Chapter Eight: Lunch

Another week, another Monday, and Maeve arriving just before noon for the lunch shift. It was busiest between 1 pm and 2 pm, so Gethin always took the early hour, making sure they were both available for the lunchtime rush.

He'd just ducked away behind the beaded curtain at two minutes to twelve when the bell jingled and he heard a light, slight accent he recognised at once: Ivan.

'Is Gethin in?'

'I'm sorry,' Maeve said. 'He's gone for his break.'

Through the indistinct barrier of the curtain, Gethin thought he saw Ivan's shoulders dip into a slump. Tempting to run away, to pretend he hadn't heard, hadn't seen... for a moment, a long moment, he wavered...

It was only that Peter had warned him Ivan still had hopes; if he hadn't known that, he'd not have thought twice about going back out.

So he didn't think at all.

'Nearly,' he said, pushing back through with a rattle of beads, trying to make his voice easy, natural. 'Nearly gone for my break. Ivan, didn't know you were back in town. Nice to see you. Buy you lunch?'

'I was planning to ask you that.'

'My turn, I thought. We can argue about it in Danio's, if you like.' He turned to nod at Maeve. 'Danio's, two streets away. Number's on the pad, if you need me. Should be back for one, though.'

Scampi and chips, a bit of half-hearted salad and a bottle of cheap white between them, trying to catch up on the news without seeming to care too much what had been happening in Ivan's life; in a way, Gethin was glad there was only an hour.

The good thing about Danio's, it was tolerant, within limits. So two men eating lunch together, obviously not work colleagues or businessmen or family, didn't raise any eyebrows. True, there was a tacit understanding that any inappropriate intimacy would be frowned on, although to be fair, that was the same for straights, too. ('Put people off their dinners,' he'd heard the manager once, muttering about a het couple sucking each other's faces in the corner...)

So it was a safe place to bring a friend for lunch.

'How's things?' seemed a safe opener, too, neutral, giving Ivan the chance to pick a topic.

'Good. The tour was a success, they say. Critical acclaim, which means the public don't come in hordes, but we did well enough.'

'Glad to hear it.'

'And I came back to a surprise; my ensemble has been invited to join with several others and tour in Europe; it is a wonderful opportunity to expand my repertoire, to push the boundaries...'

Didn't seem much like boundary pushing to Gethin, but he speared chips and nodded while Ivan waxed lyrical about exploring the edges of modern orchestration and taking the concept of the violin concerto to extremes.

'Rehearsals start in two weeks, and I would be away for several months, if I accept. I am used to touring, yes, three weeks, four, up and down the country, but this is different.'

'I can see it would be a great opportunity for you,' Gethin said.

'I have to decide quickly. There are not so many good first and second violins out there, yes, but there are plenty like me, excellent but not quite at the limits of potential...'

'If it's something you want to do, you should go for it. Don't let yourself get held back.'

Ivan sighed and gave a sad sort of smile.

'That was the moment when you were supposed to say you would miss me.'

'How would that be helpful?' Gethin attacked his scampi, full attention on his plate. 'I wouldn't want you to miss out on a great career opportunity. Not many of those around, these days.'

His friend nodded, took a gulp of wine.

'We are friends, I thought you might, that is all. I miss you, when I am even just away in Manchester.'

Oh. Where was Ivan going with this? Gethin took a moment to look for the right words. But there didn't seem to be any.

'Perhaps because when you're on tour you're more alone, outside of rehearsals and performance. I have the shop, and all the evening meetings. I don't have spare time enough to think, never mind to get everything done. Or to miss people, even good friends.'

Except that was because all his spare time lately was spent brooding about near-strangers, okay, one near-stranger who always had seemed to be in disguise, Frank Spencer or Aunty Dilys... well, not always in disguise, there was the naked and vulnerable in the bath episode, the shirt and trousers and barefoot moment...

Gethin gave himself a little mental shake and came back to the present, to Ivan's sad, wistful smile and studious, shining eyes.

'Look... it's not you. It's really not you, Ivan. Perhaps we met at the wrong time, me just getting on my feet with the shop.' And after Jonathan-Frank-Spencer-Blake had walked through the doors, he admitted privately. 'So much to do, too busy to give you the time and attention you deserve.'

Ivan nodded.

'And you are still busy, yes?'

Gethin nodded.

'But yet you are not too busy to have transvestites staying in your flat,' Ivan said in a cool, matter-of-fact manner that suggested that beneath the façade, he was really, really angry, leaning back from the table to look appraisingly at Gethin. 'Not so busy, then, not all the time.'

'It really doesn't take much time to throw a blanket over someone who fell asleep on the sofa before you had time to ring a taxi for them,' Gethin said.

'I see. So, I would like to hear all this story, if you will?'

'Long story. Not secret, just not that interesting.' Gethin finished his wine, pushed the last few bits of sad salad leaves around his plate. 'And it's time I got back to the shop.'

He scrorped back his chair and dodged to the counter, taking money from his wallet and overpaying for lunch in his haste to escape the awkwardness. Ivan followed him out of the restaurant, a hand on his elbow, stopping him.

'Then if it takes longer, I will buy you dinner tomorrow night. We should, we ought to talk. And I would ask anyway, March 1st, St David's day, special for you, yes? I want to know, I want to hear. I do not believe the things said, but what can I do? Shrug and say, he has not told me, me, his friend? Just dinner. No more. For friendship, yes?'

Gethin hesitated. It was a mistake on so many levels...

'After all, I take the job, I am gone, two, three weeks after. Where is the harm in dinner?'

'All right then. Thank you. Dinner, just to talk.'

It was a mistake, probably, to agree. But it wasn't as if he could claim to be busy; no group meeting tomorrow night, no reason to have to be around the shop.

And it would give him something to think about, other than Jonathan Frank Dilys Blake...

'He was nice,' Maeve said conversationally when Gethin returned to the shop alone. 'Who did you say? Ivan.'

'Yes. Friend of a friend. Musician.'

'Ooh, that's interesting. Put in a good word for me? Or are we not each other's type?'

Gethin found a smile as he shook his head. Maeve was straight, needed the job, but seemed pretty open-minded and took care not to say the wrong thing. Too much care, sometimes.

'Anyway, he's got a big tour coming up, so he's going to be out of town for a while. Anything much happen while I was out?'

'No. Sold a copy of that big picture book. You know, the one they tried to ban in America. Oh, and this arrived for you, about ten minutes after you'd gone.'

From under the counter she lifted out a carefully-wrapped parcel. Beneath its brown paper and string, it was aromatic, when he took hold of it the wrapping slightly warm, still, and the fragrance took him right back and far away...

'He said it was for tomorrow... seems like everyone wants to feed you up at the moment...'

'He?'

'Yes, tall man, very nice, well-spoken... don't know if you remember it, there was a thing on TV when I was little, 'Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em'...? Reminded me of him from that...'

Oh, hell. Jonathan. Jonathan bloody Blake had shown up while he'd been swanning off with Ivan for a lunch he really wished now he'd never had, and he'd missed him...

'Thanks, Maeve. Can you cope on your own for ten minutes? Better take this up to the flat, don't want the smell wafting round the shop, annoying the customers...'

In his kitchen he set the package down on the table, carefully untying the string and unwrapping the parcel. Inside, one of those metal foil things from takeaways, a new tinfoil lid folded over it, scrunched at the edges. He lifted the edge and the fragrance surged out; potatoes, carrots, swede... beef, and the gravy not thickened: Cawl, good, traditional cawl at that, none of this modern lamb and leek rubbish... and, when he lifted the metal dish carefully out of the brown paper, there was a small and folded note under it.

'For St David's Day. Bet it's not as good as Aunty Dilys used to make. J.'

Yes. Except Aunty Dilys had been far too busy enjoying herself to do proper, traditional cooking, no, it had been his mother... his mother used to do all that, and she, and... and she...

Gethin walked away, stunned at the turmoil a simple gift of food had brought to him, bringing up all those long-quashed thoughts, memories, feelings, all tumbling together so he didn't know if he wanted to laugh or cry or get on the next train home except here was home now and more than a dozen years since he ate cawl and what was Jonathan bloody Blake doing to him?

More to the point, why?

Or, why was Gethin letting him?

Taking a deep breath and pinching the bridge of his nose as if to squeeze the emotion away from his eyes, Gethin steadied himself. He tightened the lid back on the cawl, slid the note away and tried not to read it again, and made himself go back down to the shop and pretend there was nothing wrong until Maeve said goodbye and left for the day.

He was glad that it got busy, that he had a complex enquiry to deal with, and then after the shop shut, there was the meeting to prepare for. It was one he usually stayed to, political, good cause, led by a youngster with an Irish accent and a slightly older Northerner with a knitted hat apparently welded to his head. They seemed nice enough, youthful zeal balanced by earnest common sense; between them, they carried most of their membership along on whatever cause they were supporting now.

One of the items on the agenda was the forthcoming Pride march; it wasn't too early, apparently, to start thinking about it, only a few months, banners or buckets, protest or party, who would they march with, anyone heard about the route yet, that sort of thing... Gethin stood back, arms folded across his chest, listening, keeping an eye on things.

'You could join us,' the Northerner, Mike, said at the end of the meeting as they were all leaving, Irish walking everyone out and he shuffling the papers. 'Right, that's tonight's attendance... what about it?'

'I dunno. They're all a bit young... let me think about it. Tell you what, you can have an after-march party here, if you like. As long as there's no damages.'

'Yeah? Great, that'd be great, yeah. Thanks.'

Gethin ate the cawl for lunch next day, heating it quickly in a pan on the stove, stirring it with care and watching the bubble of the broth, drinking in the aromas of home-cooked food and fragmentary memory, trying to focus on the now, to forget who had made this for him, who had used to, or at least not to let it hurt.

Impossible, though, and of all the memories it was easiest to think about Jonathan, him taking the time and the care to put all this together, to bring it across to the shop... never mind why, never mind so he was a good cook as well as everything, one cawl didn't make a gourmet chef, after all, but it was rich and heady with the flavours seeping together in a perfect blend, the meat tender and flaking, all the goodness warming and soothing and it was a much better lunch than yesterday, not only because he hadn't had to cook it, or share it, honest, although it was a shame he couldn't thank Jonathan for it.

Just as well, perhaps.

And there was the afternoon ahead, and after that, he had to get ready to go out.

He'd so nearly tried calling Ivan to cancel, and perhaps if there had been more time, he would have... but inventing a proper reason why would have been difficult and telling the truth – that he'd had a bowl of cawl and it had brought out his melancholy side, making him long for the company of someone not Ivan – would not be kind.

But he had never felt less like getting ready for a night out in his life before.