I nodded, understanding all. Mrs Anderson’s fruitcakes were things of legend. I could have hollowed one out and lived in it and it definitely would have been more of a solid structure than my shed. ‘Do you need me to help as well?’ I offered.
‘I think two of us should be able to manage it,’ Mr Anderson said with an appreciative smile. ‘Lovely to see you back, Rosalind. We must have you over for dinner, I’d love to hear about America. Perhaps you could bring your boyfriend with you? If you’re seeing someone?’
‘Let’s go and get the cake,’ Adrian said with an exasperated sigh. ‘Come on.’
The two of them traipsed off into the house, Adrian slightly taller, his father slightly broader, but both of them cut from exactly the same cloth.
‘I know he won’t thank me for saying it but he’s so like his dad,’ John said as they disappeared into the house.
‘He won’t but he is,’ I agreed. ‘I was thinking the same thing.’
He leaned over the bar, arms resting in between a bevy of bottles. ‘And you won’t thank me for asking this but who did you text when you weren’t supposed to?’
I cast a glance over my shoulder, one eyebrow raised.
‘Bartender’s privilege,’ he said with a lopsided grin. ‘I’m entitled to ask about any and all gossip I hear during a shift and duty-bound never to repeat a word.’
It was a new one on me.
‘There’s an oath, is there?’ I asked, smiling.
‘I’m practically a doctor,’ he confirmed.
‘Or a lawyer,’ I suggested. ‘Or a priest.’
He paused and looked up at me, meeting my eyes just for a moment.
‘Maybe not a priest.’
I sipped my cocktail and tried not to think about what I’d seen in the gents toilets.
‘All right, let me guess, I’m good at this,’ John said as he pulled out a small knife to peel back the foil on another bottle of prosecco. ‘It’s an ex, clearly.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I didn’t hear all of it but I heard enough.’ John began mixing more drinks while he talked. ‘What’s interesting to me is that your friends clearly don’t think you should text him. Also, you told Sumi but not Adrian and you know those three, they tell each other everything.’
I fought off an indignant flush of outrage. They weren’t ‘those three’, we were ‘us four’. How dare this random bar boy group my friends into a trio when we were definitely, absolutely, always-had-been-always-would-be, a quartet?
‘Fine, it’s an ex,’ I admitted, tightening my ponytail. ‘But that was obvious, you’re not exactly psychic, are you?’
He smiled mildly as he poured what looked like a never-ending stream of gin into a cocktail shaker.
‘What’s the deal?’ John asked. ‘How come they don’t want you talking to him?’
‘We broke up when I moved to America for work,’ I told him, reluctant to go over the details of one of the worst times of my life with a man I knew nothing about other than that he worked in a bar, mixed a mean cocktail and was circumcised.
‘Bad break-up?’
‘Complicated break-up.’
‘He didn’t want you to go?’
I chewed on my bottom lip, unbidden tears burning the back of my eyes. Damn that Pimm’s on an empty stomach. ‘It wasn’t that. We’d only been together for a while but I suppose I thought it was more serious than it was.’
‘Oh,’ John said, rounding out the word and stretching it into oblivion. ‘I see.’
‘But who knows what would have happened if I’d stayed?’ I added. ‘He didn’t want to do long distance and I took it fairly badly, so my friends don’t like him. Standard ex stuff. That’s all there is to it.’
‘That’s the reason they don’t like him?’ John asked. ‘Because you left for a job in another country?’
I paused and took a drink.
‘It’s possible they didn’t all get on terribly well before that,’ I replied. ‘But, you know, your friends don’t always get on with your boyfriend. None of us are exactly in love with Creepy Dave.’
‘No, but I’ve never heard Adrian call him “Twat-Faced Wank Chops” either,’ he said. ‘Seems to me they don’t think he’s good enough for you.’
Oh good, I groaned inwardly. He was going to mansplain my own friends and their opinions on my break-up to me. His poor, beautiful, giant of a wife. Imagine having to put up with this all the time.
‘How long has it been since you texted him?’ John asked, fitting a pint glass into the top of his cocktail shaker. ‘One day, two days?’
‘He texted me on Tuesday, I texted him on Wednesday,’ I replied, watching as he shook his drink into next week. Now, there was some proper Tom-Cruise-level cocktail crafting, I was almost impressed. His biceps bulged against the stiff cotton of his shirt with the strain of his effort but his face was completely impassive. Maybe I could start an exercise class using cocktail shakers as weights. Get a workout and a drink at the same time, what could go wrong?
‘Three days,’ he said, squinting at the maths. He knocked the cocktail shaker against the bar to loosen the pint glass he had wedged in the top and poured the frothy pink liquid into four waiting glasses.
‘It’s fine, it’s whatever,’ I said hurriedly. ‘He’s probably not going to reply.’
‘Oh, he is,’ John replied. ‘He’ll text you tonight, ask what you’re doing later.’
‘And how do you know that?’ I asked, suddenly panicking that he was about to pull off some incredible mask and reveal that ah-ha, he, John the mild-mannered bartender, had been Patrick all along.
‘If he messaged you in the week, he would have had to make real plans with you.’ He topped off the cocktails with prosecco and added them to a silver tray already laden with drinks. ‘This way, it’s a far more casual, no-obligations situation. A no-pressure hang-out. Classic arsehole behaviour.’
‘Is that right?’
His absolute certainty, the complete and utter self-assuredness of his answer, rubbed me up entirely the wrong way. I did not like John the bartender.
He nodded. ‘In the words of a certain singing teapot beloved by young and old, it’s a tale as old as time.’ He wiped his hands on the white bar towel that hung over his shoulder. ‘I’ve seen it a thousand times, Rose.’
‘It’s Ros,’ I corrected.
He tossed the towel down on the bar as a passing waiter scooped up the tray of drinks and melted away into the crowd. He pushed his wavy, black hair away from his face and I strongly considered suggesting to Adrian’s mum that he really ought to be wearing a hairnet.
‘He’ll text and you’ll reply and we’ll be having this conversation all over again next week. Unfortunately it’s very predictable, Ros.’
‘I’m predictable, am I?’ I asked, the fingers of my left hand curling into my palm, fingernails stabbing at my flesh. What a cock.
‘The situation is predictable,’ he corrected. ‘When you work in a bar, you get used to hearing these stories. No need to take it so personally.’
‘Well, you’re wrong about one thing,’ I informed him as I placed my unfinished drink back on the bar.
‘Yeah?