Lotte and her husband, Richard, are opening a new restaurant in town called PLATE (the capitals were Lotte’s idea) and Seb finds that Lotte is – as usual – in a chatty mood. She grasps Richard’s hand, which is balled in a tight fist on top of the table, as she tells Seb how Richard poached an excellent London chef – ‘Diego someone, have you heard of him?’ Richard smiles reflexively but pulls his hand away from his wife and turns his attention back to Eddy, who is asking him something about the wine. Seb makes sure he keeps nodding as Lotte chatters about tile options for the restaurant toilets, and he feels the rush as a great wave of loneliness rises up within him. Rosie appears holding a platter of steaming pulled pork, she must feel him looking – she smiles briefly, like he’s an acquaintance she’s just spotted in the street.
‘Hope everyone’s hungry!’ Rosie says, leaning over the table to put the meat in front of Anna’s place at the head, next to a bowl of bean stew for vegetarians Patrick and Vita.
Lotte picks up a serving spoon to dish out the potatoes that Anna places in front of her as she asks Seb, ‘Has Rosie told you that we’re employing – on Diego’s insistence, actually – her new friend, Abi? She’s going to be our restaurant manager.’
‘Oh?’ Seb says, accepting a spoonful of sloppy, creamy and only slightly blackened potatoes. Rosie hadn’t told him – but that’s hardly remarkable, a bitter little voice reminds him inside.
‘Yeah,’ Lotte replies. ‘I wasn’t sure about her at first, I thought she had a bit of a too-cool-for-school vibe, but I think that was just because she’s from Hackney, you know? Tattoos, cropped hair, you know the type. Now, of course, I love her. She’s super cool.’
‘Give it a year or two in Waverly and that’ll change,’ Vita says across the table, holding up her plate to Lotte before turning, like a hunter spotting a deer in the woods, towards her husband. ‘Patrick, is that meat on your plate?’
Patrick pinks but doesn’t look up before sliding the small piece of meat on to Rosie’s plate next to his, muttering, ‘Sorry, sorry, V.’
Vita shakes her head at the table, as if she blames all the other carnivores for Patrick’s momentary lapse of judgement. Poor Patrick.
Anna whoops again. ‘Shit! The gravy!’
This time Seb stands quickly; he’s closest to the kitchen and needs a break. ‘I’ll get it.’
Anna blows him a kiss. ‘Love you, Sebbo.’
The kitchen is chaos. It looks like Anna’s used every utensil, every pan. Seb spots the gravy bubbling on the hob, picks up a cleanish spoon, tastes, before adding more salt. He goes to the cupboard for the cow-shaped gravy boat he remembers from Sunday dinners made by Eddy’s mum long before her dementia set in. Just as Seb’s about to pour the gravy into the boat, the back door opens, and Blake appears. At fifteen, his godson’s got the same body Eddy had as a teenager, before beer and a desk job filled him out. Blake’s tall and solid; he seems to take up half the kitchen.
‘Hey, Blake,’ Seb says, meaty steam from the gravy billowing around him.
‘Hey, Mr … I mean, Uncle Seb.’ Blake kicks off his trainers without undoing the laces, leaving them and his sports bag by the back door. ‘Mum always forgets the gravy. Need a hand?’
Without waiting for an answer, Blake, sweet boy, holds the ceramic cow steady while Seb slowly pours from the pan.
‘Thanks, mate,’ Seb says when they’re finished. ‘How was football?’
‘Yeah, all right, one all. Greenwood did some dodgy sliding tackles, though.’
‘God, they’re still doing that? They were like that when your dad and I used to play them thirty years ago.’
Blake smiles and shakes his head, amazed by the vast swathe of time. ‘I thought football wasn’t around back then.’
‘Oh yeah, it was right after the ball had been invented, although of course all we had to kick were pig’s bladders, so …’
‘With your bare Neanderthal feet.’
‘That’s right.’ Seb laughs now, thinking how he’d stay here in the kitchen talking with Blake all night if he could.
From the sitting room Anna calls, ‘Seb! Gravy!’
Seb widens his eyes at Blake and Blake laughs again. With a flick of his head, Seb asks, ‘You coming in to say hello?’
‘You think I’ll ever hear the end of it if I don’t?’
‘Nope,’ Seb says, smiling.
Blake breathes out.
‘Come on, then,’ Seb says, picking up the gravy boat.
As Seb follows Blake back into the dinner party, Eddy looks up at them, his eyes glazed and shiny with wine. ‘What secrets has the spy been sharing with you, Blakey?’
‘Spy?’ Patrick asks, taking a bite of his bean stew as Seb places the gravy boat on the table and decides to say nothing. Lotte and Rosie turn to Blake, asking about his football practice. But Richard is one of those people who always dawdles a beat behind everyone else.
‘Why’s Seb a spy?’
Eddy stands, picking up the bottle, and starts refilling everyone’s glasses before he comes up behind Seb, squishing his cheeks together with one hand, and says, ‘Because no man can be so good and so bloody pretty, that’s why. It has to be an act.’