At the Table by Claire Powell

Author:Claire Powell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2022-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

AUTUMN

12

Though he didn’t think they’d need to book, Nicole called ahead anyway, reserved a table for four at seven thirty. She sent him a text:

I’ve asked for our table by the window!

‘Our table’, Gerry thought. They haven’t been to the restaurant in over twenty years, not since the children were children. It was Nicole’s idea to go back there tonight. The Maguires haven’t held many family traditions, but for a time this was one of them: dinner every month at The Laughing Buddha on Widmore Road.

It’ll be funny! Nicole had written in another message. I wonder if they still give out Fortune Cookies at the end??

He supposes she’s in the grip of some nostalgia, some wistfulness towards the past. Gerry should probably feel warmed by this, but the truth is, he doesn’t. If anything, it makes him uneasy. She still frightens him sometimes, though what it is he finds frightening he can’t quite put his finger on. It certainly isn’t the thing fathers are supposed to fear – that of someone harming their daughter. Gerry’s fear – not that’d he’d ever say it aloud – is what harm his daughter may cause others. He blames it on her teenage years, all those fights with her mother. Though they’d never spoken openly about Linda’s post-natal depression, never talked as a family about that awful period, it sometimes felt as though Nicole knew it anyway. As though she was getting her revenge.

Nicole and Linda have fallen out again. Gerry didn’t hear this through Nicole, but through Linda, who rang him last week with the sole purpose of informing him. Their argument hadn’t even concerned Gerry (his vague understanding is that they’d planned a lunch which Nicole then cancelled) but for some reason it’s this – his sheer non-involvement – that has so rattled Linda.

‘It must be lovely being you,’ she said on the phone. ‘No, I mean it. It must be really lovely. You can’t do anything wrong, can you? Not in their eyes. You’re Saint Gerry to them. The perfect man.’

‘Well, now,’ he replied, trying to sound measured. ‘No need to be sarcastic.’

He didn’t tell her about them going to The Laughing Buddha, though she’s bound to hear of it through Jamie. Perhaps she already knows. He wonders now if Nicole booked this particular restaurant on purpose – a way to spite Linda, make her feel left out. Gerry feels, more than anything, disappointed by it all. Hadn’t they been doing so well? Sure, there was something stilted nowadays in his interaction with Linda. Something a little strained and wooden, as though they didn’t really know each other. Though he’s never been foolish enough to think they might be one of those modern couples, remaining close post-divorce (the afternoon before her birthday in June put paid to that), he had been under the impression they would try to be friendly – to be civil with each other – for the sake of Jamie’s wedding. Now, he’s not so sure. He has developed a quiet feeling of dread about the day, keeps picturing scenes, imagining conversations.

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