Dan Taylor Is Giving Up On Women. Neal Doran
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Niamh, on cue.
‘Dan here has a theory about the specials in restaurants. Actually, it’s more a belief system than just a theory.’
‘I just prefer to eat something the person who’s made it has practised,’ I said, turning to Niamh. ‘Firstly, they’re probably last week’s leftovers, and secondly, I don’t think there’s anywhere in life where you want to be paying for something that the guy making it is thinking, “Well, I’ve never tried this before…”’
‘See, I like the idea of something that’s caught the chef’s imagination on that day,’ said Rob. ‘Something spontaneous, passionate, and seasonal or freshly caught.’
‘You’ve seen the chef at the Queen’s Head where we get lunch? Anything he’s just caught is likely to require a visit to a specialist clinic.’
‘He’s a creative — you’ve got to cut him some slack. Specials are the rock bed of a good gastro-pub.’
‘Yeah, but at the Queen’s Head the missing letters after “gastro” are “-enteritis”.’
‘So why do you keep going?’ Niamh chipped in.
Rob gave her his best ‘what are you, new?’ look.
‘We totally own the quiz machine in there. Get this fellow on a good run on TV and movies and lunch practically pays for itself. Including the Gaviscon you need from Boots after.’
‘What I can’t stand is when they read the specials out to you,’ she continued. ‘What are you supposed to do while that’s happening?’
‘Exactly!’ I jumped in. ‘I never hear what the waitress is saying, I’m just working out when to nod and go “mmm”. I’m only listening out for them to say “pan-fried”, or “jus”.’
‘I like to react to finding out the soup of the day like it’s a whodunit,’ she replied, her eyes sparkling. Although that might have been the candles reflecting off her trendy glasses. ‘Of course! It’s the carrot! With the coriander! And there was me thinking it was going to be the leek and potato…’
I looked across and smiled at Niamh, who smiled back warmly. I felt as if we were both relieved that the evening might be levelling off after a bumpy take-off.
Hannah came into the room, rattling slightly as she handed out cool mismatched seventies side plates loaded with starters. ‘This looks fantastic,’ I said as Rob topped up everybody’s glasses. ‘You simply must give me the recipe. Or at least the directions to the shop where you bought it all.’
I got a playful cuff around the head from Hannah for that. ‘Watch it or I’ll sneeze on your falafel,’ she said.
‘FAR-LAFF-ELL,’ intoned Rob, while nobody paid him much attention and everyone dived in to the food.
‘The stuffed vine leaves are delicious,’ said Niamh. ‘I can still never quite believe that you make your own dolmades.’
Cued up like that, all of us except Hannah joined together in declaring, ‘DOLL-MAH-DESSS’. Any lingering tension was finally gone. We all chatted happily over the mezze starter, with the names of various items around the table deemed worthy of exaggerated repetition, stretching far beyond Middle Eastern and Mediterranean foodstuffs.
It was when we were all laughing over Niamh and I simultaneously shouting ‘NAP-KINS’ that I sat bolt upright in shock as I felt an unshod foot sliding itself up my right calf. It was the shock that caused me to swallow suddenly the unstoned olive I had just flipped casually into my gob, and which lodged itself firmly in what is known as ‘the wrong way’.
I started to heave and panic as I realised I couldn’t breathe, and pushed myself back from the table. The ‘ack-ack’ noises I was making first prompted giggling from those around me, but as I fumbled and grabbed at my neck I saw the smiles drop and mouths fall open in surprise.
‘Dan, are you OK?’ Hannah’s voice had an edge of panic too.
Stupidly trying to answer made me panic more. I tried to get to my feet, but instantly buckled under my weight and fell to the floor. I felt as if I was beginning to lose consciousness, my mind racing for ways to tell them I needed help.
The last thing I remember is realising that the seductive foot had been on my right calf, the wrong side of the table for it to have been Niamh’s. I couldn’t believe that that bastard Rob was going to kill me with a wind-up.
Chapter Four
It was Sunday morning in the gym, crowded with the usual influx of fair-weather members. People still in that burst of New Year enthusiasm and all convinced that this was the year they really would get in shape. People like me. With the loud dance music and rhythmically clanking machinery it felt like a cross between a nightclub and a Victorian textile mill, and about as much fun as either.
As I walked between the aisles of whirring treadmills, and pumping step machines, I saw that Rob was already in place, over by the weights apparatus, finishing a series of reps on the lats machine. He was slyly adding twenty kilos to the weight as he left it for the next guy to use.
‘Sport! You made it alive and in one piece,’ he said in greeting as I found a free spot on a chest press.
‘I’ve been eating nothing but soup since Friday,’ I said, ‘which is a strange thing to have for Sunday breakfast.’
As you might have gathered, I didn’t die on Friday night. Some quick thinking from Rob cleared the Mediterranean blockage, but I still hadn’t quite forgiven him yet for causing me to choke in the first place. After I’d got back on my feet I’d made my excuses and a pretty quick exit before I nearly died again of humiliation. I’d hidden myself away since then, but after I received the text from Rob, all but daring me to chicken out of our planned fitness drive, I decided it was time to face the — annoyingly high-NRG — music.
‘So have you two heard from Niamh at all since I, y’know…?’
‘Since I saved your life, do you mean?’ asked Rob.
I let the press’s weights clang back into place as I finished my reps and swapped over with Rob, who watched and waited as a young blonde, glimmering from a spin class, walked past chugging greedily on a water bottle.
‘I mean, since I had a little embarrassing difficulty with a morsel of food,’ I said.
‘You make it sound like you had a bit of spinach in your teeth — that’s gratitude.’
‘Anything at all from her?’ I asked, doing my best not to get involved in the argument over heroics.
‘She left straight after you. Yesterday she may have phoned and spoken to H. There may have been some questions as to the state of your health after your NEAR DEATH experience. And there may have been some sniggering after that.’
‘The evening didn’t go too well, I guess.’
‘Oh, you didn’t think so?’
‘It was just as we were starting to click,’ I offered hopefully.
‘Pal, it was brutal in there. When you collapsed I seriously had to consider whether it would’ve been kindest to let you slip away peacefully.’
‘You know how I am,’ I said. ‘It takes a while for me to get relaxed around new people. But I thought she was beginning to see the real me.’
‘Oh, really? The “real you”? Is that the “you” I had to straddle from behind and Heimlich around the living-room floor?’
‘We both did that thing with napkins at the same time,’ I continued, ignoring the flashback Rob’s reminder had caused.
‘Or maybe it was “the real you” that fainted after that.’
‘I thought the way she smiled at me then showed that