Polly Courtney - The Day I Died

‘Same again?’ asked Stuart, holding up the empty bottle.

‘How did that happen?’ asked Jo, pretending to be shocked by their rate of consumption. She really had to slow down.

The main courses arrived, in Jo’s case, giant prawns and some unidentifiable sea-dwelling creatures with shells, and Stuart steered the conversation back round to her.

‘So, what are your prospects like?’

‘Prospects?’

‘Prospects of finding another job.’

‘Oh. Well, I was thinking of going into financial consulting. What d’you reckon?’

He smiled, filling her glass from the new bottle. ‘I think I’d have to assess your tribal dancing skills. There’s more to it than meets the eye, you know.’

Jo laughed. ‘Maybe later. No, actually, I’m not sure I’ll find another waitressing job. There doesn’t seem to be much demand for them in Abingdon.’

‘Abingdon?’

‘Well, Abingdon or Radley I moved to Abingdon last weekend. My other place…didn’t work out.’

Stuart shook his head. ‘Radley’s loss. So what will you do? I mean, what happens in waitressing circles? Are there agencies, that sort of thing?’

Jo knew she was being patronised. ‘You know, waitressing isn’t my career’

‘Oh?’ Stuart looked intrigued. Clearly he’d taken her for a dumb, tea-serving bimbo–which, in a way, she was.

This time, Jo was prepared. ‘I work in cafés to fill in the gaps. My real job is working with kids. I’m a…a mentor.’

At least this one she thought she could pull off without coming unstuck. It wasn’t like saying she was an astronaut or a vet. You couldn’t ask tricky questions about working with kids.

‘Where did you train? My mate’s girlfriend is a child psychologist.’

Bollocks . ‘London, um…University…’

‘Oh. She went to Manchester.’

Jo managed to mumble something and had another go at dissecting the creatures on her plate. They seemed to be all shell and no flesh, and the strange twisted utensil she’d been given didn’t seem to help in the slightest.

‘Is that where you were before, then? Try pulling the head off first.’

Jo couldn’t see anything that looked like a head. She yanked the animal in half and tried to work out which was edible. ‘Sorry, what?’

‘London. Were you in London before you came here?’

‘Oh. Yes.’ Result. There seemed to be a tiny piece of soft grey tissue amongst the debris.

‘So, you moved from a mentoring job in London to a teashop in Radley?’

Jesus . The meat was disgusting. Jo washed it down with some wine and tried to straighten her thinking. Her behaviour did seem a bit odd, when he put it like that.

‘I thought I’d got this job sorted in Radley, so I found a place to live. Then the job fell through and I was already settled, so I thought, well, why don’t I find another job?’

A piece of fishy gristle flew across the restaurant.

Stuart nodded, politely ignoring her ineptness. ‘Right. And then you moved again.’

‘Right.’ Oh dear. This wasn’t sounding at all plausible. Jo gave up on her main course and had one last go at explaining.

‘I moved to Radley for one job, which fell through, but once I’d moved I thought I’d find another job nearby, so I moved again, but then that fell through.’

‘The job or the place?’

‘The place. No, the job.’ Jo was utterly confused. ‘Um, can we talk about something else?’

Stuart laughed. He speared his last mouthful of steak and offered it across to Jo. She bit into it gratefully. It tasted delicious.

‘So, whereabouts did you live in London?’

Jo made the steak last as long as she could, hoping desperately that a vivid memory of some part of London might leap into her head. ‘West,’ she said, when it didn’t.

‘Anywhere near Ealing? I used to live in South Ealing.’

Jo puffed out her cheeks as though trying to remember the local geography. ‘Not far, I guess. I was a bit further out–a place called…’ Shit. ‘West Ham.’

‘West Ham? That’s East.’ Stuart frowned.

‘West Ham- ly’ , she corrected, quite credibly she thought. What was the logic behind West Ham being in East London?

‘Never heard of it. Dessert?’

Jo didn’t want to take any more risks with the indecipherable menu so she shook her head and finished off the wine. Stuart asked for the bill and seemed to forget all about the West Hamly thing, conveniently for Jo, who was rapidly losing track of her lies.

The waiter swooped back with the bill, then swooped off again with Stuart’s card tucked neatly inside. Jo wondered how much it had come to. She probably would have got a more substantial meal in the Burger King down the road, but this had been an experience. A good experience, she thought as she set off for the bathroom. Tonight had been enlightening.

‘Bit of a worry,’ said Stuart, when she returned. ‘They’ve still got my card.’ He gave a look of mock concern. ‘I might go and hunt down our man.’

He darted off, heading for the cluster of waiters who were doing just that–waiting.

Stuart was still complaining to the head honcho when their original waiter appeared at the table with the little machine in his hand. Jo leaned over and took a peek. She guessed it would have come to over a hundred pounds, probably nearer two hundred. But it was something else that caught her eye.

Even though her vision was blurry, Jo was fairly sure she wasn’t mistaken. Embossed on the gold card sticking out of the reader were the characters, ‘MR & MRS S. THO—’

Stuart returned to the table, glanced crossly at the waiter and punched in his PIN. Jo watched him through suspicious, drunken eyes. Surely he wasn’t married? There must be some other explanation. Maybe he was separated and using an old card. Maybe it wasn’t his card. Although, strictly speaking, that would make him a thief, which wasn’t particularly reassuring either.

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