One Summer Night At the Ritz

by Jenny Oliver

Jane had to hold in a smile. In-house dancing and deafening beats weren’t necessarily her thing, but just to see the look on Will’s face was enough to make her push through the crowds and pretend to browse the cosmetics.

  The music made the floor shake.

  Strangely it reminded her of nights lying on the top of Enid’s boat while classical musical filtered into the night sky, threading its way around her and through Enid’s cigarette smoke to wend its way up to the stars. She would lie and listen as Enid would talk. Sometimes she’d read poems, which if she told someone about it would sound naff, but in reality it was so beautiful and calming that she wouldn’t want to leave even though she knew that she should. That she should go back to her own boat. Because the two of them, Jane and her mother, were a burden. There was no way to get around that fact. And the problem with being a burden was that however polite people were there was always the fear that one had outstayed one’s welcome.

  As she picked up a lipstick from the counter, her eyes widened at the price. It reminded her of the money she’d found in the account. It had crossed her mind when she discovered it that it was an inheritance of some sort left to her by her father. But that had immediately seemed too fanciful. Like a wish rather than reality that tied in with her naive hope that he had come to find her, had thought about her enough to leave her money.

  ‘Don’t you know her?’ she heard Will shout over her shoulder.

  ‘Who?’ Jane asked confused.

  ‘Emily Hunter-Brown, isn’t this her stuff?’

  Jane looked down at the red lipstick she was holding and saw EHB Cosmetics embossed in gold on the side of the packaging. ‘Oh yeah, I wasn’t really concentrating.’ She put it down and started to walk away. Then she paused amid the crowd. ‘How do you know that I know her?’ she said, turning back to Will who was being shoved this way and that by all the people.

  ‘Erm.’ He frowned. Then opened his mouth to speak, but Jane narrowed her eyes at him and spoke instead.

  ‘You’ve spied on me?’ she said loudly over the music.

  ‘No.’oWill shook his head.

  Jane pushed her way through all the people and finally popped out into the relative quiet of the designer handbag section.

  ‘You have,’ she said. ‘You’ve looked me up. What else do you know?’

  Will shrugged, realising he’d been caught out and it was pointless to deny it. ‘Not a lot actually. There’s not much about you,’ he said with a laugh.

  But Jane wasn’t finding it funny. ‘But you know something.’ She swallowed. ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Really nothing,’ he said. ‘There was just a bit about your family and some flower competition.’

  She bit the inside of her cheek.

  Will raised his brows and shrugged again.

  ‘I don’t want to walk around with you any more,’ she said. ‘I’m going to go. It was nice to meet you,’ she added, then turned around and walked away though all the lovely handbags till she stepped out onto Oxford Street.

  She walked as fast as she could, occasionally catching the shoulder or arm of someone walking past her but she didn’t care.

  The idea of William Blackwell sitting in his office perusing her life like he might his day’s to-do list and finding it tiny and insignificant made her feel furious. She walked a couple more paces, knowing that it wasn’t fury she was feeling but embarrassment. Shame. She felt ashamed of what he would have found. Her great achievements culminating in a Cherry Pie Island Show rosette. She didn’t know what else was available about her but she knew there wasn’t a lot because there hadn’t been a lot. Search Emily and you’d see her shining film career, her almost marriage, the launch of her cosmetics range and her brilliant, public acceptance of Jack Neil’s proposal the other month. Search Annie and you’d get her design company and her successful transformation of The Dandelion Cafe from failing business to Cherry Pie Island landmark. Search Jane and what would you get? Maybe the order of service of her mum’s funeral. Perhaps, at a push, her year studying Textile Design but that had probably never even made it onto a computer. There wouldn’t be anything else. She had nothing to show for her life. No great success stories. She could hardly shout from the rooftops that she made sure her mum died happy. Hey, guys, that was my life.

  And then she realised as she marched past Oxford Circus and onto Regent Street that he – or some secretary, knowing what she did of him – would have searched for her birth certificate. They would have seen Father Unknown and stupidly that made the embarrassment more. There was William from his Blackwell legacy. And there was her with just her mum on her family tree and a grandmother she had learnt from the diaries was called Kate.

  She felt stupid and ashamed and she hated herself for it.

  ‘Wait.’ There was the sound of Will’s out-of-breath voice again. ‘Wait! Please stop walking off. It’s a nightmare.’ He finally fell into step with her as she marched towards the flags of Hamley’s toy shop. ‘Listen, I don’t understand why you left just then. I know nothing about you. You’re an enigma to me and my team,’ he laughed. Jane looked away. ‘I was quite impressed that you don’t have a Facebook page.’

  She paused. ‘A Facebook page?’ she said.

  He nodded.

  That’s what he was looking for? That’s what they cared about?

  ‘I thought everyone had a Facebook page,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I’m impressed that you haven’t succumbed. Made me almost tempted to delete mine.’

  A slight smile played on her lips. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No I don’t have a Facebook page.’

  William narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. ‘Does that make everything better? Sorry I just, I feel like I’m about ten steps behind. Bring back Heidi,’ he said with laugh and Jane raised a brow as if that wasn’t funny.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Please can I show you something?’ he said. ‘Something that you wouldn’t normally go and see? Something kinda cool.’

  Jane bit her lip and watched him as he spoke. He’d run his hand through his neat hair so it was now a bit skew whiff. He’d taken his jacket off to run and catch up with her and rolled his sleeves up. His tie was in his pocket. He looked more approachable than he had in The Ritz. Less of a Prince Charming with a stormy past, more just a normal bloke who wanted, for some reason, to show her around his city.

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  ‘OK?’ he repeated, almost incredulous. ‘OK, it’s that easy to get you to agree?’

  ‘OK, let’s get on with it,’ she said with a shake of her head and started walking confidently on.

  He stayed where he was. ‘You’re going the wrong way.’

  The Tube was rammed. They were pressed up against each other amid a mass of bodies. She was so close to Will she could smell the sharp freshness of his aftershave. He glanced down at her just as she was breathing it in and raised his eyebrow in question when he caught her eye. She looked down at the floor, holding in a smile.

  ‘OK, we’re here,’ he said as the doors opened at Charing Cross. As Will just marched his way through the crowds, manoeuvring past tourists with suitcases and families studying the tube map, walked up the left-hand side of the escalator and asked people to move to the side who were blocking the way, Jane followed, remembering her earlier dilly-dallying at Green Park tube and thought how he would have been one of the people to storm past her tutting.

  She was right behind him now, though, and it hadn’t taken her long to learn how to keep up. The world, she was realising, wasn’t quite as impenetrable as she had always thought.

  They came out of Charing Cross and walked up the road towards Nelson’s Column and The National Gallery. She was trying to work out where he was taking her when she followed the step of a tourist next to her and, instead of checking the traffic first, put her foot out into the road.

  Will yanked her back as a bus swung round the corner and beeped at both Ja
ne and the tourist.

  ‘Oh shit!’ She held her hand to her chest.

  ‘You’ve gotta look where you’re going,’ Will said with a shake of his head. His hand was still on her arm and she moved to one side to step out of his hold.

  He looked down at his hand and then up at her, his expression slightly puzzled. ‘I just saved your life, I wasn’t trying anything on.’

  Jane blushed. ‘I know.’

  The thing was that while Jane had had the odd fling and some short-lived relationships in the past, she had pretty much OK’d herself with the fact that she was going to be single for ever. And she was down with that. It suited her. And while she couldn’t ever conceive that anything would happen with her and someone like William, the feeling of him touching her, of his hand reaching out with the express purpose of saving her life (Hers. And him holding on to check she was OK.) was kind of comforting but alien and unnerving at the same time. Certainly not something that she ever wanted to get used to. Like taking up smoking. If you never try it, you can’t get addicted.

  But then, put like that in her head, it seemed instinctively like a cowardly way to live. She wanted to lift up his hand and put it back on her arm.

  ‘Sorry, it was just me being stupid,’ she said. ‘Thank you for saving me, William.’ She took a breath in and then said, ‘So where are you taking me?’

  ‘This way.’ He pointed towards Admiralty Arch. Still seeming bit put out. ‘And it’s Will. The only person who called me William was my grandmother and well – we all know what she was like.’

  Neither of them said anything else as they walked to the huge archway and he paused before he walked underneath it. ‘It feels stupid now,’ he said.

  ‘What does?’ she asked.

  ‘What I’m going to show you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because that was a bit weird back there.’

  Jane frowned. ‘You’ve been a massive pain since I met you. I think I’m allowed to be weird every now and then. And I apologised.’

  ‘Yeah I just don’t understand it. I don’t think I’ve ever been shirked off like that before.’

  ‘Well first time for everything, isn’t there?’ she joked.

  Will shrugged.

  ‘OK, it was nothing to do with you. It was me. I’m not touched that often. OK?’

  ‘What d’you mean you’re not touched that often?’

  ‘I’m not touched. That’s it. Christ, you know everything there is to know about me in your little Jane Williams file. I’ve spent ten years looking after my mother. It doesn’t lead to that many instances of touching that aren’t you trying to force said mother to do things like eat or go to bed or just stay on the bloody boat.’ She looked at him, realised she’d been gesticulating as she spoke and put her arms back down by her sides.

  Will swallowed. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you’d been looking after your mother.’

  ‘Well you have crap investigators then.’

  Will laughed.

  ‘So what are you showing me?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Now it seems really stupid.’

  ‘Just show me.’

  ‘OK, but it’s really stupid.’

  He led her under the archway and pointed about a foot above his head. Sticking out the wall was a shining gold nose.

  ‘It’s a nose,’ he said, almost cringing.

  ‘It is a nose,’ she said with a laugh.

  ‘That’s what I wanted to show you. I thought for ages it was some sort of shrine to the Duke of Wellington’s huge nose, but that was a myth apparently. Some artist put it there in the nineties. Which is sort of a disappointment but it’s still a nose on a wall. Which is kinda cool.’

  Jane reached up to touch it. ‘It is kinda cool.’ She looked back at Will. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For showing me your stupid nose.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re welcome. Come on.’ He reached out to take her arm but then hesitated and didn’t and for a second she wished she had never told him about the whole not being used to touching thing. ‘I’ll take you for a drink in the park.’

  Chapter Eleven

  The sun had dipped by the time they got to the restaurant in St James’s Park. He made them take a detour so she could look across the lake at the amazing view of Whitehall that was so majestic in the fading evening light that she felt more like she’d stepped into a Disney film than a London park.

  Then, when they approached the restaurant, she found herself doing a little gasp as it glowed from within its wooden walls like something out The Hobbit. The hustle and bustle of noise was spilling out on the path and the waiter apologised that they were fully booked as soon as they stepped inside. But somehow Will managed to wangle a bottle of chilled white wine and two glasses and took her to sit on the grass overlooking the lake.

  She kicked herself for being so impressed but she couldn’t help it.

  As he handed her a glass of wine, she asked, ‘Why did you follow me? I mean, it’s just, this doesn’t really seem like your kind of scene.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about my kind of scene,’ he said with a quirk of his brow.

  She laughed. ‘I can guess,’ she said, ‘Sitting on the grass in your fancy suit doesn’t seem like it happens every day.’

  She’d kicked off her sandals already and was lying back, propping herself up on her elbows as he sat in his work shoes and socks, his trousers hitched up so he could sit on the grass, his forearms resting on his knees.

  ‘Yeah, OK, fair enough. It’s probably not my usual idea of an evening out, but it’s good. I like it. I don’t get many chances to be spontaneous.’

  ‘That’s sad,’ she said. ‘You’d think with all that money you’d be able to do whatever you liked.’

  It was his turn to laugh. ‘Yeah, except it’s not all that money. I’m being rinsed left, right and centre. I have an aunt who is co-owner of the business and who at the moment is trying to either get me to buy her out, which based on our assets I can’t afford to do, or find an investor to take her place which, at the moment, looks to be some bloody awful hotel chain who just wants us for our property.’

  ‘Sorry I asked.’ Jane took a sip of wine through half-smiling lips.

  Chapter Twelve

  Where had that come from? Why had he told her about his aunt? So far he’d played it all pretty cool. He’d basically managed to shoehorn in all his secret, impressive London landmarks and she was responding to them exactly as she should. He was showing off and he knew it. But there was something almost addictive about how excited she got about everything. How genuinely pleased she was to see the restaurant that he came to practically once a week with clients. He barely even paused to appreciate the building any longer. Tony had slipped him a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses and she’d reacted like he was James Bond.

  And now. What was he doing? Why hadn’t he said something smooth like, I’m basically loaded and call all the shots and can do whatever I like in life. Let’s charter a helicopter.

  Heidi would have laughed at that.

  Quick snog, maybe a shag in The Ritz, leave it seven days before deciding whether to call. Done.

  Instead he’d just had some verbal outpouring of his current financial woes. And she hadn’t even said how sorry she felt for him. This was not the way things were meant to happen.

  ‘Why don’t you just give her half?’ she said, lying completely back on the grass so she could look up at the clouds.

  Will practically snorted his wine out his nose. ‘I’m sorry? Give her half? You can’t just give someone half a business? Well, technically you could, but there’s no way I’m giving her half. She doesn’t do anything. You can’t just give someone half a business.’

  ‘You just said that.’

  ‘That’s because I’m being emphatic.’

  ‘Well you don’t need to be. I listen to everything.’

  He pause
d before he carried on. She was right, she did listen. Maybe that was what made her so refreshing. Who listened nowadays?

  ‘Well then, you’ll understand that I can’t give her half.’

  ‘What do you mean she doesn’t do anything, your aunt?’

  ‘She doesn’t do anything. She just invested the money at the start so my dad could start it.’

  ‘So she did do something.’

  ‘Technically yes, but not really.’

  Jane frowned and raised herself back up onto her elbows. ‘Sounds to me like she did something. She helped your dad start his business.’

  ‘You don’t understand. Let’s not go into this.’

  He watched her smile.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I think people only say that when they’re scared of the answer.’

  ‘Bullshit.’ He snorted a laugh.

  ‘Well tell me then. You know everything about me.’

  He repositioned himself on the grass so he was sitting a bit more comfortably. Wondered whether to take his shoes and socks off. Then considered when the last time he’d done that was. Probably as a kid. He took a sip of his wine.

  ‘Come on…’ she said, half impatient, half-encouraging.

  ‘So this is the feistiness that you hide under some veneer of poor island girl lost.’

  She snorted. ‘I’m thirty-six, I am not a poor island girl lost.’

  ‘Are you really thirty-six? You look younger.’

  ‘Am I out of your age range for women?’ she said with a smirk.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, you’re a year above the usual tick box.’

  ‘Lucky escape,’ she said and as soon as he heard it, he purposely didn’t reply. Instead, he waited to see if she’d blush.

  She glanced away, feigning interest in a patch of daisies. But he kept watching, and gradually there it was – like pomegranate seeds popping under her skin, the tips of her cheekbones speckled pink – and he smiled on the inside.

  ‘Go on then,’ she said after a couple of seconds of silence, the blush gone. ‘Tell me why you can’t just give her half.’

  ‘Because I can’t,’ he said. She raised a brow and he sighed. ‘You can’t just give away what you have, what you’ve worked for all your life. Because it’s my dad’s really and he wanted it to be this massive success and it was for a bit in his lifetime and then it struggled a fair bit, quite a lot in fact, and then it was handed to me. I mean, what do you do? You know it’s a part of his soul. You have to make it work. And anyway, that’s all by the by because she wants cash out of it.’