Ralph had a high-pitched, cawing bird-like laugh that ripped from his larynx with no warning rumble and took people unawares.
Delia smiled. She could enjoy Ralph’s games for a bit, then she’d get bored. Ralph’s ability to have a complete immersion wallow for days at a time struck her as a male brain thing. Or maybe a Ralph brain thing.
‘Do you want a Swiss roll?’ Ralph said, and for a second, Delia thought this was gamer talk, but he reached over and picked up a cake box.
‘I’m alright, thanks,’ said Delia, frowning a little as Ralph unwrapped the cellophane and started eating a whole cylinder of buttercream-filled sponge like a baguette.
Her mum put her head round the door. Her upper half was clad in her grass-cuttings-flecked gardening gilet. ‘Oh you’re here, love.’
‘Yes,’ Delia smiled.
‘Macaroni cheese for tea?’
‘Sounds good.’
Her mum hesitated. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I will be.’
‘Cup of tea?’
‘Yes please.’
In terms of maternal advice, that – bar the odd stiff word as Delia helped clear up from the evening meal – would be that. The door closed and Delia turned back to the screen, where Ralph was racing across the fictional city of Los Santos to Aphex Twin’s ‘Windowlicker’, the wind in his virtual hair.
‘You really liked The Fox?’ Delia said to Ralph. ‘I worried it was silly.’
‘No way. Best thing you ever did,’ Ralph said, wiping some jam from his chin.
There was something to be said for having someone who would, with no spite whatsoever, give you the unvarnished truth.
‘I see you’ve got something less smelly,’ Ann said, by way of Monday-morning greeting.
A wan Delia was unpacking her lunch on to her desk: cling-filmed ham and gherkin sandwich squares, salt and vinegar Hula Hoops, waxy Granny Smith.
‘Oh. Yeah,’ Delia said absently, registering Ann’s triumphant smile and belatedly remembering the spicy prawn bollocking.
Delia wouldn’t be explaining that all her pots and pans and exotic odorous ingredients were back at her house in Heaton which she’d fled on Saturday morning. This was a Hexham cupboards’ effort.
She still couldn’t eat but she didn’t want to worry her mum. She felt her concern when Delia’s gluey bowl of macaroni cheese was returned having been vaguely tampered with, as opposed to eaten.
Delia usually turned up with a Ziploc bag of spices to customise her parents’ cuisine to her tastes. Her parents obviously wondered who this floppy, quiet, appetite-less imposter was.
She placed her phone on her desk and saw she had a text: the umpteenth from Paul.
Please answer my calls. We need to talk. Px
The standard issue one small kiss, Delia thought, remembering how Celine merited the frankly promiscuous hand-in-the-bra quantity of one big, one small. She felt revolted.
Would it always be like this? Could she ever see their relationship free of this stain? She only knew there was a huge hole in her middle that you could see the sky through, like a surrealist painting.
Delia gave thanks that she was nowhere near close enough to anyone in her office to have confided Friday’s plan.
No one was asking to see the Art Deco square emerald and diamond cluster she wasn’t wearing, no one was demanding to hear how she had worded her proposal, or Paul’s reaction, or the hoped-for date of the wedding that wasn’t happening.
There was only one person who knew about Delia’s plans last Friday, and the inevitable email arrived within an hour. They’d have talked during the weekend, but Emma was in Copenhagen for a whistle-stop three day holiday. She did that a lot. They mostly conducted their friendship via email nowadays.
From: Emma Berry
Subject: Well …?!
How did it go, future Mrs Rafferty? (I’d like to think you’d keep Moss but I bet you won’t, you surrendered, cupcake apologist Stepford.) Can I see my bridesmaid dress yet? (No bias satin with spaghetti straps that’s designed for fatless flamingos, I look like Alfred Hitchcock at the moment.) X
In another universe, one where Paul had concentrated harder on who he was sending his texts to, or better still, was turning round to twenty-four-year-olds and saying ‘Woah, I’m taken,’ Delia was giggling in purest delight at these words, rather than wincing.
Delia didn’t want to tell Emma. Emma adored Paul, Paul adored Emma. ‘Can’t you clone him, or do some lifelike android thing,’ was Emma’s refrain.
He’d sweep her into a bear hug when she visited and make her his special recipe scrambled eggs, always keeping her glass topped up. Delia would spend the whole time refereeing good-natured debate between two highly opinionated people, enjoying every second. There was nothing as satisfying as two people you loved independently, loving each other.
Pulling Paul’s statue down was no pleasure at all, although it seemed like the kind of savage cold comfort she should be entitled to.
With heavy heart and hands, Delia opened a reply she could scarcely believe she was typing.
Hi E. It went like this: I proposed. Paul said yes, not particularly enthusiastically. Then we went for drinks, and he sent a text to his mistress saying ‘oh fuck, Delia wants to marry me’ to me by mistake. Turns out he’s been shagging a student for the last three months. So I’ve moved out to my parents and he’s asking for me to stay, but I’m not really sure what’s going on. Hard to tell what Paul wants. Or what I want, now. How was your weekend? (BTW, just to be clear – the wedding is off.) (But for the record, I’d never dress you badly, what are we: amateurs?) Xx
The reply was sent from BlackBerry, within three minutes.
Delia, what? Seriously? What?! Can I call you? Ex
Thanks but maybe not right now. Sour tits Ann would die of schadenfreude earwig joy. Maybe at lunch? 1.30? X
Yes. FUCK. E X
Delia wasn’t sure she should be spending her lunch hour sobbing on the phone, but Emma wouldn’t be put off for long. Emma was a corporate lawyer for a big firm in London and pursued an agenda with a dedication Delia reserved for pursuing Crème Eggs when in season.
Their lives had taken very different directions since university and Delia was so grateful they’d met in that little window of egalitarian opportunity. That brief space between adolescence and adulthood when it didn’t matter that Emma was high-powered alpha and Delia was domesticated beta, only that they’d been put in rooms next door to each other in halls of residence. Delia would be completely terrified meeting Emma, as they were now. As it was, she remembered younger Emma trying to bleach her cut-off denim mini by pouring lemon Domestos over it, or getting off with a gentleman at the Student Union known as Captain Tongue, three Fridays in a row.
Delia stared unseeing at words on a screen about the council’s new tree-planting drive until noon approached, and the chance to stalk Peshwari Naan. She’d forgotten about him in all the turmoil, and was hugely glad of the excuse to escape the office and breathe fresh air. It’d be an opportunity to call Emma. Although as soon as she was on her way to the café, she felt the risk