One Summer Night At the Ritz

by Jenny Oliver

  ‘Or we could have another drink?’ he said, taking a couple of steps closer to where she was standing.

  ‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘No, I think I’m done. Thanks, though.’

  ‘Come on…’

  ‘No.’ Jane walked over to the door and held it open for him.

  Will watched her for a second, holding her gaze, deciding whether to try one more time but the look on his face told him not to. So he sat down on the sofa, pulled on his shoes and socks, picked up his jacket and phone and sauntered to the door as if that was all cool.

  As his brother said, she wasn’t his type anyway.

  But then ‘his type’ hadn’t fared too well in that conversation.

  He paused in the doorway. ‘It was a good evening,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’ She nodded. ‘Yes it was.’

  ‘OK then,’ he said, hovering, giving her a chance to change her mind.

  ‘OK, well, I’ll be in touch about the diary stuff. See if Martha changes her mind. Maybe you could meet or I don’t know…’

  ‘Yeah, no, that sounds good.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘OK.’ He nodded. Will, you’ve gotta leave. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’ he asked suddenly.

  She smiled. ‘Going home.’

  He nodded again.

  She started to back away so she could close the door.

  ‘Well if you have any ideas on Zeph then let me know,’ he added. Will, just shut the hell up.

  ‘Maybe treat him like an adult. Find out what interests him,’ she suggested with a shrug of her shoulder.

  ‘Yeah good idea.’

  ‘Bye, Will.

  ‘Bye,’ he said. The door closed on his face.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jane covered her face with her hands. She’d bottled it. She’d completely bottled it. His brother arriving made her lose her nerve. She looked down and saw her hands were shaking. Zeph was a little shit – too clever and cocky for his own good – but he’d hit the nail on the head with his brother. She wasn’t good-looking enough for him. They were completely different. She lived on a scruffy houseboat, he was a top exec probably with a penthouse office and a view of the world. He liked order, she was all over the place – she didn’t even know yet what her own version of normality was. He lived tight and controlled and she had been taught to live like the wind. She had no tethers, no ties. He had a great big company that he carried on his back like a snail shell.

  She wasn’t his type.

  And yet he’d hung around on the doorstep clearly wanting to stay. She wasn’t so far out of the dating pool that she couldn’t read the most blatant of signs.

  And she’d shut the door on him.

  For what? What was she doing tomorrow? she thought, looking at her neatly arranged sofa cushions and the cleared-away table. Someone else would be sleeping in this room, her dream would be over. She’d be hauling her suitcase in the heat back to the Tube and back to her boat.

  In what way was that better than possibly having one crazy, sexy night with this really hot guy?

  Who was she kidding?

  She wasn’t better than him or above all this.

  She was just stupid and afraid and nervous and she’d bottled it.

  She turned and looked at herself in the mirror. Jane, you idiot. You complete blithering idiot.

  She couldn’t go to sleep now, her brain was too wired. Too busy berating her.

  What a fool.

  She glanced at Will’s robe hanging on the bathroom door, then across to the huge big bed in her room. She could be being seduced right this second. But then, maybe not. When she thought he was going to kiss her he’d simply touched his head to hers. Why hadn’t he kissed her? Had he thought her unkissable?

  Stop thinking about it. It’s over.

  What time was it?

  Twenty to twelve.

  The bar was still open for twenty minutes. As Will would say, enough time for an Old Fashioned.

  Stop thinking about Will.

  Could she go to the bar on her own?

  Yes. Of course she could. This was the adventure and she’d already messed up one key element by letting him go. But she couldn’t go down dressed in her shorts and hoody, so she pulled her damp jeans back on and the white top with the red buttons that had dried, tied back her hair and rubbed a bit of bronzer on her face so she didn’t look so pale. Slipping the almost-dry sandals back on, she grabbed her purse and her phone and went down to the bar.

  It was quiet in the corridor but the lights were still blazing. She felt like she should tiptoe. Like she was heading off for a midnight feast.

  The air smelt heady of roses.

  ‘Evening, madam,’ said the concierge as she walked past the desk.

  ‘Hi.’ She gave him a little wave before aiming for the bar.

  Before she had a chance to reach for the handle, the concierge had slipped out from behind his desk and held the door open for her.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re more than welcome, madam.’

  Jane’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. There weren’t many people left. A couple of girls sipping cocktails at the table nearest the door. A man sitting alone at the bar that she thought for one heart-stopping second might be Will but then she saw a strip of bright-red sock and realised that it wasn’t.

  The barman who had served her earlier was still behind the bar.

  ‘Hi again,’ she said.

  He glanced up at her and for a second clearly didn’t recognise her, but when he did his face looked shocked.

  ‘Yeah I’m back,’ she said with a laugh, thinking his surprise was due to her late-ish night-cap. ‘Can I have an Old Fashioned, please?’ she asked and he nodded, giving her a quick wary glance before he turned around to fill a glass with ice.

  Jane reached up to see if she had something on her face, then stood up on her stool and tried to check her reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

  It was then that she saw him. Will.

  She sat back in her seat for a second before turning round, hoping maybe she’d made a mistake.

  She swivelled the stool round.

  Yep, it was him.

  Will was sitting in one of the leopard-print armchairs along the back wall, he’d pulled it round so it was pushed right up close to the chair next to it. His arm was draped over the back of the other chair, his fingers toying with the long blonde curls of the woman who was sitting in it. He’d managed to twirl one whole curl around his forefinger and was tugging it gently.

  Jane reached up and touched the strands of her hair that had come loose from her ponytail. The same strands he’d touched earlier.

  The girl was giggling. Her legs were crossed and her bare knees angled to her left so that they pressed up against his thigh. As Jane watched, the woman leant over and picked up Will’s drink – what looked an Old Fashioned, same as Jane’s – and took a sip, screwing up her face at the strength of it and giggling again. He lifted up his hand and wiped the remains of the liquid off her bottom lip. Her tongue nipped out and licked his thumb.

  Jane didn’t know what face to make.

  She felt shattered. But she was never going to let anyone see that.

  Instead she did a big huff and said, ‘Unbelievable,’ as she turned back around towards the barman. Then, ‘You could have warned me,’ she said as he put the Old Fashioned down in front of her, a little sheepish.

  She looked down at the drink that she didn’t want at all, picked it up, ditched the lemon slice and drank it in two huge gulps. Her whole body shuddered.

  ‘Right. Well,’ she said, standing up and giving her head a quick shake from the aftershocks of the alcohol, desperate to get the hell out of there. She put the glass down and said, ‘A worthwhile trip,’ to the barman who was watching her with pity.

  Jane didn’t want to turn back and take one last look at Will with the blonde. She wanted to leave the bar with her head held high.

  But she
did take one last look, she couldn’t not. She saw his hand as it moved up her thigh, resting just under the hem of the woman’s tiny skirt. She saw him say something and the woman giggle again. Then she saw his head turn as if he sensed something and his eyes met hers across the room, his expression stalling in shock.

  She didn’t see what he did next because she had left the bar and was walking to the lift, past the huge great roses and the empty piano and all the empty chairs, past the two girls who’d been in the bar posing for photos under the chandelier. Capturing their moment in The Ritz.

  It was a fantasy. Will was right. And for Jane it had come to an end.

  Chapter Seventeen

  30th April 1945

  Fred wants to marry me. To make me an honest woman. He says if not for me, think of the baby. The stigma you’re bringing to her.

  I’m worried he might be right. Tiny baby Martha. So perfect. I want her to grow up with every possibly happiness. I want to be much stronger. I want to say I don’t care but already people are staring. Already some aren’t coming into the cafe. Damn them. I just wish I didn’t care.

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘The problem is, Jane…’ Annie’s boyfriend Matt paused for a quick gulp of coffee. ‘He’s a man.’

  ‘Oh god!’ Annie rolled her eyes and smacked her hand down on the cafe table. ‘That is such a shit excuse. You can’t just say that he’s a man and thereby he gets to act like a complete dick.’

  ‘No, no, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that, well, you’d turned him down. To him… Well…’

  Annie turned to look at Matt, her eyes wide, as if waiting, ready to challenge whatever nonsense he had to say next.

  ‘I think what he means is…’ Jack Neil lifted his arm from where it was draped around Emily’s shoulder and leant forward, thrumming his fingers together as he thought how best to word his answer. ‘Is that to him, maybe it’s a… How do I best phrase this? A er—’

  ‘Wasted night?’ Matt offered.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jack. ‘Yeah, a wasted night.’

  ‘What, because she didn’t jump into bed with him?’ Annie asked, incredulous.

  ‘If you want to put it in terms like that, yes.’ Matt was smiling.

  ‘I’m ashamed,’ said Annie.

  ‘What of?’ Matt asked. ‘Men?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jack snorted a laugh. ‘I’ll agree he could have had the decency to walk a couple of blocks up the road. But obviously the guy’s a fast mover.’

  They were sitting round a table in The Dandelion Cafe and shamefully Jane had almost cried when she’d started to tell Annie and Co about what had happened at The Ritz. She’d said that it wasn’t the fact that Will had gone off with someone else that upset her but because she felt so foolish for building their evening up into something it wasn’t. No one seemed to quite believe her, but they went along with it anyway. Like a big cliché, Emily and Annie had come up with a thousand excuses as to why Will had behaved the way he had, wondering if maybe the girl was his sister and maybe Jane had read it all wrong, while Matt and Jack had sat back wincing slightly. Now they were all looking at her pityingly, even Matt’s son River.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘All of you, stop looking at me like that. I’m not stupid. I didn’t think it was going be anything major, I just wish that…’ She paused and glanced around the table taking in who she was with and wishing for a moment that the men weren’t there but knowing that they’d just have been told second-hand by Annie and Emily if they weren’t. She lowered her voice and said, ‘I just wish I’d shagged him. You know?’

  River sniggered.

  ‘Blimey, Jane,’ Emily snorted a horsey laugh.

  ‘Yeah well. I just wish I’d bloody done it, you know, and then I could be like everyone else and have had some wild, crazy one-night stands rather than be all stupid and old and prudish.’ She laughed then and put her head on the table. ‘River, I don’t think you should be listening to me. I am still your elder and you must respect me,’ she added, glancing up at him as he giggled around the straw of his milkshake.

  ‘The guy’s just clearly an idiot,’ said Annie and stood up to go back to work behind the counter.

  Jane sighed and picked up her tea up, cradling it in her hands as she realised it was time to let it go, just forget about it. It had taken her almost all weekend before she’d finally come clean about what had happened at The Ritz. It was Sunday morning and they were meant to be making plans for a barbecue that evening at Matt and Annie’s but no one had decided anything, just talked about her disastrous love life. ‘Yes,’ Jane said in the end. ‘Yes. You’re right. From the moment I met him I knew he was an idiot.’

  Emily nodded.

  Jane turned to stare out the window. ‘Oh shit,’ she said, putting her hand up to her mouth. ‘He’s here. The idiot’s about to walk in through the door. Shit,’ she said stunned, then she panicked, bashing her teacup down and standing up and then sitting down again as Matt, Jack, Emily and River all craned to see Will Blackwell walking up the path leading to The Dandelion Cafe. Suit replaced by pale-yellow linen shirt, open at the neck and rolled up to the elbow and slate-grey chinos. He was looking at his phone as if checking the address was right.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Annie asked as she cleared the cups from an adjacent table.

  Matt squinted slightly. ‘That’s him, Jane’s Will? Walking up the path.’

  Ludo the chef came over. ‘Where?’

  ‘There! For god’s sake. Go back to the counter, be normal all of you. Shit. I’m not here,’ said Jane dashing from her seat, pushing past Ludo and Annie and out the back of the cafe.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It felt like everyone was watching him as he walked into The Dandelion cafe, but that was probably just him being paranoid.

  One guy nodded hello as he walked up to the counter and Will nodded back. A teenage boy at the same table sniggered.

  Will had never felt quite so self-conscious. At the counter a short Spanish-looking guy was serving while a woman with cropped blonde hair was flicking through the books, at the same time as repeatedly glancing up at him to the point that he had to nod hello and she blushed and looked away. ‘Can I just have a black Americano?’ he asked the guy.

  The guy frowned at him and then went off to bash about with the coffee machine.

  Will stood at the counter for a while, watching the angry Spanish guy and the blonde woman still surreptitiously checking him out. He wondered if he had something on his face or down his front. He checked his shirt. Nothing. He looked away at the big glass domes covering Victoria sponge cake and cherry and chocolate scones and the baskets piled with fresh croissants and pots of homemade jams. He still felt watched. When he turned so his back was resting against the counter and glanced over to the table he’d noticed when he first walked in, he saw her; Emily Hunter-Brown was sat staring at him.

  Oh shit. They had been looking when he’d walked in. They knew Jane.

  He pushed himself off the counter and walked over.

  ‘Hi,’ he said to the whole table. Two guys, Emily and a smirking teenager with a wizened old pug dog. ‘I don’t suppose you know where I can find Jane Williams, do you?’

  They all looked at each other. He thought he caught the teenager nudge Emily on the arm. The guy next to Emily concentrated on the cutlery on the table. The other one, the one who’d nodded his head at him when he’d walked in, sat back with a smile playing on his lips and raised his brows in Emily’s direction. Emily bit her lip. The guy cocked his head and shrugged. Emily seemed to think for a moment, then said, ‘Yeah, we do as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Do you think you could, er, tell me where she is?’

  Emily sat back and crossed her arms in front of her, ‘Depends why you want to find her.’

  ‘Let’s just say we’ve got some unfinished business.’

  The teenager cracked himself up.

  Emily ran her tongue along her teeth as she observed him.
‘The thing is Will – it is Will, I take it?’

  Will nodded.

  ‘The thing is, she’s my friend and I wouldn’t want to reveal her whereabouts to someone who might be a bit of dick.’ The teenager laughed again. ‘Do you know what I’m saying?’ Emily asked, leaning forward and pinning Will to the spot with her look.

  Will swallowed. ‘No I don’t suppose you would,’ he said. ‘I just, er, I just would like to talk to her.’

  He could feel himself being assessed; her gaze travelling up from the bottom of him to the top. Usually by now he’d have shaken his head and left. No one spoke to him like that. But he’d already blown out a round of golf with his lawyer to talk about the demands being made by his aunt for this. He wasn’t leaving till he’d seen her.

  The guy next to Emily leant over and said something to her under her breath. She nodded her head from side to side, clearly unsure whether she agreed. He shrugged and picked up his cup.

  The waiter shouted that Will’s coffee was ready.

  He turned to go and pick it up and pay just as Emily said, ‘She’s out the back. Probably in the orchard.’

  Will paused. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  Emily narrowed her eyes at him as if in warning. He nodded. Then back-stepped a couple of paces before turning to pay for his coffee and try and work out how he got to this orchard.

  The moody Spanish guy behind the counter went over and held the door open to the kitchen. ‘You can go through here,’ he said, seemingly observing Will with the same combination of wariness and interest that Emily had.

  Jane clearly had quite a few supporters on this island, and somehow they all seemed to know about Will.

  Will grabbed his coffee and walked through the back door, following where the guy had pointed through the little kitchen and out another door to a tiny garden with a crumbling stone wall and the remains of a big tree that had obviously crashed through the wall at some point.