Page 38 of Hit For Six (Balls and Banter #1)

‘It’s always a fair stroll to visit them,’ said Lola, once they’d got back into their stride. ‘But Bath feels strangely compact and before you know it, you’ve passed the Rose and Fiddle pub, and you’re basically in Plummerton.’

She pointed to the graffiti-worn signpost that welcomed visitors into the suburb.

Monty was alarmed at the state of some of the gardens along this strip of housing estates.

It really was a world away from the environment he’d grown up in.

Like Lola’s ex, some of his friends wouldn’t have been able to resist sensationalising his current surroundings and behaving like pompous gits.

A handful of the ex-council houses had skips full of junk and bruised and battered cars in their front gardens, there was an excess of ‘Mind the Pitbull’ signs plastered to the gates and front doors, and some seriously mouthy-looking kids paraded the streets, sucking greedily from vapes and doing unquantifiable damage to their young lungs.

But there was beauty here too; well-tended lawns bursting with colour popping borders of pansies, stocks and (acquired taste) gnomes, bird tables galore, another group of kids kicking a ball about in the absence of a playing field, and people raising their hands in greeting or exchanging pleasantries.

The latter was something that he’d not encountered for a long time in his exclusive patch of the city, and the sense of community here was heartwarming.

‘And here we are. Number fifty-eight, the one with the squeaky gate,’ Lola announced their arrival.

Monty noticed that Mr and Mrs Smith’s front garden also boasted a hedge in need of a haircut, last year’s tattered Christmas tree, and an eyesore of an aerial washing line, whose flamboyant offerings would probably fare better tucked away in the back garden and out of temptation’s sight.

But he vowed to stay grounded. They traipsed along the chipping-rich, dandelion-strewn path and Lola rang the doorbell.

‘Mum can take a little while to get about,’ she warned Monty, who wondered why Lola’s dad couldn’t do the honours, seeing as he was supposedly at home.

‘My baby!’ Gail squealed when she finally opened the door.

From Monty’s fleeting glimpse of Lola’s mother, he could see she was a shortie with a practical but choppy peroxide lob cut whose roots were in dire need of a top up.

But Monty could also see who Lola got her sparkling eyes from.

Gail’s were endearing, green as grass– although it looked as if she’d stuck false lashes on them for this occasion, unlike her daughter.

Soon she was joined at the door by a tall man with dark, wavy sweptback hair and a thick broom of a moustache.

Monty felt as if he’d been transported to the eighties, until he remembered that bristles had made an unfathomable comeback.

‘Come here, lad!’ cried Greg, a beer already in hand. Wearing a white vest, a chunky gold chain, chocolate cords and a pair of Homer Simpson slippers, he gestured for Monty to get off the doorstep ‘Sorry about my wife’s lack of manners. Do you fancy a Heineken?’

‘Thanks, that would be great. Erm, it’s good to meet you.’

Monty stuck out his hand for a shake and was impressed that Greg’s was neither limp nor scarily firm. They were off to a decent start, especially when Gail gathered him in for a belated hug as they all moseyed into the lounge.

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Monty,’ she said, indicating that he should take a seat on the other side of the room.

Monty was all too happy to sink into it after that walk, until he immediately noted the absence of a couple of springs, so he shifted his buttocks to a sturdier part of the sofa praying he wouldn’t cause more damage.

‘I would say that I’ve heard so much about you but this one has been rather secretive on the subject of her love life.

’ Gail narrowed her eyes playfully at her daughter.

‘That’s because it’s been a bit of a whirlwind romance!’

Lola’s cheeks flamed and she giggled as Gail reached up to rub her head, completely mucking up her fringe. Monty wanted to click his fingers and take her back to bed. Lola, that was. She’d never looked more adorable.

‘It has been fast, by all accounts,’ he agreed, cursing himself for his husky voice.

He and Lola had agreed that they would stick to their previous meeting place of The Bubble Bath, if either of her parents asked how all of this had come to be.

In the unlikely event that their respective sets of parents should meet, things would then tally up.

Lola perched next to Monty on the arm of the sofa, hardly helping where his sex drive was concerned. ‘Then again, your daughter is amazing.’

‘Oh, I like you already,’ said Gail. ‘You can call in any time!’

Greg was more interested in the nature documentary on TV, but he smiled along encouragingly, happy for the women to do the clucking over Monty, seemingly oblivious to his prior offer of a can.

It was the kind of behaviour that would make Monty’s mother scream– mainly because it reminded her of her upbringing.

The programme was educational, at least, and Monty, unlike Helena and her impossible standards, was happy to go with the flow.

‘Right, then, Mum. Which jobs need tackling this weekend?’ asked Lola.

Monty tried not to flinch at a certain carefree image in the background. Something felt majorly off about this. Something felt majorly Homer Simpson indeed.

‘None whatsoever, love.’ Gail laughed nervously. ‘We’ve seen to everything.’ She looked across at Greg proudly, as if– just like Lola had alluded– this was a rare occurrence. ‘Haven’t we, Hubs?’

‘Hey?’ Greg took a slug of his lager. ‘Yeah, I’ve not even been to the allotment today– your mother’s had me cleaning the windows and dusting the ornaments.’

‘Oh, okay, then,’ Lola replied doubtfully.

Monty’s sentiments exactly. He’d kind of assumed the only reason they were here was because Gail needed the help.

That said, the vast collection of ornaments in this room were little people without faces and he’d be petrified of breaking them if anyone gave him a feather duster.

Plus the fact, he’d much rather be spending the afternoon in bed with Miss Smith.

But again, he willed himself to stay open-minded– as well he should after he’d felt so wounded by Lola’s conjecture of his expectations.

‘How about I make us a cuppa?’ asked Lola. ‘Monty?’

‘I’m in!’

Suddenly he was feeling parched and hopefully a brew would encourage a little more chatter to speed this experience along.

‘Mum? Tea?’

‘Yes, please. I’ll come and help you, love.’

Monty stood to show that he was a model, multitasking boyfriend.

‘Oh, no you don’t. You’re the guest,’ said Gail. ‘We’ll leave you two men to get to know one another.’

Terrific.

Gail lowered a hand and Monty felt like a dog in another matriarch’s house, albeit Gail was much easier to warm to and appease. He smiled obligingly and sat back down, ensuring his arse was parked away from the sagging middle of the couch.

‘Dad? Hot drink?’

‘I’m grand.’

Greg raised his can and Monty remembered that, in a totally non-imperious way, he much preferred craft beer in any case. Slowly, he and Greg made the smallest of talk about the countryside series that had now been turned up to double the volume.

‘We’ve sometimes had foxes on this estate,’ said Greg, as they watched a vixen emptying out the bins in a city street, taking the haul back to her cubs in the bushes.

Given the treasures that must be lying in wait in the skips outside, Monty wasn’t surprised.

‘Intelligent creatures,’ he said before he ended up gabbling about the wildlife surrounding his parents’ very different estate.

But he needn’t have worried about plugging the gaps of conversation because now there were a pair of snarling, copulating hedgehogs on the screen and Monty wasn’t about to compete with the decibels.

Greg tapped the buttons on his remote control with the efficiency of the piggy bank character from Toy Story.

Unfortunately, the noise, once heard, couldn’t be unheard.

In Monty’s humble opinion, it sounded akin to a pair of humans going at it hammer and tongs.

Talk about payback for the cringey situation that Lola had endured with his parents.

He couldn’t sit here a moment longer when he thought back to all the things he’d done with Lola last night.

He was just going to have to excuse himself with a trip to the bathroom.

Which would make even more of a deal of the predicament but how could he stay put with his girlfriend’s father and continue to watch the amorous little urchins?

‘Do you have a downstairs cloakroom?’ he asked Greg, immediately berating himself for the posh lingo.

‘We’ve got a coat stand. Will that do you?’ Greg looked askance at Monty, who wasn’t wearing a jacket or anything that needed to be hung up. ‘Help yourself, bud. It’s opposite the loo just along the hallway, on the left before the front door.’

Why couldn’t Monty have called it a loo or a toilet like most of the rest of the English speaking world?

Some habits died hard. In a roundabout way he’d got the info he needed, though, and Monty ventured to the downstairs cloakroom, which was certainly clean, the residue of bleach almost taking off his eyebrows.

‘Stop this!’ he ordered himself in a loud whisper through the cracked mirror. ‘You’re being an arse.’