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“Oh. Good.” I wish we weren’t both shit at telephones because I really don’t want this conversation to end, but if it goes on like this it’ll just beoh/yes/well/exactlyback and forth for eighteen seconds then an awkward ring off.
There’s a moment’s quiet when I think I hear a touch of embarrassment. “I told my family, by the way. About—I mean—not in detail—and Nana Pauline would have…”
There’s a scuffling sound and then Barbara Jane’s voice comes clear as a bell down the line. “He says you fucked all night and it was the most mind-blowing experience he’d ever had.”
In what now sounds like the distance I hear Jonathan’s voice sayingI did notandBJ, give me my phone back.
“So anyway,daaarling,howaaareyou?” Barbara Jane asks. “I understand that you’re stuck in Sheffield overnight because Johnny is too cheap to pay for a van.”
I think I catchI am notfrom one part of the distant nowhere andnowt wrong with Sheffieldfrom another. “It’s not that.” I’d have wanted to defend Jonathan anyway, even if she hadn’t been blaming him for something that was one hundred and three percent my idea. “It’s just I’ve got a van anyway and it seems a waste, plus there’s this whole thing where people get stung for income tax if we go over budg—”
“Sam, you’re very close to boring me.” Barbara Jane doesn’t sound bored at all, though I suspect that’s more because she’s enjoying pissing her brother off than because I’m saying anything she actually cares about.
“Barbara Jane”—I hear Wendy’s voice down the line, quieter than usual but that’s a relative thing—“give your brother his phone back.”
“Shan’t.”
I think I hear Les’s voice next, but I can’t make out the words.
“Fine,” says Barbara Jane. “Here.”
I have a vague sense of being passed from hand to hand, then, I hear Jonathan saying: “Sorry about that.”
“No worries, I get how it can be.”
“They’re not usually quite this bad. I think they’re overexcited.”
There’s commentary on that from the rest of the family. I can’t quite hear it, but I can imagine it well enough. Jonathan in the kitchen trying to make a call, Wendy and Barbara Jane hovering as close as they can get away with while Les watches from the sofa. “It’s fine. Good to hear from you.”
“Yes, well…” He’s still terrible at this. “I thought I should…you know.”
There’s another scuffling sound. “He means he misses you and he hopes you get back soon.” That’s Wendy. “Don’t you, love?”
I hear a faintyes, motherfrom Jonathan, then somebody moving in the background followed by Wendy saying very loudly,“Yeah, that’d be great, two sugars, thanks,” before remembering she was on the phone and turning back to me. “Here, did you know Nana Pauline’s got a boyfriend and all?”
“Ofcoursehe knows”—Jonathan’s voice is just about audible—“he was there when we picked them up.”
“I’ll tell you what, though,” Wendy carries on, “it ain’t half got crowded now. Barbara Jane’s had to come in with us to make room.”
“It’s a delight,” Barbara Jane shouts for my benefit. “It’s like I’m fucking thirteen.”
Jonathan is saying something in the background, but Wendy seems to be holding me near a boiling kettle so I don’t have a clue what he’s saying. “Hold on,” she says, “Jonathan wants to talk again so I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Don’t put him on speaker,” Jonathan protests, entirely in vain, as I get put on speaker.
A chorus of voicesHi Samat me all at once, and my mental picture of the scene adjusts to account for a much bigger crowd.
“Is everybody there?” I ask.
“They wanted to come and say hello to Nana Pauline,” explains Jonathan.
“Except me,” calls out Agnieszka, sounding slightly more distant than the others, “I just work here—Mrs Forestpleasestop cleaning the sideboards. If you keep doing my job, your son will fire me.”
“He bloody well will not,” Wendy declares.
“Is this really weird for you?” asks a voice that it takes me one moment to realise is addressing me and another to realise is Anthea.
“Yes,” I admit. “Yes, it really is.”
