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“He needs a new dining table though,” Nanny Barb’s replying, though at a quieter volume. Which means she has to add, “Del, tell her he needs a new dining table.”
“Your mum says he needs a new dining table,” bellows Del, sticking his head through the door.
“I know.” Wendy’s voice somehow seems to be getting louder as she’s getting further away. “Les, do we still have that old one in our garage?”
Les, who isn’t a shouter but who can make himself heard if he has to, goes all the way through to the other room before replying. “We have but it’ll not seat thirteen.”
“What was that?” asks Barb, who’s still inspecting Jonathan’s kitchen with the air of a woman who thinks using an electric kettle is cheating.
“He says they’ve got one but it’ll not seat thirteen,” Del relays to her.
She asks how many it does seat, and Del sends that back up the chain.
“Eight,” Wendy calls through.
“It’s six, love,” Les corrects her.
“It’s eight if you pull the flaps out.”
“How many?” asks Nanny Barb again.
Del has wandered back into the middle of the first reception room by this point. “Eight,” he says, “if you pull the flaps out.”
And this, at last, rouses Jonathan from his study and he emerges with Gollum slinking treacherously behind him. “Can you please stop shouting about flaps while I’m trying to work.” He glances at the assembled mob. “What are you even doing here?”
Wendy returns through from the third reception room like the prodigal mum. “Well, now you and Sam are hosting Christmas—”
“There’s no me and Sam,” snarls Jonathan.
Nanny Barb has joined us too, having completed her kitchen inventory. “Ohwhatis helike. You’d think it was still nineteen sixty-seven.”
“We’re not a couple, Nan, and even if we were I’m sure Sam has his own family he’d rather be with.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say quickly, “I’ve got amnesia.”
I don’t like lying to them, but I don’t know what else to say.
“He’s never,” declares Del, looking impressed.
Wendy looks more concerned. “You don’t remember anything?”
“Bits.” I’m already wishing I hadn’t started this. “I know who I am and how to do stuff and stuff, but there’s a lot of blanks still.”
They’re crowding me now, and Jonathan steps forward almost protective like. “The doctors say his memory will come back on its own eventually. Until then the best we can do is give himspace.”
They back off. But not before Nanny Barb has patted me firmly in the small of the back—that being what she can reach—and told me I’m welcome to spend Christmas with them.
“It will make us thirteen, however,” Auntie Jack points out. “Not that I’m personally superstitious.”
“It’s fine.” Wendy doesn’t look like she thinks it’s fine at all. “One of us can just stand up all day.”
“I think standing up still counts.” Something tells me Auntie Jack was enjoying this a bit too much.
Growing increasingly agitated Wendy turns to Nanny Barb. “What if you brung somebody from Bingo?”
“I’ll ask Mavis.”
Del looks aghast. “You will not bloody ask Mavis.”
