Page 48 of Hit For Six
‘Dad? Hot drink?’
‘I’m grand.’
Greg raised his can and Monty remembered that, in a totally non-imperious way, he much preferred craft beer in any case. Slowly, he and Greg made the smallest of talk about the countryside series that had now been turned up to double the volume.
‘We’ve sometimes had foxes on this estate,’ said Greg, as they watched a vixen emptying out the bins in a city street, taking the haul back to her cubs in the bushes.
Given the treasures that must be lying in wait in the skips outside, Monty wasn’t surprised.
‘Intelligent creatures,’ he said before he ended up gabbling about the wildlife surrounding his parents’ very different estate.
But he needn’t have worried about plugging the gaps of conversation because now there were a pair of snarling, copulating hedgehogs on the screen and Monty wasn’t about to compete with the decibels. Greg tapped the buttons on his remote control with the efficiency of the piggy bank character from Toy Story. Unfortunately, the noise, once heard, couldn’tbe unheard. In Monty’s humble opinion, it sounded akin to a pair of humans going at it hammer and tongs. Talk about payback for the cringey situation that Lola had endured with his parents.
He couldn’t sit here a moment longer when he thought back to all the things he’d done with Lola last night. He was just going to have to excuse himself with a trip to the bathroom. Which would make even more of a deal of the predicament but how could he stay put with his girlfriend’s father and continue to watch the amorous little urchins?
‘Do you have a downstairs cloakroom?’ he asked Greg, immediately berating himself for the posh lingo.
‘We’ve got a coat stand. Will that do you?’ Greg looked askance at Monty, who wasn’t wearing a jacket or anything that needed to be hung up. ‘Help yourself, bud. It’s opposite the loo just along the hallway, on the left before the front door.’
Why couldn’t Monty have called it a loo or a toilet like most of the rest of the English speaking world? Some habits died hard. In a roundabout way he’d got the info he needed, though, and Monty ventured to the downstairs cloakroom, which was certainly clean, the residue of bleach almost taking off his eyebrows.
‘Stop this!’ he ordered himself in a loud whisper through the cracked mirror. ‘You’re being an arse.’
But it was hard to reconcile Lola with this place and these people. Even though they were genuinelynicepeople. Yes, that word totally summed them up. They just lacked Lola’s drive and ambition and Monty couldn’t help but wonder how she’d dug deep to find that. But Lola was special. Her own person. And again, whilst Lola was as far removed from her parents as could be, so was Monty from his folk. They had literally met in the middle. He washed his hands and went back to the lounge, determined to make the best of the evening.
He really shouldn’t have broken his short journey but what could he do when there was a gap in the kitchen door which he had to walk past? In fact, Monty only needed to hover for a few seconds to see Lola handing an envelope to her mum.
‘I’m going to keep helping you out until you and Dad are through this rough patch. That’s what families are for. Has he found any leads or tried the Job Centre again?’
‘No, you mustn’t, Lola! I keep telling you we’ll manage.’
But Gail swiftly opened the offering anyway, pulling out a wad of banknotes, her eyes welling up with tears before she and Lola shared an embrace. Monty gulped.
‘And no, nothing’s come up. As per usual. He couldn’t face the humiliation of the Job Centre this week. They keep offering him such poorly paid work– that or daft courses of no interest to him, which he’d have to attend with teenagers who’ve quit school. Carpentry is a skill.Was a skill.Now he feels washed up and useless. As soon as I’m sorted, things will improve. Until then, we’ll keep cutting our cloth accordingly.’
Except for the beer, thought Monty.
‘It’ll be okay, Mum. Every week that waiting list is getting shorter and the chiropractor is keeping you mobile.’
‘No thanks to you.’
Gail sniffed and Lola held her arms out wide. Her mum went in for a hug. Monty moved back and quietly made his way to the lounge. What the hell was going on? Surely, Lola wasn’t propping up her parents? This was madness. Evidently there was more to her stint at The Bubble Bath than met the eye. Now his mother’s disapproval of ‘the vulgar money in an envelope’ gesture ran through his head as he remembered how she’d warned him to buy Roddie a proper present. Monty flicked it away. This wasn’t a birthday gift. What did she know about being in need?
Lola finally appeared with a tray laden with tea and biscuits, and her poor mum looked like she was ice skating as she crossed the carpet into the lounge behind her. Everybody sat now and Monty was relieved when the next episode of the documentary pinged onto the TV, giving a cute (but undoubtedly smelly) meerkat family their moment in the limelight. He and Lola traded furtive glances and she squeezed his thigh, taking him back to their meal at The Iris. It seemed like forever ago and yesterday all at the same time. So much had happened since that Monty wondered if he’d somehow channeled the allure of the Regency period he so often thought about, thanks to his address. This romance was steaming ahead Bridgerton pace and he liked it.
The silence was oddly therapeutic as the four of them remained glued to the screen, only the occasional sip– or in Greg’s case, slurp– punctuating the air. Monty felt as if he was the only one coming up for air from time to time to check that he wasn’t being impolite, and that he hadn’t missed a cue for conversation. But no. Apparently, this was a normal tableau in the Smith residence. Well, it certainly beat the put downs of his parents and the keeping up of appearances. All of which had to do wonderful things for one’s mental health. Especially when it was perfectly acceptable, in these four walls, to dunk a chocolate Digestive biscuit.
Soon the smell of cricket camp food wafted into the room, making Monty feel nostalgic for his teenage training years. Lola paced to the kitchen. They’d only just had afternoon tea but it seemed that dinner was about to be served. Monty stood to be helpful again but Gail’s side eye told him that he should know his place and she peeled herself slowly from her armchair, rising with some difficulty to join her daughter.
The men stayed put to learn all about the migration of wildebeests until Gail announced in a screechy voice:
‘Food’s ready!’
Blimey. Greg could move when he wanted to. Lola’s dad was straight out of the starting blocks and into the kitchen, where he claimed his status at the end of the table. Monty followed at a slower pace and beamed from cheek to cheek as he took in the hearty view of sausages, baked beans, potato waffles and fried eggs. With a side of bread and butter. And lashings of supermarket own brand Cola. The stuff of dreams.
‘It was great to meet you. Thanks so much for dinner,’ he said his farewells to Gail an hour later when Lola decided it was time they made a move.
‘See you again, lad!’ Greg called from the depths of his armchair.
