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“It’s immersive,” Tiff says, like that means something.
I’m not having that. “All rooms are immersive. You’re inside the bloody thing. You can’t get more immersive.”
“It’ll be memorable. Youwantedthis event to be memorable.”
I try in vain to see what Tiff is seeing. “Yeah, for being a fun party, not for giving half the guests tetanus.”
“Sam”—Tiff is looking unusually serious—“I promise you. Give me a few hundred quid for decorations and let me have the day off to get set up, and I can do something fantastic here.”
I’m still missing it. But I decide to trust her. “Okay.”
She gives a little squeal of delight, then with commendableefficiency starts directing the green-jumper-NHS-glasses feller towards pocket spring mattresses. When she’s gone, I head upstairs to say we’ll take the basement. My phone buzzes on the way up.
The text says,Why are you in Shoreditch?
PART FOUR
KEEPING MY HEAD & KEEPING MY HEART
CHAPTER 21
Jonathan isn’t happy that I ran off to Shoreditch without him, and he’s not exactly convinced that downgrading from “swanky hall with marble walls” to “dark basement” is the best way to cut costs, but we’re well under budget now so he can’t complain too much and to his very mild credit he does thank me for getting it sorted with a kind of detached boss politeness that’s its own level of crushing.
The advantage-slash-disadvantage of my having gone into town without Jonathan’s say-so and come back more or less fine is that he’s willing to leave to look after myself, and does as soon as he gets the opportunity. And it’s not that I miss him, exactly—if nothing else I’ve got my cat back—it’s just that for the first time since the accident I’m properly alone in Jonathan’s big, empty house. It’s…well, it sucks. And if I was less pissed off at him than I am, then I’d spend more time than I do reflecting on how much it must have sucked for him to live like that for, well, pretty much his whole life as far as I can tell. But I’m not less pissed off than I am, I’m exactly as pissed off as I am, so I mostly just feel sorry for myself.
And while I’m glad to have the Christmas party pretty much sorted, it does mean that I’ve officially expended my one source of usefulness, meaning I’m back to sitting on the sofa watchingPointlessand trying to see if Gollum will help me come up with a good example of a British Prime Minister who doesn’t have an e in their name.
I’m just wrestling with this exact conundrum and trying to work out if John Major is too obvious when I hear somebody at the door. Since Agnieszka has a key and it’s one of her off days anyhow, I go to investigate, reassured by the fact that burglars seldom knock.
It any case, it turns out not to be a burglar or a cleaner. It turns out to be Les.
“Jonathan in?” he asks.
“Err, no,” I say. “Fraid not.”
He gives me a look from under his brows. “Thought you shouldn’t leave somebody alone with a concussion.”
Though I’m still not in the best place as regards Jonathan, I do think it’s unfair to let his dad think he’s a bad concussed-person-take-care-of-er because that’s one job he’s done, if anything, too well. “It’s been about a fortnight and I’ve not died yet. I’m probably fine.”
“Apart from the amnesia.”
“Well”—I can’t tell if he’s suspicious or not—“memory’s a funny thing, y’know.”
He’s gazing at me now with a quiet concern. “Not that it’s my business, but have you had a row?”
“Sort of,” I say. Which isn’t necessarily the best way to dispel the family’s belief that we’re dating but it’s also true. Then I add, “Do you want a cup of tea?”
No matter which part of the country you’re from, turning down a cup of tea is basically an unforgivable social taboo, although in this case I think he actually does want one. He comes inside and sits down in the first of Jonathan’s three reception rooms, the one without the massive chunk of tree in it. And there’s something deeply sorrowful about an old man sitting on a sofa acouple of weeks before Christmas in a room that’s only half decorated because he had a barney with his son so intense that the whole family had to leave.
I bring him a tray through, set it down on the coffee table between us, and sit down in the chair opposite.
“Sorry he’s not here,” I say.
“Shouldn’t have expected him to be.” Les takes a mug, blows on it, and has a sip of tea. “Just thought he might be on account of…” He nods in my direction.
“You know we really aren’t dating.”
“Aye, but you’ve still got a concussion.”
