by David Carter
‘Careful, Gringo! Gently! It’s nothing. I bumped into a door.’
‘Bumped into a door, my backside!’
‘Don’t make such a fuss, Gringo,’ and already other people standing close by were paying attention to the heated words emanating from the two black heads, and most especially from the bloke.
‘Did he hit you?’
‘No-ooo. Course not. I told you. I bumped into a door. Don’t make such a fuss, not here, not now, just leave it.’
‘I’ll kill the bastard; I’ll kill him!’
That was too much for Glen.
‘Why do you always have to embarrass me?’ and with that she turned and set off at a pace toward the exit, Gringo running and cursing behind. It wasn’t until they were sitting together in the car that he finally calmed down.
‘Well,’ she said, softly. ‘Have you missed me?’
‘Not at all,’ he said, struggling to keep a straight face.
They both knew he was lying through his teeth.
‘Have you missed me?’
‘Not in a million years,’ she replied suitably, and already the fire was back in those incomparable green eyes.
He leant over and tried to kiss her.
Glen turned away.
‘No, Gringo, friends remember, just friends.’
‘Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘I forgot,’ and he snapped on his seatbelt, unable to fully hide his disappointment, started the car, and set off for home, his home.
They talked all the way back about everything and nothing at all. Talking was something that came easy to both of them regardless of who they were with, but when they were together it produced a combustible mixture of conversation that tumbled out non-stop. Occasionally they would both be talking at once, yet still they would be listening to the other, as if every moment was too precious to waste. It made the journey pass quickly, and in seemingly no time at all he was pulling into the pitch dark close.
Once inside she didn’t want anything to eat, she joked she had her figure to think of; when in reality she’d feasted on the improving airline grub. He showed her the room and she said: ‘Lovely Gringo, but I always knew it would be; I’ve always liked your house.’
He was chuffed she approved. All his frantic shopping had proved worthwhile, and though the following morning he needed to be up early, he would happily have sat up and chatted with her till dawn, but when Glen yawned twice, the message registered, and they went upstairs and washed and prepared for bed.
Way into the small hours he still hadn’t fallen asleep. How could he, with her in the house? Neither his mind nor body would shut down. Should he go to her? Wasn’t it to be expected? But she had been so insistent he leave her alone. His mind was racing, he thought of getting up and taking a shower, of setting out his things for the morning, of going out for a good run, and as he was thinking of that, a tap came to his bedroom door.
‘Gringo, are you awake?’
‘Yes, what is it?’
‘I can’t sleep; jetlag I think.’
‘You’d better come in here,’ he said, sitting up and reaching for the lamp.
‘Don’t turn the light on!’ she said, and in the way she spoke he knew she was naked.
‘Come round by the window,’ he whispered, ’this side, get in here,’ and he lifted the covers. Then she was in, lying beside him, naked as the day she was born, cuddling in to his shoulder and arm.
‘Better?’
‘Much,’ she said, and she turned and kissed him gently on the cheek. ‘Thanks Gringo, for everything,’ and soon after that she fell asleep, as did he, happy in the knowledge that she was safe, and home, damaged, but back in the country, back where he could keep an eye on her.
He knew the physical wounds would soon heal, but what about mental scars? Had this American prick been messing with her mind? What exactly had she been through? For all her charms and femininity, Glenda Martin was known to be tough, but sometimes when people are that way, they are taken for granted.
Glen will be all right, she’ll get by, she’s as hard as nails.
But even tough people crack up sometimes, and who looks out for the toughies when they do?
When he woke up he was alone.
He stumbled from the bed and pulled back the curtains. It was a grey day, not raining, but showing every promise. He showered and shaved and dressed and peeked into her room. She was sleeping like a child, snoring like a baby, pink splashes in the centre of her white cheeks like a girl’s doll. He gently closed the door and crept downstairs and wrote a note.
Good morning sleepy head.
Trust you slept well. Here’s a key if you need to go out. If you want local shops turn right at the end of the close and then second right. There are some nice shops there. Suggest you wear a hat and pull it down over your face. I will be home between half six and seven. Prepare some vegetables for dinner. I’ll bring some meat in with me. Use the computer in my study if you want. The password is Greeneman. Here’s that memory stick I promised you. Write that novel, why don’t you? Don’t answer the phone. There’s plenty of hot water if you want a bath, and loads of food in the fridge.
Must go, I am running late,
Bye the way, it’s great to have you back.
Love
GG
XX
He weighed the note down with the key and the pink memory stick and quietly let himself out and drove to work, tired, but happier than he’d been in weeks.
It was just on seven that evening when he was back at the house. He found her in the kitchen, threatening vegetables with one of his gleaming new knives.
‘Hi,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder.
Gringo gaped down at the tight blue pants. She had a butt to die for, not exactly jeans, but a thin cotton material of some kind, and despite his loathing of trousers on women; these were different.
‘Had a nice day at the office, darling?’ she said, with just a hint of sarcasm.
‘Crazy,’ he answered. ‘We are so missing you, kid, mind you, we’d be missing anyone at the moment; we are so hectic.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, and she took the meat from him and opened the packet.
‘Pork chops! I haven’t seen a juicy pork chop in weeks.’
‘I thought that might be the case, and I remembered how you liked them so.’
‘Why don’t you go and get changed while I finish the meal?’
Gringo wouldn’t argue with that, he was happy enough for anyone to cook him dinner, except perhaps Maria Almeida, who’d even made a mess of boiling rice. Twenty minutes later they sat at the table and ate dinner, Gringo producing a good bottle of chardonnay he’d left in the fridge.
‘So what sort of a day have you had?’ he asked.
‘Lazy. Had a lovely bath, that lotion stuff of yours is fab.’
He already knew she’d bathed, and he knew that she’d overloaded on the most expensive bathing lotion he’d been able to find.
‘Did you go out?’
‘No, maybe tomorrow.’
‘Did you do any writing?’
‘I did, but I put a password protect on it, I hope you don’t mind.’
Gringo frowned but in a contented kind of way.
‘None of my business. Did the phone ring?’
‘Not once.’
‘I’ll ring you tomorrow, but what I’ll do is, I’ll ring and let it ring three times, then I’ll hang up, then I’ll ring again, straight away, so you’ll know it’s me.’
Glen smiled at his boyish games.
‘Okay,’ she said, ‘if you think it makes any difference.’
‘I thought you didn’t want anyone to know you were here?’
‘I don’t, but if I answered I wouldn’t have said anything.’
‘I’m out tomorrow night,’ he said, trying to sound as casual as he could.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have a longstanding date; I just can’t get out of it.’
‘You mean you’re out
whoring again?’ she said, a mischievous smile covering her face.
‘I am not out whoring, as you call it, and if I may say, Miss Martin, that is not a very nice phrase.’
‘Ooh teacher, sorry.’
‘Behave yourself!’
She finished her pork chop and then said: ‘So who is the lucky girl?’
‘No one special, you don’t know her.’
‘So what’s her name?’
‘Maria.’
‘Where did you meet her?’
‘In the pub, where else?’
‘Where are you taking her?’
‘Nowhere special, just a quick pub meal.’
‘You’re not bringing her back here afterwards?’
‘No! Certainly not.’
She seemed happy enough with that.
‘I’ll bring in a steak for your dinner.’
‘Don’t bother, I’ll pick something up.’
‘It’s no trouble,’ he said, stealing a look at her face. He would buy her a steak anyway; he could always lob it in the freezer if she didn’t eat it.
‘So how long have you been seeing this Maria person?’
‘A few weeks. You seem awfully interested in my private life, if I might say.’
‘Not really,’ she said, pursing her lips, ‘just making polite conversation.’
Gringo refilled her empty glass and she immediately took a big slug.
‘Are you going to tell me about what went down in New York?’
‘No, I’m not!’
‘So it’s all right for you to ask me about my private life, but I can’t do the same.’
‘It’s not like that, Gringo.’
‘It seems that way to me.’
The bottle was almost empty and Gringo knew that he hadn’t drunk a full glass, and perhaps it was the alcohol that was loosening her tongue because she suddenly started talking about America in general, and New York in particular, and most especially about Harry Wildenstein, and she told him everything about the man, as if the sun rose daily from between his buttocks, and mighty smitten she still sounded too, two black eyes and a cut forehead or not, and once she’d started talking, it all came tumbling out.
‘He’s a very complicated character.’
‘Aren’t we all?’
‘He gets very upset about things when they don’t go his way.’
‘And that’s when he hits you?’
‘He doesn’t hit me, well leastways not in the way you suggest, a serial woman beater, from the tone of your voice, he’s not like that at all, just the once… or maybe twice, and I probably deserved it.’
But in the way she added that rider, maybe twice he knew it had become an all too regular thing, and he couldn’t imagine any circumstances where she deserved a beating from a living-on-the edge bully.
‘He operates in a very stressful world,’ she continued, as if that justified it, bringing the glass back to her lips.
Don’t we all, thought Gringo, though this time he didn’t say.
‘The rewards are huge for success, but if you fail it’s…’ and she drew her finger across her throat and made a long yucking noise.
‘He is not alone there, is he?’
‘You don’t understand, Gringo. Harry is under hellish pressure, from the firm, his rivals, his friends, but most especially from his family.’
‘What kind of friends put you under so much pressure?’
‘It’s the way everyone operates in the Big Apple.’
The Big Apple, Gringo hated the phrase, it didn’t sound right at all, a typical tourist remark, he imagined.
‘His family are something else, and there are so many of them.’
Yeah, thought Gringo, and he could see it all now, the old New York Jewish family looking down their noses at the WASP, the English protestant bitch who’d appeared out of nowhere. He could imagine them sneering: Surely our Harry isn’t going to marry that? Maybe Gringo saw it wrong, but maybe he didn’t.
‘Did you get on with his family?’
‘Oh yeah, pretty well really, especially his old dad, Lionel, once I began to understand them better, between you and I, he’s a bit of a randy old sod is Lionel, three mistresses on the go, so they say, he even made a pass at me, and he must be nearly seventy. I get on better with them now I know why they never returned my Christmas cards. I didn’t realise Jewish people didn’t celebrate Christmas and send out cards. Did you know that, Gringo?’
Ah, how sweet she was, he thought, despite her tough streetwise persona, the girl was surprisingly innocent in so many ways.
‘The thing is, Gringo, I still love him, Harry that is, not Lionel, at least I think I do, and when I get home, and if he should ask me to return, I’d go back without a second thought.’
That he didn’t want to hear. She still loved him, despite the regular smacks in the mouth. She still loved him. What did Gringo have to do to make her see sense? What could anyone do, and what did Harry Wildenstein have to do, to demonstrate that he didn’t love her at all?
Gringo had tried everything in his armoury, so far without a shred of success. There was only one thing left for him, he had to keep trying, in the hope that one day she might detect the light in the dark.
‘Isn’t it more likely he will marry one of his own kind?’
She was smirking again.
‘Likely, yes, but don’t discount the English proddie just yet. I’ve never lost a man I’ve set my mind on, and I don’t intending starting now,’ and in the way she said that, he just knew she had spent a large part of the day conjuring up ideas and methods of how she could get Harry Wildenstein to slip that big rock on her finger.
Maybe she hadn’t been writing fiction at all, more likely she’d been scribbling Harry boy a passionate love letter, a pleading letter, who knows? Little wonder she’d password protected the stuff. The more Gringo thought about it the less he liked it, and suddenly he was desperate to change the conversation.
‘Tell me about Elena.’
‘Oh, she’s fantastic, Gringo, you’d love her; you’d make a much better fella for her than Phil ever will. He’s a bit of a drip.’
‘Do you want another drink?’
‘Love one,’ she said, holding out her empty glass.
He went to the fridge and opened another bottle and came back and filled her glass, and after that, she talked and talked and talked. He was happy enough to let her ramble across the eastern United States, stopping in strange towns and meeting eccentric people, as he watched every move reflected back to him from within those flashing green eyes. She didn’t mention Harry Wildenstein again and that enabled him to relax a little, something he found increasingly difficult to do.
It was almost midnight by the time they loaded the dishwasher and tidied up, and shortly after that, just as before, they went to their own beds, and as before in the wee small hours she came to his room, naked, to find him awake, naked too, as she sought out that muscular arm. She giggled nervously and pecked him on the cheek, a tiny reward for being a great listener, and friend, bidding him a goodnight, and soon after that, they both fell asleep.
Forty-Two
He woke at seven twenty. There was no sign of her and he wondered how she managed to wake and leave without him noticing a thing. He rose and prepared for work, peeking into her bedroom where he found her sleeping off a hangover. She still managed to look serene; he remembered thinking that, as he drove to work in silence.
Not much happened in the offices of Dryden Engineering that day, and before he knew it he was home again, sirloin steak in hand. Glen was in the kitchen preparing a sophisticated looking chicken salad.
‘I bought you a steak.’
‘You didn’t have to do that; I told you, I didn’t want steak.’
He shrugged and tossed it in the freezer and pinched some of her fresh looking dinner.
‘Gringo, don’t touch!’
There were new and opened CD cases scattered about the place, and music was playing in the b
ackground.
‘You’ve been out?’
‘You noticed.’
‘Thought you said you were skint?’
‘I am, but there’s life in good old Mastercard and the guy in the music shop was really helpful.’
I’ll bet he was, Gringo thought, but didn’t say. He glanced at the discs. Billie Holliday; never heard of the bloke. Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, who were these weird characters she had invested her last few quid in?
‘I have to say, Gringo, your record collection sucks.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Abba, Pet Shop Boys and Queen.’
Glen laughed derisorily.
‘Get real, Mister Greene,’ and then she said ‘I couldn’t help thinking someone would recognise me when I was out. I couldn’t get home quick enough. For one moment I thought I’d bumped into one of Trisha’s ex-boyfriends.’
‘Trisha?’
‘One of the sisters.’
‘Oh yeah, but you didn’t?’
‘Nope, but it gave me a hell of a fright.’
‘Maybe you shouldn’t go out again.’
‘I can’t stay in all day; it’s too much like being in prison.’
‘Whatever you think. I’ll have to get changed.’
‘It’s your house.’
When he came back half an hour later he was wearing a light grey suit, sky blue shirt, gold cufflinks proudly on display, and a swanky red tie. He’d taken even greater care with his appearance than usual, but was it really all for Maria?
‘How do I look?’ he said, admiring himself in the long hall mirror.
She came through to see what all the fuss was about.
‘You look okay, bit too much of the bank manager image going on for my taste, but you’ll do. Why don’t you ever wear casual clothes?’
Her words hurt him, but it was too late to change now.
‘Maria likes me to make an effort.’
‘I’ll bet she does,’ smirked Glen, coming closer as if inspecting him, brushing a single fleck of dandruff from his shoulder like a mother sending a schoolboy on his way to school. ‘You’ll do, I suppose. What time will you be back?’
It was Gringo’s turn to smirk.
