I read the message.
Dear Bianca,
I hope you and your sister have a wonderful Christmas.
I shall be returning January third. Please go by the house and see if Buzz is all right before I get back. Thank you. It’s cold here by the sea but I am getting a lot done.
Happy New Year!
Selma
But I am getting a lot done. What did she mean by that?
Bianca suddenly snatched the card away from me and returned it to her bag. She took off her coat and stood there in a pinafore with a garish floral pattern over her skirt and jumper.
“I start the work,” she announced.
I didn’t have any option but to show her where the cleaning materials were kept and the cupboard under the stairs where the Hoover lived. To my horror, in spite of what I’d said—or maybe because of it—the minute I went upstairs she started up with the Hoover.
My mother was on the landing in a second.
“What in the world is going on?” She was joined almost immediately by Cath and they stood there in identical Viyella nightdresses with cabbage roses all over them. It took me a moment to get that my mother must have lent Cath one of hers for the night.
“Bianca’s started work,” I explained.
“Well, I’m going to go downstairs and stop her,” said my mother. “This is ludicrous.”
Cath was in tears and I wondered if she’d been crying all night. I helped her back upstairs to bed and offered her a cup of tea but she shook her head and turned away from me.
As would become clear as the day wore on, she had a migraine—a real one, not a hangover—and my mother insisted she remain in bed in a darkened room. She persuaded Cath to part with her house key and her address and a list of the things she might need over the next few days and then she disappeared to let herself into Richie and Cath’s flat to pick them up. I said I would go but my mother would not hear of it and I knew what this was all about. Looking after Cath and doing things for her made my mother feel needed and kept her busy so she wouldn’t have to face up to dealing with her feelings about the breakdown of her marriage. I had observed that she had been severely rattled by my father’s call, just as I was rattled by her revelation that she seemed to think her life as a woman was over. I suspected she was angry with my father for forcing her to confront this in herself. But I believed that there was a side of her that would benefit from her new-found freedom if only she would allow herself to. I liked to think she was teetering on the edge of a diving board, excited about the leap into the fresh air that awaited her but still too nervous to take the plunge. Maybe I would just have to find a way to give her a big push from behind.
As for me, I was miserable when I still had not heard from Tommy by lunchtime, especially when my mother revealed he had been intending to take the day off from work.
“He was going to start the repairs today. We agreed. I was woken up yesterday by a piece of plaster falling off the cornice above my head onto my nose. So where is he?”
I muttered something about him having to go away for an outside broadcast that the BBC had sprung on him at the last minute. She looked at me skeptically.
“A likely story.” She was beginning to get his number.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell her the truth, that we’d had a row, he’d been having an affair, that I was devastated. I found it ironic that the only person I wanted to share my misery with was, in fact, Tommy. He was my best friend. Whenever I was unhappy he was always the first person I turned to. I could tell him anything, I knew he wouldn’t lecture me like Cath did because he didn’t have to. He knew who I was.
How things had changed. Normally I would be sitting at my desk trying to figure out how I could put off seeing Tommy until the weekend, desperate for a way to get some work done, dreaming of a nice quiet evening alone. Yet here I was, desperate instead for his return, desperate too to know where he was. He wasn’t at the Beeb, his mobile was switched off, and I was terrified to go rushing down to the hospital to see if Noreen had heard from him because I might run into Marie-Chantal.
And on top of everything I was praying for Richie’s recovery. There was no change, they told me when I called the hospital for Cath, who could barely lift her head off the pillow. I found an old bottle of sleeping pills in the medicine chest in the bathroom and made her take one. I knew you weren’t supposed to do this but my mother hadn’t returned with her migraine pills and I needed to know she was fast asleep so I could keel over myself. Having had no sleep the night before, I was wandering around the house like a zombie. The place was a pigsty and that made me feel even worse. My mother had scared Bianca away so forcefully that she would probably never come back.
I slept all afternoon and was woken by the sound of the doorbell ringing at six o’clock. I slipped upstairs, peeped in on Cath who was still dead to the world. Where on earth was my mother?
“Coming!” I shouted, racing down the stairs again.
Max Austin was back in the fancy charcoal trousers and the polo neck sweater. Did he always get togged up in his best clothes at the end of the day to give himself a thrill? Or was he going on somewhere to resurrect the date I’d conjured up for him the night before? Tonight he’d added a black leather jacket to the mix and it didn’t suit him at all. It was a bit desperate, a bit trying to be cool instead of actually getting away with it. He’d looked terrific in the voluminous dark overcoat he’d had on one time I’d seen him. He’d known how to wear that, allowing it to wrap itself loosely around him like a cloak. But this leather jacket was skin tight and a bit short at the waist with great big baggy shoulders. You could tell his own shoulders had got lost in there somewhere. I wondered if I could point out the discrepancy tactfully. After all, if he was trying to pull some woman, he might appreciate the feminine take on the situation.
When he said good evening and told me there was no change with Richie, I slapped myself mentally on the wrist. That should have been the first thing on my mind too, along with the nagging question of how much had he heard of my row with Tommy.
“I know, actually,” I said, “I rang the hospital earlier.”
I could sense him looking at me rather oddly and who could blame him? I was still in the nightdress I’d been wearing when he last saw me.
“Sorry about this.” I held the door open. “Come in and I’ll pop upstairs and get dressed. Won’t take a second.”
But he continued to stand on the doorstep.
“I only came round to tell you about Richie, see how Cath is. And I wanted to let you know there’s no record of Selma Walker being on any flight to or from New York, on the dates she claims to have flown there and back.”
“That’s because she wasn’t in New York over Christmas and New Year,” I said, unable to hide the glee in my voice. “She was in Devon.”
I told him about Bianca’s early morning visit and her postcard.
“I’d better pay Selma Walker a visit tomorrow,” he said, jotting something down in his notebook. “Why in the world would she lie about something like that? I don’t think I like her as a genuine suspect but something doesn’t add up. Are you due to see her at all?”
I shook my head. “I can’t leave Cath at the moment. She’s got a migraine and she’s sleeping, which is probably the best thing for her at the moment. I couldn’t believe the state she was in last night. I’ve never seen her like that. It looks to me like she’ll need a fair bit of support until Richie pulls through.”
Max smiled. “Richie pulls through. I’m glad to see we’ve got an optimist in our midst. She’s lucky to have a friend like you.”
I smiled back. “Richie’s attacker, did you get him?”
“We got him. Tell her that from me, would you? With a bit of luck we’ll have uncovered a nasty little operation he was running back in those arches thanks to Richie. He’s . . .” Max paused and shifted uncomfortably in his leather jacket. “He’s a good lad. Anyway, I’m off now. Go inside before you catch you
r death. And you’re giving the neighbors an eyeful to boot.”
“Thanks for coming round. Evening, Mrs. O’Malley,” I shouted next door and waved. “How’s Kevin?”
She ducked back behind the net curtain in her bay window just as a cab drew up and my mother got out. I was about to go down the steps and help her with Cath’s belongings when I realized she wasn’t alone and I wasn’t sure I ought to greet a total stranger in my nightdress.
And what a stranger! The man who followed my mother out of the cab was short and solidly built. He had the broad shoulders of a boxer and indeed his face was rather pugnacious until he smiled at me, flashing a set of even white teeth—save for a piratical gap right in the middle—that belied his age. My instant impression was What a rascal!
“Hold on to your hat,” said Max Austin, still standing beside me on the doorstep. “It’s Sonny Cross.”
“Sonny Cross,” I repeated. “Who’s he?”
“Richie’s dad. I left a message for him last night up in Liverpool. He lives up there now, it’s where he’s from originally. He must have taken the train down this morning. Don’t be fooled by that thuggish appearance. He’s a remarkable man. Richie’s mother took off, abandoned him, when Richie and his brother were still toddlers and Sonny brought them up single-handed.”
He didn’t look thuggish to me. For a start, unlike Max, he knew how to wear a leather jacket with a certain amount of cool. He had a white crew cut and, God help me, I saw a little flash of gold in one of his ears.
“Did he never remarry?” I was watching him extracting notes to pay the cab driver from a money clip. He was flash all right but he seemed to have the confidence to get away with it.
“No, he never did,” said Max. “But it’s not for want of half the women in the north of England trying. Richie grew up being spoiled rotten by a bunch of widows auditioning to be his stepmother. I don’t know how Sonny does it, to be honest. He’s got to be well into his sixties and the way Richie tells it, he’s had a few problems with the bottle over the years.”
“Hey, Maxie!” Sonny had come bounding up the steps to punch Max in the shoulder.
“Hey, Sonny,” said Max, clearly not entirely sure about being called Maxie. “Glad you got my message. This is Nathalie Bartholomew. Looks like you’ve already met her mother.”
“Vanessa? I have indeed. Your mother’s a lovely Judy,” he said to me. “There I was, just back from the hospital, sitting in my lad’s flat wondering what to do with myself and in she walks. I hear you’ve got our Cath stashed away upstairs.” It was odd hearing her described as our Cath by a complete stranger. I wondered how Cath’s parents, an unassuming couple in Acton with none of Sonny Cross’s vigor, would react to his proprietorial air. “I’m pretty chuffed to hear I’m going to be a granddad.”
Max looked shellshocked.
“What’s the matter, Maxie? Don’t tell me he didn’t tell you?”
“Richie doesn’t know,” I said.
“Well, he does now,” said Sonny cheerfully. “I chattered on about it when I went to see him.”
“Was he awake?”
“Well, no, not exactly but he will be soon.”
And suddenly I knew Richie was going to be all right. Sonny Cross had the kind of confidence that left no room for doubt. If he said his son would wake up, then he would.
“I’m off,” said Max. “Give me a bell, Sonny. We’ll have a drink.”
“Will do,” said Sonny. “I’m bursting, love”—he turned to me—“where’s your nearest loo?”
I remembered just in time that the floorboards of the downstairs cloakroom had been taken up as part of the battle against the damp. I directed him upstairs to my bathroom, had a vision of my underwear lying all over the floor, and asked him if he wouldn’t mind going up to the top floor instead.
“Don’t mind a bit providing I can keep it in till then,” he said, giving me a pat on the arm and saying “Nice frock!” as he glanced at my nightdress. “Leave that suitcase, Vanessa. I’ll be back down in a minute.”
But he wasn’t and I assumed he must have found Cath in the little box room and stopped to say hello. I wound up helping my mother with Cath’s suitcase and left it at the bottom of the stairs. In marked contrast to Sonny Cross’s cheerful banter, my mother didn’t say a word to me when she came in and that in itself was unusual. She normally never missed an opportunity to comment on something in the house no matter how short her absence from it. After a minute or two of silence I decided she was being downright shifty.
“So, you went round to Cath’s, Mum. Everything okay? You took your time—or did you come back while I was asleep?”
“What could I do?” she said, sounding a bit breathless. “He was sitting there waiting for Cath to come home. I couldn’t just leave him there. He wanted to go out, get a bite to eat, he was starving, poor man, he’d had nothing to eat on the train, the buffet was closed as usual, and I thought I’ve got to—”
“Mum, it’s all right. I’ve been asleep all day. It’s not like I’ve been sitting here waiting for you to come back. You don’t have to account for your whereabouts.”
“What’s he doing upstairs all this time? I thought he just went for a pee.” She seemed quite anxious.
“He’s with Cath, I imagine. Where did you go for your bite to eat?”
“Rather nice, actually,” she said. “A place called Snows on the Green, near Cath’s flat.”
I knew Snows on the Green. It was quite a smart restaurant frequented by media types. “He knew Snows? I thought he was from Liverpool.”
“Oh yes, and they knew him. He knows quite a few London restaurants, actually. In fact it took us a while to decide where to go. He wanted to take me to a place called Sonny’s in Barnes but we decided it was a bit far. Anyway, Snows was fine. I had a nice bit of smoked fish.”
“And a nice bottle of Bourgogne,” said Sonny coming in. “She wanted to drink it with that cassis crap and that’s the best for whatever it’s called. Cath’s pretty much out of it. I’ll catch up with her tomorrow.”
“It’s called a kir, that cassis crap as you put it,” said my mother, giggling a little. I wondered how many kirs she’d had.
“French nonsense,” he said. “Why you have to spoil a decent glass of white wine is beyond me. And I hope your house in France is in better nick than this one.” He wagged a finger in her face and pressed a piece of paper in her hand. “I’ve made a list for you while I’ve been upstairs. You’ve got rising damp, of course. I could smell that the minute I walked in the door. And your windowsills are practically nonexistent. There’s plaster coming off the walls in every room I looked into and the ceiling’s about to come down in that little room off the master bedroom on the first floor.”
“Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” I said, amused by his audacity. “And in fact I’ve got something that might interest you.” I pulled my mother’s list from the side of the fridge where Tommy had taped it safely out of sight.
“Right then,” he said glancing at it, “you know what needs to be done. Let’s get to it. When can I start? Got to have something to occupy my mind while I wait for my lad to come back from the land of nod.”
“When can you start?” I didn’t get it.
“Sonny’s a builder,” my mother explained.
“Sonny,” I said, moving toward him with my most brilliant smile, “let me get you something to drink.”
“But what about Tommy?” said my mother.
“What about him?” I replied.
Sonny Cross was as good as his word and turned up at eight o’clock the next morning with a couple of helpers. We were all downstairs in the kitchen to greet him. Cath, having more or less slept around the clock, was up and about and intending to go back to work. I was touched to see the way her face lit up when she saw Sonny. They embraced and he patted her tummy.
“So when were you going to tell me?” he asked.
I froze.
“Who told you
?” said Cath.
“Vanessa. Best news I’ve had all year.”
“And you told her?” Cath looked at me and I waited for the explosion. But it never came. Instead she gave me a rueful grin. “In a way I’m grateful to you for getting it out in the open. The only person I still have to tell is Richie.” At this her face began to crumple and Sonny gave her a little shake.
“Now, now, now. That’s not going to do anybody any good. We’ll go to the hospital this afternoon, girl, just you and me. We’ll stamp and we’ll cheer and we’ll wake him up if it’s the last thing we do.”
She went off to work, pale and wan and not before she’d called the hospital twice. I said that if she wanted me to, I’d go with her and sit by Richie’s bed but she shook her head. “I can’t do that,” she said. “I can’t go and sit there and do nothing, just wait. He’d be furious with me if he knew I was doing that. But thanks anyway.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m lucky to have you, you know that, don’t you? Tommy’s not around? Your mum said he was away.”
She knew me too well. My face gave me away. “I’m not going to ask,” she said. “I don’t want to know—not until you’re ready to tell me anyway.”
Sonny Cross had donned a pair of paint-spattered workman’s overalls. They were unbuttoned to the waist and it didn’t look like he had much on underneath. His chest hairs were white like the hair on his head and stood out sharply against his tan.
“You been abroad, Sonny? Winter holiday?” I asked as I made him a cup of tea.
“Tanning parlor,” he said with a grin. “Works a treat. Got to keep looking my best, don’t I?”
I had to laugh. The vanity of the man! “So you’re happy about Cath and Richie?”
How to Seduce a Ghost Page 28
