‘Can’t quite bring yourself to tell anyone about your big slice of black arse, can you, darling?’
He softened the remark by squeezing Billy’s shoulder and giving the smaller man a peck on the cheek.
Nonetheless, the tension between the two was obvious, not least because it was unusual. Karen was quick to move on around the table.
It was Alfonso’s turn. The Italian, his beard immaculate, his black hair slicked back with gel, had a penchant for dressing formally and was the only man at the table wearing a tailored jacket. He always seemed to be rather out of his time, and had once been described by Marlena as a kind of debonair gigolo who belonged in 1930s Cannes. The description seemed apt enough, but nobody really knew what made the Fonz tick. They weren’t even entirely sure whether he was gay or straight. Alfonso’s habit, both at work and at play, was to reveal as little as possible about his private life. However, his manner was such that nobody ever really noticed.
Alfonso knew what his most life-changing moment had been. It was when his father had died when he was in his mid-teens. His mother made him promise he would never leave her. And the crazy thing was, he never had. He’d threatened to, promised himself that he would, the next day or the next week. But he’d never quite been able to do so. Every day, he trekked back to Dagenham to the little terraced house they shared; unless he was on late shift, in which case he stayed at his gran’s place in King’s Cross. And there were other aspects of his life that he considered to be even more embarrassing than shuttling back and forth between his mum and his gran. It didn’t exactly fit the profile he was trying to cultivate, that of the most dashing waiter in London.
Sometimes he wondered how he managed to keep his dark secret from the Sunday Club. It certainly took a lot of work. Over the years, he had developed protecting his privacy into a fine art, evolving into a brilliant ‘make-up’ artist: tall tales emerged from him like water gushing from a bottomless well, all in the name of entertainment. So far as the others were concerned, he was perpetually caught up in the social whirl, forever on the verge of moving into a new flat, or staying with unspecified friends while he looked for somewhere new. He envied Ari, who was quite open about his living arrangements and didn’t seem bothered when the gang kidded him about still living with his mum. But then, why should it bother him? Ari was much younger than Alfonso and actually had his own apartment in his parents’ large and rather grand London house.
Tonight, Alfonso found he could not be bothered to come up with an entertaining diversion. And so he told the truth.
‘Getting my job at the Vine,’ he said.
‘Oh, so so boring, darling,’ said Marlena.
‘Yeah, well, I haven’t led the life you have.’
‘Is that a veiled insult or a tragic complaint?’
‘Both, probably. Anyway, it did change my life. I found out how much fun being a waiter could be. Before that, I was at the Reform Club. God knows how I ended up there, so bloody stuffy. Now I’m pouring water for Madonna.’
‘Thrilling,’ interjected George. ‘Come on, Marlena. Brighten things up. Let’s hear yours.’
‘I suppose it was crashing my motorbike, if I were to tell the truth,’ responded the older woman, surprising herself.
That had indeed been a life-changing moment, but not something she’d talked about nor even thought about for many years. Marlena had led a roller-coaster of an existence with many life-changing moments to choose from. A good number of those were best forgotten, but there were also plenty she liked to remember, and surely everyone had secrets? Marlena was not a woman who dwelled on the past, who allowed herself regrets. The only reason her motorbike accident had come into her mind so vividly was because of a TV documentary she had watched the previous evening. She’d been kept awake half the night by troubling dreams of the incident and its consequences. Not that she had any intention of sharing that with her friends.
‘Crashing your motorbike?’ queried Greg. ‘You had a motorbike?’
‘I certainly did. A Triumph Norton. I’d had it sprayed shocking pink.’
‘Good God, when was that?’ asked Karen.
‘Oh, back in the Dark Ages, darling. It must be thirty-odd years since I got rid of it.’
‘But why?’
‘Finally grew up, I suppose. Realized it was too dangerous. I always rode too fast — but then, that was the whole point of it really.’
‘I thought you thrived on danger, darling,’ remarked Alfonso.
‘There’s danger, and then there’s danger,’ replied Marlena enigmatically.
‘How did crashing your bike change your life?’ persisted Karen.
‘I was on my way to visit my sister in Scotland — hadn’t seen her for years, we’d been brought up apart. Then fate intervened and I never made it...’
Marlena seemed lost in memories until Alfonso’s voice brought her back to earth.
‘Were you badly hurt?’
‘Not really. Barely at all, in fact.’ Marlena paused and looked down at the table. ‘It was life-changing because it confronted me with reality and marked the end of a lot of silly dreams I suddenly knew I was never going to realize...’
She stopped again abruptly. There was silence around the table, unbroken until she chided the others: ‘Oh come on. You’ve got better things to do than listen to an old woman like me make a fool of herself. Ari, what about you? It must be your turn. I’m sure I jumped my place.’
Ari looked blank.
‘I don’t think I’ve had a life-changing moment,’ he said.
The truth of it hit him as he spoke. Sometimes Ari’s entire existence seemed empty to him, which was perhaps why he was inclined to fill the hours with alcohol and cocaine. He made himself sip his second large Hendricks slowly. Sunday Club was a low-key evening out for Ari, but, as with George, it had become a curiously important fixture in his life. It was one of the few occasions when he tried to stay moderately sober, in order that his behaviour would not attract attention, so that he could at least appear to fit in with the others. Ari had many acquaintances and hangers-on, but few friends. He considered the regular Sunday group to be the nearest he had to friends. Not that he could face them without a pre-supper line or two before leaving home. Indeed, he couldn’t imagine being out and about without that.
‘Maybe that’s what’s wrong in my life,’ Ari continued. ‘Nothing has ever changed really. I even live at home. Can’t match my dad, that’s probably my problem. Dad came over with my grandmother in 1972, refugees from Idi Amin’s Uganda. He built his business from scratch, starting with a street stall then a corner shop. Now he trades all over the world. He just assumed that I would go into the business with him, so that’s what I’ve done, more or less. ’
‘Where was his shop?’ asked Greg.
‘Wanstead, first of many.’
‘He must have been some man to have turned that into what he’s got now.’
Ari nodded. ‘He was only seventeen when they arrived,’ he said. ‘And he did it all on his own; my gran never learned to speak English and my grandfather was already dead. I haven’t a clue how he did it. Beyond me, I’m afraid.’
He took a big drink of his Hendricks, and allowed the strangely aromatic gin to drown his brief moment of introspection.
‘So there you are, I’m just a spoiled rich boy.’
‘Yep,’ said Greg.
‘We love you, though,’ said Karen.
‘And I’d hardly describe your living arrangements as classic shacked-up-with-mum-and-dad,’ said Bob. ‘You’ve got an apartment bigger than most people’s houses. That potted palm I got for you looked so bloody lost in it, I had to go back and get you a bigger one.’