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“Absolutely not,” he snapped, his voice dangerously level as he watched her from behind the rim of his tea cup. His deep green eyes that had beamed at the sight of her only an hour before, were suddenly cold and impassive, an unmovable expression she knew all too well. “I’ve told you before, I pay my own way.”
Mina just wanted to squint, leer, and stick her tongue out. For a moment she considered telling him his way couldn’t cover so much as a starter at Le Cœur de la Mer, but then thought better of it.
As Sid James said, ‘We’re not called John Bull for nothing.’
They were in the Denny’s on Tiverton Avenue, seated at their usual booth in the far corner opposite the row of windows looking out at the tinted windows and clay brown bricks of the Palomino Restaurant and Bar across the road, having their usual brunch. It was unusually quiet for ten o’clock on a Sunday morning, with only a few groups of two and three at a handful of tables and one young blond waitress serving the floor. There were times Mina would have been glad of the solitude. She missed spending quality time with her father, sitting back on the sofa and discussing their day while watching his old Only Fools and Horses videos like they had when she was little. At this moment, she would have been glad of the distraction, or any distraction for that matter.
“Hiya, is everything okay? Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asked, pausing at their table with a tray of dirties in each hand, her notepad tucked in her uniform trousers’ back pocket. Barely more than sixteen, with a head of fire-kissed curls hastily dragged back into a bun and an uneasy but friendly smile, she paid Mina little notice and the actress could have kissed her for her timing.
“No. We’re fine, thank you,” James Carring said, his eyes softening as he lowered the cup to the table and smiled amiably at the girl. “Could we have our cheque please?”
“Certainly, sir, I’ll be right ba…” The words died on her lips as she turned to carry on to the door leading through to the kitchen and her eyes fell on the older blonde. Sparkling blue pools widened in recognition. “Oh, my God! You’re Mina Car…well of course you are…I mean I just didn’t…I’m such a fan an…I just loved…and um…well, could I, that is, if you don’t mind, may I…” She seemed on the verge of a breakdown. In her excitement, her hands were shaking so violently it was a miracle both trays didn’t go clattering to the floor. Then a sudden calm fell over her and she took a deep breath before asking “can I have your autograph?”
Mina felt her cheeks growing hot and she had the sudden impulse to bury her face behind one of the standing menus on the table, or look out the window at the Palomino to watch the slow train of people walking the sidewalk. Or anywhere but at the waitress watching her expectantly and who looked like she might burst into tears at any moment. However, also very much aware of the eyes suddenly swivelling in their direction, with more than a few threatening camera phones, Mina chose not to humiliate the teen further. Her lips curled in a reassuring smile. “Sure.”
James Carring smiled bemusedly, his brow quirking with ill-disguised amusement, the way all parents did when they knew their children were embarrassed.
“Really!” the girl beamed, then her cheeks reddened and she looked away sheepishly. “Oh, my God. I’m so embarrassed, I can’t believe I just said that, but thank you. Thank you. Let me just get your bill and I’ll be right back.” With that, the waitress whirled around in a pirouette worthy of the Bolshoi, all but ran past several diners signalling for service, and through to the kitchen without dropping so much as a spoon.
Mina watched the younger woman disappear behind the swinging door with her mouth open. Half expecting to see her come bustling back in at any moment, she turned back to find her father had already taken his wallet from his coat pocket and was fingering through several twenties. She was about to tell him she’d cover it as he had paid last time, but he seemed to know her mind and shot her an imperious look that held her tongue.
Easing back into the red padding of her seat with a defeated sigh, she turned her eyes down to her unfinished chicken salad. She prodded one of the apple slices with her fork, the flesh all but saturated with dressing. He never changed. Why did he always have to be so English? Not only did he always insist on paying, but he doggedly refused to accept her help, even when he knew he couldn’t afford it.
“Well,” she began after a moment, steeling herself for a second assault. “How about this? I know the maître d'. If you give him a ring and tell him you’re my dad, he’ll give you a discount.”
James’s finger paused and he looked up from the notes to fix his daughter with a sceptical eye. “A discount?”
“Yes, just a discount.” She gave him her sweetest smile, apprehension winding her insides into a chain of tight knots under her father’s scrutinising gaze. That very look had made her crumble often, made her feel like he was seeing through her masks to the little girl she’d once been.
For an instant, Mina thought her father might press her, to try and ferret out a lie. But he gave only a small nod, then drew forty dollars from his wallet and placed it down on the table. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
He nodded again and Mina couldn’t help the trace of a smile that curled at the corner of her lips as she dragged her handbag from where she’d pinned it between the table and her foot and began rummaging inside for her phone. It wasn’t a complete lie. Grey if not white. She was on first-name terms with the maître d' and he would let him have a table for two at a knocked down price, but only because Mina would be calling later today to explain the situation and arrange to have the lion’s share of the bill diverted to her account.
Her father watched her impassively as she copied the number from her phone onto a napkin. From his unmovable expression, it was hard to say whether or not he believed her, but he knew well enough his wife wanted Mark to enjoy his 21st and James Carring would do almost anything to see his wife smile. He took the napkin from her when she handed it across the table, glanced at it and then tucked it into his pocket along with the wallet.
“You’re still very fond of the boy, aren’t you?” he asked without looking at her.
Mina gave a small shrug. “He’s my little brother.” There was little point in denying it. Their parents had known how close she and Mark had become while growing up together. Though if they’d had any notion of how far that relationship had gone, she doubted they’d be quite so complacent. “What kind of sister would I be if I weren’t?”
“Yes.”
Across the diner, the waitress burst through the door to the kitchen, punched a few details into the computer at the pay station, and was then weaving a path back to their booth, bill in hand. James smiled at the look on the girl’s face, the way she tried to appear professional but couldn’t quite hide her excitement, then shot his daughter a sideways glance and added, “But he’s only your stepbrother.”
With her ears ringing from the raucous bombardment, Mina slipped into the mass of writhing hormones and weaved through the crowd. It had been several years since she last visited the house, but she found it had hardly changed and remained much the way she remembered it. The house had the same mocha carpet and pale beige walls adorned with hanging family photos. The same sturdy box-television sat in the living room, and cabinets sat opposite the grey four-seater settee, presently a makeshift bed for an amorous young couple engrossed in a heated game of tonsil-hockey. Her father’s faded chocolate leather Barcalounger in the far corner, beside his antique and securely locked liquor cabinet, was forgotten and almost completely buried beneath a mound of coats. Yet there was no sign of her stepbrother.
Depositing the bag amongst the other gifts encircling the television, only half pleased to see it was by far the largest, she turned on her heel and decided to check the kitchen. Mina tried to ignore the heads twisting in her direction as she edged around the improvised dance floor, pressing a path through the revellers, eyes peeled for any glimpse of Mark. Yet, as she weaved between the tight press of bodies, Mina couldn’t help but curiously eye their peculiar array of body art, hairstyles, and tattered ill-fitting attire. Was this what the ‘kids’ were into these days? At only 24, was she already so old? Then again, were they really so strange? When she was in school, she could recall baggy clothes, raiding shopping centres armed with spray paint, losing her virginity in the back seat of a 1969 Dodge Charger, and even occasionally snorting coke in clubs. But the phases that had come and gone as quickly as David Beckham’s haircuts. Was this merely how the modern youth rebelled against authority?
When she found Mark, would he still be that geeky, awkward teenager, or resemble the ill-fated love child of a central African tribesman and a ‘70s punk rocker…
She passed between the already ajar French doors to the large adjoining dining room, where a large group sat playing rounds of billiards, with their clothes as the stakes. Moving through to the kitchen, Mina muttered a curse under her breath.
Small but also practical, the kitchen had wide windows that looked out across the back garden, now swallowed in inky blackness. Fragments of light danced off the dull aluminium appliances, and the kitchen was as much a bustling hive of activity as it ever was. In the far corner, a tall, broad-shouldered man with rich black hair was talking to a beauty of a girl with a bob-cut of dirty-blond hair and whose high, bountiful bosom stretched the front of her tiny cotton sweater almost to ruin. By the windows, a trio of beer-splattered frat boys had made a game of juggling disposable cups and drinking a beer whenever they dropped one. There was a gaggle of girls gossiping and giggling, herds of boys posturing and showboating- yet still no sign of Mark.
A glint of gold caught her eye and a broad smile spread across her lips. Hung pride of place upon the inner wall in the sterling silver frame with swirling gold inlaid runes along the edges that she’d bought them for their last anniversary, was a photo from her father’s wedding day. It showed him standing on Descanso Beach, with pale white sand underfoot and the Catalina Casino sitting just above the sea’s calm blue waters in the background. He was resplendent in his tailored three-piece wedding suit and the top hat that hid his salt and pepper hair, and stood with a protective arm around his new bride, Alexis. She and Mark were there too. Mark, the nervous six-year-old best man, half hidden behind the groom’s legs, she the beaming flower girl at the head of the party, clutching a bouquet of white roses and clad in a gorgeous ivory satin gown that was an almost exact miniature duplicate of the bride’s wedding dress.
Had it really been fifteen years ago? It was almost inconceivable, yet the last decade had just seemed to fly by so fast. She had developed the habit of losing track of time. She could remember that day so vividly, however. Mark had been nervous, so nervous that when the moment came for him to pass the rings, his hand had been shaking so violently he had dropped them in the middle of the aisle. Alexis was the very definition of a blushing bride, graceful, demure, and utterly beyond all reproach even as she blindly tossed the bouquet in such a way that only Mina could have caught it. And her father…Mina had never seen him so happy. All throughout the day he had beamed with joy and just the sight of his new bride coming down the aisle had lifted years from his weathered face, banishing the spectre that had loomed over his shoulders for so many years.
