as if she might grab the assortment of menus and juggle with them.
‘I hate not being able to help a customer,’ she adds.
‘So if you’d like to bring your cactus round, I’d be really happy?—’
‘But he’s fine.’ Mathilde looks perplexed. ‘I mean, our cactus is fine. There’s nothing wrong with him at all.’
Celia frowns. ‘I’m sorry. It didn’t look that way to me. It – he – was keeled right over and severely dehydrated.’
Enzo’s mind has whirred into action now.
He could lie and say he’s never seen this woman in his life!
Could someone remove her from the restaurant, please?
But he can’t do that. Of course he can’t.
And nor can he scramble together a lie that Spike did in fact take ‘a turn’ while Mathilde was on her school trip, but then miraculously recovered.
Still gripping the plastic ‘Occasions’ menu, he seems to be having trouble finding the right words.
‘Dad?’ Mathilde’s laser-gaze is spearing him between the eyes. ‘Dad,’ she says firmly, ‘did something happen when I was away? Did something happen to Spike?’