‘Paris isn’t the Eternal City,’ said Connie. ‘The Eternal City is Rome.’
‘And it’s not eternal,’ said Albie, ‘it just feels like it.’
Cat laughed and wiped juice from her mouth. ‘I don’t live here, I’m just passing through. I’ve been bumming round Europe ever since college, living here, living there. Today it’s Paris, tomorrow Prague, Palermo, Amsterdam — who knows!’
‘Yes, we’re the same,’ I said.
‘Except we have a laminated itinerary,’ said Connie, examining the empty grapefruit container.
‘It’s not laminated. What I mean is, we’re going to Amsterdam tomorrow.’
‘Lucky you! I love the ’Dam, though I always end up doing something I regret, if you know what I mean. Party town!’ She was filling a second plate now, balancing it on her forearm like a pro and focusing on proteins and carbohydrates. Lifting the visor on the bacon tray, she inhaled the meaty vapour with eyes closed. ‘I’m a strict vegetarian with the exception of cured meats,’ she said, loading dripping coils of the stuff onto a plate already overflowing with cheese, smoked salmon, brioche, croissants …
‘That’s certainly quite a breakfast you’ve got there!’ I said, smile fixed.
‘I know! Albie and me’ve worked up quite an appetite,’ and she gave a low, dirty laugh and snapped at his buttock with the bacon tongs while Albie grinned sheepishly at his plate. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘most of this is for later on.’
That, to my mind, was crossing a line. The buffet was not a picnic-making facility nor a come-one-come-all larder. I had resolved to be nice to Albie’s new friends and their eccentricities, but this was theft, plain and simple, and when a banana followed a jar of honey into the capacious pockets of her velvet shorts I felt that I could restrain myself no more.
‘Don’t you think maybe you should put some of that back, Cat?’ I said, light-heartedly.
‘Beg pardon?’
‘The fruit, the jars of honey. You only need one, two at the most.’
‘Dad!’ said Albie. ‘I can’t believe you’d say that!’
‘Well, I just think it’s a bit excessive …’
‘Awk-ward!’ trilled Cat in an operatic falsetto.
‘She’s not eating it all now.’
‘Which is exactly my point, Albie.’
‘No, fair enough, fair point — here, here …’ And Cat began tossing jars and fruit and croissants back on to the table willy-nilly.
‘No, no, take what you’ve got, I just think maybe don’t put stuff in your pockets—’
‘See what I mean, Cat?’ said Albie, gesturing towards me with an open hand.
‘Albie …’
‘I told you, this is what he’s like!’
‘Albie! Enough. Sit.’ This was Connie, with her sternest face. Albie knew well enough not to argue, and we returned to the table, took our seats and listened to Cat …
… how she loved New Zealand, how beautiful it was but how she’d grown up in a boring suburb of Auckland, so dull and middle-class, mile upon mile of identical houses. Nothing ever happened there — or rather, things did happen there, terrible things, but no one ever talked about them, they just closed their eyes and carried on with their dull, conventional, boring lives and waited for death.
‘Sounds like where we live,’ said Albie.
Connie sighed. ‘I challenge you, Albie, to name one terrible thing that’s happened to you in your whole life. Just one. Cat, poor Albie here is scarred because we didn’t let him have Coco Pops back in 2004.’
‘You don’t know everything about me, Mum!’
‘Well, I do as a matter of fact.’
‘No, you don’t!’ Albie protested, looking betrayed. ‘And since when were you this great defender of home, Mum? You said you hated it too.’
Had she? Connie, moving on, said, ‘Cat, my son is posturing for your benefit. Carry on. You were saying.’
Cat was ramming salami inside a baguette with a dirty thumb. ‘Anyway, my dad, who’s a complete and utter bastard, insisted that I study engineering at the uni, which was a complete waste of time …’
Albie was grinning at me but I declined to meet his eye and poured more coffee. ‘Well, not a complete waste of time,’ I said.
‘It is if you hate it. I wanted to experience things, see things.’
‘So what did you study instead?’
‘Ventriloquism.’ She held a marmalade jar to her ear and a small voice said, help me! help me! ‘That got me into puppetry and improv and I joined this street theatre group, operating these giant marionettes, and we just hit the road, travelled all over Europe, had a wild time until they all wimped out and went home to their little jobs and little houses and dull, predictable little lives. So I carried on, travelling solo. Love it! Haven’t seen my parents now for four years.’
‘Oh Cat, that’s terrible,’ said Connie.
‘It’s not terrible! It’s been amazing for me. No roots, no rent, meeting the most incredible people. I can live wherever I want now. Except Portugal. I’m not allowed into Portugal, for reasons which I am not at liberty to divulge …’
‘But what about your parents?’
‘I send my mum postcards. I phone her twice a year, Christmas and birthday. She knows I’m fine.’
‘Hers or yours?’ said Connie.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You said you phone her Christmas and birthday. D’you phone her on her birthday or your birthday?’
The question seemed to puzzle Cat. ‘My birthday, of course,’ she said, and Connie nodded.
‘And your father?’ I asked.
‘My father can go screw himself,’ she said proudly, popping the bread into her mouth, and I noted how Albie could barely contain his admiration.
‘That seems a little harsh.’
‘Not if you met him. If you met him, it’s a grrr-eat review!’ She laughed her laugh again, the kind you see in films to denote madness and the waiter’s stare got a little harder. Despite my best efforts, I was finding it difficult to warm to Cat. She was somewhat older than Albie, which made me feel absurdly defensive of him, and her skin had a chafed look, as if it had been scoured with some sort of abrasive — my son’s face, presumably. There were panda smudges around her eyes and a red smear around her mouth, again attributable to my son, and high arched eyebrows that seemed drawn on. What did she remind me of? When I first arrived at university I attended a fancy-dress screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with the aforementioned Liza Godwin, which remains one of the most wearying evenings of enforced wackiness that I have ever writhed through in my life. The things I did for love! I am not a religious man but I vividly remember sitting in my seat wearing a pair of Liza Godwin’s torn tights, with a lipsticked rictus grin on my face, praying, please, God, if you do exist, let me not do ‘The Time Warp’ again.
And yes, there was something of that Rocky Horror quality to Cat, and perhaps this appealed to our son, his hand on the small of her back, her fingers exploring the torn knees of his jeans. It was all rather disturbing, and I must confess a certain relief when she said:
‘Okay, you good people, it was a pleasure to encounter you. You’ve got a fine young man here!’ She slapped his thigh for emphasis.
‘Yes, we’re aware of that,’ said Connie.
‘Enjoy the sights! Young man, escort me to the door — I don’t want the buffet police to wrestle me to the floor and strip-search me!’ There was a guffaw and the scrape of a chair as she hoisted the accordion called Steve from his seat and squashed her bowler hat down on to her curls. A high trill from Steve, and they were gone.