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I thank her for listening, flop on the sofa with Gollum, and go back toPointless. Except I’m having trouble concentrating on the question of which haiku represents which classic British sitcom because Agnieszka’s right, isn’t she? This isn’t sustainable and it isn’t helping. At best, it’s just delaying the inevitable. At worst it’s just changing what Jonathan Forest fires me for.
And I’m stuck, because I do really need to recover from the concussion, and at the same time I have to fake getting better from the amnesia in a way that somehow ends with Jonathan changing his entire personality and all his values. And that’s not completely impossible—if you spend time with someone really intensely you can get to, y’know, like them. And if he likes me, he might trust me. And if he trusts me, he won’t fire me, and he might let me not fire anybody else.
Of course, there’s the tiniest chance he won’t trust me if he finds out I’ve been trying to get him to trust me by pretending to have amnesia when I don’t.
Fuck. I’m fucking fucked, aren’t I?
CHAPTER 10
I warn agnieszka that I'm going to mess up the kitchen, but I promise to fix it up after, and she tells me it’s fine and it’s probably nice it’s getting used. And it’s a nice kitchentouse—it’s all spacious and laid out and that, and it’s got a well-stocked rack of herbs and spices from which I guarantee Jonathan Forest has never used a single herb or spice. Of course, it is more difficult to keep Gollum off the countertops because there’s so many that if I shoo him off one, he just goes straight to another. But eventually he gets the message and goes to sulk under a chair instead. I swear he’s telling me Jonathan’d let him play on the counters. And he probably would because he’s never cooked.
I soften up some butter and mix it with some lemon and thyme and I’m just rubbing it into the chicken like my dad used to—my dad didn’t cook much but he made a hell of a roast—when the doorbell goes. For a moment, I think about not answering because it’s someone else’s house, but then I figure it might be important, so I do my best to rinse my hands and head into the primary reception room.
Jonathan’s got one of them fancy glass doors so I can see, even before I get there, that there’s a lot of people outside. Like, a lot of people. I briefly think I’m getting arrested or home-invaded but then I recognise Wendy and Johnny in the crowd.
“Didn’t I tell you,” cries Wendy the second I open the door. “He’s got a boyfriend. Jonathan’s got a boyfriend.”
And before I can say, actually I’m not and also I’ve got amnesia, they’re all in the front room.
A tiny old lady in huge glasses who does, in fact, have a blue rinse goes buzzing into the kitchen. “And he cooks. He’s found himself a bloke what cooks.”
“I’m just making a roast,” I try.
“And,” adds yet another feller, with a broken halo of white hair and a natty blazer, “he cooks proper food. None of this nut roast bollocks.”
“Language, Dad.” Wendy whacks him in the arm. “You’re making us look a right bunch of wankers.”
Natty Blazer Feller is peering at my chicken. “Why can you say wankers, and I can’t say bollocks?”
“Bollocks is swearing, wankers ain’t swearing.”
“I don’t think that’s right, love,” says the little old lady with the glasses. “If it’s about your underwear bits, it’s swearing.”
“What about tits?” asks Johnny, who’s already sitting on the sofa.
An old woman I hadn’t noticed yet—though God knows how, because she’s dressed like Marlene fucking Dietrich, with the cigarette holder and everything—takes a drag of her ciggy. “I think you’ll find, young Johnny”—she’s got a posher accent than the rest of them—“that a bra does constitute underwear. So, if we accept Barbara’s terms then, yes, tits are indeed profanity.”
“Well tits,” says Johnny.
“Anyway”—Wendy grabs me by the arm and drags me in front of the group, which is hard because the group’s fucking everywhere—“this is Sam. He’s Jonathan’s new boyfriend even though Jonathan’s trying to pretend he ain’t.”
“The thing i—” I try again.
“Sam,” Wendy rolls on, “you know me, you know Johnny. This is Les…” She points to a tall, gruff, crumply man who hasn’t spoken yet. “He’s Jonathan’s dad. And that’s Nanny Barb, who’s my mum, and Granddad Del, who’s my dad.”
I’m starting to feel a bit dizzy, which might be the concussion or might be the mob. Nanny Barb is the tiny one with the glasses and Granddad Del is the one who likes to say bollocks. That just leaves her with the cigarette holder.
“And this”—Wendy brings it to a big finish—“is Auntie Jack what lives next door to Barb and Del.”
Auntie Jack raises a sliver of an eyebrow. “Barbara and I have been very good friends for a very long time.”
There’s finally enough of a gap that I can get a word in edgeways. “Lovely to meet yez. But I should probably say that I’m really not Jonathan’s boyfriend.”
Everyone stares at me like I’ve just told them their football team’s been relegated.
Auntie Jack takes another drag of her cigarette. “Let me guess, you’re just staying together for a little while, for totally unrelated reasons?”
When she puts it like that, it does sound pretty dodgy. “Yes?”
