The Invisible Ones by Stef Penney Read Free Book Online Page B

old. I think his development is frighteningly advanced.
    The evening is tolerable, for dinner at their house. There is a nasty moment when Madeleine springs on me that she’s invited a friend of hers along—allegedly at the last minute. Vanessa is recently divorced—purely a coincidence, of course. Hen raises his eyebrows to signal that it’s none of his doing, but would I please go along with it? Actually, Vanessa is surprisingly okay: not too many expectations, not overly bitter. A handsome streaked blonde, solid but shapely, a legal secretary. We eat lasagna and drink red wine (mine was the wrong color), followed by a lonely salad, and a bitter coffee-flavored trifle with a foreign name—all made by Madeleine, who needs to prove she can do everything. The two older girls— both in their teens—are “studying with friends,” apparently, although I half hope they are doing something much more reprehensible.
    Actually, the conversation is reasonable, the atmosphere surprisingly unstrained. Vanessa laughs at my jokes and appears genuinely interested in our work. I suspect Madeleine of exaggerating the exciting nature ofour setup—to make Hen look good, of course, but I am her husband’s boss. Of course, she will have added—as a spice—that I am half Gypsy. A little bit of rough.
    For a while, I’m grateful to be sitting at a table, having a meal and talking—like people do when they don’t go to pubs anymore. It’s normal. I suppose it’s nice. Vanessa’s nice. She deserves someone better than me. I ponder this—for Madeleine to line her up with me, she must be a rather low-status friend. I stop pondering when Vanessa comes home with me afterward. She’s fun, a good sport, but half my mind is occupied with wondering if she’s going to tell Madeleine, and then feeling sorry in anticipation for Hen. Madeleine will complain to Hen about my rascally behavior, and he’ll be the one—not me—to get it in the neck. The other half of my mind is somewhere else, too. Not that Vanessa seems to notice my distraction.
    She leaves in the morning with a smile and a wave, and there is none of that tremulous, brittle fishing around about calling or phone numbers or seeing each other again. Sensible woman. Low expectations: the key to happiness.

7.
    JJ
    We’re only ninety-eight miles from Lourdes! So hurray. Hurray even though it’s my job to cook tonight. I’m doing Joe Gray, which is stew made with a tin of soup—any soup—potatoes, onions, carrots, and bacon. It’s traditional, and one of my favorites. I discovered that bacon’s called lardon in French, which makes me laugh. I make a joke about it putting the lard on; I think it’s rather good, personally, but only Christo laughs—and that’s because I’m clowning around, not because he gets it— and Gran just smiles a bit. No one else laughs. Uncle Ivo and Great-uncle have had some sort of major falling-out, but I don’t know what it’s about. Ivo took Great-uncle off for a walk earlier, and they came back not speaking. In fact, Ivo came back without Great-uncle at all, and I had to go and find him. It was just starting to rain. Luckily, he wasn’t very far away.
    Now they’re both sulking for England. Ivo smokes and stares out the window. This despite Gran’s having asked him four times to put it out or go outside. Great-uncle is staring into space and smoking his pipe. He’s allowed to smoke indoors, since he’s in a wheelchair and there has to be some compensation. But it smells horrible. I can hardly breathe. He breaks the tense silence with a sigh like a gust of wind.
    “You break my heart, you do, kid.”
    This to Ivo, who ignores him, other than by sucking his teeth in an insulting way.
    “Ivo, for Pete’s sake . . . We’re about to eat.”
    That’s five. See, I can keep count, assess everyone’s bad moods, and cook at the same time.
    “Open the window.”
    “You could think of your son!”
    This is absolutely guaranteed to wind