Sushi for Beginners - Marian Keyes [191]
Lisa was already breathless, even before she ran into the arrivals hall. Although the monitor said that Oliver’s flight had landed there was no sign of him, so she stood at the meeting point, trained her eyes on the double glass doors and waited. Her heart was pounding and her tongue kept sticking to the roof of her cotton-wool mouth. She waited some more. People appeared in regular spurts, traipsing self-consciously through those who were waiting, but no sign of Oliver. After a while she jumpily rang home to check that he hadn’t left a message saying he was delayed, but there was nothing.
She was almost convinced that he wasn’t coming when finally she saw him moving gracefully towards the glass doors. Her head went light and the ground see-sawed slightly. He was all in black. A long-line black leather jacket over a black polo neck and lean black pants. Then he saw her and smiled his thousand-yard smile. The only man-made object they could see from space, she used to say to him in another life.
She rushed forward. ‘I’d almost given up on you.’
‘Sorry, babes,’ his lips curved around his shockingly white teeth, ‘but I was stopped by Immigration. Only person on the whole plane to be.’ He put his hand on his hip and said with exaggerated curiosity, ‘Now, I wonder why that was.’
‘Bastards!’
‘Yeah, just couldn’t seem to convince them I was a British citizen. Despite having a British passport.’
She clucked with concern. ‘Are you upset?’
‘Nah, I’m used to it. The same thing happened the last time I visited here. You look great, babes.’
‘So do you.’
Kathy was just finishing a mighty clean-up when Liam dropped them home. She tried to slip away discreetly but Lisa stopped her.
‘Oliver, this is Kathy, she lives across the road. And Kathy, this is Oliver, my hus – friend.’
‘How do you do,’ Kathy said, wondering what a husfriend was. Perhaps it was something like a gal pal.
When Kathy left, they lapsed into extra-nice, super-jovial awkwardness – although they were well disposed to each other, there was no doubt but that this was a very strange situation with no clear code of behaviour. Oliver over-enthusiastically admired the house and Lisa grandiosely outlined her plans, with specific reference to a wooden blind.
Eventually they both calmed down and began behaving more normally. ‘We should get started, babes,’ Oliver said, and unloaded from his bag something that, for a heartbeat, she thought was a present for her, then realized was a box-file of documents: deeds, bank accounts, credit-card statements, mortgage bumpf. He put on a pair of silver-framed glasses and, though he looked deliciously professional, all her fluttery, nervy, girly anticipation abruptly vanished. What was she thinking of? This wasn’t a date, this was a meeting about their divorce.
Her spirits suddenly slithered to the bottom of the pole. Heavily, she took a seat at the kitchen table and set about the severing of their two financial lives, in order to restore them, functioning and complete, to their single status. It was as delicate and complicated a process as separating Siamese twins.
Playing paperchase with bank accounts that went back five years, they tried to list all the different payments they’d both made on their flat. Between deposits and endowment policies and solicitor’s fees, the two distinct strands were regularly obscured.
A couple of times it got jagged and ugly, as things often do over money. Lisa insisted quite forcibly that she’d paid all the solicitor’s fees, but Oliver was certain that he too had contributed.
‘Look here,’ he rustled and located a stiff-paged invoice from their solicitor, ‘a bill for five hundred and twelve pounds, sixteen pence. And here,’ he jabbed at his bank statement, ‘a cheque for five hundred and twelve pounds, sixteen pence, issued three weeks later. A coincidence? I don’t think so!’
‘Show me that!’ She examined them both, then muttered, ‘Sorry.’
The doorbell rang and Francine waltzed in. ‘Hiya Leeeeesa. Er, hiya,’ she nodded at Oliver, shyness