A NIGHT BY THE ROUND TABLE

I went out to town for dinner tonight. Just felt like I needed cheering up, so, almost on a whim, I decided it would be a bit of a treat night.

Of course, a lot of people had thought of the same thing on a rainy November evening. Everywhere was packed. I ended up in a pizza place, where the aproned host sent me to a table by the wall. And she really did send me... by waving a hand at the little table sandwiched between the aforementioned wall, and a round table of ‘lads’.

Brilliant.

It hadn’t been exactly uplifting getting there either. Before the usual eye-roll at the posh Italian place when I asked for a table of one, before I got turned away from Bella Italia, and before I sighed and settled for pizza, I’d been stopped by teenage girls in the shopping centre.

“Excuse me,” said one, her mates sniggering behind her, “Can I get your Facebook; I think you’re lush.”

“No you don’t,” I said, and walked on. They followed me.

“Yeah we do, I’ve been searching for you, like all day!”

“So what is this?” I asked. “Some sort of dare?” I was feeling about a million years old. This kind of thing used to happen to me when I was their age, and I hated it then. I hated the subtext, I hated the embarrassment, and I hated the way it made me feel. Then and now.

They got bored in the end, and went off to bother someone else.

The lads were having a good time too, in the pizza place, it seemed. There were six of them, necking beers on the round table. Sir Tightshirt was illustrating fantastic goals he’d scored at football practice, while Sir QuiffHair and Sir Timberland were busy discussing recent ‘conquests’. The waitress came over to me...

“Are you waiting for someone?” said she, pulling a pencil and a pad from her apron.

“No,” I replied, doing my best to smile, “It’s just me.” She took my order and wheeled away to the kitchen.

“Nah! I’ve not been too busy today!” lauded Sir Poshington-Shirtsmith, loudly from the round table. “I’ve been shouting at energy companies down the phone.” 

Nobleness lives! Sir Tightshirt and Sir Gymalot laughed along, politely, I felt. Did they, like me, wonder... why was he shouting? What had caused him to be so volatile? I sometimes wish I couldn’t read the subtext. Bravado and machismo flowed around that table like free beer, but also, a youthful sort of insecurity. It was all muscles and t-shirts. But also children in suits of armour,

After she’d gone, I realised I’d put my raincoat on the back of the empty chair opposite me. That might explain why she thought I wasn’t alone. Though in every other respect, I really was.