The Waitress by Melissa Nathan Read Free Book Online Page B

brother-in-law caught the latest rugby scores on the news.
    ‘They’re going to the pub to watch the rugby in the morning, so we can have a nice catch-up then,’ said Deanna.
    ‘I hope they’re back for Sunday lunch,’ said Bea.
    ‘Oh, Mum, I won’t be staying long after lunch,’ said Katie.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I have a date.’
    Bea and Deanna were all ears.
    ‘He’s called Dan.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘No, Dan.’
    She finished off her apple and rhubarb crumble with hot custard. ‘He’s ex-Oxford, he’s made enough money in the city to start his own business and he’s got a crinkle in his cheek when he smiles.’
    ‘What did he study at Oxford?’ asked Deanna.
    ‘What colour eyes?’ asked Bea.
    ‘What time are you going?’ asked Deanna.
    ‘How tall?’
    Katie took a deep breath. ‘The date’s at eight, so considering how long it took me to get here, I’ll probably have to leave in about half an hour. Blue eyes, about six-foot tall, don’t know what he studied.’
    The conversation was interrupted by The Men appearing. Deanna leapt up to attend their needs, whether it be making a pot of tea, washing up a glass or fetching a home-made cookie from the pantry.
    As Katie watched her family with an affectionately critical eye, she couldn’t help but wonder how her sister, the arbiter of taste, the queen of aesthetics, could ever have married Maurice. Maurice didn’t really have a face, he had a chin with optional extras, and the older he got, the more colonial his chin became. It had already taken over his neck and looked set to march triumphantly onward to his ears. Katie wondered if her sister would wake up one day and discover that it had annexed his entire head.
    To her mind, what must have made things rather painful for Bea was that Maurice’s mother was a rare beauty, with a neatness in the chin area not found in any of her husband’s ancestors’ portraits, and Katie could only wonder how Bea, competitive in all things womanly, felt about having this much to live up to. The only hope was that her children – the first of which was already a neat little bulge under Bea’s Jaeger cashmere – would, if it had to take after anyone from Maurice’s family, take after his mother. They’d all find out in three months’ time.
    ‘How’s it going sis?’ asked Cliffie, taking one of Deanna’s home-made spiced cookies and eating it in one. ‘Recovered from the journey yet?’
    Katie yawned her yes.
    ‘Someone’s a sleepyhead,’ nodded Sydney, her father. ‘I think it’s time for bed.’
    Katie dragged her feet up the wide, shallow staircase to her small, neat attic bedroom, unchanged since she left for college and beyond, all those years ago. Blue-and-white check wallpaper and matching curtains set off the single bed with its Princess-and-the-Pea-style headboard. She felt instantly soothed by the room’s delicate tranquillity, a quality she’d never been aware of as she grew up. After leaving her clothes on the blue-and-white-check corner armchair she slipped into the cool sheets and turned off her blue-and-white-check bedside lamp. She closed her eyes, and tried to squeeze in some snapshot moments of last week’s party before sleep tiptoed in to snatch her away.
    Downstairs, Bea and Maurice got themselves comfy in their bed in Bea’s old bedroom. It had been four years after her eldest daughter’s wedding before Deanna had finally replaced Bea’s bed and Maurice stopped having to use the old put-you-up. Deanna had said she’d never got round to it, but the fact was that a mere wedding licence and year-long pre-nuptual preparations had not suddenly made her and Sydney able to deal with the fact that their daughter was officially no longer a virgin.
    After Bea and Maurice had spent their third entire Christmas season with Maurice’s family, Bea had finally admitted to her parents that Maurice just couldn’t bear the thought of having to sleep in ‘that bed’ during ‘what was meant to be a