My smile broadened even further and I felt myself blush. Felix was ready to move on and he wanted me to know it. The evening was just getting better and better. ‘I’m so pleased for you, Felix,’ I said.
‘Thank you.’ He raised his beer in salute to me and then took a sip. ‘Yes, so I thought I might perhaps text our mutual friend Rosie.’
My grin, my gaze, and the hand I had just extended towards my own drink, froze immediately. ‘Rosie?’ I echoed, my mouth stretched to the max, in the manner of a life-sized ventriloquist’s dummy. ‘The policeman woman?’
‘You gave me her number,’ he said.
‘I did? I did,’ I murmured, my expression glazed as I pictured myself pulling a handgun from my bag, carefully removing my shoe and then shooting myself in the foot.
‘And Mark likes her.’
‘He does,’ I agreed, now on emotional autopilot. ‘Very much.’
‘So,’ he continued, ‘I thought I might get in touch with her. I can’t really see any reason not to.’ He looked at me for a moment and then picked up his beer again. ‘Can you? What do you think?’
I continued to stare at him whilst the two ego- and soul-destroying facts of the matter sank in, namely that: (a) Felix couldn’t see any reason not to call Rosie, even though (b) I was sitting just a table width away from him and, at five foot seven, clearly visible to anyone not wearing a bucket on their head.
And now he was asking me what I thought about that.
I lowered my hand slowly to my lap, my smile remaining perfectly in place whilst I groaned internally at my own complete lack of thought to date. Ever since Martin’s party, I had considered my relationship with Felix only in terms of his relationship with Beattie. She had been the sole obstacle I had identified on the road to our happily-ever-after. It had not once occurred to me that there might be a whole host of female potholes, roadworks and speed bumps to negotiate.
If it hadn’t been a moment of such devastating realisation, I might have laughed at my own arrogance. Felix could have his pick of the bunch and I was hardly the best of that bunch. Hadn’t my own mother told me how surprised her friends at the wedding had been to discover that we were a couple? And absolutely everyone – from Nanny Flo and Auntie Dawn to all the single heterosexual women at Martin McGarry’s birthday party – thought that Felix Davis was a catch. And what on earth would someone like him be doing with someone like me? It was laughable really.
‘What are you smiling at?’ asked Felix.
I blinked and shook my head. ‘I was just thinking that you calling Rosie is a great idea,’ I said. ‘She’s very attractive and would be more than capable of seeing you safely home on a dark night.’
‘So I should go ahead?’
I glanced down at the small table between us and then back up at Felix. ‘I’m like you; I can’t see any reason not to.’
‘OK.’ He nodded, looking at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Right now?’ I said, aware that he was pushed for time, but surprised nevertheless at the suddenness of his decision to leave.
He picked up his briefcase and stood up. ‘You stay and finish your drink.’
‘Oh … OK then.’
‘And have a great weekend,’ he said. ‘I didn’t get a chance to ask what you were up to.’
‘I’m at a birthday party,’ I said. ‘They’re like buses, aren’t they?’
‘So it would seem.’ He glanced towards the exit, clearly now in a hurry to be gone, before his eyes darted back, somewhat anxiously, to the table.
I followed his gaze and picked up the memory stick, placing it in my bag. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to leave it behind. Against all odds, I’m actually quite on the ball when it comes to business.’
He hesitated for a moment and then bent down to kiss my cheek. ‘I hope it’s OK.’
‘I’ll text you tonight and let you know. Bye, Felix, and thanks again.’ I placed my arms briefly around his neck and, in a moment which seemed suddenly familiar, remembered a goodbye years earlier. He had been preparing to go his way and I had been preparing to go mine, and the wrench of separation, together with a sense that the separation might be a lengthy one, felt just the same now as then.
‘Bye, Dot,’ he said, walking away.
‘Bye,’ I repeated quietly and pointlessly, picking up my drink and watching as he made his way through the increasingly busy pub and disappeared outside.
‘Well, there was no reading between the lines necessary there,’ I murmured to myself, aware of tears beginning to threaten. And as I gave in to my feelings, acknowledging a growing and painful sense of disappointment, only the sudden and insistent buzz of my phone saved me from a very public and completely humiliating display of grief.
I took the phone from my bag and, blinking at the screen through embryonic tears, read: Felix Davis Office.
Confused, I took the call. ‘Hello?’
‘Oh hi, Dorothy. It’s Kevin. Sorry to bother you. Is Felix still with you?’
‘Er, no,’ I said, sniffing and dabbing a finger under each eye in an attempt to prevent mascara run. ‘He left just a minute ago, Kevin. I assume you’ve tried to call him? Is there a problem?’
‘Not really,’ he sighed. ‘It’s just that the client has been trying to get in touch with him to tell him that the meet time has changed.’
‘It’s OK. He already knew that.’
‘Really?’ He sounded surprised.
‘Yes, from eight to seven -thirty.’
There was a pause, during which I heard Kevin talking indistinctly, his comments interspersed with a succession of several, rather snappy, female responses. ‘Sorry, Dorothy, I was just checking the time of the dinner with Linda because we’ve got some crossed wires here. It’s been pushed back from eight to eight thirty. Are you sure he said seven thirty?’
‘Yes, he rushed off a moment ago.’
‘Really? Because seven thirty was never on the cards and the client said he was unable to reach him, so I don’t know where on earth he got the earlier start time from.’
‘Me neither,’ I said, a slight resentment now mingling with the disappointment of Felix’s unconscious rejection of me. If he had been so anxious to leave that he had to lie about the time of his meeting, then why arrange to see me at all? ‘Maybe he just couldn’t wait to get away from me, Kevin,’ I said morosely.
At that, he laughed so explosively that I was forced to hold the phone some distance from my ear. ‘Oh yes, that’ll be it,’ he guffawed. ‘Dorothy says Felix obviously couldn’t wait to get away from her, Linda,’ he added at considerable volume. I returned the phone to my ear just in time to catch another clipped response. I had an increasing sense that Kevin lived his office life under the cosh that was Linda.
‘But not to worry, Dorothy. Better that Felix is early than late for dinner, so no harm done. I’m heading off now, so I’ll let you get on home to … er …’
At this point, I heard Linda shout impatiently and quite distinctly, ‘Alistair. His name is Alistair.’
‘Yes, that’s right. Thank you, Linda,’ said Kevin affably. ‘I’ll let you get on home to Alistair, Dorothy.’
I frowned into the phone. ‘Alistair is my ex-boyfriend, Kevin. We haven’t been together for over a year now.’
There was a pause and more murmuring before Kevin spoke audibly again. ‘I’m so sorry, Dorothy. Felix told Linda that your relationship with Alistair had resumed.’
‘Really?’ I said, surprised to discover that Felix’s day-to-day interaction with scary Linda was on such a personal level. ‘When did he tell her that?’
I waited while Linda and Kevin discussed the point at the other end of the line.
‘Well, Dorothy, I have just had it explained to me,’ resumed Kevin, his tone now as conspiratorial as it had been when discussing Felix at Martin’s party, ‘that Felix didn’t actually tell Linda that you and Alistair had reconciled. In actualité, it was information which she accidentally oversaw.’
>
‘Oversaw?’
‘Oversaw in the same sense as to overhear,’ clarified Kevin. ‘Linda accidentally oversaw the information when Felix inadvertently left his password-protected personal daily account open onscreen.’
I thought for a moment. ‘You mean she read his diary, Kevin.’
At this point I heard Linda chip in again.
‘Apparently Felix had popped down to reception and Linda unconsciously absorbed various details about your weekend together while tidying his desk for him,’ explained Kevin.
‘Various details?’ I queried, appalled at Linda’s shameless nosiness whilst, of course, desperate to know what else was in the diary.
‘Right, well I really had better go,’ said Kevin brightly, crushing my hopes of further gossip. ‘Oh, but wait one moment. Linda has a question,’ he added hastily before engaging in yet more muffled discussion. ‘She says have a lovely weekend and wonders whether you are up to anything nice. Are you at home or away?’
I sighed and put a hand to my forehead, suddenly wishing that I was at home right now. ‘I’m off to Exeter tomorrow morning to stay with my parents. It’s my grandmother’s eighty-seventh birthday and we’re having a little party for her.’
‘Well that sounds fabulous, Dorothy. I’ll let Linda know and I hope you all have a wonderful time.’
‘Thanks, Kevin. I’m sure we will. Bye.’
Ending the call, I threw my phone back into my bag and stood up, leaving the rest of my drink untouched and resolving to get into bed and go straight to sleep the moment I got home. I wanted to leave myself as little time as possible for reflection, either on my relationship with Felix, or on the frank conversation I would have to have about that relationship with my parents the next day. It was a conversation which even I realised could be deferred no longer, but that didn’t mean I had to think about it tonight.
Chapter 33
The following morning, Dad was already outside and waiting for me as I stepped out of my car and onto the drive of our family home. ‘I was reading the paper in the lounge and saw you pull in,’ he said, opening his arms and enveloping me in the most welcome of welcome hugs. ‘How was your journey?’
‘No hold-ups whatsoever,’ I said brightly, hugging him back. ‘And how are you?’
‘Very well indeed,’ he smiled, watching as I opened the boot and took out my overnight bag. ‘Here, let me have that,’ he said, taking it from me, ‘and come inside. Mum is upstairs sorting out Nanny. She had a birthday breakfast in bed and is now being pampered and preened, but they’ll both be down in a minute.’
‘No sign of Becca yet?’ I asked, following him towards the house and checking the time on the grandmother clock at the end of the hallway as we stepped inside. ‘She said she was aiming for around now.’
Dad closed the front door behind us and placed my bag at the bottom of the stairs. ‘She texted me about ten minutes ago to say that they’re running a little late. Apparently the traffic wasn’t great as far as the motorway. Now, I’ll take that upstairs for you in a moment,’ he said, pointing at the bag over his shoulder as he began to walk down the hallway and towards the kitchen. ‘But first of all, come with me and I’ll make you a coffee.’
‘Ooh, yes please,’ I said, following. ‘I went to bed early last night but still feel tired. Do you ever do that?’ I pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and flopped down.
Dad glanced at me over the top of his glasses as he went to the sink and began to fill the kettle. ‘I do – frequently. But then I’m nearly seventy, Dot. Are you OK? You’re not under the weather, are you?’
‘Not at all. I feel great,’ I insisted. ‘It’ll just be because I’ve usually had three cups of coffee by ten thirty, and I’m two short of that target right now.’
He nodded but looked unconvinced. ‘And how is Felix?’ he asked, his back now to me as he switched on the kettle and reached for some mugs and the cafetière. ‘I know you told Mum it was doubtful he’d make it today. I hope he’s not overdoing it at work. It always amazes me how a decade of time-saving technological advances since I retired seems to have resulted in increased, rather than decreased, office hours.’
‘Yes, that is strange,’ I murmured, turning to gaze out through the patio doors behind me. ‘I love your garden in autumn,’ I said. ‘Just look at those colours.’
‘So Felix is well?’ asked Dad. I turned to find him now sitting opposite me.
‘Yes, really well,’ I said, bending down to pick up my shoulder bag from the floor and opening it, simply for something to do other than make eye contact with my father.
‘And everything is OK? Between the two of you, I mean.’
At that, I looked up and smiled, but discovered that I couldn’t quite manage a reply. Dad looked at me for a moment and then nodded. ‘Well, we can catch up properly later,’ he said gently. ‘Perhaps over a brandy when your mother has gone to bed.’
I nodded mutely, part of me dreading that conversation and part of me wishing that the pair of us could sit down on the sofa and have that brandy right now, so that I could get it all off my chest: the stress of maintaining a well-meant deception, the joy of a rediscovered friendship and the heartache of feelings unreciprocated.
‘Lost something?’ asked Dad brightly.
I frowned in confusion. ‘What do you mean?’
He pointed at the open bag on my lap. ‘In there. If you have, I’m not at all surprised, Dot. It’s huge,’ he laughed. ‘You may as well be carrying a rucksack.’
I gazed into the bag. ‘Oh yes, I just wondered where I’d put my … Drat.’
‘What’s wrong?’
I reached into the bag and took out the memory stick which Felix had given to me the night before. ‘I forgot all about this.’
‘What is it?’
I sighed and placed it on the table in front of me. ‘Felix is going to look at Eat Fruit and help me think about what we can do if Kate’s return is delayed, or if she decides not to come back to work.’
Dad raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Is that likely?’
‘She’s insisting it’s not,’ I shrugged. ‘But you never know how things are going to go, do you?’
‘True,’ he said. ‘It’s very sensible of you to think through the possibilities. So what’s on there?’ He pointed to the stick.
‘I don’t exactly know, to be honest. I think it’s a list of the information Felix needs from me. Spreadsheets to complete, maybe? It must be quite a big file because he couldn’t email it. He gave it to me last night and asked me to check that it was readable on my Mac. If there’s a problem, he wants a chance to sort it before Monday. But it’s OK,’ I said, returning it to my bag, ‘I’ll look at it when I get home. I just feel a bit bad because I said I’d let him know last night.’
I replaced my bag on the floor. ‘So, tell me about your holiday. It sounds like you had a great time.’
‘We did,’ said Dad, smiling. ‘But why don’t you go into the study while I make your coffee and check the stick on the Mac in there? Then it’s done and you can call Felix and let him know.’
I hesitated for a moment, not wanting work to interrupt my visit, before deciding that it really would be best to check the stick now and let Felix know early if there was a problem. ‘That’s a good idea, if you don’t mind,’ I said. ‘It will only take a minute or two.’
‘Exactly,’ he said, standing up. ‘So off you go, and I’ll bring your coffee in to you – if it’s ready before you are. But you’d better hurry up, because those two,’ he added, pointing at the ceiling, ‘will be down any moment and then you’ll not get a minute’s peace.’
I rose to my feet and, after a minor detour to give Dad a hug, walked out of the kitchen, through a small lobby and into Dad’s study, a relatively recent addition to the house and a haven in which he frequently snatched a few minutes’ peace and quiet surrounded by his DIY manuals, gardening magazines, golf trophies and anything else my mother had deemed man clutter. Then I
sat down, switched on the Mac and, as the screen came to life, I inserted the memory stick.
A yellow file entitled DOT appeared immediately in the upper right of the screen and I clicked on it. As expected, a second screen opened, on which was listed the contents of the stick. Everything seemed fine and I was just about to randomly select a file when it struck me that there was actually only one document on the list and that all the other files were images. I frowned, clicked on the lone document and began to read.
Dear Dot,
This memory stick is for memories. I spent most of last weekend rooting through my own and my mother’s ‘archives’ for these. I hope you think it was worth it. I’ll email you all the dull accountancy stuff on Monday. There’s not much and we can discuss it whenever you’re ready.
Felix
Still frowning, I closed the document and opened the first of the image files. It was a photograph of the lower school choir, circa 1992, and it took me only a matter of moments to spot first of all Felix, giving it his all in the front row, and then myself, several inches taller and looking significantly less enthusiastic, a couple of rows back.
Gasping and then laughing out loud, I began to work my way down the list of images.
There were pictures of us at parties, first of all passing the parcel and then, as we grew, passing the beer. In one photo we were two twelve-year-olds on either end of a see-saw, laughing hysterically – me high up in the air with absolutely no chance of coming down until Felix got off. In another, we were sixth-formers on a field trip to the coast, standing on a beach, wearing wellies and holding clipboards, drenched and clueless.
I opened image after image, remembering and reliving every moment as we danced, ran, jumped, sang, sulked, climbed and most of all, it seemed, laughed our way through a decade-long friendship.
And then suddenly, as I clicked on a photograph and it filled the screen, I realised that although I was still smiling, I was crying too; the tears trickling unchecked down my cheeks as I leaned forward, eager to take in every single detail of the image in front of me. I gazed with enormous affection, tinged with undeniable regret, at Dot and Felix, standing side by side in Devizes marketplace, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, her arms thrown around his considerable middle. Her face was tilted upwards towards him as she leaned against him, smiling broadly, her eyes hidden beneath a large bucket hat. Felix, meanwhile, wasn’t looking at the camera either, but instead down at Dot, and he too was smiling. It was obvious, I thought, that they loved each other very much.
Finding Felix Page 24
