Perfectly Ordinary People by Nick Alexander

Author:Nick Alexander [Alexander, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2022-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

Ruth. Part Four.

A week after my meeting with Ethel it was Dan’s birthday and as, for once, he had Saturday night free, I took him to a swanky restaurant called /fu:d/ near Clapham Common. It was all white starched tablecloths, silverware and branding.

There we ate a selection of delights such as asparagus tartlets and avocado and hazelnut verrine, and though the prices were as eye-wateringly excessive as the portions were tiny, Dan was thrilled to bits. His great passion in life was cooking, after all, so all those mini jabs at his tastebuds turned out to have been the perfect gift.

Over dinner, he asked me about my meeting with Ethel, so I told him the little I’d learned.

‘So did you find out why they came to England?’ Dan asked, once I’d finished.

‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I actually forgot to ask.’

‘Or why your grandparents divorced?’

I shook my head. ‘Her answers were pretty minimalist. She said they wanted “different things”.’

‘Wow,’ Dan said. ‘Different things. There’s a non-answer, if ever there was one.’

‘Perhaps she wanted to move to the seaside and open a café,’ I offered.

‘Yeah, I suppose,’ Dan said. ‘I quite fancy the idea myself. And the thing she wants to give your dad?’

‘She wouldn’t tell me that either,’ I said. ‘She wasn’t the easiest person to talk to, but I liked her all the same. There was something calm and kind about her, if that makes any sense. Something very solid, too. The kind of person that’s lived through so much shit, she’s not taking any now. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I do,’ Dan said, ‘but she sounds cagey.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘She was a bit.’

With dinner, we downed a bottle of Prosecco, followed by another of white wine, so by the time I came to pay, I was sufficiently sloshed that I didn’t think too deeply about paying £270 for two meals – two meals that had left us feeling hungry.

But like I say, Dan was happy – ecstatic, almost – and, as I slumped against him in the taxi home, he burbled on about various dishes and how he was going to try this or that combination himself.

‘You know, it might be easier if we didn’t have to decide,’ he said, after a pause, and I twisted my head backwards to look up at him. His smile, seen upside down, looked a bit horror-filmy.

‘I’m sorry?’ I asked. I was thinking about food and menus and wondering if he’d come up with some new concept whereby customers wouldn’t have to choose what to eat.

‘All that my-place-or-your-place stuff,’ he said. ‘It might be nice if we didn’t have to decide. If it was just obvious we were going back to ours.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That.’ The discussion at the taxi rank, in the rain, had taken at least a minute and we’d both got wet in the process. In the end, despite my overpowering guilt about leaving Buggles on his own, I’d caved in.

Dan looked out of the side window and I

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