‘That would be great! I’d be really interested to read that,’ Dani said, reciting her number, although I knew she was as likely to read an article about calories as The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
I hesitated. I could hang around, wait for Fabian to go away and carry on sweating all over the weights bench, which he never wiped down after he’d used it, and warn Dani to give him a wide berth. Probably it was what I should have done.
But he didn’t look like he was going to make himself scarce any time soon; he’d stretched his legs out on the mat next to Dani and was settling in for a good old chat about whey-powder shakes (yawn). Also, his presence was making me feel really weird – almost like there was some kind of force field coming off him that was interfering with the signals in my brain, or I was allergic to his super-strong piney deodorant. And anyway, I needed to get back to work.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?’ I said to Dani, who gave me a half-wave before turning back to Fabian, as mesmerised as a mouse watching a snake that was about to swallow it whole. I’d have to warn her about him – although, from the way she was looking at him, I wasn’t sure she would listen to me.
I hurried back to the pub, showered and changed in my upstairs flat, and was back in the kitchen with plenty of time to get ready for evening service. But I didn’t start shaping the burgers and frying the onions. Instead I pushed open the door to the pub and went to look for Alice.
It was a strange thing. Last year, after I’d unexpectedly encountered Joe after so many years and he – with a good-hearted obliviousness to other people’s darker feelings that was typical of him – had offered me their spare room when I told him I had nowhere to live, I’d seen Alice as a rival. I’d persuaded her to give me the job at the Ginger Cat not just because I saw the potential the pub had, but because it was another way to get closer to Joe. But over the months we’d worked together, I’d got to know Alice as a person. She loved the pub and the community it served. Together, we’d fought off the threat from Fabian Flatley and worked our butts off to make the Ginger Cat the thriving business it was now. And during the course of all that, I’d realised Joe and Alice were rock solid and I would never be able to come between them – not that I wanted to, any more – and come to regard her as a friend.
And so, now, I was going to mention that I’d seen Fabian again. Just, you know, in case.
At first I couldn’t see her, then she straightened up from behind the bar, where I guessed she must have been checking the stock in the wine fridges. Her hair was scraped back in a ponytail, there was a smear of dust on her cheek and a pencil behind her ear, and she looked stressed and knackered. For a second I wondered whether this was a good time to bring up Fabian Flatley’s reappearance, but then I was pretty sure there never would be a good time.
‘Hey, Alice. How’s it going?’
‘God, it’s been the day from hell. The beer order hasn’t turned up and the Wi-Fi’s been down and one of the kids in the mums and tots group puked all over the carpet this morning. And I’ve got a meeting with the bank tomorrow to discuss our mortgage and I haven’t had a second to get the figures in order. And, worst of all, bloody Drew’s let me down.’
Okay, so maybe now wasn’t the best time. Alice’s brother had worked in the pub for a few months, and still played an active role in organising the packed calendar of social events. Everyone loved him, but everyone – including or maybe especially Alice – knew that he was about as reliable as a plastic chip pan.
‘What’s Drew done?’
‘You know the fantasy role-playing game night he was meant to be organising? Nerd central, but we’ve had quite a lot of interest.’
‘The Dungeons & Dragons game? It’s been in my diary for ages. I’m taking the night off, remember, so I can join in. I’ve wanted to play D&D for ages, ever since I saw it on Stranger Things. The nerd is strong in me. Eight weeks on Tuesday, right?’
‘That was the plan. Only now Drew’s gone and had a poem he wrote long-listed for some award, and the ceremony is guess when?’
‘Eight weeks on Tuesday?’
‘Correct. I mean, obviously I’m thrilled for him, but he was going to be the Dungeon Master and apparently you really need to know what you’re doing and understand the rules and stuff, and I don’t, and even if I had time to learn them, which I don’t either, it’s got to be the same person every time, apparently, so you can get to know the players’ characters and everything. So he can’t do it – not ever.’
‘Can’t we put off the first game?’
‘We could, I guess, but we’ve been promoting it on our social media and we’ve already got people signed up and they’re really keen and you know how I hate letting customers down. And we planned the social events calendar so carefully so there was a good mix of stuff and nothing clashed. Zoë, I don’t suppose you could…?’
I felt a familiar twist of guilt. Alice was my boss and my friend, but she hadn’t always been. Before, she’d been the woman whose boyfriend I was in love with. The Zoë who’d behaved that way seemed almost like a stranger now, but I could still clearly remember the doubt and confusion in Alice’s face when she’d seen – and how could she not have; I hadn’t exactly been subtle about it – that I still had feelings for Joe.
But still, however much I wanted to help Alice, I was pretty sure that running a Dungeons & Dragons game when I’d never even played it was beyond my limited skill set. I thought of the multifaceted, sparkly dice in the box that Drew had bought, the innumerable variables of character attributes and monster lethalness and treasure value I’d have to get my head around – all while I was trying to have a life and actually date people.
‘Leave it with me,’ I said. ‘I can’t do it myself, but I’ll try and find someone who can.’
Every day for the next couple of weeks, my first thought on waking in the morning was, ‘Shit, I need to try and get a Dungeon Master sorted for Alice.’ But it didn’t happen. Partly, this was because I had no idea where to even start looking for one. I mean, there’s not a Dungeon Masters’ college, is there? And it’s not like you could ask the JobCentre to advertise for one, like I did when I was recruiting Robbie. I posted on my Instagram asking about it and got nothing beyond a few random likes – far fewer than when I posted pictures of Frazzle. Clearly, accumulating a following made up of cat lovers and foodies had been a major tactical error and I should have gone after the hardcore nerds who used hashtags like #pathfinder and #instarpg.
So every day, I moved the notification in my calendar a day forward, and every day nothing happened.
It didn’t help that work was crazy busy – it was half-term and the pub was packed with groups of mums (and sometimes dads) bringing their kids in for breakfast in the mornings before heading off to the park, the lunchtime regulars, and bigger throngs than usual in the evenings, because the weather was fine enough for us to set up a barbecue in the tiny beer garden. Robbie, wearing a stripy butcher’s apron and tall white chef’s hat, clearly thought he was the dog’s bollocks and wouldn’t let me have any say in his mysterious marinades, sauces and skewers, so I was stuck in the kitchen keeping the regular menu ticking over. I began to think that maybe it was time to employ another sous-chef, before I remembered that there was barely room for two of us in the Ginger Cat’s cramped galley kitchen.