Free Don't Marry Thomas Clark by Celia Hayes

gritted teeth. ‘Shut up!’

Chapter 6
    â€˜Are those steaks ready?’
    â€˜Just a couple of minutes,’ answers a croaking voice from the kitchen. My father sighs disappointedly and turns again to the bread basket in search of a breadstick.
    â€˜How long does it take them to cook a bloody piece of meat?’ he moans, avoiding my eyes.
    â€˜Here we go again,’ I complain, rolling my eyes. ‘Why the hell do we keep coming to Luke’s? It takes them at least half an hour just to take our orders, the potatoes are frozen and the meat is always either rare or overcooked,’ I say, with a sarcastic snort.
    â€˜Because it’s so close to the office. If anything were to happen, I could nip back there in no time,’ he answers with a serious expression.
    â€˜What would happen?’ I explode, throwing out my arms theatrically. ‘You work in a print shop, not a hospital! The only emergency I can remember there ever being is last year, when Rod accidentally bashed his finger with the hammer while he was hanging up the calendar in the boss’s office.
    â€˜You…’ he points at me an accusatory index. ‘You should have more respect for other people, kiddo!’
    â€˜I have plenty of respect for other people, daddy dearest – it’s Luke’s steaks I don’t have much time for.’
    As I say these words, a huge slab of burned fillet lands on my plate with a dull thud, followed soon after by a shower of gelatinous mashed potatoes.
    â€˜Thanks a lot, Beatty,’ I mumble, staring at the charred corpse.
    The waitress moves on to my father, sticks a fork in his order and serves it in the same gracious manner.
    â€˜How long will you be in Cork for?’ he asks when we’re alone, before swallowing some grilled zucchini.
    â€˜I’m not sure,’ I answer as I cut my meat. ‘I have a meeting in town on Friday.’
    â€˜About the bistro?’ he asks, passing me the salt.
    â€˜No, unfortunately. I’ve lost all hope as far as that goes. I’ve been calling the bank for two days now, but they won’t give me the loan.’
    â€˜I wish we could help you, you know,’ he says sorrowfully, ‘but I’ve already taken out a mortgage on the house. I had to when we did up the attic for your grandma. We couldn’t keep putting it off. The roof was about to collapse and the plumbing was on the verge of packing in completely.’
    â€˜I know, don’t worry,’ I reassure him. ‘We’ll find a way.’
    It’s not that easy: Kelly quit her job and went back to her parents’. I’m doing an internship in a Vodafone call centre, and my salary is about eight hundred pounds a month. If we put all our savings together, we might just be able to afford a few ethnic-looking coconut ashtrays and a couple of notebooks to take the orders.
    Things are worse than I’m letting on, but I can’t dump it all onto my dad. I just can’t. He’s already worried enough about my future – I don’t want to make him even more anxious. I haven’t even told him about the deposit. If he found out we’d lost twenty thousand pounds, he’d have a heart attack.
    â€˜You could stay in Cork,’ he suggests in a casual tone, while biting into a potato.
    â€˜And do what?’ I ask in alarm. ‘Please don’t start going on about doing an apprenticeship at the print shop again.’
    â€˜And why not, what’s wrong with it? Better than working part-time in a call centre and living in a bedsit in the godforsaken outskirts of London and always being broke.’
    â€˜Dad, we’ve already talked about this…’
    â€˜OK, then,’ he says, holding up his hands in surrender and then opening a bottle of water. ‘So what is it you’ve got to do on Friday?’
    â€˜You’re right, I haven’t told you yet. Do you remember Sir Roger Aaron