Crow Stone. Jenni Mills

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      I feel guilty. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s lovely wine. It’s just that I don’t like getting drunk.’

      ‘On less than a bottle?’

      ‘My ex-husband was an alcoholic. Is an alcoholic, I mean. Leaving me didn’t cure him.’

      ‘Oh. Right.’ Gary ponders this, masticating the last mouthful of steak. He lays down his cutlery. ‘I’m divorced too.’

      Oh, no. I’ve let myself in for an evening of post-marital angst. The polite thing would be to ask him about it, but I can’t bear the thought of hearing how someone else screwed up. Luckily at this moment the waiter pays us his hourly visit. He has that obsequious look on his face that tells you he’s about to ask how we have enjoyed our meal.

      He doesn’t know what he’s got coming.

      ‘Waiter!’ I say, quite loudly, with as much outrage as I can muster at short notice.

      His head snaps up. His hand hovers uncertainly near my plate. ‘Madame?’

      I can’t stand pseudo-French waiters. Especially those who spend most of the evening ignoring you, then expect a giant tip because they remembered to ask you if everything was all right.

      ‘This wine’s terrible. It’s corked.’

      The waiter stares. He can’t believe I’ve just said that. The bottle is more than three-quarters empty. I watch confusion and suspicion dance backwards and forwards across his face. He’s wondering if he dares contradict me.

      ‘But, Madame, the bottle—’

      ‘My husband drank most of it. He’s got a palate slightly less sensitive than pre-cast concrete.’

      You can almost see Gary’s palate, his jaw has dropped so much.

      ‘I took my first mouthful just now,’ I go on, ‘and I can tell you this wine is definitely corked.’

      The waiter looks at my almost full glass. He’s certain I’m lying, but the restaurant’s dark, and he hasn’t been near enough to see me drinking. He looks at me. I see him weighing it up: Tip, no tip? It’s a dodgy moment. If he says he’ll get the manager, I’m stuffed. I try to hold his eyes, not my breath. ‘Would Madame like another bottle?’

      Phew.

      ‘No, thank you. I just expect not to be charged for this one.’

      ‘Of course, Madame.’ He picks up the bottle as gingerly as if it held liquid gelignite. As he walks away, I see him sniff it suspiciously.

      Gary almost has control over his jaw again. ‘What the fuck was that all about?’ He’s trying not to laugh, in case the waiter hears us, but I know it’s all right, he doesn’t mind me making him look like an idiot.

      ‘It’s a trick I learned from my ex-husband. How to drink in posh restaurants for free. It only works in the really snobby ones, where the customer is always right, and a fuss embarrasses them. Of course, Nick would have had the second bottle.’

      Gary is laughing openly now. ‘I really buggered things up, didn’t I? You didn’t like the wine and you don’t like the restaurant.’

      ‘I did like the wine. And the restaurant’s OK …’

      ‘Just pretentious?’

      ‘Yeah. Well. Sorry–is it your favourite?’

      ‘I’ve never been here in my life before. I usually stick to Pizza Express.’

      ‘You could have taken me there, you know.’

      ‘On company money?’

      ‘You’re right, we should sting the bastards. Anyway, we’ve saved them the price of a bottle of wine.’

      ‘Saved me the price. They’re Welsh Methodists–they have a policy you can’t claim expenses for alcoholic drinks.’

      ‘Thought so. You were taking it way too personally when I suggested letting the waiter finish it.’ I lean back in triumph. ‘Anyway, we’d better get the bill and go before he’s brave enough to get stuck into the remains of that bottle.’

      Gary leaves a generous tip, I notice. As he helps me into my coat, those long, sensitive fingers brush my shoulder then jump nervously away–a bit like this evening’s conversation. It hadn’t occurred to me before: why is the site foreman taking me out for dinner, and not the mine manager?

      He’s still laughing when he orders drinks at the hotel bar. ‘You’re not going to play the same trick here, are you? I don’t think my blood pressure can take it twice in one evening.’

      ‘Nick’s rule was never do it anywhere you wanted to go back to.’

      ‘He sounds like quite a character, your ex.’

      ‘Take it from me, he wasn’t.’

      Gary carries the drinks over to a table on the veranda, overlooking the weir. At least, I assume it overlooks the weir, because we can hear it, white noise in the background. The view must be lovely on summer evenings, but all that’s visible tonight is our own reflection in the window glass, Gary with his square, solid face, as full of dents and clefts in the lamplight as limestone, me with choppy hair that will never sit smooth however well it’s been cut, and a heart-shaped face too sharp to be pretty. I look a bit less sad tonight, but still tired and secretive. We could be a couple who have known each other so long we’ve run out of conversation, or two strangers too shy to know what to say to each other.

      ‘So what does he do, your ex?’

      ‘He was a journalist, of sorts. He could have been quite good, but he spent too much time in the bar.’

      ‘I thought that’s what journalists do–and still manage to write.’

      ‘Slurring doesn’t show up on a page. Nick was a broadcaster.’

      ‘Ah.’

      ‘He still does some freelancing, but mostly he sits in the pub he bought with the proceeds of selling my house, and drinks away the profits. Aberystwyth doesn’t have a lot of hard news.’

      Gary’s on fizzy water, I notice. He follows my eyes to the bottle, and shrugs. I’m on decaff. Nick would have been laying out the lines of cocaine by now. I live dangerously, and pop into my mouth the chocolate mint that comes with the coffee.

      ‘Do you have kids?’ asks Gary.

      ‘No, thank God. I’d probably not have had the nerve to throw Nick out if I had.’

      ‘I can’t believe that. You don’t exactly strike me as submissive.’

      ‘It’s different when you have children to think about. I couldn’t have done this job, for instance. We’d have been dependent on Nick. You got kids?’

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