Adhering with a shouting kind of texture to the back windscreen of a car is what is very clearly a heavily-soiled sanitary pad. One of those massive, nappy-like, old-fashioned things. Thick and black with gluey old ick.
It was around about this point that I texted you:
coffee. emergency. 10am usual. shit!
*
"Ah. That makes sense."
P waits.
"And?"
Nothing.
"Is that it?"
"Well, it’s about 10:45 now, what more do you want? What colour pants I decided to wear today?"
"Fuck’s sake."
"Sorry."
A pause. They both scratch briefly, fiddle with spoons, that sort of thing.
"Look, do you want me to tell you how I paced the round in my small, rose-coloured bedroom? Do you want me to go into details of exactly how locked the muscles at my temples were, and what enormous gratitude I felt when I fell asleep? I can’t remember my dreams. They probably weren’t too bad. I find that generally when shit is really up-there tense you don’t need crazy-arsed vivid dreams – it’s all right here. My brain was probably glad to take a break.
"I’m sitting here in that oh-so Sunday keyed-up yet absolutely knackered place where everything’s just a bit too bright and loud. Looks like I’m not the only one."
They look round at the mingled throng for a moment. The big Stelladollar (there are four in Cardiff) is rammed, as ever, and with a mix of folk, from trendies to families to ould folk to teens. The goth waitress keeps clomping up and down and preening in that "I really don’t care about my looks" way that only true goths can pull off. She also keeps narrowly avoiding clomping straight into the pushchair sticking out from the table down the way; the mother keeps fussing it back under the table, one eye balefully on the waitress, turning to mutter whenever she’s finished traversing.
Two boys at the back are pretending to be black, for reasons that are beyond JJ. Their friend looks on with a slightly uncomfortable... wait, thinks J, that’s not embarrassment so much as... love?
"Wow, which one does he want to shag?" P turns to look, and grins mercilessly. J recognises the look.
"Aw, now, P, don’t do it; I need all your considerable energies focussed on me me me today, I really do. And leave them to their day of rest, eh?"
P chuckles. As they continue to look around in mutual interest mixed with a familar, companionable shärden-freude, P’s look of easy malice and nosiness slips slowly but inexorably. Concern begins to show.
"Er, babe?"
"Hmm? Oh, lookit the chavs on the outside; that close to pressing their noses to the glass!"
"Jenny?" P’s voice is gentle, but the sound of her name brings her sharply round. "You do know it’s Saturday today, right?"
*
I looked at P in horror for a full minute. And then people started looking our way again, this time as I got loud.
"What? What the fuck?" I waved my hands around in time-honoured fashion. People nearby very obviously didn’t stare... I lowered my voice, more because it was becoming plaintive. "What the fuck is going on, mun? I mean..." I tailed off briefly, staring wildly at the side of our table. "I mean – losing time I could understand, but gaining it?! Gaining a fucking day?"
"I thought you knew, I thought you were having a joke, but..."
"It’s Saturday?"
"Yes. All day, as my dad used to say."
"Jesus shit."
"This is good, though, right?"
I stared at P blankly for a bit, realisation slowly dawning. "I guess. I mean... Yeah, I guess."
P took a deep breath.
"When’s he back?"