AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Stop me if I’m out of line,” I try, “but if you’re upset at being left to languish then should you notwantto come down to London for Christmas?”
I was out of line. Nana Pauline turns on me with the relish of a veteran complainer. “Oh, that’s fine that is, you leave me uphere,languishing,and then you snap your fingers and expect me to pick up everything and run the whole length of the country just because it’sChristmas.”
“I mean…because it’s Christmasusually is a good reason to do things,” I say, then wish I hadn’t.
“Now you listen here, young man.” She’s definitely not porcelain. More like one of them ceramic kitchen knives. “I am old enough to be your grandmother and—”
“I think he probably knows that,” says Jonathan gently, “since you’remygrandmother. But what hedoesn’tknow is what you’relike.”
“What I’m like? What am I like?”
Jonathan gives her a look. “Argumentative.”
“I amnot.”
He gives her an even lookier look. “I’m just going to leave that there. Now stop being silly.”
“I’m not being silly.” Leaning firmly back in her armchair, Nana Pauline folds her arms. “I’m not coming.”
Hoping that Nana Pauline’s love of a good row means that pushing back is making her like me more, I push back. “Okay, but what’s your real reason?”
“That is my real reason,” she insists. “I feel slighted. Used. Took for granted.”
I don’t glare at her exactly, but I move my eyes in a glarey direction. “Really, though?”
For a moment it just hangs there. Then she says: “Got a feller.”
Just as I’m about to ask what sort of feller, Jonathan, with the sense of occasion and social nicety I’ve come to know and love cuts me off with, “No, seriously, why don’t you want to come down for Christmas?”
I elbow him. And it takes him a bit to realise why I’m elbowing him, so I elbow him again.
Eventually, he gets it, and to his credit hemostlyrecovers without making a total tit of himself. “You’re actually seeing someone?”
Nana Pauline’s arms remain resolutely folded. “Needn’t look so shocked, Jonathan.”
Shocked, in my view, doesn’t cut it. He looks like he’s seen a ghost, and then the ghost’s told him that king cobras aren’t really cobras. “But you’re—”
I elbow him a third time.
“I’mwhat,Jonathan?”
“Well…” I’ve rarely seen Jonathan Forest flustered, and he’s not flustered now exactly so much as uncertain about how best to proceed. “It’s not exactlyusual.”
“I married your granddad,” points out Nana Pauline. “And I had a lot of lads after me when I was young.”
“Exactly. When you wereyoung.” I’m getting the impression that if you pushed Jonathan into a deep pit he’d immediately yell up at you to throw him a shovel.
“But not now I’m old and ugly?”
Jonathan puts up a hand as if he’s trying to protect himself. “Hold on, Ineversaid ugly.”
“Just old?” Nana Pauline is getting thatI’ve won this argumentair about her and she’s not wrong.
This feels like an excellent time for me to make some kind of effort to smooth things over. “What’s his name?” I ask.
“Ralph. And see, Jonathan, that wasn’t so hard was it?”
Forced to concede that no, it’s not that hard actually, Jonathan goes to a basic follow-up question. “And he’s another resident?”
