Family Meal

'Your father is leaving me' she says ' but we're both sitting here
drinking tea together. It's very civilised.' This is on the phone so I
have to get out of the bath and make my way over there on the bus. She
sounded tearful, calm and slightly hysterical all within the space of a
few minutes. My father was in the background drinking tea. They were
waiting for us, my sister and brother were on there way over and there
was wine in the fridge. My Mother mentioned champagne but then
dismissed the idea as unsuitable.

I arrived and they were all there. The kitchen seemed very small and
everyone kept saying how hot it was. My brother said he wouldn't stay.
My sister said 'she's not a German' my Father nodded in agreement, 'No
she's right, she's not.' My mother starts giggling and my sister joins
in. 'She's not a German' my father says again. My sister looks up at me
and says 'Ask what her name is' I ask and my Dad says 'Hilke'. My
mother and sister laugh and my dad says 'She's not - she's a
naturalised American.' I ask where she's naturalised from he says
'Germany'. I sit down and drink a glass of wine.

My brother goes to leave. He says he loves them both but he can't stay
and he'll be back. My mother starts to cry and he puts her arms around
her. She cries harder and he rests his chin on the top of her head. He
hands her to my sister and goes to say goodbye to dad. We go back into
the kitchen and he looks wild-eyed, his hair is sticking up at the
back.

My mother has another glass of wine and says that she wants to go out
for dinner. It's hot in the kitchen and cramped and for some reason no
one suggests going upstairs to the sitting room. She keeps saying she's
hungry and dad keeps saying lets go to Pizza Express but my sister and
I keep saying wait as it feels a bit weird and I'm not sure that my
mother won't get drunk and start telling all the waiters that her
husband is leaving her. She doesn't want us to leave but she won't stop
going on about being hungry so in the end she rings up their local
restaurant and books a table.

They know the man that owns the restaurant , his son used to go to
school with my brother and so I really am worried that she's going to
tell them all. It feels odd with my brother not there but we go in and
sit at our table. All the waiters are pleased to see us and kiss my
mother and shake my father's hand.

The owner arrives and says hello and points out his daughter sitting at
another table. She is very beautiful with long dark hair and a very
good looking boy friend, my sister and I keep looking at her and
feeling old and stout and not at all glamorous.

We eat and drink nice wine and say what we always say about the food
being so good here and how it's always full and the menu never changes
as it doesn't change with fashion but just keeps on going as a good old
fashioned Italian restaurant. And then my father does what he always
does and orders a bottle of wine that costs forty-five pounds and then
when we order the bill he can't believe how much the wine costs. We're
laughing a lot and telling stories but there's a note of panic behind
everything and my sister keeps looking at me with very wide eyes.

I'm going on holiday the next day but my sister says she'll come and
stay with my mum and they'll go to the cinema together as my father is
going to have moved out and be living in Suffolk on his own. He listens
and then says 'Maybe I'll go to the cinema on Sunday too, I don't know
what's on but I could find out' and it makes me feel like crying as he
wants to be part of everything but he can't be because he's leaving
her.