The Trophy Child

by Paula Daly

  ‘Here you are,’ the waiter said, placing the glass down in front of Joanne. ‘Can I get you anything else while you wait? Some olives, perhaps? Some—’

  ‘I’m fine as I am.’

  A lone guy at the bar turned around on hearing their exchange and then quickly away when Joanne shot him a look. He’d had two glasses of whisky since Joanne had arrived and she wondered if he was planning to drive tonight. He didn’t seem like a guest. He wore a shirt and tie – the tie pulled loose – and he looked as though he’d been in the same clothes since morning. If Joanne had to hazard a guess, she would say he’d called in here to delay going home. He was easy on the eye, she noticed.

  Then Graham Rimmer arrived.

  And Joanne’s heart sank. He was a bloated-fish version of his profile picture and, as he approached the table, he was out of breath, wheezing a little. He did not appear to be the type of person who was used to rebuilding dry-stone walls and untangling Rough Fell sheep from thorny hedgerows.

  He thrust out his hand. ‘Joanne – Graham. Pleased to meet you. Sorry I’m late.’

  No explanation as to why.

  He removed his leather jacket, a heavy, ancient, biker thing, and slung it around the back of the chair. The weight of it made the chair start to topple, but Graham caught it in a way that made Joanne think it happened often. ‘Just get myself a drink. Back in a sec,’ he said.

  He made his way to the bar and ordered a pint of Guinness. As he waited for it to pour he thrust his hands in his pockets and rocked to and fro from the balls of his feet to his heels.

  Joanne willed herself not to make a hasty judgement, but this was all wrong. The man on the dating site had seemed mild-mannered, gentle. This guy was boorish: the total opposite to what she had expected. He was also substantially older than his photograph had suggested, and around four stone heavier.

  Graham took two large swallows of his pint before heading back towards Joanne.

  Wiping the froth from his lipless mouth on the back of his forearm, he seated himself noisily, saying, ‘So, bookkeeping, then. Bet you’re glad to get out and about if you’re stuck in front of a computer all day. Wouldn’t suit me. I like the outdoors. Not that I get out as much as I used to. When you’re in management, you tend to lose touch and end up in too many meetings. But hey-ho – it could be worse. You got any kids, Joanne, love?’

  ‘No, I—’

  ‘I’ve four. Two big, two small. Two ex-wives as well, who bleed me dry, but I won’t go into that. It’s not polite talk for a first date. Not that we need to be polite. Best to show who we are up front. I’m always the same with everyone. No airs and graces. What you see is what you get. Have you been here before? The beer’s pricey.’

  ‘My first time.’

  ‘Mine, too. Might be the last. You say you’re from Kendal?’

  ‘Not far from—’

  ‘I was born in Penrith. Never travelled far. Never saw the need. People are the same wherever you go. What do you do when you’re not working? I don’t do a lot. Don’t get a chance, really. I should. I know what you’re thinking. How am I going to meet someone if I don’t get myself out there?’ He made a wide, sweeping gesture, as if the world beyond the bar held all the answers to his single status. ‘I didn’t cheat on my wife.’ He coughed. ‘Sorry, wives…if that’s what you’re thinking. Though, God knows, I had more than enough opportunity. The first one said she didn’t cheat on me but, well, she waited the standard six weeks, and hey presto, she’s shacked up with someone else. Brian. Delivers cooked meats. Thought he was a mate. I don’t hold a grudge. No point. Life’s too short. Anyway, what was I saying? The second one, well she was a proper dragon. Married her on the rebound. I won’t do that again – marry in a hurry. No offence.’

  ‘None taken.’

  ‘To be honest, I think she was a bit deranged. She’d not exactly been abused as a kid, but her mother used to hit her with a wooden spoon and lock her in the airing cupboard. Sometimes overnight. I think it left its mark. I tried with her. I really did. No one could say otherwise. When I think what I went through to make that woman happy. Anyway, you don’t want to hear all this. As long as we stay off politics, eh? What? No, I think Cameron’s a tosser. You can’t have a bunch of rich bastards running the country, can you? It’s not right. Farmers get a raw deal every time. I don’t know why more don’t stick a shotgun in their gob and end it.’ He stopped momentarily to drain the rest of his pint, before telling Joanne that this dating business was thirsty work and, ‘I’ll just go and get myself another.’

  Joanne thought about leaving. She could get in her car and go. Leave Graham Rimmer to talk to himself for the rest of the night. Or she could disappear to the ladies’ and hide. The thought of a whole evening spent with him was beginning to fill her with a sickening kind of dread, but how does one get out of a situation such as this? If she’d been straight from the start and told him she was a detective she could have invented an excuse. An emergency at work. A murder. She could have left, him thinking no worse of her, or of himself for that matter. But, as it was, she couldn’t come up with a suitable emergency that might arise from the world of bookkeeping.

  A fine sweat sprung up on Joanne’s lip and, as she reached inside her handbag to find a tissue, she saw the small Phillips screwdriver and the mace. Items she’d packed tonight in case her date turned out to be a demented woman killer. Funny, but that prospect had seemed a lot more likely than the need to escape a boring, overweight guy who was more likely to talk Joanne to death.

  She glanced towards the bar. In the time it had taken for the Guinness to pour, Graham Rimmer had struck up a conversation with the whisky drinker in the loosened tie one seat along. He was explaining that he was on a first date and he seemed to have landed lucky, as he hadn’t expected much from someone he’d found on the internet. ‘Thought it’d be just the dregs,’ he said.

  Graham Rimmer made his way back to Joanne’s table, this time neglecting to wipe the foam from his upper lip and giving Joanne a broad grin as he seated himself, telling her she had a smashing shape for a woman of forty.

  All at once, Joanne felt not forty but very, very old.

  Was this what her life had come to? A succession of dates like this? With men like this?

  She could imagine being in bed with Graham Rimmer, him farting loudly, saying, ‘Did you like that?’, impersonating steeplejack Fred Dibnah on felling a chimney, finding himself utterly hilarious.

  ‘You don’t say much,’ Graham Rimmer said.

  Joanne tried to smile. ‘Maybe I’m a little nervous.’

  And he reached out and put his hand on hers. Covered it with his big, meaty fingers.

  Giving her hand a firm squeeze, he said, ‘No need to be nervous of me, love. I won’t bite…Not unless you want me to, anyway.’

  Joanne removed her hand.

  ‘I had something of a dalliance in between my marriages,’ he said, dropping his voice a level. ‘With a kennel maid from Wigton. Too young for me, really, but she was keen enough so I went with it. Sometimes she liked me to bite her on the—’ He paused here, looking furtive, before motioning over his shoulder with his thumb.

  ‘On the back?’ asked Joanne.

  ‘On the bottom,’ he said. Then he frowned, blowing out his breath. ‘I thought it was strange, and I’ve got to say I wasn’t proper comfortable with it, but you know what they say. Takes all sorts.’

  Indeed it does.

  Joanne shifted in her seat and straightened her spine. ‘Graham,’ she said, again trying to smile a little, ‘you know you listed your age as forty-seven on your profile? Well, if you don’t mind my saying, you do look a bit older than that. How old are you, exactly?’

  Graham put down his pint.

  ‘Sixty-one.’

  He arched an eyebrow and looked at Joanne expectantly. It occurred to Joanne that he was waiting to be complimented on his appearance. In another situation, she might have gone along with it, just to be polite.

&
nbsp; Instead she said, ‘You didn’t think it might be unfair to lie?’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone lie about their age?’

  ‘No, Graham,’ Joanne said. ‘No. They don’t.’

  For a moment Graham looked abashed, staring silently at his beer. Then he said, ‘I think you’ll find I’m a very youthful sixty-one.’

  And Joanne replied, ‘I’m sure you are. But, Graham, I’ve got to be straight with you. I’m in the market for someone a bit younger.’

  He lifted his head.

  ‘Oh, you are, are you?’ he said, indignation clear in his voice.

  ‘Yes. I am.’

  Graham was put out. He ran his eyes over her disdainfully, as though to say, Don’t hold your breath. Then he cleared his throat and stood.

  ‘Well, if that’s the way it is,’ he said. ‘If that’s the way it’s going to be, then I don’t suppose it’s worth buying you dinner, is it?’

  ‘Probably not.’

  Graham grabbed his jacket and departed without saying goodbye, and Joanne was left feeling quite embarrassed, but relieved nonetheless. She would not be doing this again. It had taken too much time and energy to arrange this date, only to get to the point where it was clear there was a lot more to be said for spotting someone across a crowded room, someone who stirred your interest for no logical reason that you could fathom.

  Commenting on profiles, waiting days for emails to be returned, exchanging cagey details about yourself, was not how Joanne wanted to conduct her romantic life. And if Detective Inspector McAleese hadn’t got cancer she wouldn’t have had to, but he had promptly brought their relationship to a close upon receiving his diagnosis. Joanne had thought this was overkill at the time, as he’d been given great odds. His doctors had removed a short section of bowel and were doing chemo only as a precautionary measure. He was expected to make a complete recovery.

  But McAleese had been insistent. ‘It’s over, Joanne,’ he had told her solemnly. She hadn’t been heartbroken. Just sad. Pete McAleese said his intention had been to save her from heartbreak. He didn’t want Joanne putting her life on hold while he fought a battle, a battle of indeterminate length, and Joanne had protested, saying that she wouldn’t be putting her life on hold at all. Her life was with him now.

  But he wouldn’t have it. And Joanne had felt like she’d fallen straight into a movie from the fifties: tearful kid on a wraparound porch instructing the stray dog to ‘Go! Just get away from here. Y’hear me?’

  Joanne was the dog.

  The waiter appeared at Joanne’s side like an apparition. As if from nowhere. She must have been lost in thought.

  ‘The gentleman over at the bar sent you this,’ he said, his eyes dancing as he proffered Joanne a glass tumbler.

  Joanne was taken aback.

  ‘What is it?’ she whispered.

  ‘Whisky. Glenlivet. He said he thought you could use it.’

  Joanne felt heat rise in her cheeks. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t, really,’ she blustered. ‘I’m not really supposed to be…’

  She tried to gather herself.

  ‘Please tell him thank you,’ she said firmly.

  ‘Why don’t you tell him yourself,’ he said, nodding his head towards the empty stool at the bar. Then he added in her ear, ‘He seems like a nice guy.’

  Joanne stole a glance across. The man had his back to them, and he did not turn around like some leering idiot, tipping the rim of his glass her way. Instead, he was slouched forward, elbows resting on the bar. She had known instantly he wasn’t Graham Rimmer when she entered the room earlier, as his manner suggested he was killing time rather than waiting for someone.

  Unlike Joanne, that is, who had sat erect in her seat, watchful, hopeful, eagerly examining everyone who entered.

  She still had almost a full glass of wine in front of her. But she left it there on the table and picked up the whisky, carrying it, along with her jacket and handbag, over to the empty seat next to the man.

  When she reached the bar, he turned his head her way and offered her a lazy smile. ‘Rough date?’ he asked, and she nodded.

  ‘Mind if I sit?’ she said.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  She arranged her jacket on the stool and dropped her handbag against the foot of the bar. Lifting the glass to her lips, she said, ‘Thanks for this, by the way,’ and he tilted his head as though to say, It’s nothing.

  They sat in silence. Joanne felt herself relax for the first time all day. She was working on a particularly frustrating drugs case. Their suspect, a slippery bastard who had a number of aliases but was known to Joanne mostly by his street name, Sonny, was moving heroin and assorted pills through Joanne’s area. He used a variety of women to hold on to his supply, but they didn’t know who or where these women were.

  Joanne took another mouthful and let the tension ease from her shoulders.

  Her drinking partner drained his glass and motioned to the barman for another. If he drove away from here tonight, Joanne would have to arrest him.

  He turned to her. ‘Was it a blind date?’ he asked.

  ‘Kind of. I’d seen a photograph of him, but it wasn’t exactly what you’d call a true likeness.’

  ‘A dating website?’

  She nodded.

  She took a surreptitious peek at his left hand and saw it was devoid of a ring. The skin between each of his fingers was bleached. There were also patches of white skin on each knuckle and fingertip. ‘Have you ever tried it?’ Joanne asked. ‘Internet dating, I mean.’

  ‘Can’t say I have.’

  ‘That’s a shame. You could have given me some tips.’

  He seemed amused.

  ‘You don’t need any tips,’ he said. ‘Just stick to people you like the look of.’ And then he held her gaze for one, two…three seconds.

  Was he coming on to her? Joanne was so out of practice she really couldn’t tell. And yes, sticking to people you liked the look of was all very well, but when you didn’t actually come across many people you liked the look of in your daily life, then you resorted to sifting through online profiles in your dressing gown, your aunt watching over your shoulder, tutting and sighing at the slim pickings on offer.

  ‘I’m Seamus,’ he said.

  ‘Joanne.’

  ‘It’s good to meet you, Joanne.’

  He didn’t offer his hand, just smiled again, and Joanne could feel the pulse in her neck begin to throb. She put her fingers there to cover it.

  ‘Are you a guest here?’ she asked.

  ‘Just stopped by on my way home. It’s been a long day.’

  ‘What do you do?’ she asked.

  ‘Accounting.’

  Great. Bookkeeping was now a no-go.

  ‘Do you live far?’ she asked.

  ‘Half an hour or so.’

  ‘You probably shouldn’t have that whisky if you’re driving.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I probably shouldn’t…but I will.’

  A moment passed, and Joanne thought she’d made a mistake. He wasn’t coming on to her; he was just a decent guy who felt sorry for her. Plenty of those around.

  ‘Perhaps you’ll have to stay here a while longer,’ he said. ‘Keep me company until the alcohol’s worked its way out of my system.’

  ‘Oh?’ she said.

  ‘Or we could have dinner, if you haven’t eaten.’

  ‘I haven’t eaten.’

  Seamus had accountant’s hands. Smooth skin with long, fine fingers. Hands that hadn’t done a lot of manual labour. Joanne put him at around forty-eight, and you could tell he was the kind of man who had been attractive in his youth, but there was a pull of worry around his mouth, as if life had taken its toll.

  Did she fancy him?

  Sure she did.

  She took another mouthful of whisky. Again, they were silent.

  Very few people Joanne came across were content to sit in total quiet. Apart from, that is, the occasional guilty, reprobate teenager she had to question. Always y
our typical unhappy customers. They hated the police and had no problem showing it. They didn’t even say ‘No comment,’ taking their right to silence to its fullest extreme.

  ‘Have you been on your own long?’ Seamus asked her.

  ‘You mean single? Not too long. I was in a relationship with a colleague, but it came to an end because…well, it just ended. How about you? Are you single?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How long alone?’ she asked.

  ‘A long time,’ he said. ‘Too long.’

  ‘Too long without a relationship, or too long without a woman?’ she said, and Seamus shot her a mischievous, guilty look, as if to say, Ah, you got me.

  Then he told her he’d not been in a relationship for several years.

  ‘Any particular reason?’ she asked.

  He smiled. ‘Didn’t find anyone I liked the look of. Anyway,’ he said, pushing his glass away, rising from the bar stool, ‘shall we eat? ’

  3

  Tuesday, 22 September

  The morning session was almost over. Noel Bloom took a minute for himself before the emergency appointments began to filter in, one after another, each patient a disagreeable blend of anxiety about their ailment and resentment at having to wait for up to an hour to be seen.

  Two days out of each week, at 12 p.m., it fell to Noel to deal with the emergencies, while his colleagues covered the domiciliaries – the home visits. Noel preferred the house calls now, but he hadn’t always. In his younger years as a GP, he’d found the amount of time they ate up frustrating. He could get through six patients in the clinic to one in the field, and almost all of them could have made it in – if only they’d tried a little harder. But patients still expected to be seen in their own homes.

  These days Noel liked to take his time travelling around his catchment area, this small corner of South Lakeland. Had that happened with age? he wondered. This peculiar need to see his environment, to stop and take in the scenery? Or was it simply that he knew that, no matter how much work he got through in one day, there would always be more patients to see the next, and the day after that. Trying to get ahead in general practice was futile. He accepted that now.