Barefoot in the Dark by Lynne Barrett-Lee Page A

Shania Twain came on. Perhaps an evening class in Bikram Yoga, which Patti had suggested, wasn’t so way off-beam after all. At least there’d be the benefit of spiritual replenishment while he ogled the flesh on display.
    But now it had happened. He had met someone with whom it was not wholly unrealistic to suppose he might be able to have sex. She might not be exactly the siren of his dreams, but when he recalled the way her breasts sat so unassumingly in her dress-thing, he decided that he hadn’t the least reservation about inventing a new category specifically for her. And he still had her trainer, so he had a reason to phone her.
    ‘Did you get back all right?’ he asked her now.
    ‘I seem to have done,’ she said jauntily. ‘Didn’t lose any footwear, at least.’
    ‘But I still have your trainer.’
    ‘Indeed you do,’ she answered. ‘And a bottle of champagne, for that matter. I meant to mention it over lunch, but I completely forgot.’
    ‘So I should get them to you, perhaps.’
    ‘The trainer would certainly be helpful. I don’t know why I didn’t think to ask for it when I came on your radio show. Just – poof! – went straight out of my head.’
    ‘I know what you mean. It can be nerve-racking, the first time.’ Why had he said that? In that way? He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway.’
    ‘Anyway.’
    ‘Anyway, I was thinking.’
    ‘And what were you thinking?’
    ‘I was thinking that I owe you a meal.’
    This was entirely true. There had been a bit of a tussle over the lunch bill. She had upped and paid it while he’d been in the men’s room, leaving him with little choice but to tick her off politely and accept defeat. Now he waited.
    ‘No, really,’ she said. ‘Please don’t worry about that.’
    She wasn’t supposed to say that. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘No. What I mean is, that I’d like to take you out to dinner. I’ve bent a few ears here, and we’ve lots to discuss. About your fun run.’
    ‘We do? That’s marvellous! It’s looking hopeful, then, is it?’
    Yes, Jack decided. It’s looking very hopeful. Looking very hopeful indeed.
    When he got home from work Ollie was already there, installed in front of his computer and playing something that seemed to involve the random slaughter of a lot of multi-horned beasts. He looked like he’d been there some time. He looked, moreover, like he’d be there some time. An open carton of orange juice was stationed beside him, with a half-empty pint glass parked alongside. Jack peered over his fourteen year old son’s newly shorn head and tried to make sense of the row of icons at the top of the screen. He ruffled Ollie’s scalp. It was warm and hedgehoggy. He always used to be the one who took Ollie for haircuts. But no more. He wished he still did.
    ‘Hello,’ he said cheerfully, because despite that small caveat, he felt very cheerful. ‘How was school? Did you have a good day?’
    Ollie killed something, and glanced up only very briefly, as if busy piloting a jumbo jet through a storm.
    ‘Mmm,’ he said.
    ‘Any homework?’
    ‘Dunno.’
    Jack picked up the juice carton and closed the flap at the top. ‘I thought we might go out for supper this evening.’
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘You know. For a pizza or something. Or the Hard Rock, maybe. What do you think?’
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘About supper. We could get a take-away in, but I thought perhaps it would be nice if –’ The speaker interrupted with a violent squawk. ‘Ollie?’
    Ollie’s head snapped round. ‘ What? ’
    ‘Supper. I thought we might –’
    ‘Look, Dad. Could you, like, you know, hang on a minute?’ He gestured to the screen. Skeletons and Viking-things were loping around a cluster of huts in a clearing.
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Because I’m, like, in the middle of something?’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘And it’s, like, a pretty crucial bit?’
    ‘Oh.’ Jack pointed at one of the skeletons. It had an oscillating red halo thing round it. And cross hairs. And a long