Dinner with Faye and Brianna

“I hope this is acceptable?” Faye asks you as she places a shop bought lasagne on the table.

“That looks lovely,” you respond. What else were you going to say?

Brianna giggles to herself. “Aunt Faye’s not the greatest cook. We do tend to rely on frozen meals.”

Faye gives her a dead eye before turning her smile to you. “Unfortunately, I don’t have the advantage of employing a home help, like her mother.”

“That’s normal in Abu Dhabi.”

“Indeed. But not in this country.”

“This is more than fine.”

Faye dishes out the meal, served with some peas and greens. It’s a standard frozen lasagne. It’s the company that makes the meal worth it. Brianna struggles using one hand. Her aunt helps her chop up the lasagne, and then Brianna’s **** to shovel it in with the one hand. Faye has opened a bottle of red, and she serves a glass each.

“Wow, this is better than I deserve.”

“No, it isn’t. It just complements cheap lasagne. One advantage of my job is knowing where to get cheap quality wine and knowing what complements what.”

You turn the conversation to Faye’s job. She’s in corporate entertainment, in particular organising corporate jaunts, training weekends and corporate parties. All her clients are in London, but she doesn’t have to go there often. Most of her work is online. About once a month it takes her away from town, as she’s **** to oversee the events in person. Summer tends to be her quiet season. Christmas is when she’s often away.

“You leave Brianna alone all weekend?” you ask, partly in jest.

“She’s 18. And I trust her not to get into too much trouble.” Brianna blushes to her aunt’s mocking. “She hasn’t proven me wrong, so far. And if her father wants me to keep a tighter rein on her, then he shouldn’t have sent her to me anyway. There’s plenty of boarding schools he could have sent her to, but he liked the sound of St Perpetua’s because it was cheaper, mainly he could bunk her with me.”

“You’re not from here, though, are you?”

“No, no. Only moved here because my job doesn’t require me to be anywhere in particular, and I can afford here. This town is remarkably cheap for everything it does offer, including being convenient for everywhere I need to go. Train station to London. Decent shopping centre. Urban enough that no delivery company objects to delivering here. I mean I wouldn’t’ say it’s great, there’s a general rundown air about the place, and the politics is positively Edwardian, sometimes I think the same people have been running the town since the war. Close. Not the same people. Just the same families. Most haven’t entered the 20th Century, let alone the 21st.

You have to agree. You hadn’t realised how backward your hometown was until you’d gone to university and seen how the rest of the country lived. It was one of the reasons why you’d never returned until now. Yes, on the outside there was a veneer of modernity, the shops are modern, fast broadband, all the main phone operators have strong signals. Yet, that can’t shake the strong sense of antiquity. Beneath the veneer there is a historicity that permeates every activity.

Faye as an outsider sees it. All the outsiders you’ve met see it; Abigail, Krystal, Blair, even Anissa, although Anissa comes from a similar town just in a different country.

Your thoughts are broken by a dig from Brianna on her aunt.

“Well, if you think they should change, run for the council, like you keep threatening.”

You look at Faye quizzically. “I’ve considered it,” Faye admits to your look. “I was political back at university, was in the student council, joined the local party. I gave it up when I started work. Don’t have the time.”

“You have the time, Auntie.”

The conversation turns to political views. Not a great topic, but you let it slide being apolitical yourself. You like Faye’s passion. Passion makes her animated. Animation adds to her appeal.

The political discussion finishes when ice-cream is served as dessert. Faye deliberately moves the conversation to Brianna’s education. Brianna appears keen to have extra tuition from you. You try to be less enthused.

After dessert you bid your farewell and leave them, having had a thoroughly enjoyable time. The food might not have been top-notch, but the company was.