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Now that Rose is here, the four Buchanans immediately launch into a fresh game of “Do You Remember…?” and I continue to sit there silently, trying to remind myself that it’s been a long time since they were all together like this (Why is that, though? Because I still don’t have an answer to that one…), while feeling as out of place as McTavish was that time he went along to a Girl Guides meeting thinking it was something to do with sheepdogs.
“And what is it you do, exactly, Emerald?” says Kathryn, turning her attention back to me with a smile which shows her teeth and suggests that my answer to this question will form the basis of her opinion of me forever more. So no biggie, then.
“Remind me?”
“I, er, well I work in The 39 most days,” I tell her, wondering if my voice has always sounded so whiny, or if it’s just the nerves. “I do the staff rotas, and that kind of thing. Sometimes I help with the dishes, and show people to their seats, but not at the same time, obviously.”
I laugh nervously. Kathryn’s mouth turns down at the corners, as if she can smell something bad, and as if the thing isme.
“Emerald basically runs the place,” interrupts Jack. “Of course she doesn’t just do the dishes. She’s an extremely competent manager.”
“Manager” is a very generous way to describe what I do at Jack’s restaurant, and I can tell Kathryn isn’t convinced by it; which is reasonable, given the nervous babble I’ve just treated her to.
“And before that? You must have hadsomekind of career before you met Jack, surely?”
“Yes, I was a cleaner,” I mumble, blushing for no reason at all. “For my friend, Frankie.”
“She was in publishing,” says Jack, tightly. “And she was very good at it, too. I don’t know why she’s trying to say she was just a cleaner; she only did that for a few weeks, to help out her friend.”
Why is he talking about me as if I’m not here? And trying to say I only took the job with Frankie to help her out, when it was actually the other way around?
Is heashamedof me?
“There’s nothing wrong with being a cleaner,” I interject, hurt. “And Iwasone. For a while, anyway. Although, yes, I was in publishing before that. In London.”
“But why on earth would you move up here, then?” asks Kathryn. “Surely there must be dish-washing and cleaning jobs in London?” There’s a short, awkward silence, during which I look at Jack for help, and he looks determinedly down at the table, refusing to make eye contact.
“I, um, couldn’t afford to stay,” I tell Kathryn, my voice weirdly croaky. “I had this issue with my ex, and—”
“Emerald grew up in Heather Bay,” Jack cuts in smoothly before I can get to the bit where Ben cleans out our joint bank account and absconds to California, leaving me with a heap of debt, and cripplingly low self-esteem. “Her parents still live here. So naturally she wanted to move back to be closer to them. Can I get anyone another drink? Some food? I’m just going to pop back inside to get those plans I was telling you about, dad.”
“Well, how fortunate that Jack was able to find a little job for you,” says Kathryn, ignoring him. “He’s always been very generous, my Jack.”
She smiles with faux sweetness, and the gauntlet is laid down. There’s absolutely no denying the subtext here.A little job for you=You’re a gold-digger.He’s always been very generous:I’ll be watching you, tart.
So this is how it’s going to be, then. I’m going to be one of those brides whose mother-in-law hates her. My mind skips ahead to all the strained family dinners we’ll have together, and the fights over who we’ll spend Christmas with each year. This is not how I imagined my life unfolding. I close my eyes tightly, wishing I could will myself back in time, and be introduced to Jack’s parents looking cool yet sophisticated, with maybe a silk scarf round my neck, or some other nod to my innate elegance. I really wish I hadn’t spilled that ketchup down my top in The Wildcat. Or come into the house screeching about how Jack’s parents were neglecting me.
On reflection, that’s probably the bit I’d like to change the most. But now I’ve been thinking about Jack’s mum’s comment for so long that I’ve missed the chance to actually respond to it, which means I’m forced to just sit there, smiling until my jaw hurts as Rose launches into a lengthy story about a party she went to in London with someone called Piggy and someone else called Binky (Why do posh people always have such ridiculous names?), and Jack excuses himself to go and get the Emerald View plans from his office. After a few seconds I quietly get up and follow him, trusting that no one’s going to notice my absence, anyway.
“Jack,” I say, as soon as the office door closes behind us. “Jack, I’m so sorry for bursting in on you like that earlier. I had absolutely no idea you had company, let alone that it was going to be your parents.”
“Yeah, I guessed that,” he says bluntly, refusing to look at me as he goes to his desk and starts rifling through the papers on top of it. “The way you asked me if I was — what was it — ‘up to something dodgy’? — clued me in on that one fairly quickly.”
This is probablynotthe time to bring up the fact that his mum clearly hates me, then.
“I really am sorry, Jack,” I say, going over to him. “If I’d known they were coming, I’d have—”
“You’d have what?Notasked me if I was lying to you? Or not accused my parents of neglecting you?”
Jack runs his hands through his hair in exasperation as he finally looks up at me. My stomach does a series of fairly impressive somersaults — and not the fun kind, either.
“I wouldn’t have said any of it,” I tell him, hurt. “Of course I wouldn’t have. But, Jack—”
The look in his eyes is warning me not to continue down this path, but Ididpromise myself I wouldn’t keep hiding things from him, so I take a deep breath and stumble on.
“Don’t you want to know more about these messages I’ve been getting?” I ask, going over to stand next to him. “Because I’ve had two now, and neither of them makes any sense to me. Look—”
I pull out my phone and hand it to him, my stomach still twisting with nerves. Jack quickly scans the first message, then hands the phone back to me, shrugging.
