Doctor Who_ Beyond the Sun - Matthew Jones [13]
Tonight, they ate in a quiet restaurant away from the town centre where the students partied away every evening. Bernice rarely ventured into the cobbled streets of the old town, a small group of stone buildings which cluttered up the hillside behind the student village. If the camp site was the students’ territory, the old town belonged to the academic staff. Despite the horrendous food, Bernice preferred to eat with Tameka and Emile in the cheap cafeterias in the student village
– just as she slept in a ridge tent rather than in one of the small hotels in which most of the tutors stayed. It was a token gesture of equality, but one she rather suspected her two students were secretly terribly pleased about.
Bernice had eaten at this restaurant only once before: a dull evening spent listening to a couple of professors enviously criticizing the work of their more productive colleagues. She had selected it tonight in order to keep her discussion with Jason private, and, if she were completely honest, to give her the opportunity to scream and shout at him without it becoming the subject of student gossip the next day. As they took their seats at a table in a small covered courtyard built on to the main restaurant building, Bernice began to regret the decision. She would much rather have faced Jason on her own territory, somewhere familiar, where she felt that she had the advantage.
Christ! When had she started treating their relationship as a battle of wits? She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to relax, but with little success. The drumming of the rain on the glass roof of the conservatory only echoed her dark mood.
Jason wasn’t helping. He was chatting amiably with the owner, a small grey-speckled reptilian creature who was giving him an animated description of the day’s specials. Jason had a curious ability to get on with anyone, anywhere. It was as if he just assumed that he would be liked and welcome wherever he went. It was an act, of course. She’d never met a man so insecure, so haunted by feelings of complete unworthiness. But she couldn’t help envying him the ability to put up such a useful façade.
The waiter left them alone with a bottle of wine and some small pastries. Their eyes met and Jason shifted uneasily. ‘You’re looking really well, Benny.’
She knew that tone: he wanted something. She’d been expecting as much, but she was still surprised by how deflated she felt by the realization that he hadn’t come to beg her forgiveness, declare what a mistake the divorce was, or, at the very least, apologize.
She leant forward and poked him with her dessert spoon. ‘If you try and pretend that this is a social visit, husband, it will be very grim. Trust me on this. Just ask me what you want, allow me to refuse triumphantly and then we can get on with the rest of the evening. All right?’ The last words came out more sharply than she had intended. Bernice was a little shocked by just how irritated Jason made her feel. She took a deep breath. They were inches away from a blazing row.
He flinched from her anger. ‘I . . . oh, never mind.’
The first course arrived. They sat in embarrassed silence as the waiter arranged the food on the table, smiling curtly when he was done. Bernice picked at her food, barely tasting it. She was annoyed that she could still be so affected by Jason’s presence. She’d been kidding herself that she was over him and their short marriage. She remembered watching him walk away from the divorce ceremony, shoulders hunched, leaning forward. She’d thought then that she was never going to see him again. She’d thought that she never wanted to. She’d been very wrong on both counts.
He hadn’t changed much in the months since then. His hair was a little longer: the dirty blond locks now hung down over his eyes, forcing him to brush it back