‘Not a bit. The more I see of Evelyn, the better. It will be a great experience and, as my trip is covered by work...’
He left the rest of the sentence unfinished, instead changing the subject. ‘So, the reason I’m here?’ he prompted softly.
‘Oh, of course. Well, you don’t have anything to worry about; Evelyn is a very talented young lady with a great future ahead of her.’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’
‘Pardon?’
‘You’re obviously not a parent,’ his look questioning.
‘No.’ Standing up, she pulled her skirt in place again with her fingertips before meeting his gaze. ‘If that’s everything, it’s getting late,’ her eyes hovering behind his head to the clock on the wall as she walked towards the door with a smile. ‘It was good to meet you, Evelyn talks about you a lot.’
‘Really?’ his dark eyes hitting hers again. ‘I’d have thought I was the last person she’d want to talk about.’
‘You underestimate the regard she holds you in; although it is true to say a fair few of the conversations have been to do with your failings in the kitchen. Something about her birthday cake tasting of soap, was it?’
‘Ah yes, the well-known chocolate sponge recipe with soap sauce, I remember it well.’ He held out his hand briefly before lifting it to run through his hair, his look awkward. ‘Thank you for taking the time to see me and I’ll tackle Evelyn about the London trip, as well as the divulging of all the family secrets.’
‘Oh I don’t think she divulged all of them, Mr Bianchi,’ unable to prevent herself from glancing at his trousers as she held the door open. ‘Enjoy the rest of your evening.’
Not that there was much of it left, but he wouldn’t have to worry about something as unimportant as having to get across town in rush hour with no car. It was the subway or a taxi and, with the way she was feeling, the taxi won hands down. Returning to her desk, she packed up the workbooks she needed to take home to mark, adding them to her rucksack with a grimace.
There were no pretty bags now, simply because she couldn’t grip them. Even shoulder bags were difficult; hoiking up the strap was worse than trapping her hand in any door. So she was stuck with rucksacks but as with her gloves, if she had to do functional, she’d do pretty functional. There was no ugly canvas or dark colours. She coordinated them with her outfits so today the bag was lime green with cute little leather buckle fastenings.
Bag filled, she bent over the table to pick up the glasses of water she’d set out moments before his arrival. Sipping the tepid liquid, her eyes scanned the room in preparation for shutting up for the night. The window was closed, but then again mid-February New York wasn’t the time of year for open windows. She’d shut down the laptop before adding it to the top of her sack. There was only the chairs to push into pl…
Kneeling on the floor, she felt the edge of the envelope with the tip of her finger. A different envelope it was true but even so, something clenched inside at the sight. Her letter, her dear letter was gone so what was this? Something he’d dropped? Something one of the girls had left behind? She’d never know if all she did was touch it with her finger. But she was scared. She was scared it wouldn’t be her letter but, if it was, she’d be even more scared.
‘Evelyn, I’ve a bone to pick with you or should that be a pair of boxers?’
‘You’re being totally gross as well as inappropriate, Father, dear.’
‘I don’t think it’s me that being either gross or inappropriate, Daughter, dear,’ he said, watching as she dumped her bag on the pale wooden floor with a thump before heading for her bedroom. ‘Did you by any chance tell your friends and teachers about my new…?’
He paused, suddenly unsure of his standing. He’d bet money on the fact she’d been mouthing off about his new underwear but he couldn’t be sure. His mind scrolled back to the way her teacher had tried not to laugh when he’d talked about family secrets, unless there was another family secret he hadn’t thought of? No, there was nothing of any interest she could have divulged. A couple of crazy aunts but show him a family where there weren’t a few crazies lurking in the family tree. Crazies were fine; it was the skeletons he had to worry about.
‘About your new?’ Her eyes wide in that innocent look she did so well. ‘Father, if you don’t speak up, I’ll seriously believe you’re losing the plot what with coming home with strange letters and now this loss of the power of speech,’ she ended, shaking her head.
‘Evelyn, did you or didn’t you, tell your friends and teachers about me buying new…?’
‘Underwear, is that what this interrogation is all about?’ She giggled. ‘Well, of course I did, and it’s a good job, too. Now, as well as thinking I have the best looking dad on campus, they also know he’s hip along with it.’
‘Hip,’ he repeated, resigned to his fate. He knew he shouldn’t have asked a 16 year old anything other than to pick her clothes up off the floor. Hip, what the hell was hip? Although he quite liked the bit about being handsome. Did she think him handsome? He’d like to think so, even as he wondered if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life over that letter. It wasn’t as if he could go and ask her or anything now, was it?
‘Pizza for supper, Pater?’
‘What’s with the funny name calling all of a sudden?’
‘Oh, it’s, er, in…’ She turned, one hand on the door jamb of the kitchen the other holding a mug of hot chocolate to her lips with just enough cream to give her a moustache.
‘Is it, er, anything to do with the preparation for the London trip that you weren’t going to tell me about, by any chance?’ He should really tell her about the cream, now she’d just added a big dollop to the end of her nose. But as far as he was concerned, it was payback for the underwear.
She sighed in resignation, her look wary. ‘I was going to tell you, honestly.’
‘When exactly? Let me guess? You were going to tell me when it was too late for me to get the permission slip in, is that right?’
‘Something like that.’ She walked over and put her head on his shoulder. ‘But Stella wasn’t picked and it wouldn’t have been fair, and you brought me up to be fair in everything.’
‘So, it’s my fault is it?’ He smoothed her hair off her forehead, relishing the way the silky strands ran through his fingers. ‘What about a compromise?’ he added. ‘I’ll take you to London with me when I go and sort out that client and Stella can use your ticket.’
Pulling away she turned to do a little jig across the room. ‘That would be just perfect. I can travel with you but spend most of my time with the girls.’
He watched on with a smile, reminded of trying to get a much younger but equally excited Evelyn to bed on Christmas Eve.
‘Dad, there’s just one thing though?’
‘What?’
‘Why do you have cream all over your jacket?’
When he’d offered to escort Evelyn to London, he hadn’t quite realised the implications of his offer, he mused, helping to load the last of the rucksacks onto the last of the trolleys before pushing the first towards check-in. Just where the other two teachers had disappeared to as soon as they’d arrived at the airport, he neither knew nor cared. The only thing he did know looking about the busy, industrial-looking departure lounge was she hadn’t turned up.
He eyed the steel girders traversing the roof as he tried to decide how he felt. He felt numb. Yes, numb was the most accurate description. Numb and a little let down. He hadn’t really planned on going back to the UK so soon but, with the loan foreclosing in a couple of weeks, Murray had decided to send him. It was more luck than anything he’d been able to schedule the flights to fit in with the half-term break. He’d have to come back a day early but Evelyn was prepared to miss the last evening. It was that or not come at all.
‘Dad, Dad, come on, the queue’s moving,’ she shouted from where she was huddled with a group of similarly clad girls who, from this distance, all looked pretty indis
tinguishable; wearing the regimented look of denims and ponytails.
‘I’m coming,’ twisting his head for any sign of the two women that had lumbered him with all the luggage, no doubt just because he was a man. Well, next time he saw them, he was going to give them both a piece of his mind, his eyes scanning the packed space for any sign of a purple beanie and a red bobble hat. He’d laughed, albeit silently, at the sight of the headgear. What was it with Evelyn’s teachers with their cookie cutter taste in hats and gloves, not to mention the rest of their garb? He glanced down at his denims and plain blue shirt with a jumper flung over his shoulders. Whilst far from fashionable, at least he wouldn’t upset his mother. His current garb could take him anywhere and everywhere including dinner and church but their…
His thoughts deserted him, his eyes landing on the last member of their party. The member he’d assumed had dropped out at the last minute. The woman he’d been dreaming about ever since that first day in the park. The woman walking towards him with a nervous smile and the smallest rucksack he’d ever seen.
He took a deep breath, suddenly anxious all over again at this their second meeting. His mind whirled at what to say, at what to do. Did he take her hand, his eyes now on her fingers encased in brown velvet? Perhaps she had a glove fetish, his throat closing at the thought. He’d never come across someone with a glove fetish before, or indeed any fetish, unless he could lump in shoes and handbags alongside whips and leather? He couldn’t quite imagine what it would mean in the bedroom but he was certainly willing to give it a try, as he allowed himself the luxury of wandering over the rest of her outfit.
She’d matched the gloves to a floaty over the head throw-on in coordinating autumnal colours and high heel slip-on boots but thankfully no hat, her chestnut brown hair caught at the base of her neck by a plain silver hair clip. Apart from the dress, which was a little tent like and more maternity than sexy, he thought she looked a million dollars. But her looking a million dollars still didn’t solve the problem of whether he should shake or kiss. He knew shake was the preferred option, but he so wanted to feel the softness of her slightly reddened cheek under his lips.
She’d nearly reached their little group, her look distant, her hand lifting to flick a strand of hair off her forehead. He allowed his body to move towards her, a jerky uncoordinated lurch as opposed to the seamless James Bond swagger he was trying to imitate. He’d decided on the kiss option. Kiss her and be damned, or that’s what his grandfather would have said.
A smile pulled at his tension filled mouth as he remembered his Nonno and the pretty useless nuggets of dating information he’d used to impart during their fishing trips off The Cape. The only piece he’d always followed was the two requirements for a car, no matter the make: it had to be fast and it had to be red. So why he’d ended up accepting a job that came with a black company car was beyond him. The fact his grandfather had driven a beaten up old jalopy in steel grey with rust trim up until the day he’d died was beside the point. He’d ended up married to the same woman for sixty years so he must have made some right choices along the way.
His gaze roamed to her lips even as he wondered if he dared. In the old days he’d have done a lot worse but that was before his sixteen year old daughter, not to mention all of her friends, were eyeballing him from the safety of the other side of the room. At the last minute, the choice was taken out of his hands and he wasn’t sure whether to feel happy or sad. He’d been close enough to smell her musky scent, something very different to the light floral perfume Evelyn made him buy for her birthday or the thick cloying version his ex-wife had been addicted to.
‘Ah Cara, we were starting to get worried, weren’t we Mavis?’ The purple beanie said, rushing between them with all the finesse of a split infinitive.
‘That we were, Maggie, that we were. Was the metro busy, love?’ she added, her voice soft.
‘I took a cab in the end. I, er, had a bit of trouble fitting everything in my bag.’
‘You didn’t bring much, love. Will you have enough?’
‘I’ll be fine, Mave. A good opportunity to stock up on leggings at Primark.’
‘What’s Primark, some designer label?’ Her look intense.
‘Something like that.’
‘Here let me help you with that.’ Matti said, leaning forward, his elbow knocking into her hand.
Chapter Six
Pain is what the patient says it is, is the mantra of all pain specialists across both the north and south hemispheres.
To Cara, standing in front of her colleagues, her students and the man who’d inadvertently caused it, the pain was indescribable.
Excruciating was a word. Was it excruciating? It was a mix between having her left hand plunged into a tub of boiling hot water and having a thousand pins jabbed into her palm with a little twist at the end. Her breath hitched in her throat and she instinctively cradled her palms to her chest.
She finally worked out what the pain felt like. Her pain was white. Her pain was white as in white hot and not red. Red reminded her of blood, of burning, of scalding. Her pain was deep, a deep searing white pain. She could almost feel her flesh sizzle as her mind flew out through the wide, expansive window and back to Mallorca.
They’d been so happy that last day of their honeymoon. The hot, dry Spanish sun beating down through the light breeze to rain gold spangled rays on the top of their heads as the open topped sports car climbed the mountains around Valldemossa. She remembered the scenery, surprisingly lush green scenery reaching down to the sparkling Mediterranean waters. They’d decided on this, the last day, to ditch the sun beds and spend a day embracing the rest of the island: the culture, the people, the landscape. They’d stopped in a glorious little tavern in the centre of Alaro’s cobblestoned square where they’d shared paella and half a bottle of wine. Not too much wine as Aaron had been driving; just a glass of Rioja had been enough.
Glancing across at her husband of only 13 days she’d marvelled that he’d ever even looked at someone like her. Okay, so her mother was a lady but that meant nothing in this day and age. You just had to scroll through any New Year’s honours list to discover they dished out titles more frequently than buns in a bakery. Aaron was the ideal man, her ideal man. He was tall, blond and handsome with the brightest smile and wickedest sense of humour, all part and parcel of being the youngest son of millionaire parents. They looked good together. They felt good together. They were the perfect couple. They were the perfect couple right up until that last bend in the road.
Stepping backwards she lowered herself into one of the chairs even as the public-address system screeched into life announcing they were boarding rows number one to twenty.
‘Mrs Bachmeire, are you all right?’ His voice repeating in her head like indigestion from last night’s kippers. She couldn’t even speak, let alone look at him. The pain was easing just as she knew it would. Closing her eyes and ears to the sights and sounds that surrounded her, she blocked out the world just like she’d been taught all those months ago and concentrated on her breathing. She sort of realised Mavis and Maggie were sorting out the girls into who was going to sit where but she didn’t care. She wouldn’t care until the pain had eased just enough for her to open her eyes to see what the damage was. He had barely touched her, but that didn’t matter in the scheme of things. She wasn’t normal, or at least her palms weren’t normal and it didn’t take much.
She felt a hand on her knee, the gentlest of touches. Opening her eyes she found him crouched down before her with a tissue in his hand, which he used to wipe away her tears as if she was a child.
‘I’m so sorry; I must have bashed you when I turned.’ His face ashen. ‘I’ve never hurt a woman in my life.’
‘It’s all right,’ she finally managed. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘Of course it’s my fault.’ He stood up and looked at her, the muscles along his jaw stretched taut. ‘If it’s not my fault, whose is it?’
‘It’s mine,
only mine.’ She glanced at her bag and then at him. ‘We’d better board or we’ll miss the plane,’ managing a laugh of sorts. ‘If you wouldn’t mind carrying my bag though?’
‘I’m sorry if I messed up you sitting with your daughter.’
They’d found all the seats full by the time they’d joined the end of the queue and had to be seated in what was left. She’d been hoping, with Maggie and Mavis on the trip, she’d be able to sit by herself, or at least not by someone she knew but now she’d have to sit with him.
‘Ha, you must be deranged if you think I’d either want to or get to sit beside Evelyn. She's no doubt divulging the next set of family secrets as we speak.’
‘Family secrets?’
‘Yes, you know; about the dotty old aunts and murdering uncle.’
‘You have a murdering uncle too, surely not?’ she teased, joining him in a laugh.
‘Indeed I do. Along with seven dwarf uncles and three wise men nephews,’ he added, his face mock serious. ‘So how’s your hand?’ He added, his eyes on her gloves. ‘Don’t you think you should take a look just in case I managed to crack a bone or something?’
‘No, it’ll be fine in a minute.’
‘But I really hurt you…’
She was feeling awkward and embarrassed after pretty much collapsing in the airport and now she’d have to deal with his guilt along with the remnants of pain, which although faded still stabbed each time she shifted her arm. Ideally she’d like to take some of the strong painkillers she was never without but there was no way she’d be able to manage to get at them in the overhead locker. Glancing at him from the corner of her eye was the wrong thing to do because she found herself staring into his face, a face heavy with guilt.
‘Look, it’s not your fault. Well, apart from your elbows.’
‘My elbows?’
‘Yes, your elbows are the boniest things known to man. If I’m ever in need of a cheese grater I’ll know where to go.’
The Englishwoman Trilogy: Box set of: Englishwoman in Paris, Englishwoman in Scotland, Englishwoman in Manhattan Page 39
