‘Right,’ Faith took control. ‘So, why were you so pleased to get my letter?’
Kieran understood this one. ‘Because it meant I could have a charity, see? And coming from Devon myself, a local one connected with football was just right.’
Faith groaned silently. Bugger. Now she’d have to explain to him that the North Devon Boys whatsit was a figment of her imagination. She wasn’t sure that he’d be able to keep up.
‘Great, eh? Oh,’ Kieran nodded towards a juice trolley in the corner, ‘I’m being rude, though. Would you like a drink?’
‘Yes that would be lovely. It’s so hot. Lots of ice please. Isn’t that clever! All in the same machine? Well, I never!’ She waited until Kieran had settled again, and she’d taken a couple of gulps of mango and guava. ‘Now, so you need a charity, do you? Is that something that Putney encourages?’
Kieran grinned. He had obviously been programmed for this one. Settling back in his leather chair and crossing one well-muscled leg over the other, he launched into his explanation. Putney FC liked all its first-team players to be actively involved in Good Works. It was a bit of an early damage limitation exercise (Faith’s interpretation – not Kieran’s words) for any bad publicity. Kieran so far hadn’t got one. A charity, that is. As it was the closed season – after the Cup Final and before the summer friendlies – Kieran had been told by his agent and Putney’s coaching and managerial staff to find himself something to support sharpish.
‘All the best ones were gone.’ He opened wide eyes to Faith as if shocked to discover that Cancer Relief and Amnesty International should have been snatched away from him. ‘Even the animal ones. It would be really nice to be able to help kids like I was – you know, mad about football
Faith cursed herself silently again and continued to listen. Kieran would be really happy to make appearances at the boys’ matches, and do some coaching, and even bring them up to Putney’s ground on training days – things like that. Faith realised he was leaning forward waiting for her to hurl herself into paroxysms of joy.
She hurled. ‘Wonderful! Just wonderful! The boys’ll love it! It’s so kind of you!’
‘And they’ll be in touch to make it official like, will they?’ Kieran looked a tad anxious. ‘So that my agent and the coach and the chairman and everyone here knows that it’s for real, like? See, I gave my agent the slip today just so that I could set this up. All on my own. He’ll be ever so pleased.’
Faith sighed. Christ, now she’d have to go home and ring round every under-eleven football team in the whole county and tell them Kieran Squires was happy to coach them – and they’d all think she was completely insane – and Stan and the boys were bound to get wind of it, and there’d be all sorts of awkward questions and –
‘Oh, definitely. Definitely. Just give me a bit of time to get things sorted.’
She could do it. Of course she could. After the visits to the newspaper offices at Willowbridge, and then cross-questioning that nice Marion at Rustique, and blagging her way in Dec and Maeve’s’ QVC palace, and now this – suddenly developing a children’s football charity should be a piece of cake.
‘Of course,’ she sipped some more juice, ‘there might be publicity.’
‘Ah?’
‘Local publicity.’ She had to do it. Now. ‘Like from the Devon newspapers. Like the Devon Argus.’
‘Ah?’
Jesus! Faith downed the rest of her drink. The crushed ice caught on a none-too-secure filling and made her eyes water. ‘My daughter used to work on the Devon Argus.’
‘Ah?’
‘Billie. Billie Pascoe . . .’
She could almost see the cogs turning. Kieran’s beautiful eyes looked puzzled for a moment, then narrowed, then shot open. ‘Fuck me!’
It wasn’t quite the reaction she’d been expecting. She took refuge in her empty glass and wanted to be at home surrounded by the grandchildren – it was that bad.
‘Billie’s your daughter?’ Kieran had gained his equilibrium. ‘Billie? Tiny? Dead pretty? Blonde hair – like Zoe Ball? Real, real, clever?’
Faith nodded. That about summed her up.
‘What a coincidence, eh?’ Kieran looked stunned. ‘It didn’t click. The Pascoe bit. I – um – met her – um – once . . . No – er – twice I think it was . . . It might have been more . . .’
‘Really? What a small world! And – er – how long ago was that, then?’
‘Oooh – er – about two years ago . . . No, three now maybe. . .
‘And she came to interview you, did she? Good heavens, I had no idea! What was she doing – an expose on the private lives of the soccer greats?’
‘A what?’
‘Expose. It means – oh, like an in-depth look at your life away from the football field.’
This seemed to touch as raw a nerve in Kieran as the juice had done in her filling. Faith was concerned at how quickly the veil dropped over his eyes. ‘I am very happily married to Fenella. We have two lovely children, Edward and Jennifer, and I don’t wish to say any more.’
Kieran’s agent had obviously worked very hard to instil the words. Slowly, with growing agony, Faith began to grasp the implications. Billie hadn’t just been digging the dirt on Kieran’s extramarital affair, had she? She’d gone along to interview him about buying Rustique, and about Maeve and Declan being Willowbridge expats, and she’d been confronted professionally at least twice by this gorgeous, very famous, gentle, unpretentious, rather dim man who had charmed her with beauty and good manners and . . .
Oh, Holy Mary Mother of God!
It all fell into place with a resounding thud.
‘You and Billie . . . ?’
Kieran stared out of the window, then turned to look at her. ‘I’m really sorry. Is she all right – I mean – Billie? I really liked her . . . I was a bit of a bastard, to be honest . . .’
Faith, whose head was reeling, didn’t doubt it. At least it had answered all her questions. She knew she should slip on her shoes, pick up her handbag, go home, and forget any of this had ever happened. She knew she should, but she wasn’t going to.
‘You had an affair?’
Kieran took a deep breath. ‘She hasn’t told you about it? About me?’
‘Not a word,’ Faith said truthfully. The truth was becoming quite a stranger. ‘So, what happened?’
‘And you won’t tell Fenella? Or the papers?’
‘You have my word. And after all, Billie was the papers, wasn’t she?’ Faith said reasonably. ‘And she didn’t tell anyone, did she?’
Kieran looked reassured by this. ‘You’ll probably think I’m an arse too, but you’re nice and you’re helping me with my charity and you’re Billie’s mum . . .’ He stopped, obviously suddenly realising that this last bit might not necessarily be a plus point. ‘And I liked her . . . And I never meant to hurt her but –’
Afterwards, settled in the corner seat in a quiet carriage on the late afternoon train from Paddington, and hurtling towards all the comforts and familiarity of home, Faith reran the whole heart-breaking episode. She wasn’t sure she’d heard the whole story, but she’d certainly heard enough of it for everything to make perfect sense.
It was true, she did think Kieran was an arse even though he’d apologized over and over again. He shouldn’t have done what he did. He certainly shouldn’t have left Billie to face the music. But it took two to tango, didn’t it? The fact that there’d been an affair didn’t shock her too much, to be honest. After all, it had happened to so many people. It hadn’t been what she had been expecting to hear, but it certainly reassured her that Billie’s flight from Devon had been genuine, and the subsequent one from London necessary, and answered all her own nagging questions. At least she needn’t worry any longer about Billie’s safety; there were no hit men gunning for her.
She stretched wearily. If she felt anything, it was pity.
For both of them, but more for her daughter. As a mother she would have liked to have been
able to protect Billie from the pain. Kieran had been weak and cowardly and Billie had been unwise – but who hadn’t been? She wasn’t angry really, or even disappointed. Who was she to judge? It was a relief to know the truth. It also explained a lot of things about Billie’s behaviour and her determination to succeed on her own merits. Faith hoped that the ghosts of the past were being laid to rest by Billie’s Whiteacres business and her new life in Amberley Hill.
Faith eased off her shoes and rested her head back and watched urban turn to rural, knowing that tonight she’d sleep soundly for the first time since Billy left Devon. She’d never tell Billie that she knew about the affair, of course. She’d never tell anyone. Ever. She and Kieran had been adamant on that point. He’d contact the Devon boys’ football clubs on his own; his agent and the Putney hierarchy would approve of that, he was sure. He and Faith had agreed it was for the best. Today’s meeting had simply never taken place.
Later, Faith thought, as the train trundled sleepily now through the Devon countryside towards the station at Whimple, just a few stops before Exeter, there was still one fly in the ointment. But she certainly wasn’t going to be the one to fish it out. She’d done what she’d set out to do. Kieran and Billie were adults. They’d have to sort out the final problems on their own.
Anyway, Faith thought, if she rang Billie and told her, then she’d have to admit to the whole meddling and lying scheme, and involving the grandchildren too – so far, her grandchildren’s stories of the visit to Maeve and Dec’s had been put down to overactive childish imaginations and too many E numbers – and up until that point the chances of Billie and Kieran Squires ever meeting up again seemed very remote.
As she’d been leaving Putney FC’s imposing portals, and Kieran had kissed her rather gallantly, and quite bravely, considering the circumstances, on her cheek, he’d looked very sheepish.
‘Actually, I didn’t know Billie still lived in Amberley Hill, otherwise I’d never have done it.’
‘Done what?’ Faith wanted to go. She tried to shut out the noise and bustle, easing the heels of her shoes away from her blisters and thinking longingly of watching the dusk falling across the moors.
‘Said yes.’ Kieran’s endearing simplicity was beginning to grate on her. Billie, bright as a button, would never have been able to live with it for long. ‘Agreed to do it.’
‘Do what?’ Faith could see a taxi for hire bearing down the road towards them and was itching to get away.
‘Agreed to open that new nightclub in Amberley Hill next week. Still,’ he’d smiled at her as she’d thrown herself towards the cab, ‘at least it’ll give me an opportunity to apologise to Billie, face to face, like, won’t it?’
Chapter Thirty-two
Billie, sitting outside the warehouse in the drowsy May sunshine, tried to concentrate on filling in the latest quarterly return and failed miserably. The continued warmth, after the recent months of inclement weather, was glorious and, like the other warehousers, she’d moved her office outside onto the cracked concrete. It gave her a wonderful feeling of escaping from routine, of wicked unearned freedom. In fact, it was exactly like when she’d been at the mixed infants, and on warm Devon days the entire school had carried their diminutive chairs out of the classrooms and had had lessons beneath the playground trees, ignoring their books and watching the sun dapple patterns through the cherry blossom.
There was no tiny chair or highly coloured reading book this time though: a trestle table, with map-of-the-world grease stains from bits of the Stearman, did as a makeshift desk, and Billie had pulled up one of the wonky armchairs behind it in an attempt to look businesslike. To be honest, she thought, as she squinted into the sun, the cracked concrete rather resembled a disorganised car-boot sale immediately after the point of impact.
Sylvia, in a startling orange tankini, the Chloe sunshades, and the pink sombrero, was leisurely sorting brochures from a glossy mountain beside her deck chair; Zia and Isla, in tie-dye vests and baggies, were raking through black bin liners full of new old clothes; and the Gusper boys, in shorts, wraparound sunglasses, and baseball caps, were lounging in canvas directors’ chairs editing scripts and discussing voice-overs. Only Fred ’n’ Dick remained overalled and indoors.
Several small planes buzzed and bumbled above the bleached grass of the airstrip like summer bees fumbling against a shut window. Billie watched them take off and land, and felt no fear now. How quickly, she thought, she’d got used to them. How quickly Whiteacres had become home.
She yawned and looked down again at the sun dazzling in white-hot spirals from the top page of the quarterly return. This one still had the Maynard and Pollock logo – the next one, Billie knew, would bear the addition of far more sinister words – Reuben Wainwright Enterprises. She shivered as if a cloud had passed over the sun.
Fortunately she hadn’t seen Reuben since he’d turned up here to make his announcement: he’d been mercifully absent from the flat too, as Miranda seemed to spend more and more time at the Wainwright bedsit and less and less time at home. Unfortunately, his physical absence did nothing to shift his threats and certainly not his existence from her thoughts.
Sadly, Billie reflected, scratching her arms as the heat started to prickle her skin, she was the only one of the warehousers who had any feelings of trepidation about their new landlord. Well, she supposed she would be, as she was the only one who knew what a bastard Reuben really was. But the others were cock-a-hoop that they were being taken over by a local entrepreneur, and had waxed lyrical about Reuben’s Cabs and the forthcoming opening of Caught Offside, and all agreed that they couldn’t have anyone better to own their leases.
Billie, wanting to play Judas, had just managed to keep her mouth shut. Not, she thought, that anyone would listen to her. She wished she could have taken Jonah’s advice and told everyone about him – but that would mean being honest, wouldn’t it? That would mean being truthful about her past and owning up to the fact that everything she’d told everyone about herself since arriving in Amberley Hill had been pure fiction. And then, as with all found-out liars, the warehousers would surely view anything she subsequently said with grave suspicion – and she’d risk losing some of the best friends she’d ever had. She should have come clean ages ago. It was far too late now.
She groaned. She had far more pressing things to worry about – like the quarterly return and, even more scary, the first proper wingwalking trial coming up on Sunday. Having always been aware, thanks to Granny Pascoe being of a witchy persuasion, of the power of negative thoughts, Billie decided not to think about Sunday.
It was one of things that had always bothered her about holiday flying: the realisation that probably three-quarters of the passengers strapped on board the 747 were as terrified as she was, and that surely, according to Granny Pascoe’s Celtic lore, the culmination of all that fear could only be the materialisation of the thing which they all dreaded most.
She’d tried to explain this sort of self-induced chaos theory to Miranda and Kitty as they’d sat rigid in their three-abreast seats. But they’d just pinged off their headsets and tom their eyes away from Lethal Weapon Twenty-Four or Die Hard Thirty-Seven, and patted her hand, suggesting that she took more tonic with her next gin, thought about all the gorgeous seducible men just waiting for them at their destination, and that it would far more sensible to be thinking physical rather than metaphysical – oh, and wasn’t Mel Gibson/Bruce Willis to die for?
So Billie had remained rigid with terror, trying to convince herself that flying was fun – and now, she was going to be flying outside a fifty-year-old plane, with no gin, no friendly hands to hold, and a pilot with severe emotional problems. She shook her head. Definitely best not to even think about it.
Jonah had, Billie conceded as she fanned herself with the quarterly return, handled the Solomon’s baby wingwalking situation with her and Estelle pretty well, all things considered. He’d smiled from her to Estelle and back again and said that any man sho
uld be so lucky, having to make that sort of decision. Then he’d frowned for a while, then grinned, and said he saw no reason to choose between them. He’d got the perfect solution: he’d just go out and buy another Stearman and set up a barnstorming team and use them both.
Estelle had laughed, and said in his dreams, and then said that as Billie was dressed for it she might as well do the practising, but she’d always be a willing understudy. Then she and Estelle had rather childishly pulled faces at one another and she’d changed out of the bodysuit – she had felt a moment of total triumph, seeing the slack-jaw-making effect it had had on both Estelle and Jonah – and spent the next hour climbing in and out of the cockpit, up and down from the wing, and Estelle had watched and said it all looked pretty easy-peasy and she couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.
Then she and Estelle had giggled and said they’d had enough of male company and they were off to the Aeroclub bar to enjoy a good girlie gossip. Jonah had said over his dead body – especially if he was going to be the main topic of conversation – and they’d said get a life, we’ve got far more interesting things to talk about. And then, of course, they’d belted off and ordered spritzers, and Billie had sat agog while Estelle proceeded to discuss Jonah in intimate detail.
Billie had been quite shocked at just how intimate Estelle was prepared to get. She left no detail out. Jonah, it appeared, was so fixated on the absent Claire that he’d been rendered impotent. It wasn’t exactly what Billie had wanted to hear – but as Estelle was being lusted over by a lot of weekend pilots in the bar, and made no attempt to lower her voice, not only Billie, but most of Whiteacres’ flying population was treated to a blow-by-blow account of Jonah Sullivan’s failures beneath the duvet.
Billie reluctantly returned her thoughts to the matter in hand, and flicked through the pages of the quarterly return until she reached ‘Anticipated Income’. This three-monthly chore was now, thanks to Estelle’s ministrations, becoming a lot easier. It was her third return – which meant it was almost a year since she’d sailed up here in her Reuben’s Cab with Sylvia as a passenger and marvelled at the freedom and ingenuity, and wondered if she could do something similar . . .
Walking on Air Page 34
