The lunch review

"Oh, Tata darling, you are even more beautiful than ever," said Leonora as soon as they reached the Land Rover.

Tata preened herself and totally forgot that she had been fed up with Leonora earlier on. Maybe she could persuade her to just at least paddle in a river.

Leonard smiled too. Tata was the love of his life, and for all Leonora's faults, the fact that she adored his wonderful dog was a strong point in her favour.

"I had a shit lunch out yesterday," said Leonora out of nowhere.

"Oh," said Leonard, non-committally, wondering what on earth she was talking about, and then vaguely remembered she had mentioned something about it on the 'phone when he had rung yesterday to check everything was still on.

"Shit food, or service or what?" he added quickly so as not to miss out on the story.

"Shit company," she said. "The food was good. I just had to suffer Paul's company while I was eating it."

Leonard didn't know what to say. Leonora was volunteering information about her personal life. She never did that. And if he asked about it he always got a snotty put-down.

He went through the options quickly:

Say nothing and get accused of being disinterested.
Ask something and be accused of being over-nosy.
Say something vaguely related?

"Hey that reminds me. Remember when you first came down here - I promised to take you out for a vegetarian lunch? We never did get round to it - so I still owe you lunch. Can't guarantee the company will be much good though," he said.

Leonora laughed. "Anyone's company would be better than Paul's."

"Even mine?" asked Leonard.

"Even yours. He was just so awful, I knew it was a bad idea to accept."

Leonard decided to go for it. He took a deep breath.

"Don't give me half a story. What was wrong with him? And why did you accept if you knew it was a bad idea?" Leonard sat back and waited for the blasting.

"Well, he is conceited and supercilious and self-opinionated and selfish and boring," she said.

"And he insisted on sitting in a corner because he thought I was clumsy and he didn't want people to see me, and he was rude to the little crutches."

Leonard tried hard not to laugh. Fortunately Leonora was so busy thinking about horrid Paul that she didn't notice.

"I didn't plan to go either. He was meant to be coming up this week, so I was all ready to get out of it by telling him I was coming to stay with you, but then he moved his dates forward and I couldn't think of how to get out of that fast enough."

"Not like you," said Leonard, the words escaping from his mouth before he had chance to stop them.

"I know," she agreed sadly.

A dog's head suddenly thumped down on Leonora's shoulder, accompanied by a soft whine.

Leonora turned round to Tata. "Oh, sweetheart, it's so kind of you to be sympathetic."

Leonard was astounded. Leonora never spoke to him like that. He turned to look at her, and say something affectionate in return.

But as he opened his mouth, he saw the two of them lost to the rest of the world. Tata's huge eyes were gazing at Leonora, and Leonora was gently stroking Tata's head and giving her tiny scratches on her forehead.

Leonard gloomily turned back to the wheel, he should have known Leonora would never speak so nicely to him.

"Anyway," continued Leonora out of the blue, "I suppose there will be no more free lunches and no more shags out of him."

Why was Leonora telling him all this? The woman was trying to confuse him. It was years since she had been so open with him. Perhaps she was poorly. There had to be a reason for this sudden outburst. And why was she shagging men she didn't like?

"Why did you shag him if you didn't like him?" he asked, thinking this surely would get him the slap-down he had so far escaped.

"Oh, he didn't seem too bad before. Usual story as well, no commitment, not unattractive, just sort of available now and again. But I just went off him," she replied.

"Um," said Leonard. 'Hey Tata and I went caching before we came to the station. It's not far from here, so I thought I would show you the location."

"Don't you want to hear about my personal life?" asked Leonora.

"Yes. Don't you want to talk about geocaching?" asked Leonard.

"No. But we can go and have a look anyway. To be honest, geocaching is probably more interesting than Paul."

Leonard pulled up under the viaduct. And proudly pointed out where he had found the cache.



"You idiot," said Leonora. "You could have fallen with your bad leg."

"I did," he said. And gave her the story about slithering down the bank with Tata jumping over him.

"You are utterly and totally mad," she said. "But not quite as boring as Paul." And she kissed him gently on the cheek.

"Ruff," interrupted Tata. "Ruff ruff ruff."

"Of course Tata. Get out of the way Leonard. We don't need you in the photo. Just stay there in the middle of the road Tata," said Leonora.

Tata stood. And gazed soulfully at the camera.