Carli Ratcliff
They’d had a few stilted dinners, the food always good and the conversation limited to the weather, the state of the economy, or his business interests. Determined to persevere she continued to make reservations and extend invitations.
He never declined and he never enthusiastically embraced.
For this attempt she booked a table at a restaurant halfway between each house. Neutral. Dad-friendly—classic, hearty dishes in a non-confronting space. Never too trendy, nothing spicy, no Thai or Indian, pedestrian being his favoured mode of dining.
A few years earlier at a rare family dinner, when the arguing and asides became too much to bear she suggested family counselling. The table erupted with laughter.
Dinner for two was her attempt at forging a relationship with him. They both had to eat; they had that much in common. Her last attempt failed. She’d phoned and invited him for fish and chips at the beach near her place. She knew he would be driving past after work. He agreed but never arrived. She called to see if he was still coming, he offered no apology, just: ‘I forgot, drove right past.’
Surely this time he wouldn’t forget.
She arrives early, knowing he hates tardiness. On more than one occasion he had thrown a tantrum in response to his offspring’s lack of punctuality. She remembers her sister’s sixteenth birthday at a fancy Italian restaurant; she was late, couldn’t find the building, he yelled at her as she approached the table and didn’t utter a word for the entire meal. He reprised the performance for her eighteenth birthday—the restaurant was too ‘swish’ so he brooded his way through dinner without saying a word.
He would rather sit in silence than converse with his three daughters and their mother. They always tried to include him in conversations and in decisions that required thoughtful consideration but he would remain mute, or worse, grunt.
He’d dined alone every night of their childhood; he chose to arrive home after the family’s dinner, and seemed comfortable dining by himself. She wasn’t comfortable sitting alone at the table; she did everything with other people, her friends, sisters, or her mum. She didn’t dine alone, at least not in restaurants. He is now fifteen minutes late.
The waitress comes to the table and delivers the menu. She is friendly, a natural beauty in her early fifties with silky pale hair and alpine tanned skin who looks as though she may have once starred in a Norsca commercial. The daughter looks over the menu: asparagus with poached egg, she loves poached eggs and despite numerous attempts with whirlpools in both directions she can’t master them, she’ll start with that.
He will order the veal tournedos, it won’t bother him that the veal was torn from its mother merely minutes old, it tastes great. She had been a vegetarian for twenty years and he still took every meal together as an opportunity to mock her.
Under the main courses she spots fettuccini with truffles. It’s contrary to her no-carbs-after-five rule but it’s not every day you see truffle fettuccini on a menu. He will order the suckling pig, in all its meaty glory, and won’t think twice about offending her.
The dessert menu lists chocolate fondant. She is hoping it’s a fancy name for self-saucing chocolate pudding, the one and only dessert her mother made. She orders it whenever she sees it on a menu.
Twenty minutes have passed, which means he is not coming. She considers calling him.
The waitress returns to the table. She hasn’t hovered unnecessarily which means the daughter is not nearly as self-conscious as she would otherwise have been, waiting alone for twenty minutes. The two fortifying gin and tonics have helped matters.
She orders her egg and truffles and quietly explains, ‘I am not sure if my guest is coming so it may just be me.’
The waitress smiles and says in her Nordic accent, ‘I’ll leave the place set, just in case.’
The asparagus arrives with a perfect teardrop perched on top. The tables around her are filled with chatting families and couples, but she is happy with her egg. Her pasta is earthy and luxurious and she gives it most of her attention. She has accepted he is not coming and that he won’t call. He’s not delayed, he has forgotten.
Happily, the waitress hasn’t mentioned her non-existent dining partner again, even when she delivers the dessert menu. Without opening it the daughter asks, ‘Could you describe the chocolate fondant please?’
The waitress explains. ‘It’s a warm, gooey chocolate pudding with vanilla ice-cream, it’s very good.’
‘It sounds good; I will have the pudding and the bill when you get a moment.’ The restaurant is full and while she has not been as self-conscious as she thought she might, she’ll be ready to leave once the pudding is gone.
The pudding does remind her of her mother’s. The last time she’d made it for her was on the eve of her first overseas backpacking adventure, a sweet bon voyage. Her father’s bon voyage was anything but sweet. As she tearily wandered the concourse with her mother reconsidering her decision to spend a year away, he came striding towards them red-faced and bellowing. ‘Get a move on! Your flight is boarding!’ were his parting words to her, sealed with a steely kiss on the cheek.
Opening her wallet at the table she sees a gold American Express card. He had given it to her years before as a safety net. Gold credit card and a backpack, he didn’t see the irony. She had never used it.
As the waitress delivers the bill and clears the pudding plate, she asks, ‘Can I ask who you were waiting for?’
‘My father,’ she answers. ‘Do you take Amex?’