‘If you don’t know then I’m not telling you.’
Everyone looked at Don, who was sitting placidly nursing his shot glass.
‘Don’t look at me,’ he said, ‘I’ve no idea what’s going on. But someone perhaps needs to calm down and have a little walk outside. Someone’s plastered.’
‘Don’t speak about my wife like that,’ Craig spluttered.
‘Yes,’ Dawn said, ‘don’t speak about his wife like that.’
‘He’s talking about you, Dawn,’ Craig muttered.
‘Is he? Well, you talk about his wife then,’ Dawn said, hiccupping gently. ‘Who’s his wife? Have I met her?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. Come on, let’s get you outside, we need to find the bus soon anyway,’ Craig said.
‘I think he’s very rude,’ Dawn said, wriggling her way out from behind the table. In the process she knocked over several bottles and people made frantic grabs for their plates and glasses before there was complete chaos.
Dawn drew herself up to her full height, which was only about five feet two inches, and she mustered as much dignity as she could.
‘He,’ she said, pointing at Don, ‘he. Is a man.’
Don roared with laughter and after a moment Dawn made a grab for a handful of leftover prosciutto and threw it at Don, who rather neatly ducked. This meant it hit Belinda in the middle of her chest and it slithered down her cleavage into the front of her dress.
Belinda screamed and began fishing it out with a lot of squeaks and squarks, while Don laughed so hard he fell off the bench and slid under the table.
‘You’re the one who should go outside,’ Dawn said. ‘You should go and touch yourself.’
‘Dawn!’ Craig shouted.
Dawn looked confused and shook her head. ‘You should go outside and get in touch with yourself.’
‘That’s enough, Dawnie, love,’ Craig said in a mollifying tone. ‘Let’s go and find the bus, shall we?’
‘Yes,’ she said, picking up her handbag and clutching it under one arm, ‘I’ve had enough of this. I didn’t come here to be insulated. Insulted.’
Don grabbed hold of the edge of the table and stuck his head out from underneath it. Belinda hurriedly removed a slice of salami from his forehead.
‘Why, where do you usually go?’ Don said.
Dawn flared her nostrils at him. ‘That’s it. Give me the keys, Craig. I’ll drive.’
* * *
The next few minutes were taken up with getting Dawn into the cool of the early evening where she could be heard shouting at her husband and listing her mother’s many virtues, which included the tidiness of her airing cupboard, her ability to iron a shirt in three minutes and her kitchen drawer filled with bits of string which she never threw away.
‘Don’t laugh,’ Evelyn said. ‘Whatever you do, don’t laugh.’
‘I thought she didn’t drink?’ Harriet said.
‘But that was like communion wine so she said it didn’t count,’ Anna said. ‘I remember something like that when I was a kid, people buying something called tonic wine and taking it as though it was medicine, and in fact it was 15 per cent proof. I hope she doesn’t throw up on the bus. Perhaps we should let her sit at the front?’
29
The journey back to the boat was reasonably uneventful. Dawn and Craig sat in the front seats behind the driver, and the rest of us retreated to the back of the coach, not wanting to upset Dawn any further or add to Craig’s probable embarrassment.
For the first few minutes she could be heard complaining about the road or asking where everyone else was, until eventually her head lolled onto Craig’s shoulder and she fell asleep.
‘Phew,’ Harriet said, turning around in her seat, ‘thank heavens for that, let’s hope she’s okay when she wakes up.’
