by Susan Lewis
After the wasabi and fresh ginger had been popped into dishes too, and everything had been transported on to the coffee table in the sitting room, they all sank into giant floor pillows to start tucking into the feast.
Never being short of news or gossip, the hours sped by so fast that they almost missed the start of the programme.
‘Oh my God!’ Lisa cried, leaping up as she spotted the time. ‘Please don’t let it have started – I want to see him introduced.’
Mimicking David Dimbleby, Polly said, ‘And to my left we have the Honourable David Kirby MP, ex-Foreign Minister and soon to be first husband of the gorgeous Lisa Martin. Which reminds me, I have something to tell you after. Don’t let me forget.’
‘Ssh,’ Hayley commanded, as Lisa’s heart tripped over the suspicion Polly’s news was about Tony. ‘It’s starting.’
As Umeko passed her a drink, Lisa sank cross-legged on to her cushion, eyes glued to the screen as David Dimbleby announced where they were transmitting from and then the title music rolled. This was followed by a group shot of the panel, so brief Lisa barely had a chance to glimpse who was there before they were showing close-ups. First came a Home Office Minister, followed by a leading light of the Lib Dems, then a nationally recognised Bristolian entrepreneur, a popular columnist from one of the dailies, and ‘stepping in at the last minute, Harry Jenks, MP for Bristol North’.
Lisa blinked, unable to grasp what was happening. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Where is he?’
‘They said the other guy was stepping in last minute,’ Nerine repeated unnecessarily.
‘We were talking about it on the phone just before you came in,’ Lisa told them, more bemused for the moment than worried. ‘He was on his way there.’
‘So he’s obviously backed out for some reason,’ Hayley said.
‘But if he had he’d have let me know,’ Lisa insisted. ‘Where’s the phone? I have to call him.’
As she went to fetch it from the kitchen, Polly lowered the volume and sat quietly with the others, listening to Lisa trying to get through.
‘David! Where are you?’ she said urgently. ‘Why aren’t you answering? What’s happened? Please call me.’
‘I’m sure it’s not serious,’ Umeko muttered to the others as Lisa disappeared into the bedroom to retrieve her mobile.
‘No messages, nothing,’ she said, bringing it back into the room. Her face was an ashen replica of the flushed bride-to-be of a few minutes ago.
‘I expect he’s broken down somewhere,’ Nerine suggested.
‘He was on the train.’
‘Which could have broken down, or got held up for some reason.’
‘So why doesn’t he call?’ She was remembering how uptight and distant he’d sounded earlier, particularly at the end of the call, so maybe he was having second thoughts … Except that was hardly going to prevent him appearing on TV. She started to turn cold. ‘Maybe there’s been an accident,’ she said. Then, suddenly panicked, ‘Where’s the remote? Put on the news.’
In a flash Polly had switched to BBC 24. To everyone’s relief there was no live coverage from a crash scene, and none on the Sky channel either.
‘So what’s happened to him?’ Lisa demanded in frustration. ‘Why didn’t he call as soon as he knew he wouldn’t be on? I don’t understand.’
‘Is there anyone else you can ring?’ Hayley asked. ‘Maybe one of his family has taken ill.’
Lisa’s eyes went to her, then she jumped as the telephone rang. Grabbing it and clicking on, she said, ‘David, is that you?’
‘No, it’s me,’ Amy told her. ‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know! I’ve tried calling but his phone’s off.’ She turned round as Nerine said, ‘If there’d been an accident, they’d surely have mentioned it on the programme.’
‘Not if the family hasn’t been notified yet,’ Polly reminded her, and immediately wished she hadn’t when she saw Lisa’s face.
‘Did Miles give you a number when he called today?’ Amy asked.
‘No,’ Lisa answered, ‘but he rang my mobile …’ and grabbing her iPhone she quickly scrolled through the incoming calls. ‘Damn, he was calling from the office.’
‘Try it anyway,’ Amy advised. ‘You never know, someone might be there.’
After making the connection Lisa listened to the ringtone until the answerphone picked up. Not bothering to leave a message, she was about to speak to Amy again when she heard a beep on the landline. ‘Someone’s trying to get through, I’ll ring you back,’ she told her sister, and switching to the other call she said, ‘David?’
‘Matilda,’ her mother corrected. ‘I thought you said …’
‘I did, and I don’t know what’s happened, Mum. As far as I knew he was appearing tonight.’
‘We’ve all stayed up specially to watch,’ Matilda grumbled. ‘I was looking forward to it.’
‘I’m sorry. As soon as I know why he’s not there I’ll tell you, but for now I have to try and find out where he is.’
‘I hope he hasn’t had an accident.’
‘Mum! I don’t need to hear that, thank you very much. Now go to bed, I’ll call you in the morning.’
After ringing off Lisa looked at the others, at a loss what to do next.
Taking out her mobile, Nerine said, ‘I’ll call the BBC, see if I can get through to someone on the programme. They must have some idea of why he’s not there.’
Hayley said, ‘Do you know how to get in touch with his daughter?’
Lisa shook her head. ‘Unless her number’s in the book.’
‘What’s the surname?’ Umeko demanded. ‘I’ll try and find out.’
‘Sewell,’ Lisa told her. ‘Her husband’s name is Jerry – I’m not sure whether that’s with a J or a G. Their address must be Chew Magna, I think, or Chew Stoke.’ She looked at the phone in her hand, willing it to ring. ‘Where are you?’ she murmured desperately. ‘Why don’t you call?’
Rosalind was shouting at everyone to be quiet as she waited for Miles to come back on the line. They were at Dee’s house, where she and a dozen or more friends had gathered to watch the transmission, while Lawrence slept upstairs in the room Dee had made his. Since they’d already tried her father’s number to no avail, they were now relying on Miles to find out from the programme’s producers why her father wasn’t on air.
‘Rosalind, can you hear me?’ Miles shouted, coming back on the line.
‘Yes. What’s happening? Did you speak to someone?’
‘Yes. Apparently they don’t know where he is either. When he hadn’t turned up, or been in contact half an hour before the show, they dragged Harry Jenks out of the audience to take his place.’
Using anger to smother the worst of her fears, she said, ‘He’s with her. He’s forgotten what he’s supposed to be doing, because he’s so besotted with her he can’t think about anything else.’
‘That’s not him,’ Miles told her. ‘Besides, I spoke to him while he was on the train, so he was definitely on his way there.’
‘Then where is he?’ Rosalind cried, aware of the way everyone was watching her. This was so unlike her father that they were all as baffled and worried as she was.
‘I don’t know where he is,’ Miles answered, ‘but I’m staying on it.’
It was almost midnight by now. Lisa was curled into a corner of the sofa, both phones on the arm beside her as she waited for news. Before leaving, Umeko had tried Rosalind’s number, but had received an answerphone so had rung off without leaving a message. Since then, all manner of scenarios had been running through Lisa’s mind, of Lawrence or Rosalind being rushed off to hospital; of David being hit by a car and in a coma with his next of kin by his side who wouldn’t bother to call her; of a terrorist gang grabbing him off the street and holding him hostage … So many fears, so much to torment herself with, and still nothing to tell her what had gone wrong. She’d even, in some insane corner of her mind, wondered if Tony had something t
o do with it, but that was just plain absurd. More likely was that another passenger had noticed his state of arousal after their intimate phone conversation and called the police, who had boarded the train at the next station and were now holding him in a cell overnight.
Afraid of where her unhelpful imagination might take her next, she glanced at the clock, wondering if it was too late to call Amy. They’d spoken again after Amy’s initial call, but with nothing else to report they hadn’t stayed on the line long. She desperately needed to do something, but to go out and look for him at this time of night, when she had no idea even where to begin, was hardly an option, nor was contacting the police, at least not at this stage. So all she could do was remain where she was, putting herself through seven kinds of hell and feeling so distanced from the woman who’d spoken to David a few hours ago that she could have been transported to another planet.
She began running the conversation over in her mind again, not the sensual, sexual part of it, but the moments when she’d asked him if he was feeling low. She wasn’t entirely sure why she’d asked that when he hadn’t really sounded that way, it was simply that she’d been unable to come up with another word. Nor could she now, unless she listened to her inner demons who were wide awake and raring to party with their best mate, paranoia. If she started giving in to all that she’d be a jabbering wreck in less than an hour, because she knew very well, without consulting her fears and insecurities, just how fragile happiness could be, and how life had some novel and pretty horrific ways of proving it.
‘I know,’ life would say, ‘let’s bring David and Lisa back together, and just when Lisa thinks everything’s going to work out perfectly we’ll punish her for being so full of herself by killing him.’
‘Or at least by making it that he changes his mind and doesn’t want her any more,’ fate would suggest. ‘He just thought she was the right one because they had all that unfinished business way back when.’
‘You can return her to me, if you like,’ destiny would offer. ‘I’ll make it so she can carry on more or less as before, but with no job this time, so it won’t be as easy to keep running away. She’ll have to find somewhere to settle, and by the time she’s ready to commit to Tony, which is where she really belongs, and she knows it, he’ll have married somebody else.’
‘Why don’t I take her?’ death would weigh in. ‘If she loses David and Tony she won’t want to go on without them, so instead of letting you guys use and abuse her, why don’t I do the decent thing and put her out of her misery now?’
Snapping out of the grisly little pantomime, she stood up and went to make a coffee. As she waited for the kettle to boil she began slipping from the firmer ground of common sense again, this time into tormenting herself with what would happen to the house, the furniture and everything else that was already crafted or being shipped from around the world, if David had decided he didn’t want her any more. She knew it was crazy thinking this way, that he loved her and wasn’t about to give her up, but it was better than being dragged into the terrifying prospect of something awful happening to him. But what if it had? No, no, she couldn’t allow herself to go there, it would only make everything seem ten times worse and God knew it was bad enough already.
The landline rang and she almost spilled her coffee trying to get to it. ‘Hello?’ she said, trying not to sound panicked.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ Amy told her. ‘Any news?’
Though the disappointment was crushing, she was so relieved to have someone to talk to that she gave a gulp of laughter. ‘No. Nothing,’ she said, a surge of useless tears flooding her eyes. ‘Nerine finally got through to someone on the programme who told her they had no idea why he hadn’t turned up, and Rosalind’s not at home.’
‘Maybe something’s happened to her, or Lawrence.’
‘If it had he’d have called by now to let me know. And he’d never let the BBC down like that, so I’m at a complete loss here.’
‘And driving yourself nuts, no doubt, which is why I rang. I couldn’t sleep either, so I thought we might as well be awake together. What are you doing now?’
‘Drinking coffee, waiting. Is Theo asleep?’
‘I don’t think so, but he’s got an early meeting in the morning so he’s trying to go off. I’m downstairs in the kitchen with Roxy. She says hi.’
‘Hi,’ Lisa mumbled, her heart turning over as she remembered that her niece was due to arrive tomorrow for a second fitting of her bridesmaid’s dress.
‘It’ll be all right, Lis,’ Roxy said, coming on the line. ‘I know it will.’
Lisa forced herself to say, ‘Thank you.’ How easy it was at eighteen to believe everything would turn out just fine – how difficult it was now.
‘Do you still want me to come tomorrow?’ Roxy asked.
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Then, feeling less certain, ‘Actually, let’s talk in the morning.’
‘OK. I’ll put Mum back on.’
‘I was thinking,’ Amy said, ‘maybe we should call the hospitals. If he has been involved in an accident they …’
‘Hang on,’ Lisa interrupted, her heart starting to pound, ‘someone’s trying to get through. I’ll call you back,’ and knowing if it was her mother she really would scream this time, she clicked over to the other line.
‘Darling, it’s me.’
‘David! Oh my God!’ she cried, clasping a hand to her mouth as the relief sent her reeling. ‘Where are you? What’s happened? I’ve been so worried. Is everything OK?’
‘It is now,’ he replied, managing to sound both tired and amused. ‘What an evening I’ve had, though. You’re not going to believe what happened.’
Not caring, as long as he was all right, she said, ‘Where are you?’
‘I’ll get to that. First off, the damned train broke down and where did we happen to be? In the Box tunnel, of course. You know the one that goes on for ever between Chippenham and Bath? They kept putting out announcements saying they hoped to get things sorted in the next few minutes, and when those minutes were up we just got another announcement apologising and repeating the same thing. I couldn’t use my phone because we were in the tunnel, and anyway, after I spoke to you Miles called and by the time I’d finished with him my battery was out.’
‘But …’ she interrupted.
He kept on going. ‘Which wouldn’t have been a problem,’ he said, ‘had I not finally got to my car at Temple Meads to discover that I’d left the keys in London, so I couldn’t get in.’
‘Oh no,’ she groaned, looking around to see if she could spot them.
‘By then the programme was already going out,’ he ran on, ‘so there was no point taking a taxi there. I took one to Rosalind’s instead, only to find she wasn’t at home. I finally tracked her down at Dee’s which is where I am now, exhausted, ravenous and ready to sue First Great Western to within an inch of its existence.’
As she laughed drily at the craziness of his evening, she could only wish she was with him to try and soothe away the awful frustration he must have suffered. ‘What a nightmare,’ she sympathised. ‘And to think I was so worried … When the programme started and you weren’t there … You can’t imagine what’s been going through my mind. All that matters though is that you’re all right.’
‘I am,’ he confirmed, sounding more exhausted than ever, ‘and sorry I put you through all that stress. I’ll tell you one good thing to come out of it though,’ he continued in a quieter voice, ‘when I was sitting there in the car not knowing what the hell was going on …’
‘Do you mean carriage?’
Taking a moment to pick up, he said, ‘Of course. Having all that time on my hands gave me the opportunity to think about you and how very much you mean to me.’
‘Oh, darling,’ she said, melting. ‘And you do to me. When I thought something had happened to you … It was just awful. I couldn’t bear it, because my life is complete now in a way it’s never been before. I’m not even worried about growing o
ld now – or not very – because I’m going to be doing it with you.’
There was a smile in his voice as he said, ‘I’ll remind you of that the next time you yelp at a grey hair or get worked up over an imaginary wrinkle.’
‘You know, that’s one of the things I love most about you, the way you manage to blind yourself to all my little imperfections.’
‘You’ll always be beautiful to me, no matter how old you are, and you can remind me of that when you’re ninety, because if I’m still around I know I’ll still feel the same.’
‘If I am, then you’d better be too, or there’ll be trouble. Now, I should let you go so we can both get some sleep. Call me when you wake up, won’t you?’
‘Of course. And I’m sorry again about tonight.’
Rosalind was in Dee’s kitchen preparing a sandwich for her father while he made his call in the dining room. Though he’d closed the door behind him, she’d still been able to hear, because he didn’t seem to have noticed that it had come ajar again. Now, as he returned the phone to its base, and tucked his notebook away, she put a panini and a cup of tea in front of him and kissed his cheek, feeling not only relieved he was safe, but profoundly intrigued by what she’d just overheard. Why, she’d very much like to know, had he just told Lisa that he’d arrived here in a taxi, when his car was sitting right outside? And, unless she was gravely mistaken, he’d been reading at least some of what he’d told her from his notebook, which was almost equally as odd.
Chapter Nine
MILES WAS RUSHING to meet Lisa, a week later than originally planned, since David’s extraordinary no-show on Question Time had left him and Yvonne with a lot of ruffled feathers to smooth the following day. Fortunately matters hadn’t got too out of hand, mainly thanks to Harry Jenks stepping in at the last minute, but he too had been on the phone the next morning wanting to know what the heck had happened to David.
