Anthony glanced up in surprise. ‘Why not? People move all the time. Look at me. I’ve lived all over the place.’
‘Where have you lived then?’
He shrugged. ‘London, Essex, Hull, Tyneside, Sheffield, Birmingham. All over.’
‘Doesn’t it get lonely moving about all the time?’
‘No. It keeps life interesting. Seeing new things, meeting new people.’
I sighed. ‘I suppose I’m just a homebird, really.’
He chuckled. ‘We’re back to the fact that your shop’s called The Birdcage. Did you have any qualms about taking on your mum’s shop?’
‘Not at all. I always wanted to work there. I love it.’
Anthony’s brow was still creased in disbelief. He pushed his plate away, the food already gone. ‘So you left school and just went straight into working in the shop?’
‘No, I went to college and then did a business degree at uni.’
‘Which uni?’
‘Liverpool.’
He laughed and sucked in air through his teeth. ‘Ooh, don’t go too far now, will you? That must be almost a whole hour away. Did you come home every night for your tea?’
‘No!’ I said, feeling annoyed with him. ‘I lived in a shared house with some friends. I had a great time.’
‘And then when you graduated you came home and just worked in the shop?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you’re happy?’
‘Yes.’ My voice faltered and Anthony looked at me.
‘You’re not happy?’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes, I’m happy. It’s just that…’ I ran a tongue over my teeth, unsure of how to put into words what I’d been feeling lately. ‘Sometimes I feel like I peaked too soon. Does that make sense? I came out of university, moved back home, started working in the shop. Then my gran died and left me her house and Mum retired and now I run the shop. So I’m twenty-six now, and I have my own home and my own shop, pretty much, and it’s wonderful, but it feels like I came by it too easily. Does that make sense?’
Anthony stroked his chin and looked at me thoughtfully. ‘It’s a lot of responsibility.’
‘Yes, but it’s not the responsibility, really. It’s what comes next. People work for years to achieve what I’ve got, but I’ve got it already. That makes me sound like a spoilt brat, and I don’t mean to sound like that at all. I love it. Most of the time I don’t think like this at all and my head is full of building up the internet side of the business and attracting more clients and offering really different and edgy bouquets. I want the shop to feel like a little boutique that has a really unique signature style. And I’d love to hold more workshop tutorials; you know, floristry classes for beginners, that sort of thing. We had one the other week, just a small one, where Bobbi and I showed people how to make their own Christmas wreaths. It was lovely. We had wine and cheese and it was such a lovely evening. I’d love to do more things like that. But then sometimes, you know, late at night, when it’s dark and I’m lonely, I get to thinking that maybe my life will always be like this. Maybe I won’t meet anyone else ever again. Maybe I won’t get married and have kids. Maybe I’ll always live in my gran’s house and run my mum’s shop. Never growing, just living the same life I’ve always lived for the rest of my days. And that would be fine, really. It’s a nice life. I’d be lucky for that to happen. You know, steady and safe and drama-free. But there’s also the worry that maybe I’ll lose everything my mum’s ever worked to build up. What if I cock it up and the business folds?’ I took a deep breath and looked at him. He was watching me closely, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. Either that or he was falling asleep. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been rambling on for ages. Ignore me. The simple answer to your question is life is good, but I worry a lot.’ I took a sip of water. ‘You must think I’m mad.’
‘Not at all. I think you’re very brave.’
‘Brave? Me?’ I laughed incredulously.
‘No, really. You’ve stepped up and taken on your family business, allowing your mum to retire. That’s an honourable thing to do.’ He cleared his throat and shifted position in his chair slightly. ‘I have a family thing. It’s not exactly a business… well, sort of… but when I came of age I ran so far and so fast from it my feet didn’t touch the ground. Taking on that… stuff… tying myself down… it terrified me. Still does now.’
‘Well, you have your own job now.’ I smiled encouragingly. ‘Your parents must be very proud of you.’
He laughed. ‘Not so you’d notice.’
I frowned slightly. ‘Do you still see them?’
‘It’s just my mum now. Dad died when I was fourteen.’
‘Oh no, I’m sorry. That must have been awful.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded slowly. ‘It was at Christmas time, too. I still don’t celebrate it.’
‘You don’t celebrate Christmas? Not at all?’
‘Nope. I hate it. Everything about it pisses me off. The lights, the trees, the decorations. The way people rush about all stressed-out, spending money they haven’t got. The wasted food. The drunk drivers on the roads. That’s how my dad died. Head-on collision with a drunk driver, asleep at the wheel.’
‘Oh no, that’s horrible! I’m so sorry.’ Covering my mouth with my hands, I looked at him, eyes wide with horror.
‘I expect you love Christmas, don’t you?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded. ‘My mum and brother celebrate. It’s just me who’s the miserable bastard.’
‘Well, it’s understandable. How old’s your brother? Does he remember?’
‘Sort of. He was only nine when it happened. He’s married with two kids now.’
‘Will you see them on Christmas Day?’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll send presents.’
‘What about your mum?’
‘She’ll go to my brother’s.’
‘So, you’re alone for Christmas?’
He shrugged. ‘Just another day.’
I gave him a sad smile. ‘Has your brother taken on this family business then?’
‘No. My mum still runs it. Do you want a coffee or anything?’ Leaning over, he picked up my empty plate and put it with his own before taking it to the kitchen.
‘Oh, err, yes, please. Unless you want me to go?’
‘No, you can take me through your timeline.’
‘Oh great. I might have known I wouldn’t escape that easily.’
‘Of course not.’ He chuckled as he placed a coffee pod into the coffee machine on the side and waited while it filled the mug below. Crossing to the breakfast bar, I took the lid off the hat box I’d brought and took out the list.
‘Go and sit on the sofa.’ Anthony pointed towards the big, oyster-coloured squashy sofa in the living-room area.
‘I love this sofa,’ I said, sinking into its soft depths. It was made from a suede material that my dad said was completely impractical for a rental property. He had a point, but I’d managed to convince him by telling him he needed nice furniture to attract the right type of tenant. ‘I helped choose it.’
‘You did?’ Anthony sounded surprised. ‘The colour’s quite muted for you, isn’t it?’
I laughed. ‘I chose the paint for the walls, too.’
He looked at the pastel green in surprise. ‘Thank God they’re not pink!’
‘I was under strict instructions from my dad. Thank you,’ I said, accepting the coffee he passed to me. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m a bit fed-up of all the pink myself. Maybe I’ll redecorate at some point.’
Anthony sat down on the sofa next to me and pulled the coffee table nearer so we could put our drinks down. Placing my coffee on the nearest leather coaster, I smoothed out my list and offered it to Anthony.
‘It’s not very interesting. I doubt it will lead anywhere.’
Anthony’s eyes scanned the list. Pressing his lips together, he frowned. ‘Hmm.’
‘It’s
funny really, looking at that list. It shows how little time we actually spent together.’
‘Hmm,’ Anthony repeated.
‘I must have been mad to agree to marry him.’
‘Yep.’ Anthony laughed.
I looked at him, surprised, and he shrugged. ‘Well, you know… it doesn’t look good on paper, does it?’
There wasn’t much I could say to that really. I’d pointed it out, after all, and it really didn’t look good at all. But then that list didn’t take into account the emotion of those meetings. The laughter and affection we’d shared and the sheer joy of seeing him and spending time with him. Maybe the rarity of our meetings had made them even more exciting. All that longing to see him just fed the passion. Of course, in the early days there had been phone calls and gifts to keep me interested between visits. It was when the phone calls stopped and his visits got rarer that the excitement and passion fizzled out, replaced instead by resentment and sadness.
I’d been a fool. But everybody was a fool in love, weren’t they?
He pushed his glasses up his nose as he held up two boarding passes from the trip to Paris. ‘So this plane ticket to Paris, it says you flew from Gatwick, but you came back to Liverpool?’
‘Yes, he had business in Paris so I flew back alone.’
‘But you went to London and flew to Paris with him?’
‘Yes. We stayed somewhere in London the night before. A flat in Fulham.’
Anthony’s eyes lit up. ‘Whose flat? His flat?’
‘He said it was his friend’s flat. There was hardly anything in it. It was really sparse and unlived-in. Nice and trendy but… unlived-in. We were only there overnight anyway. I can’t remember the address. Patrick met me at Euston train station.’
I sorted through the papers until I found the train ticket. Anthony picked it up and looked at it.
‘But you can’t give me an address? Not even the name of a road?’
‘No. Sorry.’
‘Can you remember any landmarks? Was it near a tube station?’ He got up from the sofa and went to get his laptop from the dining table.
‘Yes, it was. Oh God, what was it called now?’ I put my face in my hands and tried to think.
‘I used to live in Fulham,’ he said, sitting back down next to me and opening up the laptop. He was closer than before, so close that the golden hair on his forearms tickled my skin, making my arm tingle. Tapping his keyboard, he brought up Google Streetview and pointed to a shabby-looking flat above an off-licence. ‘That’s where I lived. It was great.’
‘Looks it,’ I murmured, unimpressed.
He laughed. ‘Snob.’
Tapping on the arrow keys, he moved the view up past a parade of shops. ‘Do any of these shops look familiar?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘What did you do while you were there? Did you go out to eat?’
I shook my head. ‘We had a takeaway. I remember there was a park nearby. We went past it in a taxi to the airport.’
‘This one?’ Anthony tapped a bit more and brought up a picture of a park.
‘Maybe. Yes.’ I stared thoughtfully at the screen, trying to remember how close the flat had been to the park.
‘What was the building the flat was in like? Was it above a shop?’
‘No, it was the top storey of a big, white, terraced house, in a road with lots of other big, white, terraced houses. It was nice.’
‘Any shops nearby?’
‘Yes, a small parade at the end of the road. I think there was a hairdresser’s, a chippy and the Indian we used. Oh, and there was a pizza shop on the corner of the street. I can’t remember what it was called, though.’
Anthony did a search for pizza shops in Fulham. We peered at the results, our heads close as we stared at the screen. I could barely concentrate on what I was looking at; all my senses seemed to hone in on him and how he smelt. I blinked hard and tried to gather myself together to concentrate. ‘Maybe this one?’ I suggested, pointing at a name. Clicking on the link, he found the postcode and typed it into the search field. An image of the shopfront popped up.
‘Hmm, I don’t think so.’ Reaching out, I went to use the mouse to click on an arrow and encountered Anthony’s hand as he did the same thing. ‘Sorry!’ I apologised immediately, snatching my hand back as though his skin had given me an electric shock.
‘It’s okay, go ahead,’ he said easily, moving away slightly.
I laughed nervously as I clicked on the arrows to move myself around the street, looking to see if there were more shops nearby that I recognised. ‘No, it’s not here,’ I said eventually. ‘The buildings are different.’
‘Okay, we’ll try another one.’
Reaching for the computer, he clicked on the tab of the page of pizza shop results. ‘Which one? Pick one.’
‘I don’t know. None of them look like the one I remember. It wasn’t one of the big chain ones that you get everywhere, but it looked nice. Quite bistro-y.
‘Bistro-y?’
‘Uh-uh. Can I go back to the park and I’ll see if I can find it from there?’
‘Would it not be better to find the tube station? Did you walk from the tube to the flat?’
‘Yes, but it was dark and I can’t really remember the route we took or anything. It was light the following morning when we were leaving in the taxi.’
‘So, did you go out for the Indian?’
‘No, it was delivered.’
Anthony typed in Bishops Park and an image of the park appeared. This time I waited for him to move his hand before reaching towards the computer and moving around the streets with the arrow keys. Anthony sat quietly beside me, watching me clumsily navigate around the London streets, looking in vain for something I recognised. I was very aware of the heat coming from his body, and the smell of his aftershave mingled with the musky male scent of his body was making my stomach clench with desire. I wanted to push the laptop away and kiss him. I imagined the sensation of his lips on mine, his hands on my flesh, and suddenly I needed to get away before I did something I might regret.
‘Can I use your bathroom?’
‘Of course. You know where it is.’ He took the laptop and placed it on the coffee table as I got up and went downstairs to where the bathroom was. There were three bathrooms in the apartment. Two en suite, attached to the biggest bedrooms, and one main bathroom just off the hallway. It was this one I used, hoping Anthony used his en suite so that it wouldn’t smell of his aftershave. It was ridiculous to feel this attracted to him when he was just using me to find Patrick. I wondered what he’d do if I made a pass at him? Ha! Arrest me, probably.
As I expected, the bathroom was devoid of signs that Anthony used it to shower in. Instead of smelling of Anthony, it smelt of fresh paint and newness. I breathed it in, feeling a little calmer than before. The chrome fittings gleamed beneath the spotlights in the ceiling, reminding me that my bathroom looked shabby and old and I really ought to look into having it replaced. Focusing my mind on this instead of Anthony, I washed my hands and went back upstairs.
He was sitting on the floor now so that his face was level with the laptop screen on the coffee table.
‘How about this one?’ he asked, glancing up as I sat back down on the sofa. He indicated the computer screen, which showed a pizza shop with big glass windows and a black sign with white scroll-writing. Small, round tables with elegant dining chairs could be seen through the windows.
‘That’s it!’ I said, leaning forward for a better look. ‘Wow! How did you find it?’
‘Patience and determination.’ He smiled, looking pleased with himself. ‘So, where was the flat in relation to this?’
‘Err, hold on.’ I leaned over to tap on the arrow keys, my elbow brushing his shoulder and making my heart race. I blinked at the surge of emotion and hoped he hadn’t noticed my sudden intake of breath. Attempting to control my breathing, I moved the arrow keys up
a road until I found a house that looked like the one that contained the flat Anthony had taken me to. ‘I think it’s that one.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Not completely, but as sure as I can be. Next door had a ramp up to their front door instead of a step, and look…’ I pointed out the ramp in the next house along.
‘Okay, brilliant. That’s something to go on at least.’ He pulled a pad of paper towards him from across the table and noted down the name of the road and the number of the house. ‘Did you say the flat was on the top floor?’
‘Yes. But, you know, I really don’t think it’s going to be any use. He said it belonged to a friend.’
‘Well, you never know. We’ll check it out anyway.’
I watched him writing in his pad, his head bent and the nape of his neck all smooth and naked. What would he do if I stroked it? Or kissed it? My heart thudded and the urge to move closer to him was almost overwhelming.
‘Right, I’d better go,’ I said, standing up and smoothing down my dress. ‘Thanks for dinner.’
Anthony looked up in surprise. ‘Why are you going now? It’s still early!’
‘I know but I’m really sleepy.’
‘You can have a nap here if you like. You can trust me, you know.’
‘Can I?’
‘What do you mean?’ He blinked at me over his shoulder. ‘Of course you can trust me.’
‘Even though you lied to me?’
‘Haven’t we been through this? I didn’t lie to you. I just withheld some information so I could gauge how attached you still were to Patrick. I’m sorry, Rachel, but you know, I didn’t realise how much I was going to like you.’ He reached for my hand and squeezed it. I could barely hear him over the rush of blood in my ears. Was this bullshit? Was he telling me pretty lies to get more information about Patrick? I wanted to believe him, but I had to protect myself from more disappointment.
Meet Me Under the Mistletoe Page 6
