“Hello, Israel,” she said as Ted lowered the umbrella and went round to open the driver’s side.
“Hello,” said Israel rather shyly.
“I knew it was you!” she said.
“How?”
“Your cords,” she said.
“Ah,” said Israel. “Betrayed by the cords.”
“Indeed,” she said, cocking her head slightly. “So?” she said.
“So?” said Israel.
“Come on,” said Ted, who had opened up the passenger car door.
“How did you get mixed up in this one, Israel?” She spoke in a tone of good-natured reproach, and when she spoke, you noticed her cheekbones-or, at least, Israel noticed her cheekbones. They were reproachful cheekbones.
“Well, I’m not really mixed up in it, to be honest. Whatever this is.”
“Come on!” said Ted. “In.”
“Look, it’s nice to see you, Veronica, but I have to-”
“No, no,” she said, standing in front of the open door. “Don’t be rushing off when we’ve only just said hello.”
“Sorry. I have to.” Israel went to reach round her to get into the car. Veronica pushed him back and shut the car door with her hip.
“We’re old friends, Israel, aren’t we?”
Israel hesitated.
“And I’m sure you could use a friend at the moment, couldn’t you?” she asked.
“He’s got a friend,” said Ted, who had leaned across and opened the passenger door again from the inside. “You!” he said, addressing Israel. “In!” And then, “You!” addressing Veronica. “Run along there.”
“Yeah!” laughed Veronica. “Right. In these shoes? Come on, Israel,” she said, with authoritative boldness. “I’ll buy you a drink.”
“No, thanks,” said Israel. “I don’t drink at lunchtimes.”
“Oh, go on.”
“Into the cab,” said Ted. “Now!”
“Come on,” she said. “You can catch up with Lurch later.”
“In!” said Ted.
“Come on, Israel. Please.” She fixed him with her pale, piercing blue eyes. “Give a girl a break.”
Israel stood and looked at her. He’d always liked her. He liked her because she talked like she was in a film starring Peter Lorre and Edward G. Robinson. And he liked her because she always talked as if the world were in jeopardy and she could alone could somehow sort things out.
“‘Give a girl a break,’” he repeated.
“Yeah. Go on.”
“You!” shouted Ted. “In! Now!”
Israel hesitated. Fatally.
“Ted. I’ll be fine,” he said.
“You’ll be flippin’ eaten alive, ye eejit! Now!”
“Come on, then. I’ll buy you lunch,” said Veronica.
He certainly did need a friend.
“Come on, I think I can help you,” said Veronica. Her voice had always had a slightly breathless quality. And her wide blue eyes-enhanced by colored contact lenses?-and her open, trusting face, and the determined jut of the chin.
“Nice raincoat,” said Israel.
“You auld flatterer!” she said. “Now, are you going to let me buy you lunch, or not?”
“All right,” said Israel, his defenses having been quickly broken down.
“Come on, let’s go,” she said. And she took Israel by the hand and started walking briskly and triumphantly away from Ted’s cab.
“Hey!” said Ted, emerging from the cab. “What are ye doin’?”
“I’m just going to get some lunch here, Ted. OK?” said Israel, shouting back. “I’ll see you later.”
Ted shook his head.
“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he bellowed.
Veronica glanced behind her and smiled.
“Bye-bye now!” she called. “Don’t wait up!”
“Where are we going then?” said Israel.
“There’s a little bistro I know.”
“A bistro?” said Israel.
“Yes.”
“In Rathkeltair?”
“Yes.”
“You’re kidding?”
“No. Why? Do you have a problem with bistros?”
“No, I have no problem with bistros whatsoever.”
“Good.”
The bistro was just off Main Street, so it was called, naturally, Off Main Street, in case you forgot. Rathkeltair, as a town, was just a cut above Tumdrum, and so the Main Street in Rathkeltair was not merely different in degree to the Main Street of Tumdrum, it was different in kind. And Off Main Street was correspondingly a cut above anything off Main Street in Tumdrum: the menus, for example, weren’t laminated. Israel couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a nonlaminate menu. It was like holding the Torah scrolls. Off Main Street was decorated in a kind of cheap Ikea fantasy of a cosmopolitan loft apartment. There was a lot of exposed brick-work and abstract art. Huge wineglasses. Café-style chairs. Dim lighting. Slightly noirish film score-type music just a little too loud, as though you were in Berlin or The Bourne Ultimatum.
With Gloria, back home in London, Israel used to eat out at least once a week, in cheap Italians or Indians or Chinese restaurants round by where they lived, or Israel would go up and meet Gloria in town and they’d find somewhere different and new and exciting. There was this vegetarian restaurant they liked up round by Old Street, where they served saffron lasagna with pistachio and ginger, and it was all scrubbed wooden tables and body-pierced Australian waitresses. That was a great restaurant. He’d never really enjoyed eating out since he’d been living in Tumdrum: a meal out in Tumdrum invariably came with a side order of chips or champ, and the local chefs and restaurateurs seemed long ago to have abandoned any idea of flavor or texture or indeed portion control, and gone flat-out for bulk. In comparison to eating out in Tumdrum, dining out in Rathkeltair was like walking into a 3-D Michelin restaurant guide. This lunchtime there were half a dozen people already seated, men in suits mostly, and middle-aged women in makeup. Civil servants, probably. On flextime. But they might as well have been Cary Grant and Lauren Bacall as far as Israel was concerned.
He sat there, mesmerized by the nonlaminate menu, which promised crostini, and beet and goat cheese salad, and moules du jour, and red snapper fillet, and ginger-yogurt cheesecake. He ran his fingers over the paper as though checking the weave.
“Wow,” he said. And then, looking at the prices, “Wow,” he said again.
“It’s my treat,” said Veronica.
“On expenses, then?” said Israel.
“Still my treat,” she said, smiling.
He remembered the very first meal out he and Gloria had ever had. He could see it now, in his mind’s eye, as clear as-if not clearer than-he could see Veronica before him now, placing a finger on her lips and gazing at the menu. It was a Greek restaurant, somewhere around Palmers Green. There was ornamental trelliswork and a big amateur sky-blue mural, and the cutlery glistening, the plates white. They ate vegetable kebabs and drank retsina poured from big copper jugs and pulled faces at the taste, and they held hands. And all to the accompaniment of the theme tune to Zorba the Greek.
“What do you think?” said Veronica.
“It’s OK,” said Israel. “Did you ever see Zorba the Greek?”
“Is that a film?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“Oh.”
He and Veronica had never had that much in common.
“This used to be a wine bar,” Veronica was saying. “Back in the nineties.”
“Right.”
“But they’ve really transformed it, haven’t they. I like all these little accents.”
“Accents?” said Israel.
“The little Chinese-lacquer-red bowls and everything.”
“Right,” said Israel. “Yes. Nice.”
“The chef’s from here, but his wife’s Polish,” said Veronica.
“Really?”
“Cosmopolitan, you see. International. I like it because it reminds me of London.”