Katy Colins - Destination India

Ben shook his head but Kelli raised a skinny arm. ‘It’s not really work-related but my band are playing at the Academy tomorrow night.’

‘Wow, that’s amazing!’ Ben said.

Kelli blushed. ‘Nah, it ain’t the real Academy, it’s the one in Rusholme above a curry house but still it’s a gig. I guess.’ She paused collecting her thoughts. ‘So, I wondered if you both wanted to come? I’ll put you on the guest list if you fancy it. You know, if you weren’t too busy or anythin’?’ She nibbled her thin bottom lip.

‘Course we’ll be there. Won’t we, Georgia?’ Ben said, interrupting me from scrolling through the calendar on my phone.

‘It might not be your kinda vibe but the booze is cheap and you get ten per cent off any curry and free poppadums if you come.’

‘Georgia? You in?’ Ben persisted.

‘Yeah, yeah sounds good,’ I said distractedly giving them both a tight smile. ‘Right, let’s get down to work.’

It had turned out to be a good day actually, minus the dramatic, unprofessional start. We’d had four walk-ins who booked tours on the spot and another six who took brochures away, making all the positive noises of coming back to pay a deposit. I was just in the middle of my emails when my phone buzzed: Mother calling.

‘Hi, Mum, I haven’t got long. I’m pretty snowed under,’ I answered quickly.

‘You always say that,’ she tutted, and I rolled my eyes. ‘Well, I won’t keep you, it was just to check that you haven’t forgotten about tonight.’

Tonight? Tonight? My mind raced through my mental to-do list. What was tonight?

‘Erm … Yep. It’s all under control,’ I lied.

She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Great. Your dad is so excited to see you. We’ll let the rush-hour traffic die down before we head out. You know he doesn’t like to drive when all the maniacs fill the roads,’ she babbled. ‘What time is the restaurant booked for again?’

I paused. Then suddenly it all came rushing back. I quickly glanced at my calendar to check I was right. Yup. Shit. Today was my dad’s birthday and weeks ago I’d promised my mum I’d get us a table at Chez Laurent’s, the fancy French bistro that the Manchester glitterati raved about, the place where you needed to reserve stupidly far in advance.

‘Erm, nine p.m.,’ I lied.

‘Perfect. Right, well I’ll let you get on. See you later, love.’

I said goodbye and hung up, my stomach in knots. I forgot what I was doing and hurriedly found the phone number for the restaurant, crossing everything that there would be by some miracle a last-minute cancellation for tonight.

No such luck.

The snooty receptionist, talking in a blatantly fake French accent, told me that ‘eet just wasn’t posseeeble’.

I told her to leave it and focused my attention on scouring the net for other possible options, my workload suddenly seeming less important. I’d set alarms on both my phone and email reminding me to buy my dad a gift and book this place but every time they’d pinged I’d cancelled them as I was always in the middle of doing something else. I could kick myself now. After the stressful end of last year, I’d planned to really treat him for his birthday, to celebrate in style that he was still here with us when we had so nearly lost him. I sighed, mentally slapping myself in the face for being such a terrible daughter.

All the finest five-star restaurants were either fully booked, didn’t answer the phone, or only had tables at five p.m. in two weeks’ time. Now I was really behind. By this rate I’d be pulling another all-nighter just to catch up on what I’d not got done today.

I sighed loudly, which caught Ben’s attention. ‘You OK, Georgia?’

‘You don’t happen to know any Michelin-starred chefs who could come and cook dinner tonight, do you?’ I asked, with my head in my hands.

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s my dad’s birthday and I promised him a fancy dinner but completely forgot all about it,’ I half moaned.

Kelli looked up from her paper-strewn desk. ‘My mate Sticky Shaun works at TGI Fridays. I could try and bag you a table there? Nah, scrap that – he got his name for a reason.’

Ben grimaced and turned to face me. ‘Why don’t you have a change of plan and cook for them at yours?’

I laughed. ‘I want to treat him, not kill him. Do you not remember how bad I was at cooking when we were in Thailand?’

Memories of being in the spicy, steamy kitchen in Koh Lanta flooded my mind. I blushed slightly thinking back to how close we’d been then, how I was convinced something would have happened between us by now other than swapping secret-Santa gifts and sharing business ideas in a friendly yet professional manner.

Ben smiled at the memory. ‘Yeah, maybe stick with the restaurant idea.’

I went back to my laptop, wanting to focus on work instead of what could have been between us when Ben called out. ‘Wait, didn’t you go to some networking event or something at Verde, that new Italian place? You could call whoever organised it and see if they could fit you in.’

‘Genius idea! Thanks.’ I flipped through the stack of business cards on my desk; note to self, must get round to organising these one day. I thought back to that utterly boring evening where my restless mind had wandered away from death by PowerPoint to the fresh flowers and walnut fittings in the restaurant. I’d spent the rest of the dull meeting wondering whether we should redecorate the shop in similar hues.

I found the business card for Luigi, the restaurant manager, a no-nonsense Italian man with gelled-back hair and heavy musky aftershave who’d been very keen on sharing his advice on the best places to visit in Rome when I’d told him about our Italian tours. Five minutes later and I’d bagged us a table for three at nine p.m. tonight. Bingo. Maybe I could pull this back after all.

Disillusion (n.) A freeing or a being freed from illusion

‘It’s very fancy, isn’t it?’ my mum exclaimed, picking up the creamy porcelain salt and pepper pots from the starched linen tablecloth. ‘But, weren’t we meant to be at that French place? Viv always goes on about it since her son Adam took her when he visited from London that one time. I swear I’ve heard more about the bloody crème brûlée they serve than I have about Viv’s sciatic nerves, and trust me, she never shuts up about them.’

‘It did sound pretty good though. The pudding, not Viv’s backache,’ my dad chimed in before clocking my face.

‘I tried to get us in there, but it was fully booked,’ I apologised, ignoring my mum pursing her lips that Adam had managed to get his mum in. ‘This place is meant to be really good though. It’s the number one Italian in Manchester, or something like that.’

‘Hmmm,’ my mum said. ‘It’s a little on the poky side.’

‘Or you could say cosy?’ I tried putting a positive spin on the large faux-marble pillar that we were tucked away behind. Luigi had come true on offering us a table; he just hadn’t specified that we would be sardined behind the Roman coliseum next to the toilets. The comforting garlic and rosemary smell of the busy restaurant was sliced by regular wafts of strong bleach every time the door opened.

‘Well I think it’s great and makes a change from watching the evening news as I tuck into your mum’s famous corned-beef hash.’ My dad chuckled. After ordering from a harassed-looking waitress, who’d obviously forgotten about us judging by the look on her shiny red face, we tucked into the free, salty breadsticks.

‘So, you’ve come straight from work, Georgia?’ My mum nodded at what I was wearing: my creased work skirt, two-day-old blouse that now had both an ink stain and a coffee stain on the cuff and my Kelli-inspired, emo make-up.