Mind you, that said, compared with everyone else there, Merv was a lot of fun.
‘D’ya just get off the plane?’ he said. ‘There’s only one answer to that. A martini! Fabio!’ A stunningly handsome young barman appeared at Merv’s elbow. ‘Get this young lady a martini straight up. She needs a wake-up. Gin – she’s a Brit. With a twist. Quick as you can, OK?’
Austin looked at Issy in a slight ‘he’s always like this’ way, but Issy didn’t actually mind. Anything that would make her feel more at home.
‘Bottoms up,’ she said when her drink arrived, and took a large gulp.
The only martini Issy had had before had been one her mother had made for her when she was fifteen and had come back miserable from a party because none of the boys had wanted to dance with her, which almost certainly had something to do with the fact that whilst all the other girls were in Lycra and legwarmers, she was in a macramé dress her mother had made for her in Peru and insisted on her wearing, and as it was one of her mother’s periodic homecomings, she had given in. It had had martini bianco and lemonade and had been delicious, and she’d sat up late while Marian had told her that no man was to be trusted. As Marian herself was not to be trusted, and the closest man in Issy’s life was Grampa Joe, who clearly was, Issy had gone slightly too far the other way and endeavoured to trust most of the men she ever met, far too much for far too long. Which had often turned out to be a mistake. Until Austin. She looked at him and took another gulp.
This martini, on the other hand, was pure alcohol and, frankly, rocket fuel. She put it down spluttering, her eyes watering.
‘Ooh, got ourselves a party girl,’ said Merv approvingly, as the rest of the table looked on superciliously. Issy thought she heard the director’s wife mutter something about ‘British drinkers’.
‘Actually, Isabel runs her own business,’ said Austin.
‘Oh, really? Doing what?’ asked the other man.
‘I make cupcakes,’ said Issy.
‘Oh, that’s so cute,’ said Candy. ‘I wanna do that, Merv.’
‘Course you can, darling,’ said Merv.
‘Oh, wow, it must be so much fun, you must just have such an awesome time!’ said Candy.
‘Every second,’ said Issy. She glanced at Austin, glanced at the table, and determined to finish the entire drink, even if it did taste like very expensive petrol.
‘What is it?’ hissed Pearl. ‘Ben, you’ve got to give me some warning when you come round! It’s not right. I’m just about to put Louis to bed. He’s got school tomorrow.’
‘I know,’ said Ben. ‘Ssh. Come see this.’
He dragged her closer for a kiss, and she could smell hash on his breath. Her heart sank.
‘You been eating chicken?’ he said. ‘Got any more? I’m hungry.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘What is it, Ben? You haven’t been by in weeks.’
‘Yeah, but look.’
He beckoned her out in the freezing wind – she wished she’d grabbed her coat – to a beat-up old van that wasn’t his, as far as she knew, and flung open the back door.
‘Ta-dah!’
Pearl peered inside, lit only by the street light. At first she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Then she realised. It was a huge box. The writing on it became clear.
‘A monster garage,’ she breathed.
‘I told the little man I wouldn’t let him down,’ said Ben.
‘But … but … I mean, have you been working?’
She knew what she meant by this. If he was working, he was meant to give her some money. That was the deal.
‘Oh, just a bit, here and there …’ said Ben. He couldn’t quite meet her eyes.
‘Do you mean working properly, a proper job? Where? Was it cash in hand? With Bobby or who?’ demanded Pearl.
‘Oh, well, I thought you’d be pleased,’ said Ben, cross now. ‘I thought you’d be happy that we got the little man the one thing he wants more than anything … thought we could wrap it up too, you know, with a big bow, the whole works. Maybe I’ll just throw it away, huh? Just set it on fire because I haven’t got my P60 and a receipt and everything else …’
‘Ben,’ said Pearl, desperate not to start a fight. ‘Ben, please. It’s just it’s so expensive …’
‘I know how much it is,’ said Ben, his handsome face set like stone. Pearl swallowed. She wanted to believe he had a job, she did, but why couldn’t she get a straight answer out of him?
She didn’t say anything more. Ben cursed quickly under his breath then turned to go.
‘Don’t you want to come in and see Louis?’ Pearl said, a little reluctantly.
Ben shrugged, then slouched past her in through the door of the little ground-floor flat.
‘DADDY!’ Louis’ shout of joy, Pearl reflected, could be heard halfway down the street.
Pearl never swore. She thought it showed an uncontrolled mind. But she got extremely close to it right then. She looked around. Someone had built a snowman from the dirty leftover snow of a few days ago. Someone else had taken the carrot off its nose and put it where a penis would be. Pearl sighed, and went back indoors, out of the freezing cold, feeling very far away from wishing goodwill upon all men.
‘So, Austin,’ Merv was saying, sitting back in his banquette and grumbling, presumably not for the first time, about the fact that he couldn’t smoke his cigar indoors. ‘What would you say our prospects are vis-à-vis …’
Issy had realised that frankly there wasn’t a single thing she could contribute to the conversation – Candy was playing with her phone, like Darny would have been doing, and the director’s wife, who was called something like Vanya or Vania or something that sounded like it might be a name but wasn’t really, was making a massive point of differentiating herself from Issy and Candy by insisting on joining in with the men’s conversations in a highly technical and competitive way.
Candy yawned every so often quietly behind her hand, but then would lean in and stroke Merv’s thigh in an affectionate manner. Issy realised that a charming waiter was refilling her glass every time she took so much as a sip of the ambrosial white wine, so she kept at it. Since neither Vanya nor Candy ate at all, Issy went at the bread basket in an almost passive-aggressive manner. Meanwhile Austin was talking about Europe and money and futures and micro-trading and other things Issy hadn’t even heard of in a way that was completely beyond her and very impressive.