by Fiona Harper
‘It is,’ Claire said wearily. She usually loved watching it, listening to all the songs, especially ‘There’s a Rising Moon’. ‘It’s just I’m not really in the mood for love triangles and white picket fences tonight.’
‘Hmm,’ Peggy said, studying her intently. ‘Does this mean you still haven’t heard from lover boy?’
Claire shook her head. ‘And he’s not my lover, remember? He’s got a girlfriend.’
Peggy made a booing noise.
‘And, no, I haven’t heard from him, not since I bumped into him in after the last club meeting. Looks as if I’ve lost out on the business front too!’
‘You should be a twenty-first century woman and contact him!’
‘I have,’ Claire replied. That was the annoying bit. ‘I sent off a couple of very harmless chatty but professional emails to him and … nothing.’
Peggy pulled a sympathetic face. ‘Aw, sorry about that. He sounded cute …’ she started.
Claire sighed. ‘I know.’
‘It’s always the way,’ Peggy said philosophically. ‘The ones you want you can’t have, and the ones that want you just aren’t interesting.’
‘I know that too,’ she said, nodding. It was a real pain in the backside too. Because that was why Nick had gone silent on her.
They’d had a ‘moment’ outside her front gate.
Oh, she knew it didn’t necessarily mean anything, but she understood why he was keeping his distance. It wasn’t as if, after she’d married Philip, that all other men had become anonymous, sexless blobs. Sometimes you saw someone who flicked your hormonal switches. Sometimes you thought to yourself, If I wasn’t involved with someone, I’d be interested … Didn’t mean you were evil. Just that you were human. It was what you did with that thought afterwards that counted, whether you watered and fed it until it became a full-blown obsession or whether you weeded it out before it had a chance to take root.
That was what Nick had done probably. Weeded her out.
Maybe he’d plan his holiday on his own now. Or maybe he’d find another travel agent to help him, which would be a pity. She had a feeling that now he’d made a breakthrough with those questions he’d be even more fun to work with, that they could really let their imaginations fly together.
Maybe she needed to do some weeding of her own.
Thinking about him like this … It wasn’t productive in any sense or form.
Time to think about something else. Someone else.
And thinking of intriguing men …
She hadn’t seen her downstairs neighbour in the last week, either, even though she’d been looking out for him, trying to catch him in the hallway when she heard him moving about, but he always managed to dart inside his flat or disappear beyond the tall hedge that protected their squat front garden from the street before she managed to lay eyes on him.
Ever since seeing that documentary, she’d been curious about him. Maybe she’d built up a totally false picture of who he was. Yes, he’d caused her a few inconveniences from time to time, but now he was here more permanently, he seemed to be mending his ways. While at first she’d been sceptical about his promise to make an effort – especially after all those sarcastic notes – she now had to admit that maybe he hadn’t been trying to get a rise out of her. Not recently, anyway.
However, before she could contemplate the enigma of her downstairs neighbour any further, the rest of the club members started arriving and she had to put all thoughts of him out of her head.
George arrived first. Claire went and said a special hello to him. He was such a sweet man. If only Maggs would give him a chance. Candy came next, followed swiftly by Kitty and Grace, who seemed to be deep in conversation about something. They sat down close together, thick as thieves, and kept glancing towards the door.
Peggy arrived just on the dot of eight and, a few moments later, as Claire was saying a little bit about the film they were going to watch that night, Abby slipped in at the back. Gone was the dress of the previous meeting, replaced once again by the football kit. She hunkered down and let her long hair fall over her face.
Claire watched her sadly as she finished talking and set the DVD running. It was such a shame. Abby had looked so pretty last week. Not just because of the clothes and hair, but because she’d let down that tough exterior a little and they’d all seen a bit more of the sensitive girl underneath. It didn’t escape Claire, as the lights dimmed and the credits started to roll, that Kitty and Grace were whispering furiously to each other and kept glancing over their shoulders at the hunched figure at the back of the room.
Hmm, she thought, as the crooning tones of Sinatra’s theme song died away and the camera panned then zoomed through the window of a charming suburban house. Perhaps she’d have a little chat after the meeting, see if she could sort out what was going on.
Claire looked round at the empty chair beside her. Where on earth was Maggs? She often cut it fine getting to the meetings, but Claire had never once known her to be late.
They’d already got to the scene where Doris was singing ‘Ready, Willing and Able’ on the beach by the time the door creaked and a wiry figure slipped onto the chair beside her.
‘Everything okay?’ Claire whispered, leaning in close as Maggs put down her handbag.
Maggs straightened and stared at her. The white of her eyes glowed in the gloom. ‘Fine. I was on the phone.’
‘Oh,’ Claire said. That seemed odd. Young at Heart was also one of Maggs’s favourites.
‘Your father called.’
Everything inside Claire went cold. She stared straight ahead at the screen. ‘H—how?’ she stammered. ‘How did he know your number?’
‘I wrote back to him after our last chat on the subject,’ Maggs said. ‘Just like you said.’
‘Oh,’ Claire said again. It was a completely inadequate word to convey the churning inside her stomach. She knew she’d told Maggs to do it, but somehow it had still come as a shock. She turned her head slightly to look at her, managed to keep her voice light and unconcerned, as if she was asking about the weather. ‘What did he say?’
Both Candy and Bev looked over their shoulders, not cross, but clearly the whispering was disturbing them.
‘We can’t talk now,’ Maggs added, dropping her volume even further. ‘I’ll tell you afterwards.’
‘Okay.’ Claire turned her attention back to the screen. She’d completely missed the bit where Sinatra had made his first appearance and now he was sitting at the piano, playing a beautiful tune and charming the socks off Ethel Barrymore with his melancholy wit.
Okay? In what universe was this okay? Why, oh, why had she let Maggs talk her into this? The firm and certain knowledge that she’d have rather driven her Fiat off Tower Bridge than see her father again settled in her chest.
But there was nothing she could do about it now. She would just have to sit through the next hour or two and hold off until the meeting was over.
Thankfully, the story was a familiar one, and it didn’t matter if she drifted off now and again while they all sat there in the dark and watched the unlikely love between Doris’s bright and chirpy Laurie and Sinatra’s self-destructive Barney bloom.
It turned out all right in the end, though. Happy endings and wedding bells all round.
Even that had been manufactured. The original story it had been based on had been more like real life, a mixture of tragedy and happiness, Doris’s mismatched romance doomed. Claire could never quite decide whether she liked the ending as it was, or whether she wished they’d been brave enough to make it darker, more real. There was always that tension, wasn’t there? Between the fantasy and the reality. Ultimately, both were unsatisfying. One for its lack of truth, the other for its heartache.
When the film finished, the club members began to chat again, discussing the performances and songs. Claire took the opportunity to slink to the back of the room. Before she sorted out her own life, she had someone else who required a littl
e bit of attention.
‘Hey, Abby,’ she said softly, as she sat down beside her. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all week … Are you okay?’
Abby hugged herself tighter and nodded.
‘I saw you talking to those boys after the meeting last week.’
Abby looked up at her, panicked. ‘They’re just idiots,’ she said darkly. ‘I don’t care what they think!’
Given Abby’s current wardrobe and demeanour, Claire could beg to differ, but she wasn’t sure pressing the issue was going to be helpful. ‘And the tall one. The one who didn’t say anything. Was that Ricky?’
Abby’s lip wobbled and she scowled even harder to stop it. ‘He’s a prat.’
‘Have you heard from him since?’ It didn’t escape Claire that she was asking Abby a similar question to the one Peggy had asked her earlier and, from the look on Abby’s face, she was being just as lucky in love.
Abby shook her head. ‘And I haven’t seen him, because I just stayed in my room all week and didn’t go anywhere.’ She glanced up at Claire, terrified. ‘I can’t talk to him, so don’t ask me to! It was bad enough before …’
‘How do you mean “bad”?’
Abby let out a noise that was half groan, half sigh. ‘It’s stupid … It’s like my feet grow roots. I can’t move – and I definitely can’t speak! And then I go hot and cold all over and I just end up stammering and shaking, not knowing what to do with myself. If I’m lucky, I manage to croak out his name!’
‘Abby … Don’t you realise that is exactly how I would have described the way Ricky reacted when he saw you in that dress last week?’
Abby sat bolt upright and stared at her. ‘No. Don’t be daft. That was different.’
Claire leaned forward slightly, lifting her eyebrows. ‘Was it?’
Abby opened her mouth then froze.
‘Maybe he just was a little shocked. Maybe – despite what you think – it worked. I think you just might have blown his socks off.’
The look of hope and pain mixed in the younger girl’s eyes made Claire mist up a little. ‘Really?’ she whispered.
‘Really,’ Claire said, standing up.
Abby rose too, but she looked stunned, as if she just might wander blindly down the stairs, off across the park and not stop until she hit the Thames.
‘I think you should find him and ask him to go to the party with you.’
Abby grunted. ‘That’s not going to happen now. I’m probably not even going to the stupid party.’
‘Why not?’
‘Kitty kept texting this week, wanting to do another makeover and I didn’t want to so I just didn’t answer, because I didn’t know what to say, and now she hates me and I can’t do all that stuff on my own.’
Ah. So that’s what all the whispering at the front had been about.
‘They’ll come round if you’re honest with them. I think you have to be brave enough to tell them what you think. There’s no use in running away from it. Sometimes you just have to face things head-on.’
Abby looked at her doubtfully.
‘Of course they’re angry at the moment,’ Claire explained. ‘They’re upset, but I’m sure if you go and tell them what you’ve just told me and apologise, they’d understand. We’ve all felt like that in front of a boy once or twice in our lives.’ Abby laughed. ‘Not Kitty and Grace! I mean, have you seen them?’
Claire nodded gently. ‘Yep. Even Kitty and Grace. I bet you. They often go downstairs for a drink afterwards. Why don’t you see if you can find them?’
The girl didn’t look convinced, but she thanked Claire and headed off looking determined. Claire turned to find Maggs, arms crossed, looking at her.
‘Enough of the delaying tactics,’ she said, as Claire walked across the room and popped the DVD out of the player and returned it to its case. ‘I’ll buy you a drink and we’ll talk.’
‘I know we said we’d talk, but I wasn’t delaying, I was helping. There’s a difference.’
Maggs humphed. ‘Well, now it’s my turn to help you.’
Claire zipped up the DVD case and placed it back in her tote bag, then slung the bag over her shoulder. ‘I’m starting to think your brand of “help” isn’t much help at all.’
Maggs just gave her a sour look. ‘Physician, heal thyself,’ she said dryly.
‘What?’ Claire asked as she turned off the lights and they headed down the narrow stairs.
‘I heard what you said to that girl,’ Maggs said behind her. She waited until they both had their feet on the ground floor before she looked Claire in the eye.
‘About making up with Kitty and Grace? That was just a silly misunderstanding, hardly the same as dealing with the parent who deserted you and hasn’t given a toss about you in – what – twenty plus years.’
‘No,’ Maggs said slowly, fixing Claire with her beady eyes and then she did a fair impression of her best friend’s granddaughter. ‘There’s no use in running away from it. Sometimes you just have to face things head-on.’
Oh. That bit.
She followed Maggs to the bar, where the older lady had no problem elbowing her way in amongst the group of sports-loving lads gathered there. ‘Well,’ Claire said, trying to nudge her way in after Maggs and not quite managing it, ‘there’s a difference between running away from things and leaving the past behind, getting closure.’
Maggs turned round. ‘What do you want to drink?’
Claire sighed. ‘Better make it a Diet Coke. I’m driving, after all.’
‘One Diet Coke and one double gin and tonic – and don’t be stingy on the gin,’ Maggs told the barman, who sauntered away as if he hadn’t heard.
When they got their drinks, they pushed their way through the crowd to a small table tucked into the corner. Claire let Maggs sit on the upholstered bench while she perched on a rather rickety stool covered in the same worn fabric.
Maggs took a long slurp of her drink, closing her eyes. She put the glass down and opened them again. ‘That’s a load of tosh and you know it.’
‘No, it isn’t. I’m applying the Doris principle … Leave the past in the past. Concentrate on the present.’
Maggs thought for a moment. ‘Tell me, Miss Leave It in the Past, if everything is so over and dealt with, why aren’t you more at peace with it? Why are you so resistant to looking over your shoulder and seeing what’s back there? That doesn’t much sound like the serenity of closure to me.’
Now that Maggs put it like that, it didn’t sound much like it to her either. Damn her for being sharp as a tack, despite her age. Why couldn’t she stay indoors and deaden her mind with daytime TV like some other women her age did?
‘Okay,’ she said wearily. ‘Let’s not drag it out. Just say what you’ve got to say. I’ll sit here and listen. No running away …’ she crossed her finger over her heart, the way she’d used to as a child ‘… I promise.’
Maggs just nodded. ‘Good girl.’
Claire rolled her eyes.
‘He’s asked if you’ll go and visit him. Next Friday, the nineteenth.’
Claire swallowed. All of this suddenly seemed very real. ‘Where?’
Maggs reached into her patent handbag and pulled out a piece of folded paper. She handed it to Claire. On it was the address of a nursing home in Penge, south of the river, but still probably not more than fifteen miles away.
She supposed it wasn’t odd that he’d stayed in London, that he was so close, and probably had been for a long time, but she realised that when he’d left, her eleven-year-old brain had always imagined he’d gone far, far away, and her adult brain hadn’t done anything to amend that assumption.
She stared at the paper, letting her eyes run over the address again and again until suddenly she couldn’t bear to look at it any more. She quickly folded it back up again and stuck in her pocket, then she downed the last of her Coke and turned to Maggs.
‘Okay, I’ll go. But I’ve got one condition.’
‘Uh-oh,’
said Maggs, before taking an extra large slug of her drink.
Claire smiled thinly at her grandmother’s best friend, pleased to be exerting a little control in this situation. ‘I’ll go and see my father if you go out on a date with George. A proper one. None of this “he drove me to the shops” nonsense.’
Maggs gave her the kind of stare Paddington Bear would have been proud of. Finally, she looked away and grunted. ‘Infernal child,’ she muttered, and then she turned back to Claire and sat up tall. ‘Okay,’ she replied, in the manner of someone calling someone else’s bluff, ‘you’re on!’
Claire’s resolve, and also her stomach, wobbled. ‘And you’d better see if the man in question is still hanging around to give you a lift, because suddenly I’m very much in the mood for a large gin and tonic too.’ And she stood up and pushed her way back to the bar.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I Got It Bad (and That Ain’t Good)
It was eight-thirty on a Wednesday morning, but Dominic wasn’t in bed; he’d been up for ages. He was sitting in his spare room, researching top worldwide locations for free-diving, where the biggest communities of enthusiasts hung around, what extra equipment he’d need if he went ahead and did this job. He hadn’t done much underwater stuff before, but he had a mate who specialised in it, so it would probably be a lot more sensible to hire him to shoot the stuff that went on below the surface, rather than trying to shoot it himself. He made a scratchy note on a pad to call Tony later on that day.
While he surfed and read articles, he kept one ear on the open door that led to the hallway, waiting for any noise to indicate Claire was on the move. He’d got up at seven, just to be sure not to miss her, and had decided he might as well get something productive done while he waited.
Ten minutes later, his patience was rewarded and he heard her door open at the top of the stairs. He leapt up silently and took quiet steps to his hall, where he held his breath and flattened his body against the wall next to his front door.
He heard her neat footsteps on the stairs, deadened by the carpet, then louder as the heels of her shoes met the tiled floor of the hall. Two clicks and the front door opened. He heard the familiar groan as it swung wide on its hinges, then there was a thud, and silence.
