"I suppose I could put up an RSJ and suspend them," Gary started up again, as if the phone conversation were not going on.
"Well. I'd better let you go, hadn't 1, if you've got someone there," said Mark. "Have a good time. Shall I call you later?"
"Yes, yes, talk to you later."
I put the phone down, mind reeling.
"After someone else is he?" said Gary in a rare and extremely unwelcome moment of lucidity.
I glared at him. "What about these shelves ... ?"
"Well. If you want them all in line, I'll have to move your leads, and that'll mean stripping the plaster off unless we rawl in a 3 by 4 of MDF. I mean if you'd told me you wanted them symmetrical before I'd have known, wouldn't P I suppose I could do it now." He looked round the kitchen. "Have you got any food in?"
"They're fine, absolutely lovely just like that," I gabbled.
"If you want to cook me a bowl of that pasta I'll..."
Have just paid Gary F-120 in cash for insane shelves to get him out of the house. Oh God, am so late. Fuck, fuck, telephone again.
9.05 p.m. Was Dad - which was strange since normally he leaves telephonic communication to Mum.
"Just called to see how you're doing." He sounded very odd.
"I'm fine," I said worriedly. "How are you?"
"Jolly good, jolly good. Very busy in the garden, you know, very busy though not much to do out there in the winter of course ... So, how's everything?"
"Fine," I said. "And everything's fine with you?"
"Oh, yes, yes, perfectly fine. Urn, and work? How's work?"
"Work's fine. Well, I mean disastrous obviously. But are you all right?"
"Me? Oh yes, fine. Of course the snowdrops will be pop, plop, ploppeeddee plopping through soon. And everything's all right with you, is it?"
"Yes, fine. How's things with you?"
After several more minutes of the impenetrable conversational loop I had a breakthrough: "How's Mum?" "Ah. Well, she's, she's ah. . ."
There was a long, painful pause. "She's going to Kenya. With Una."
The worst of it was, the business with Julio the Portuguese tour operator started last time she went on holiday with Una.
"Are you going too?"
"No, no," blustered Dad. "I've no desire to sit getting skin cancer in some appalling enclave sipping pina colada and watching topless tribal dancers prostitute themselves to lascivious crusties in front of tomorrow's breakfast buffet."
"Did she ask you to?"
"Ah. Well. You see, no. Your mother would argue that she is a person in her own right, that our money is her money, and she should be allowed to freely explore the world and her own personality at a whim."
"Well, I suppose as long as she keeps it to those two," I said. "She does love you, Dad. You saw that" - nearly said "last time" and changed it to - "at Christmas. She just needs a bit of excitement."
"I know but, Bridget, there's something else. Something quite dreadful. Can you hold on?"
I glanced up at the clock. I was supposed to be in 192 already and hadn't got round to telling Jude and Shaz yet that Magda was coming. I mean it is delicate at the best of times, trying to combine friends from opposite sides of the marriage divide, but Magda has just had a baby. And I feared that wouldn't be good for Jude's mindset.
"Sorry about that: just closing the door." Dad was back. "Anyway," he went on conspiratorially. "I overheard your mother talking on the phone earlier today. I think it was to the hotel in Kenya. And she said, she said. , ."