It was a fair comment but given the history of our relationship it felt as though she were criticising my recklessness in still cycling rather than anything else.
‘They have no manners, no courtesy.’ She grimaced her disapproval.
‘I can curtsy, look.’ Maddie leapt up and performed a jerky bob. Sheila and Ray burst out laughing.
‘I’ll have a wash,’ I muttered, and withdrew.
When I tried to ring Agnes there was no reply. She was probably visiting Lily.
Tea was a strained affair. Ray had made a baked aubergine dish which only Sheila and I enjoyed. Maddie declared it was like ‘slugs and blood’ and refused to try it. Tom followed suit. Meanwhile Nana Tello embarked on her customary discourse on the need for meat (red meat at that) in the human diet, especially for young children. I’d been through the argument with her before, as had Ray, but she still managed to needle him.
‘Come on, Ma,’ he said. ‘How many times a week could people back home afford meat? They didn’t have it every day, did they?’
‘Can we get chips?’ Maddie whined.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Aw. Please. Be your best friend. Please.’
‘No. If you don’t want this then you can have a sandwich.’
‘There’s beans,’ Ray offered.
‘I hate beans,’ Maddie announced with passion.
‘Since when?’
‘I hate beans too,’ Tom said.
‘No, you don’t, you’re just copying me. Copycat, copycat, you don’t know what you’re looking at.’
‘Sandwich, then.’ I got up and made a round of Marmite sandwiches. I wasn’t even going to introduce the option of what particular type of sandwiches were acceptable on this particular Friday.
Sheila had managed to steer Nana Tello off meat and on to Italy. Sheila had spent several holidays there and was extolling the delights of the different regions she’d visited. Nana Tello was beside herself with joy to find that Sheila knew her home town of Reggio Calabria and went off into long rhapsodies about the market, the churches, the people, the climate, the soil and the schools.
We made it through apple pie and ice cream and coffee without further tantrums.
Later, comfortably ensconced in the pub, I let Diane’s conversation and two pints of Boddies wash away my tension. Diane was still full of the Cornerhouse exhibition and a little daunted by the amount of work she needed to do for it. ‘And I’ve got to write one of those awful little autobiographies too. For the catalogue. That’s the pits,’ she said. ‘Can you imagine it? What do you say? What do you leave out?’
‘What do other people say?’
‘Well,’ she ran her hands through her hair, which had become a savage blue-black since we’d last met, ‘some of them go on about where they’ve trained, who’s influenced their work, then there’s the “loves crochet – lives with six cats” style..