The Saturday Supper Club Read online

  ‘Let’s get away from here,’ he said afterwards, leaning his hands on his thighs to catch his breath, his beanie hat pulled low over his ears. ‘Just us.’

  I didn’t hesitate.

  Going out with Ethan was not like any going out I’d done before. Ethan belonged to another solar system socially. He had more energy and charisma and joie de vivre than anyone I’d ever met. It seemed to me that Ethan’s life was one long audition for the role of leading man. That night of the picnic, he took me to a bar where he knew everyone. He did his trademark headstand to a round of applause, bought drinks for a huge number of people, delivered anecdotes about his life at the deli, showered people with compliments and invited them to a party at his place after closing time. Later, during a lock-in, he asked the landlord to turn the music up then somehow (and I really don’t know how he did it) convinced me to dance on the bar in my high heels while singing a rendition of ‘Light My Fire’. I have a vague memory of everyone clapping and cheering while I did high kicks dangerously close to the edge of the bar. When Ethan told me to jump into his open arms, I did it without a second thought, laughing hysterically as I flew through the air, knocking him to the ground. Seen through the eyes of a stranger, I must have looked hideously drunk, unladylike and trashy. But I was incredibly happy, wildly excited. Whizzing. I felt happy to be alive. And when we slept together, I was amazed that sex could be that good. It was like diving into a bowl of melted chocolate and finding a liquid rainbow at the bottom. We couldn’t get enough of each other. I couldn’t stop smiling. Nothing else mattered but him.

  ‘Arrgghh!’ I said, grabbing a spoon from the kitchen drawer, trying to erase the memory. ‘Get a grip, woman.’

  I furiously dolloped the meringue, fresh cream, strawberries and nuggets of dark chocolate and a pool of melted chocolate into bowls, listening to Maggie and Ethan’s increasingly loud laughter. Clearly something was hilarious. I hated myself for it, but I felt utterly jealous. I wanted Ethan to myself, just for a few more minutes. I wanted Maggie to leave. Out in the garden, I’d thought Ethan was going to say something important; now Maggie had distracted him.

  I wiped the moisture from my eyes and carried the bowls into the dining room, plonking them down in front of Maggie, Ethan and Andrew, who was now slumping down in his seat, looking like he’d lost the will to live.

  ‘The finale,’ I said. ‘Eve’s pudding, but not.’

  Ethan whistled and I felt myself blush.

  ‘OK,’ said Paul. ‘Photo opportunity.’

  Ethan jumped up from his chair and stood beside me, while I held out a bowl of pudding. He threw his arm around my shoulder while Maggie and Andrew leaned in behind us. Just as Paul took the first of a series of pictures, Ethan kissed the top of my head. My face blazed with boiling heat.

  ‘Perfect,’ said Paul.

  I sat down and concentrated on dessert and, when I wasn’t concentrating on dessert, the carpet. For several minutes, the room was silent apart from the noises of spoons scraping bowls and contented murmuring.

  ‘Bliss,’ Maggie said, setting down her spoon. ‘Oh. My. God. That was fantastic.’

  ‘I can do desserts,’ I said. ‘It’s what I’m best at.’

  ‘Oh, I can think of some other things,’ Ethan said into my ear so only I could hear, grinning wolfishly at me.

  I glared at him, astonished. Was he actually flirting with me now? Joe would be home soon. I took a deep breath, a smile fixed on my lips.

  ‘Coffee, anyone?’ I asked.

  ‘I can read coffee cups,’ said Maggie. ‘It’s a Turkish tradition, much like reading tea leaves. Let me read your cups. Then we’ll go, shall we? We’ve probably outstayed our welcome.’

  Maggie looked pointedly at Ethan. I left the room and quickly made coffee in the kitchen, after sweeping a pile more washing up into the sink and angrily squirting half a bottle of pink washing-up liquid all over it, while Ethan, Maggie and Andrew talked about Alicia. I walked back into the living room. My eyes bumped into Ethan’s and he gave me a small, exasperated smile. The music had stopped and the atmosphere was suddenly too maudlin. I put the coffee on the table.

  ‘Don’t worry about Alicia,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m sure she’ll come round. You know, you need to do some cosmic ordering.’

  ‘That sounds a bit hippy dippy for me,’ Andrew said, glancing up and smiling at me gratefully.

  ‘You won’t know if you don’t try,’ Maggie said, adjusting her hair so that it fell over her shoulders. ‘What you have to do is say what you want to happen and visualize it actually happening, then throw that visualization out into space. Then it’ll come good.’

  ‘Positive thinking,’ Paul said, ‘in other words.’

  ‘Yes,’ Maggie said. ‘So, let me look at your coffee cup and see.’

  Maggie, fluttering her eyelashes and gesticulating a lot, made a big performance of reading the cups. She told Andrew his relationship was going to radically improve over the next few weeks, me that I was going to have a surprise in the near future, and I looked at Ethan, transmitting to him that I’d already had my surprise. Then she turned to Ethan, who wore a disbelieving expression.

  ‘You’re going to have a night you won’t forget,’ she said, gazing at him. ‘You better believe it, baby.’

  It was embarrassing. Even though Maggie was a pretty, cool girl, she was coming across as desperate, wasn’t she? Every other thing she said was an innuendo. I wanted to tell her that men responded better to being ignored, didn’t they?

  ‘Really?’ Ethan laughed darkly. ‘That sounds interesting.’

  Maybe not. I shook my head and blew out the candles on the table, stacking up the table mats into a pile. I really wanted everyone to go, so I could get my head straight. As it was, I felt drunk, suddenly depressed from too much alcohol and I missed Joe. Ethan was now acting like nothing had ever happened between us again, and I was tired of pretending to the others that I was feeling fine. I needed Joe to come back to remind me what my life was really like. Give me a blast of normality. I started to stack up the coffee cups, balancing them into a precarious porcelain tower. The music had ended, but I didn’t bother to put on more. I felt Ethan’s eyes on me.

  ‘I think it might be time to leave,’ Ethan said, putting his palms flat on the table and drawing backwards.

  ‘Will you walk me to the station?’ Maggie asked Ethan.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘What about you, Andrew? How will you get home, mate? You live in Holland Park?’

  Andrew stood shakily, his hair sticking up from where he’d been leaning on his hand.

  ‘I need the bathroom,’ Andrew said.

  He staggered through the door of the dining room, bumping into the walls with his shoulders as he went. Ethan, who was standing behind his chair, holding on to the back of Maggie’s chair, looked at me searchingly. I sighed.

  ‘Are you OK, Andrew?’ I asked, calling after him.

  Andrew didn’t answer, just crashed through the bathroom door and slammed it shut. He seemed incredibly drunk. I sighed and picked up my phone from the table to check the time. There was a text I hadn’t seen from Joe:

  I’ll be ten minutes.

  I panicked. I couldn’t have Ethan and Joe meeting each other on the doorstep. That would be awful. Joe would be horrified. He knew exactly how I’d felt about Ethan, he’d witnessed my devastation when he left, and if he thought we’d spent the evening together, no matter if it was an amazing coincidence, he wouldn’t be happy.

  ‘OK, everyone,’ I said, turning out the lamp in the living room so we were suddenly plunged into darkness. ‘It’s been lovely.’

  ‘Right,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m getting that you want us to leave.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m pretty exhausted.’

  I ushered a bemused Paul, Maggie and Ethan into the hallway and opened the front door before Maggie had even picked up her bag. It was all I could do to stop myself from shoving Ethan out into the night. The prospect of Joe turning
up any second was making me clammy with nerves.

  ‘Bye, then,’ I said, holding on to the front door, smiling stiffly, waiting for them to leave. ‘I’d better get started on the washing up. See you next time!’

  ‘I’ll give you a call,’ Ethan said, kissing my cheek. ‘Be good to catch up properly.’

  Be good to catch up properly. Ethan was talking to me like I was his old football coach, not his former girlfriend. I tutted.

  ‘Fine,’ I said curtly, not making eye contact with him, trying to ignore the kiss on my cheek. ‘Bye, Maggie.’

  Maggie, who’d grabbed her bag herself, swaying slightly, her eyes narrowed with alcohol, her peacock feather a little skewed, waved a little wave at me.

  ‘This has been fun,’ she said. ‘I’m going to give you a brilliant review when I speak to Dominique. Then you’ll come to my house and we’re going to do the whole thing again, only this time, with a little more spice.’

  Did she ever give up? God, she was one of those women who couldn’t relax unless every bloke in the room was drooling over her. I smiled at Maggie wanly and avoided Ethan’s gaze as I closed the door behind them, my stomach twisting uncomfortably. They were probably going to sleep together now, probably in the rose bush at the bottom of the front garden. They’d probably fall in love and have ten babies and live in the countryside in a farmhouse, with chickens called Dandelion and Blossom running around in the garden, pecking grain with their sharp little beaks and—

  ‘Stop,’ I told myself, putting my hands on my hips. I sighed. Now I had to get rid of Andrew, who was taking ages in the bathroom.

  ‘Andrew?’ I said, knocking on the door and, when there was no reply, leaning in to listen for movement. ‘Are you OK in there?’

  I heard a loud snore erupt from the room.

  ‘Oh God,’ I said, putting my hand on the doorknob and opening the door very slightly, dreading a scene of half-nakedness. I peered in gingerly. Andrew, fully clothed, his feet sticking out and resting on my Body Shop natural sponge, was fast asleep in the bath, snoring like a walrus. I moved into the bathroom and tried to wake him up by shaking his shoulder.

  ‘Andrew,’ I said. ‘Andrew, wake up!’

  But, even when I turned and accidentally sent the blue glass bottle of Neal’s Yard bubble bath crashing onto the floor, the glass splintering everywhere, he didn’t flinch.

  ‘Shit!’ I said, watching the expensive liquid seep all over the floor tiles. I leaned down to pick it up and sliced my finger open with a shard of glass.

  ‘Fuck!’ I said, sucking my finger, tasting blood. I stood up, Andrew still asleep in the bath, and turned on the cold tap at the sink, running my finger underneath the stream of water. I looked up at my reflection and noticed I had a smudge of dark chocolate from the meringue on my forehead.

  ‘God,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t someone tell me?’

  I rubbed at it with my free hand and suddenly, everything I’d had to hold inside all evening overwhelmed me. I burst into tears, yanking toilet tissue from the roll and noisily blowing my nose.

  ‘Wish I hadn’t said I’d do this stupid Supper Club thing,’ I choked. ‘I never would have had to see Ethan again, I never would have even known he was in London, but now . . . now . . .’

  Now . . . he was waltzing down the road with Maggie, doing God knows what, saying God knows what. Unless he already had a girlfriend? Perhaps he did. A Latino goddess who silenced crowds with her beauty. Why did I care? I felt an awful sinking sensation in my gut, which meant only one thing. Hard as I tried not to, as much as I loved Joe, I couldn’t deny it. I still felt something for Ethan. Averting my eyes from my reflection in the mirror, the tap still on, Andrew snoring, I sat on the toilet lid, my head in my hands, and wept.

  ‘Eve?’ Joe said, moments later, appearing suddenly at the bathroom door. ‘What’s happening? Are you OK? Why is there blood in the sink? The tap’s on.’

  He walked in and turned the tap off, then kneeled beside me, his hands on my thighs. Then, when Andrew suddenly snored, Joe turned and saw him, his face stricken, his eyes widening into saucers. He put his hand on his heart.

  ‘And who the fuck is that?’ he gasped. ‘Jesus, that scared the shit out of me!’

  ‘That’s Andrew,’ I choked, grabbing more toilet roll and wiping away my tears, then blowing my nose. ‘He got completely wrecked and passed out in the bath when everyone else was leaving. I tried to wake him up, then dropped the bubble bath and cut my finger and . . .’

  I swallowed to stop the tears from falling. I had no right to expect sympathy from Joe, when really I was crying about the confusion I felt over Ethan coming back.

  ‘It’s been a very weird night,’ I said, exhaling loudly and collecting myself together. ‘Thank God you’re back. How are we going to get rid of Andrew? Should we pour cold water over him?’

  Joe shook his head and threw his arm over my shoulder, as we stood staring at Andrew. Then he reached for a towel, folded it up and put it under Andrew’s head as a pillow. I squeezed Joe’s arm.

  ‘Just let him sleep it off,’ he said. ‘He’ll end up in the gutter if you send him outside now. He’s going nowhere.’

  I suddenly felt enormously tired and strangely detached. I stretched my arms up and yawned.

  ‘I’m going to lie down,’ I said. ‘I’ll sort everything out in the morning. The kitchen’s like a bomb site. I need my bed. Come with me, will you?’

  Minutes later, while Joe made himself a coffee, I lay on the bed in my baggy M&S grey marl pyjamas, the ones I normally wear when I’ve got the flu and feel subhuman. Mascara smudged around my eyes, I leaned up against a mountain of pillows, eating the remainder of my chocolate meringue pudding straight from the serving plate, even though I wasn’t remotely hungry. A half-empty bottle of red wine stood on the bedside table next to the Veno’s cough mixture, my bottle of L’Occitane hand cream, a stack of books that I had started but never get round to finishing and my iPhone, which I’m never more than two inches away from. I reached for the bottle and took a quick swig, then laughed at how unappealing I must look.

  ‘So,’ Joe said, frowning from the doorway. ‘Are you OK? Has something happened tonight? Why were you crying?’

  As Joe spoke, my brain whizzed and my heart beat guiltily in my chest. I wanted to tell him about Ethan; I knew I should. But something stopped the words from coming out of my mouth. If I blurted it all out now, I’d probably cry and he’d read too much into it. I needed time to sober up, to gather my thoughts and to work out how to phrase it properly. Yes, I’d tell him tomorrow when I was sober and together. I watched Joe pick up Banjo and stroke his head.

  ‘Come on, then,’ he said, taking his glasses off with one hand. ‘Why aren’t you saying anything?’

  Joe dropped Banjo down onto the carpet then leaned up against the doorframe as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to enter. I felt mildly disappointed. I wanted Joe to rush in and sweep me up in his arms like he normally would, to squeeze and kiss me and blot out every last thought of Ethan. But perhaps he’d picked up on my peculiar mood. Perhaps he knew something was amiss, because now the air between us seemed awkward, like his shutters were going down. I sat up straighter and shook the crumbs off my chest. I had to get things back to normal between us.

  ‘There’s a bloke in the bath,’ I said. ‘I think that says it all. The fisherman’s stew was a disaster because I forgot to put the seafood in and the drinking got out of hand.’

  ‘What about the other two?’ Joe said. ‘What were they like?’

  I frowned.

  ‘They were OK,’ I shrugged. ‘The girl, Maggie, she’s a window dresser and lives in Bethnal Green. She’s garrulous and a real flirt. The other bloke was . . . he was . . . boring . . . didn’t say much, he’s a bit . . . um, how can I put it? A bit blank. A bit of a nothing person.’

  I couldn’t believe the words were coming out of my mouth. Nothing could be further from the truth. Ethan was an everything person. Scrap that. Once
upon a time he had been an ‘everything to me’ person. Now he wasn’t. Now he was nothing to me, so I was right, I was telling the truth after all. I cleared my throat and smiled at Joe again.

  ‘A nothing person?’ Joe said, bursting into laughter. ‘You’re hilarious! I hope no one ever describes me in such glowing terms. But, the food wasn’t good? I bet it was. The pudding looks delicious. Hey, give me a bit of that.’

  Joe stepped over the molehills of clothes I’d discarded on the floor and came to sit near me on the bed.

  ‘Have this?’ I said. ‘I wanted you to have some.’

  I held out a spoon laden with chocolate pudding for Joe to try. He ate the pudding, murmuring with pleasure. I reached out and held on to his hand, warm and dry, then pulled him in for a kiss, all the while trying to get back to the feeling of our togetherness that I’d had before Ethan came bursting through the front door earlier that night. Joe put his arms around me and squeezed, but there was something between us, some indefinable, tiny, brittle thing, like a stone in your shoe. I could feel the tension in Joe’s shoulders. I cursed Ethan under my breath, held Joe even tighter and buried my head in his chest. We stayed like that for a while, until I felt us both relax. Seeing Ethan hadn’t taken anything away from my feelings for Joe, and why should it have done?