The Short, the Long and the Tall

by Jeffrey Archer

  ‘Except what?’ she said.

  ‘Do you want to hear the truth?’ I asked as I poured the remains of the wine into my own glass.

  ‘I’ll try that for starters,’ she said.

  I placed the empty bottle on the side of the table, and hesitated, but only for a moment. ‘I was driving to one of my restaurants earlier this evening, when I spotted you going into the theatre. I stared at you for so long that I nearly crashed into the back of the car in front of me. Then I swerved across the road into the nearest parking space, and the car behind almost crashed into me. I leapt out, ran all the way to the theatre, and searched everywhere until I saw you standing in the queue for the box office. I joined the line and watched you hand over your spare ticket. Once you were safely out of sight, I told the box office manager that you hadn’t expected me to make it in time, and that you might have put my ticket up for resale. After I’d described you, which I was able to do in great detail, he handed it over without so much as a murmur.’

  Anna put down her glass of wine and stared across at me with a look of incredulity. ‘I’m glad he fell for your story,’ she said. ‘But should I?’

  ‘Yes, you should. Because then I put two ten-pound notes into a theatre envelope and took the place next to you. The rest you already know.’ I waited to see how she would react.

  She didn’t speak for some time. ‘I’m flattered,’ she eventually said, and touched my hand. ‘I didn’t realize there were any old-fashioned romantics left in the world.’ She squeezed my fingers and looked me in the eyes. ‘Am I allowed to ask what you have planned for the rest of the evening?’

  ‘Nothing has been planned so far,’ I admitted. ‘Which is why it’s all been so refreshing.’

  ‘You make me sound like an After Eight mint,’ said Anna with a laugh.

  ‘I can think of at least three replies to that,’ I told her as Mario reappeared, looking a little disappointed at the sight of the half-empty plates.

  ‘Was everything all right, sir?’ he asked, sounding anxious.

  ‘Couldn’t have been better,’ said Anna, who hadn’t stopped looking at me.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘But perhaps we could have it somewhere a little less crowded.’

  I was so taken by surprise that it was several moments before I recovered. I was beginning to feel that I was no longer in control. Anna rose from her place and said, ‘Shall we go?’ I nodded to Mario, who just smiled.

  Once we were back out on the street, she linked her arm with mine as we retraced our steps along the Aldwych and past the theatre.

  ‘It’s been a wonderful evening,’ she was saying as we reached the spot where I had left my car. ‘Until you arrived on the scene it had been a rather dull day, but you’ve changed all that.’

  ‘It hasn’t actually been the best of days for me either,’ I admitted. ‘But I’ve rarely enjoyed an evening more. Where would you like to have coffee? Annabels? Or why don’t we try the new Dorchester Club?’

  ‘If you don’t have a wife, your place. If you do…’

  ‘I don’t,’ I told her simply.

  ‘Then that’s settled,’ she said as I opened the door of my BMW for her. Once she was safely in I walked round to take my seat behind the wheel, and discovered that I had left my sidelights on and the keys in the ignition.

  I turned the key, and the engine immediately purred into life. ‘This has to be my day,’ I said to myself.

  ‘Sorry?’ Anna said, turning in my direction.

  ‘We were lucky to miss the rain,’ I replied, as a few drops landed on the windscreen. I flicked on the wipers.

  On our way to Pimlico, Anna told me about her childhood in the south of France, where her father had taught English at a boys’ school. Her account of being the only girl among a couple of hundred teenage French boys made me laugh again and again. I found myself becoming more and more enchanted with her company.

  ‘Whatever made you come back to England?’ I asked.

  ‘An English mother who divorced my French father, and the chance to study medicine at St Thomas’s.’

  ‘But don’t you miss the south of France, especially on nights like this?’ I asked as a clap of thunder crackled above us.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she said. I was about to respond when she added, ‘In any case, now the English have learnt how to cook, the place has become almost civilised.’ I smiled to myself, wondering if she was teasing me again.

  I found out immediately. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I assume that was one of your restaurants we had dinner at.’

  ‘Yes, it was,’ I said sheepishly.

  ‘That explains how you got a table so easily when it was packed out, why the waiter knew it was a Barolo you wanted without your having to ask, and how you could leave without paying the bill.’

  I was beginning to wonder if I would always be a yard behind her.

  ‘Was it the missing waiter, the four-and-a-half-fingered chef, or the crooked bartender?’

  ‘The crooked bartender,’ I replied, laughing. ‘But I sacked him this afternoon, and I’m afraid his deputy didn’t look as if he was coping all that well,’ I explained as I turned right off Millbank, and began to search for a parking space.

  ‘And I thought you only had eyes for me,’ sighed Anna, ‘when all the time you were looking over my shoulder and checking on what the deputy barman was up to.’

  ‘Not all the time,’ I said as I manoeuvred the car into the only space left in the mews where I lived. I got out of the car and walked round to Anna’s side, opened the door and guided her to the house.

  As I closed the door behind us, Anna put her arms around my neck and looked up into my eyes. I leaned down and kissed her for the first time. When she broke away, all she said was, ‘Don’t let’s bother with coffee, Michael.’ I slipped off my jacket, and led her upstairs and into my bedroom, praying that it hadn’t been the housekeeper’s day off. When I opened the door I was relieved to find that the bed had been made and the room was tidy.

  ‘I’ll just be a moment,’ I said, and disappeared into the bathroom. As I cleaned my teeth, I began to wonder if it was all a dream. When I returned to the bedroom, would I discover she didn’t exist? I dropped the toothbrush into its mug and went back to the bedroom. Where was she? My eyes followed a trail of discarded clothes that led all the way to the bed. Her head was propped up on the pillow. Only a sheet covered her body.

  I quickly took off my clothes, dropping them where they fell, and switched off the main lights, so that only the one by the bed remained aglow. I slid under the sheets to join her. I looked at her for several seconds before I took her in my arms. I slowly explored every part of her body, as she began to kiss me again. I couldn’t believe that anyone could be that exciting, and at the same time so tender. When we finally made love, I knew I never wanted this woman to leave me.

  She lay in my arms for some time before either of us spoke. Then I began talking about anything that came into my head. I confided my hopes, my dreams, even my worst anxieties, with a freedom I had never experienced with anyone before. I wanted to share everything with her.

  And then she leaned across and began kissing me once again, first on the lips, then the neck and chest, and as she slowly continued down my body I thought I would explode. The last thing I remember was turning off the light by my bed as the clock on the hall table chimed one.

  When I woke the following morning, the first rays of sunlight were already shining through the lace curtains, and the glorious memory of the night before was instantly revived. I turned lazily to take her in my arms, but she was no longer there.

  ‘Anna?’ I cried out, sitting bolt upright. There was no reply. I flicked on the light by the side of the bed, and glanced across at the bedside clock. It was 7.29. I was about to jump out of bed and go in search of her when I noticed a scribbled note wedged under a corner of the clock.

  I picked it up, read it slowly,
and smiled.

  ‘So will I,’ I said, and lay back on the pillow, thinking about what I should do next. I decided to send her a dozen roses later that morning, eleven white and one red. Then I would have a red one delivered to her on the hour, every hour, until I saw her again.

  After I had showered and dressed, I roamed aimlessly around the house. I wondered how quickly I could persuade Anna to move in, and what changes she would want to make. Heaven knows, I thought as I walked through to the kitchen, clutching her note, the place could do with a woman’s touch.

  As I ate breakfast I looked up her number in the telephone directory, instead of reading the morning paper. There it was, just as she had said. Dr Townsend, listing a surgery number in Parsons Green Lane where she could be contacted between nine and six. There was a second number, but deep black lettering requested that it should only be used in case of emergencies.

  Although I considered my state of health to be an emergency, I dialled the first number, and waited impatiently. All I wanted to say was, ‘Good morning, darling. I got your note, and can we make last night the first of many?’

  A matronly voice answered the phone. ‘Dr Townsend’s surgery.’

  ‘Dr Townsend, please,’ I said.

  ‘Which one?’ she asked. ‘There are three Dr Townsends in the practice – Dr Jonathan, Dr Anna and Dr Elizabeth.’

  ‘Dr Anna,’ I replied.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Townsend,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, but she’s not available at the moment. She’s just taken the children off to school, and after that she has to go to the airport to pick up her husband, Dr Jonathan, who’s returning this morning from a medical conference in Minneapolis. I’m not expecting her back for at least a couple of hours. Would you like to leave a message?’

  There was a long silence before the matronly voice asked, ‘Are you still there?’ I placed the receiver back on the hook without replying, and looked sadly down at the hand-written note by the side of the phone.

  Dear Michael,

  I will remember tonight for the rest of my life.

  Thank you.

  Anna

  Burnt

  ‘Thank you, Michael. I’d like that.’

  I smiled, unable to mask my delight.

  ‘Hi, Anna. I thought I might have missed you.’

  I turned and stared at a tall man with a mop of fair hair, who seemed unaffected by the steady flow of people trying to pass him on either side.

  Anna gave him a smile that I hadn’t seen until that moment.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ she said. ‘This is Michael Whitaker. You’re lucky – he bought your ticket, and if you hadn’t turned up I was just about to accept his kind invitation to dinner. Michael, this is my husband, Jonathan – the one who was held up at the hospital. As you can see, he’s now escaped.’

  I couldn’t think of a suitable reply.

  Jonathan shook me warmly by the hand. ‘Thank you for keeping my wife company,’ he said. ‘Won’t you join us for dinner?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you,’ I replied, ‘but I’ve just remembered that I’m meant to be somewhere else right now. I’d better run.’

  ‘That’s a pity,’ said Anna. ‘I was rather looking forward to finding out all about the restaurant business. Perhaps we’ll meet again sometime, whenever my husband next leaves me in the lurch. Goodbye, Michael.’

  ‘Goodbye, Anna.’

  I watched them climb into the back of a taxi together, and wished Jonathan would drop dead in front of me. He didn’t, so I began to retrace my steps back to the spot where I had abandoned my car. ‘You’re a lucky man, Jonathan Townsend,’ was the only observation I made. But no one was listening.

  The next word that came to my lips was ‘Damn!’ I repeated it several times, as there was a distressingly large space where I was certain I’d left my car.

  I walked up and down the street in case I’d forgotten where I’d parked it, cursed again, then marched off in search of a phone box, unsure if my car had been stolen or towed away. There was a pay phone just around the corner in Kingsway. I picked up the handset and jabbed three nines into it.

  ‘Which service do you require? Fire, Police or Ambulance,’ a voice asked.

  ‘Police,’ I said, and was immediately put through to another voice.

  ‘Charing Cross Police Station. What is the nature of your enquiry?’

  ‘I think my car has been stolen.’

  ‘Can you tell me the make, colour and registration number please, sir.’

  ‘It’s a blue Ford Fiesta, registration H107 SHV.’

  There was a long pause, during which I could hear other voices talking in the background.

  ‘No, it hasn’t been stolen, sir,’ said the officer when he came back on the line. ‘The car was illegally parked on a double yellow line. It’s been removed and taken to the Vauxhall Bridge Pound.’

  ‘Can I pick it up now?’ I asked sulkily.

  ‘Certainly, sir. How will you be getting there?’

  ‘I’ll take a taxi.’

  ‘Then just ask the driver for the Vauxhall Bridge Pound. Once you get there, you’ll need some form of identification, and a cheque for £105 with a banker’s card – that is if you don’t have the full amount in cash.’

  ‘£105?’ I repeated in disbelief.

  ‘That’s correct, sir.’

  I slammed the phone down just as it started to rain. I scurried back to the corner of the Aldwych in search of a taxi, only to find that they were all being commandeered by the hordes of people still hanging around outside the theatre.

  I put my collar up and nipped across the road, dodging between the slow-moving traffic. Once I had reached the far side, I continued running until I found an overhanging ledge broad enough to shield me from the blustery rain.

  I shivered, and sneezed several times before an empty cab eventually came to my rescue.

  ‘Vauxhall Bridge Pound,’ I told the driver as I jumped in.

  ‘Bad luck, mate,’ said the cabbie. ‘You’re my second this evening.’

  I frowned.

  As the taxi manoeuvred its way slowly through the rainswept post-theatre traffic and across Waterloo Bridge, the driver began chattering away. I just about managed monosyllabic replies to his opinions on the weather, John Major, the England cricket team and foreign tourists. With each new topic, his forecast became ever more gloomy.

  When we reached the car pound I passed him a ten-pound note and waited in the rain for my change. Then I dashed off in the direction of a little Portakabin, where I was faced by my second queue that evening. This one was considerably longer than the first, and I knew that when I eventually reached the front of it and paid for my ticket, I wouldn’t be rewarded with any memorable entertainment. When my turn finally came, a burly policeman pointed to a form sellotaped to the counter.

  I followed its instructions to the letter, first producing my driving licence, then writing out a cheque for £105, payable to the Metropolitan Police. I handed them both over, with my cheque card, to the policeman, who towered over me. The man’s sheer bulk was the only reason I didn’t suggest that perhaps he ought to have more important things to do with his time, like catching drug dealers. Or even car thieves.

  ‘Your vehicle is in the far corner,’ said the officer, pointing into the distance, over row upon row of cars.

  ‘Of course it is,’ I replied. I stepped out of the Portakabin and back into the rain, dodging puddles as I ran between the lines of cars. I didn’t stop until I reached the farthest corner of the pound. It still took me several more minutes to locate my blue Ford Fiesta – one disadvantage, I thought, of owning the most popular car in Britain.

  I unlocked the door, squelched down onto the front seat, and sneezed again. I turned the key in the ignition, but the engine barely turned over, letting out only the occasional splutter before giving up altogether. Then I remembered I hadn’t switched the sidelights off when I made my unscheduled dash for the theatre. I uttered a string of expletive
s that only partly expressed my true feelings.

  I watched as another figure came running across the pound towards a Range Rover parked in the row in front of me. I quickly wound down my window, but he had driven off before I could shout the magic words ‘jump leads’. I got out and retrieved my jump leads from the boot, walked to the front of the car, raised the bonnet, and attached the leads to the battery. I began to shiver once again as I settled down for another wait.

  I couldn’t get Anna out of my mind, but accepted that the only thing I’d succeeded in picking up that evening was the ‘flu.

  In the following forty rain-drenched minutes, three people passed by before a young black man asked, ‘So what’s the trouble, man?’ Once I had explained my problem he manoeuvred his old van alongside my car, then raised his bonnet and attached the jump leads to his battery. When he switched on his ignition, my engine began to turn over.

  ‘Thanks,’ I shouted, rather inadequately, once I’d revved the engine several times.

  ‘My pleasure, man,’ he replied, and disappeared into the night.

  As I drove out of the car pound I switched on my radio, to hear Big Ben striking twelve. It reminded me that I hadn’t turned up for work that night. The first thing I needed to do, if I wanted to keep my job, was to come up with a good excuse. I sneezed again, and decided on the ‘flu. Although they’d probably taken the last orders by now, Gerald wouldn’t have closed the kitchens yet.

  I peered through the rain, searching the pavements for a pay phone, and eventually spotted a row of three outside a post office. I stopped the car and jumped out, but a cursory inspection revealed that they’d all been vandalised. I climbed back into the car and continued my search. After dashing in and out of the rain several times, I finally spotted a single phone box on the corner of Warwick Way that looked as if it might just be in working order.

  I dialled the restaurant, and waited a long time for someone to answer.

  ‘Laguna 50,’ said an Italian-sounding young girl.

  ‘Janice, is that you? It’s Mike.’