I tighten my lips and glare at her. She sighs, brushing back long wisps of hair that have come loose from one of her combs.
‘Eva thinks we should tell everyone to go home,’ my father says, and I flinch at the amusement in his voice. ‘You’re out of control, she says.’
‘Me? Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t be stupid, Eva. It’s a party, not Sodom and Gomorrah. Come on, Vince, you’re the host, you can’t stand out here all night.’ She goes back in to the party.
I stand looking at my father. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Have it your way. But I know you know what I’m talking about.’
Turning, I push my way rudely through some people coming into the kitchen, just in time to see Ed following Steve and his wife out onto the porch. My eyes meet Ed’s for a moment, and he raises a hand in a single wave, before the door slams shut behind them, and then I run up to my room and close that door too, leaning against it as if the whole houseful is behind me.
Pretty obvious, isn’t she?
So why haven’t I seen it?
***
At ten-thirty the pub is still filling up, and myself and the other two bar staff are working at full tilt. Occasionally the landlord pitches in, rounding up the empties, but mostly he chats to the locals and gets on with what he calls ‘keeping things sweet’. We should have had Jon on as well tonight, but no one predicted it would be this busy on a Wednesday night. There’s no reason we can think of – just one of those things. Maybe because it’s been such a warm day, the last day of September, making people feel nostalgic for their Spanish holiday and sending them in droves to the next-best thing, the great British pub.
My feet ache, and I’m so hot I can smell the sweat on myself. I’ve been pulling pints for four hours solid, and if I have to listen to Rick Astley singing ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ one more time I think I’ll throw up. As if that isn’t enough, I’ve just started my period and the heavy, dragging feeling between my legs is yet one more drain on my energy.
All in all, I’ll be glad when eleven o’clock comes round and the bell is rung, and that lovely phrase called out in the landlord’s husky, forty-a-day voice: Time per-lease!
As I look up from pulling a pint the door opens, and a large group of men crowd through. It’s obvious from the suits and ties that they started drinking straight from work; now, at the end of the night, they’re loud and full of drunken banter, although harmless enough. As I serve them I find myself laughing along at their stupid jokes, a bit of light relief. I know the landlord is keeping an eye on things, so I don’t have to think too much about it. Then the door opens again and three more squeeze through and struggle to the bar. When I glance up again I see who the last one is, before he sees me. And then he does, and quickly I look back down to the Snakebite I’m pouring – which is hard enough to do at the best of times. The man who ordered it is grinning at his mates, in a ‘watch her make a mess of this’ way, so I take extra care to dribble the Guinness slowly and thinly down the side of the glass, into the waiting cider, so that it doesn’t froth up and over. I’m glad to have something to distract me, and that I can blame the flush in my cheeks on the heat in the bar. When I’ve finished, and the pint stands there with its gold and dark layers, there’s a loud cheer. Despite myself I laugh, and give them a mock bow.
They drift away from the bar, finding seats when the group who have been sitting in the corner for hours decide it’s home time. I look around for Ed. He’s been served by someone else, and is now at the end of the bar talking to his friends. He doesn’t look my way, and I get on with serving, cleaning, washing up, collecting empties. I’m surprised to see him in here. The Prince Albert is on the main road out of town, about a mile or so from the centre. It serves office and shop workers at lunchtimes and locals in the evenings; with its fading seventies décor and keg beer it isn’t the kind of place you’d go out of your way for. I glance at him again out of the corner of my eye, not wanting him to see me looking. Anyway, he probably doesn’t remember me, as it’s a few weeks since that party, or if he does he isn’t interested in picking up where we left off. Maybe Steve will have told him who I am, and when I think of that, and how my mother was so ‘obvious’ that night, I wonder if I even want him to recognise me.
When the bell is rung and eventually the punters begin drifting off, I look despairingly at the mess that remains; far more than the usual half hour’s close will see to. The landlord sees my face.
‘Go on. You get off,’ he says. ‘You look dead on your feet.’
I started an hour earlier than everyone else, and the only time I’ve stopped was for toilet breaks, so I don’t think anyone can accuse me of skiving. My coat and bag are in the room at the back, and while I fetch them I decide that I will go and say hello to Ed, because why the hell not? I’ve got nothing to lose but pride. But when I come back through he’s gone, and I’m disappointed, kicking myself for not going over before.
Outside the air is still balmy; it’s hard to think that soon all the leaves will fall and winter will set in. Maybe that’s why there are still people hanging around, chatting and laughing; no one wants to go home to bed; they want to make the most of this Indian summer. I have to squeeze past a large group standing right by the door, but as I start the walk home I feel a hand catch my arm.
‘Hi, wait, I thought it was you.’
Ed’s there with his two mates, who immediately stop talking to look me up and down, but Ed says goodbye to them and thanks for something or other, and with more glances at me and big grins pasted on their faces they saunter off together.
‘I was going to come and say hello, but then you disappeared,’ Ed says.
‘You were with your friends, I didn’t want to interrupt.’
‘Nice work,’ he says, ‘with the Snakebite.’
I grin. ‘Yeah. I made sure of it.’
There’s a slight pause, when neither of us seems to know what to say next. A bus rumbles by. I could have caught that one, as far as the park. Although generally I like to walk, tonight my feet hurt. I’m about to say I should go when Ed asks if there are any fish and chip shops nearby.
‘There is one, yes, not far.’
‘Don’t suppose you fancy some as well?’
I can just picture them now, fat, greasy chips and white, flaky fish, and a hollow feeling drops into my stomach. I always feel hungry when I’m on my period.
‘I wouldn’t mind.’
‘Right. Lead the way then.’
I point in the opposite direction from home, towards town. ‘There’s a place along here.’ I giggle. ‘Sorry, no pun intended. They do the best chips.’
Ed is tall and his stride is long, and I find myself quickening my normal pace. ‘What were you doing in the Albert?’ I ask him. ‘It’s a bit of a dive.’
‘I don’t mind dives,’ he says. ‘But only if they have good beer. Pity that’s my local.’
‘Your local? Does Steve live round here?’
‘No, I’m not staying with him now, I moved into a flat, at the weekend. The two lads I was with, they’re from work, they helped me move a few things in this evening. I bought some second-hand stuff and hired a van to shift it all in one go.’
He tells me what he bought, and what a job they had getting some of it up the narrow stairs to his flat, and I like listening to him, to his northern voice with its abrupt endings and the t just a sound in the back of the throat. When we reach the chip shop we get served quickly because it’s empty, about to close, then we turn back the way we came, picking chips and bits of fish out of polystyrene trays, licking the grease off our fingers.
‘You were right,’ Ed says. ‘About the chips.’
My