Tim Dowling: our lunch guests are always prompt … So where are they?

My wife and I are having people to lunch – another couple; old friends. It’s supposed to be an informal affair, but it’s necessarily been a long time in the planning because, unlike us, our guests are busy people, and hard to nail down.

Besides, if you have weeks to plan a lunch it can’t be that informal – you don’t want to make it seem as if you woke up that morning still having no idea what you were going to cook, even if that is the case.

“I don’t know,” my wife says. “Maybe pork?”

“If they both still eat meat, that’s fine,” I say.

“And then I was thinking of something with chickpeas, and spinach, and maybe tomatoes …”

“This is just a list of ingredients,” I say.

“Onions, peppers,” she says.

“If you want me to cook something,” I say, “I have to know what it is first.”

By 10.45am the meat is in the oven. I’m triangulating online recipes based on the ingredients in the shopping bag, and my wife is constructing a pear tart under my unstinting micromanagement.

“How’s this?” she says.

“You need to jam them in tighter than that,” I say.

“They won’t fit,” she says.

“One more pear,” I say. “Trust me.”

By 12.30pm the table is laid. My wife has even ironed the napkins, although she hasn’t actually dragged out the ironing board; she just did them on the worktop.

At 1pm the meat is resting, the pear tart is ready for the oven and everything else is in hand.

“What time did they say they’d be here?” I say.

“They didn’t,” my wife says. “But you know them. They’re prompt.”

We wait. By 1.30pm the meat is well rested, and I’ve pushed part of the table setting aside so I can read the headlines on my laptop.

“I’m hungry,” I say.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” my wife says. “They’re never late.”

“Have they forgotten?” I say. “When was the last time you spoke to them about this?”

“I had a text 36 hours ago,” she says, pulling out her phone: “‘Looking forward to seeing you on Saturday.’”

“Definitely this Saturday?” I say.

“We settled on the date months ago,” she says.

At quarter to two my wife places a call to one member of the couple, and then the other.

“Straight to voicemail,” she says.

“If they were on their way, they would pick up,” I say. “Wouldn’t they?”

“I’m a bit worried now,” she says. “What if something terrible has happened?”

“Do you think they think we’re supposed to be going to them?” I say. “Maybe we’re the late ones.”

“I texted them our address last week,” she says. “They know.”

The middle one, who has been lurking in the hope of cadging a free lunch, appears like a shadow in the doorway.

“How long until we can just eat everything?” he says.

“We have to wait,” I say. “What if they turn up?”

“I don’t know what to do,” my wife says.

We stare out the window in silence for a while. A dark bank of cloud has passed over, bringing on a premature dusk. I glance at the clock again: 2.25pm. Something dreadful occurs to me.

“Are you sure that they know it’s lunch?” I say.

My wife looks at me for a long moment. Then she takes out her phone and scrolls back through the whole text chain, which has its origins in the latter half of August. She looks up.

“Supper,” she says. “I invited them to supper.”

I find the need to spend some time with my head in my hands.

Soon we will formulate a major salvage operation. The tart will go back in the fridge. The meat will get cut up and put in a big pot with absolutely everything else, creating a kind of stew I will eventually invent a name for. Then I will go out and buy some extra wine, because by suppertime I will want a lot of wine.

Our friends will arrive at 7.30pm and we will all laugh at the story of our stupidity. The stew will be self-explanatory, and they will have to pretend to like it. That night I will go to bed as tired as I have been in ages; I will feel as if I’ve been cooking for an entire day.

But for the moment I’m just sitting with my head in my hands, unable to speak. Finally, I open my eyes and raise my chin, because I have a question.

“So,” I say. “What’s for lunch?”

Join Tim Dowling and other Guardian journalists at a special live event hosted by Nish Kumar on 26 Nov. Book tickets at theguardian.com/guardian-live-events