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They weren’t speaking to each other again, I could see that as soon as I spotted them. Widowmaker had struck a very aloof pose, staring neutrally out the restaurant window, and Lena was all scrunched up with her arms crossed and a deep frown, looking like a kettle at the point of boiling. Any second, Widowmaker was going to cop an angry lecture about whatever had just happened.
The two of us stopped, watching them through the window.
“Oh, dear,” Angela said mildly beside me, echoing my thoughts exactly. Our first night off in two weeks, and we had to end up on a double-date with the most dramatic couple in Britain, didn’t we? So much for a nice, relaxing evening...
“Perhaps we should go have a quiet dinner somewhere else?” I suggested. I wasn’t in the mood for any sort of conflict.
Angela shook her head. “We said yes,” she told me. “I’m sure it will blow over, you know these two.” She led me inside.
When we entered the restaurant, Widowmaker spotted us first. She gave us a very polite nod, standing briefly from her seat at the window to lean across the table and kiss Angela’s cheeks. Her and I had never really gotten along—I found her to be very stand-offish and difficult to work with, and I didn’t like how she treated Lena—so we simply gave each other a tight smile as Angela and I sat opposite them at the table.
Lena remained scrunched in a ball and didn’t look at any of us. There was practically steam coming out of her ears.
Angela and I glanced at each other. “That’s a lovely shirt, Lena,” she told her, trying to break the tension. “Is it new?”
Widowmaker answered for her. “I bought it in Milan last month,” she told us, and then reached out to fix the collar which was a little twisted.
In a flash, Lena batted her hand away faster than was humanly possible—I think she might have blinked forward to do it—and ended up with her face level with Widowmaker’s. “Don’t you dare act like nothing’s happened!” she said, and then blinked back to her original position, arms crossed.
We all sat there uncomfortably for a moment, blinking ourselves.
Widowmaker rolled her eyes at us. “Sorry about her,” she told us. “She enjoys… how is it in English? ‘Airing our dirty laundry in public’.”
Well, that did it. Lena’s eyes opened and her mouth opened and it looked like he was going to blast Widowmaker right here in this fancy restaurant before Angela quickly stood and took her by the shoulders, saying abruptly, “Could you show me where the toilets are?” and leading her away from the table.
As they left, I could hear Lena saying, “Look, I know you’ve worked very hard to keep her alive and all that, but I swear to god I’m going to murder her, Dr Ziegler…”
Unfortunately, that meant that Widowmaker and I were left alone sitting opposite each other at the table. Neither of us had anything to say to each other, so we just picked up the menus and pretended to be engrossed in them.
While we were considering what to order, we both heard Lena’s raised voice from the bathrooms—followed by the muffled sound of Angela trying to placate her.
Widowmaker and I looked at each other for a moment. Then, she rolled her eyes and sighed at length, as if to indicate this was something she put up with often. Like she expected me to agree with her that Lena’s behaviour was inappropriate.
Well, I didn’t.
I had already decided I didn’t want to get involved, but that long-suffering sigh actually really bothered me. It was wrong. You didn’t complain to other people, especially work colleagues, about the behaviour of your partner. In my opinion, that was just as much ‘airing dirty laundry’ as yelling at your partner in front of them. I found it incredibly hypocritical of her to be accusing Lena of that and yet doing exactly the same thing herself. It was very unfair.
The more I thought about it, the more unfair I thought it, and after a couple of minutes I found myself glaring at that impassive face of hers. I had to say something. “Perhaps you should apologise to her.”
She looked up, surprised. “And why would that be?”
“Because you clearly upset her, and when you upset someone, the right thing to do is to apologise to them.”
Her eyebrows went up. “That would imply that I did something deserving of an apology, and I did not.” She looked back at her menu. “Lena can be so much of a child sometimes. She gets worked up over nothing—that is not something I should apologise for.”
Was she seriously—I leant on my elbows on the table. “Listen!” I told her, and was silent for a moment so we could both hear Lena’s voice. “Hear that? She’s upset. You upset her, it doesn’t matter if you meant to, or—”
“—You don’t know what happened,” she told me calmly. “So perhaps you should mind your own business.”
I gaped at her. I was with Lena on this one: I was going to throttle this blue woman. I could feel the vein popping out on my forehead. “Then perhaps you shouldn’t make it our business by having all your domestic arguments right in front of—”
A voice interrupted us. “Are you ready to order, ladies?”
I sat back, taking a breath.
The waiter’s direct stare made me realise I was getting worked up in the middle of this fancy restaurant. I swallowed all my animosity for this awful woman back down inside me and ordered a steak for myself and a warm salad for Angela. Widowmaker didn’t even bother ordering for Lena.
Our food was already out by the time Angela returned to the table. She had a smile—not surprising, really, she always smiled—but this one seemed a little hopeful. “Widowmaker,” she said as she sat down beside me. “Lena would like to have a word with you in the bathroom.”
“Would she?” Widowmaker said impassively, eyes on her food as she ate. She made no attempt to move.
That was it. I put down my knife and fork, standing. I swear to god I was going to pick this woman up and carry her into the bathroom to force her to do the right—
Angela put a hand on my arm to stop me. She was still looking at Widowmaker. “I really think you should go and speak to her,” she said warmly. Far more warmly than I would have.
Widowmaker made a non-committal noise, delicately cutting her and a going to place it in her mouth.
Before it got there, though, Angela’s hand shot across the table and grabbed her wrist. In a bright, cheerful voice that contradicted the white-fisted grip she had on Widowmaker’s arm, she said, “Go to the bathroom and make peace with your girlfriend.”
Widowmaker looked up sharply at her, brow low.
For a moment, I was terrified she was going to say it: ‘Still trying to play peacemaker, Dr Ziegler?’ or something equally as biting and horrible. She was capable of it. Oh, was she capable of it. I was ready for her to say it, too, so I could smash her through the window and throw her across the street, like she deserved. She deserved to be punished for the way she behaved, and it would be my absolute pleasure to metre that justice out to her.
To my surprise, she didn’t say it, though. When she saw Angela’s expression, something in her softened. Almost as a concession to her, she rolled her eyes and stood. “Very well,” she said as if she was doing her a great favour, and then muttered something in French as she left.
I didn’t know what it was, but Angela didn’t look very bothered by it. “Don’t forget I speak French, too,” she called out to Widowmaker, and then, smiling in satisfaction, she turned her attention to the salad I’d ordered her. “This looks delicious!”
I couldn’t believe she still had an appetite. Mine was gone. “I don’t think I’m hungry anymore,” I said stiffly.
She smiled at me, waving her hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t worry about those two!” she told me. “Just two very passionate people with a terrible communication problem. It will blow over; they still love each other.”
I could hardly believe that. I didn’t know why anyone would like Widowmaker; she was so cold and so cruel. When I was silent, Angela looked up, laughing softly when she saw my hard expression. “Fareeha, it’s alright, they’re making up.”
I think I would have been more comfortable with them breaking up. “If you say so.”
She stopped eating and put a gentle hand on my arm, cocking her head so her ear was in the direction of the toilets. There were no raised voices. She smiled and then kept eating, looking very pleased with herself.
I’m not sure I really believed that everything was alright until much later when the other two returned from the bathroom, tussle-haired and pink-cheeked with secret smiles. Lena still had remnants of Widowmaker’s red lipstick on her neck.
Completely innocently, they sat down opposite us at the table and Lena unfolded her menu. “Well, I’m famished!” she declared, as if she’d never been on the brink of tearing her girlfriend apart with her bare hands.
Without making eye-contact with her, Widowmaker said neutrally, “Try the veal, it’s excellent.”
Under the table, I could see them reaching for each other’s hands.
Angela watched this display with pleasure, a big smile on her face. When they were both engrossed in their menus, she glanced up at me. Her big glowing smile said, ‘look! I did good!’ and I had to chuckle; I knew how much she loved to help people reconcile.
I touched her cheek, and then reached for her hand under the table, too.
Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad, after all.