Homeward Bound

Homeward Bound Chapter 21

The mostly black procession gathered into the Brown Cow as they seated themselves around the tables. I ended up on a table with mum, Helen, Uncle Frank and Lizzie. Lizzie was without said child as it seemed that Theo had taken the child duties for now. I was rather happy with the seating arrangement as it meant that I didn't have to cope with Uncle Archie and his poor career making rude comments about dad. Aunt Izzie had the poor misfortune of sharing a table with Uncle Archie. She looked like she had sucked on a lemon.

'Feel free to help yourself to food and drink,' David assured us. 'Mind you, only tea or coffee.'

He had donned a suit and tie for this occasion and had slicked his hair back, looking every inch the dapper flirt that Helen accused him to be.

'Where's the whiskey,' Uncle Archie complained, rather loudly.

'Really now, we do not need uncouth drunks,' Aunt Izzie sniffed, just as loudly, as if she had smelled something rather bad. 'I'm only here to inspect the food, as Gwen is always on about this place, like it's her second home.'

I untucked my chair before standing up. The attendees watched me like a hawk as I grabbed a plate and began to pile it with finger sandwiches and little sausage rolls. This caused a wave of people who had decided to follow my example, as chatter broke out amongst everybody, mostly getting on better than I could have hoped for.

'Cara! It is lovely to see you again,' Matthew accosted me, as I tried to weave my way through the tables.

Err, not so lovely to see you again, I thought, taking him in. He had dressed in a terrible tweed suit which looked to be older than him. The simmering attraction that had been there at first had now flattened out like a wet bit of fish since our date out, not to be repeated I hoped.

'You to,' I lied, but put on a smile that would suggest otherwise.

'You look lovely in that dress,' Matthew exclaimed, looking me up and down in my navy creation.

'Thank you.'

'You don't happen to have any other dresses that are panelled.' He quired, which had my concern raising, as this wasn't a panelled frontage dress and why should he be asking anyway. It made me think rather carefully here, as I took in the way that he shifted his weight around like he could be nervous about something.

'Why do you ask? I mean, that's an unusual question to ask any woman?' I remarked.

'Just wondering if you liked those sorts of things,' He dismissed me like it wasn't a big deal, when it obviously was, before leaving me standing there looking slightly gobsmacked. Did he know about the dress? Had he seen me leaving the thrift shop and see what I had got? That didn't explain why he was asking about that sort of dresses. It was really bizarre.

I finally reached our table to see that Uncle Frank had left to talk to Charlie Graves who had decided to stay for the wake and that Gideon had replaced him. Gideon was sat with the littlest O'Malley, Robin on his lap. Theo had obviously got fed up with lugging him around and had passed him on to Gideon.

Gideon had ditched his suit jacket as soon as possible, had rolled up his sleeves and had opened some of the shirt buttons around his neck. A very good looking neck and arms, I thought, as I sat myself in the seat next to Gideon.

Robin was babbling with anger, refusing as Gideon tried to feed him a broken scone from his plate.

'Here comes the plane.' Gideon spoke, as he made aeroplane noises trying to entice Robin to eat it. Robin shook his head and pouted. Gideon sighed and tried again to not much success. 'How about a piece of cake?' Gideon asked, holding up the fruit cake off his own plate. Robin shook his head. 'Not even a sausage,' Gideon tried again presenting the mini sausage at Robin. This still did not entice Robin.