“Would you really?”
“I would, Miss Warwick.”
“Well then,” she said, “I suppose I’d miss you too.”
“So you’ll just have to stay here.”
She took a breath to speak. Stopped. Looked at the tables around them. Looked back at Adam. “Adam, what do you see in me?” She laughed a little. “I mean, I really want to know.”
“What a question! I thought you didn’t have long.”
“Give me the short version.”
“OK.” He checked off on his fingers. “You’ve a gentle personality. You’re honest and kind. You’re very unselfish. There isn’t an ounce of guile in you.” He reached his thumb. “And I love your nose.”
“My nose?”
“Yep. Specially that bit…” he touched the very tip of it “… just there.”
She made to bite his finger and he pulled it away, laughing.
“Well, OK,” she said. “I suppose that’ll have to do.” She relaxed. “So what have you been doing with yourself?”
“I beat Paul at squash last night.”
“Congratulations. I didn’t know he played.”
He made a face. “Usually wins too. Losing puts him in a foul temper. He likes to think he’s invincible. Paul the wonder boy! Always was, always wants to be.”
“Go easy! You won, didn’t you? Did you see Dianne?”
“I did. We went back to their place afterwards.” He fiddled with his cuff. “She was a bit quiet. I don’t think she likes it here.”
“She seemed OK when she did my nails.” She looked at them. They were their natural colour again.
“Why don’t you meet her for lunch or something? I think she could do with a friend. Make her feel at home.”
“I have met her a couple of times. Anyway, hasn’t she got a husband to be a friend?”
He snorted. “Paul? Paul’s an idiot.”
“He didn’t seem like an idiot to me.”
“You don’t know him. He’s even more self-centred since he came back home.”
“That doesn’t make him an idiot.”
He laughed suddenly. “You’re so logical!”
She pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’d better apply my logic to some work. How’s your mother?”
He put an arm round her as they walked out. “Great. She doesn’t say much but she seems fine.”
They walked towards the main entrance, through the noise and bustle of the corridor, past the notice boards pinned with society announcements, and torn pieces of paper posted by students still trying to find accommodation they could afford.
“Back to work for you, I suppose?” she said.
“No way! I finished early at the last place. The office thinks I’m away for the day. I’m going to head home.”
She stopped. “But it’s only just after lunch.”
“So?”
“You mean you’re going to take a half day?”
“But one the boss won’t know about.”
Her brow creased. “You devious brat!”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “Maybe you should grow just a little bit of guile! You’re too straight to survive. This is the real world.”
“Don’t be daft,” she said with scorn. “I know people do things like that.” She looked up at him. “You should see what goes on in a university! I just didn’t think you would do it somehow.”
He chuckled. “What? Do you think I’m perfect? Nobody’s perfect, honey.”
Adam let go of her and turned to work his way through the crowds of students round the door. When he had gone a few yards, Jenna called, “You could always come with me.”
He looked back. “Where to?”
“Africa.”
He laughed. “Sure!”
She went to a window and watched him striding towards the car park. He was still laughing.
Dianne was curled on the sofa, a cushion hugged to her stomach. The television was on with the sound low, but she was looking at the flowers that almost overwhelmed the small table under the window. The curtains were drawn against the frosty night and the mock coals of the fire flickered in the grate. The room was cosy with warmth and music and the scent of the flowers. The bouquet had been delivered yesterday. It was a very expensive one, especially at this time of the year. She had propped the small card beside it. “To beautiful Dianne. Paul.”
She looked across the room to the chair beside the kitchen door. Paul was sitting forward, his guitar on his knees, strumming softly. By the look of his fingers, he was practising, testing chords, trying a few bars. He was concentrating, looking down, his face hidden.
There was nothing on the card, or in his words, to give away any of his feelings. That horrible row was two days ago now. He had gone to the Sports Centre with Adam in the evening, even though she had thought they might stay in. Then Adam had come back with him. The flowers were the end of it as far as Paul was concerned. He hadn’t said sorry, he hadn’t asked her to forgive him. She wasn’t used to men who behaved like that. Paul’s lack of slavish adoration had been an intriguing novelty at first. In fact, it had been part of his attraction, his difference. Now she was beginning to feel nudges of a starvation, a denial that was becoming impossible to ignore. She was also bored.
She looked at the card. Even his message was conventional, bland, without warmth. Anybody could have written that card. “To beautiful Elizabeth. Darcy.” It could be on a computer somewhere, ready to be churned out on demand.
The television still muttered in the corner. The signature tune of a late-night repeat of an east end soap opera played over the opening credits. Lazily, she half-watched it. On the screen, a pub brawl broke out. Two men were flinging each other across tables, glasses were smashing, women were screaming. After a moment she jumped as Paul rasped a loud discord from the strings. As it jangled into silence, he said,
“Slumming it tonight, are we?”
She sat without speaking, not looking at him. Then she reached across and the flowers shook as she felt for the remote control. The television snapped into blackness.
Even a week ago, she would have just laughed.
A week ago, maybe, he wouldn’t have said it.
Her phone rang. It was Arabella. Her voice could be heard across the room.
“Hello darling! How’s our little emigrant?”
Arabella’s familiar English voice seeped into Dianne like soothing ointment. Paul glanced at her and swung his guitar from his knee to set it against the wall. He went into the kitchen and she heard him putting on the kettle.
Everything was super with Arabella. In fact everything was a hoot. But they all so missed Dianne. There was a party last night (“Justin’s twenty-fifth. You remember Justin? He has a Ferrari.”) and someone said that it just wasn’t the same without her.
“And,” said Arabella, who had not encountered a full stop since Dianne answered the phone, “Luther was there. He’s still devastated, the poor thing. Moping about like a baby that’s dropped its rattle. I swear he’s lost weight.”
Dianne chuckled, Luther’s slightly tubby features vivid in her mind. “That’ll do him no harm.”
“Has he phoned you?”
“No.”
“He’s still huffing. But we all miss you, you spoilt brat.”
“I’m not a spoilt brat.”
“Yes, you are. Your father spoiled you, darling. He even went along with you wanting that gorgeous Irishman. But none of us thought you’d actually go and live out there in that awful place.”
“‘Out there’? Bella, how far away do you think I am? I could be with you in the time it takes you to pick a frock.”
“Well, I want to see you at Christmas. You are coming back for Christmas, aren’t you? There’s loads of stuff planned.”
Dianne glanced towards the kitchen. Paul was still in there. “It’s hard to pin Paul down.”
Bella’s voice rose an octave. “Just tell him you’re coming, for goodness sake! And he
has to come too.” Her voice lowered huskily. “I want to see him again. I want to be in shooting range when you get tired of him.”
“Bella, I won’t get tired of him. I’m going to make this work. I love him.”
Arabella laughed lightly. “Oh, I believe you think you do! The way you loved your pony until it threw you one day. Then you hated it. You always get tired of your toys.”
“Shut up, Bella.”
Bella sighed. “Well, you wanted Paul and you got him. I could even say,” she giggled, “you’ve made your bed and you have to lie in it. A lot of us are very envious of your bed, Di!” She giggled again.
It was so good to hear Bella’s giggle. It was a giggle that could go through walls.
When Dianne hung up she felt a physical ache inside. She missed Bella and the way she talked in paragraphs. She missed Luther. But she had married the man who made her toes curl, the man who could make her fizz inside simply by the way the light flashed from his dark eyes. In looks, he was the opposite of Luther’s slick and golden elegance.
He came back into the room carrying two mugs of coffee.
“How’s Hell’s Bells?” he said, setting a mug beside her.
“Great,” she said. She looked up at him and flicked her hair. Bella wasn’t going to be right this time. So many of her friends back home were waiting to see how long it would take her to regret her impulsive marriage. Some of them probably had bets on it. She would not be humiliated like that. She was going to keep this man; and she wasn’t going to stay here. She was going back to London and she would make sure he went back with her. It was inconceivable to her that he wouldn’t go back. He was very nearly famous, for God’s sake. In the last week, he had been contacted by a gallery offering to host an exhibition of his wildlife photography. He had turned it down without discussion.
She put a hand on his arm and pulled him down to sit beside her. She took his mug from him and set it beside her own. He studied her, making no move. She leaned forward and kissed him with unmistakable intent.
“I want you, Paul,” she whispered.
“I know you do,” he said.
Still he didn’t move. He was going to make her work for it. She raised herself and turned to straddle his knees, facing him, pressing her body against him. She kissed him again, deeply. He broke away and took her by the shoulders. He seemed to search in her eyes for something. Then he tilted his brow to meet hers and sat still. She was holding her breath. Surely he wouldn’t snub her? She had made herself as plain as she could without words. She was coming back to him, as she always did.
His hands came up to the sides of her head and he kissed her lightly, almost thoughtlessly. Supporting her with his arms, he slid to the floor and laid her there. He left her briefly to turn down the lights. Then, dizzy with her victory, she forgot Arabella, she forgot parties, she forgot London, to revel in feeling his strength, his power, his passion centred on her again. As her hair spread across the carpet she swore to herself that she would make him follow her back home when she could bear this God-forsaken place no longer.
She lay on the floor, alone. He had left her very quickly. She heard his guitar. He was already back in the chair, guitar on his knee, strumming quietly.
She rolled over onto her stomach and pulled some of her clothes over herself. She leaned on her elbows, looking at him, feasting on him. He had pulled on his jeans again, but the brown curves of the guitar crossed his bare chest and shoulders. He smiled across at her and winked, then turned back to his guitar. Already he was leaving her again, receding, back where she could not follow. The warmth of loving seeped away and light fingers of desolation crept across her flesh. She didn’t really know him at all. She was looking at a beautiful stranger who gave nothing of himself to her. The top of his head turned as he cocked his ear to the strings. As his fingers danced across the frets, the firelight struck sparks from the gold ring on his finger.
She put her hands flat on the carpet and rested her cheek on them as she listened.
I was wrong. I can’t keep you. Nobody will ever keep you.
8
WHOSE IDEA WAS it anyway, to take Dianne Christmas shopping? Jenna adjusted her canvas bag as she waited at yet another shop window. It was handbags again. Dianne could pass no tinsel-strewn, cotton-wool clad, Santa-infested window if there was a handbag anywhere in it. She could talk about Gucci, Prada and Louis Vuitton as if they were as important as schools and poverty. Jenna leaned from her right foot to her left. Some people go on pub crawls. Dianne would get drunk on a handbag crawl.
In a long cream leather coat with a wide fur collar that touched her chin and mingled with the waves of her hair, Dianne looked like a model for Vogue. Her cream trousers were tucked into brown suede boots. Jenna buttoned her denim jacket against the cold and pulled her red scarf higher on her chin.
Christmas had taken over the city. In Corn Market, the Salvation Army was playing in the misty Saturday morning, the colours of the city’s Christmas lights all around. Jenna loved the strong mellow notes of their instruments, the way the music soared on smoky air above the shoppers, twined round the excited children and enveloped even the pigeons in its warmth. Music with muscle, she thought.
She stopped to listen. The players shuffled their music sheets. Then the first bars of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ filled the streets. Everyone started to sing, even a Santa Claus who happened to turn the corner at that moment. Jenna’s voice was insignificant in the crowd, her enjoyment rooted in the years when Christian music beat the tempo of her life.
There has been so much bad, she thought. But I’ve never blown anybody up. I’ve never shot anyone. I’ve never really hated anyone. Disliked maybe. Even strongly disliked. But not hated. Is that enough? I really hope I’m good. Beside her, a mother had crouched down between her children and had an arm round each one. The little girl was holding a knitted doll. She was waving the doll’s arms around and jiggling it as if it sang too.
Two pigeons bobbed around the conductor’s feet as the band began the crescendo for the final chorus. There was a joint intake of breath. Jenna had her mouth open for the first note when she heard a voice close to her ear.
“When you’ve had enough, I’ll be over there.”
When Jenna found Dianne, she was gazing into a window at a handbag that, she said, her friend Bella would just die for. Jenna looked for a price tag. There wasn’t one; that was a danger sign.
“My feet are killing me,” she said.
It wasn’t easy getting a seat in the small restaurant, but they managed it by strategy, Dianne keeping watch for an empty table while Jenna queued. With a trailing garland of holly behind their heads and the thin strains of Bing Crosby dreaming yet again of a white Christmas, Jenna eased off her shoes. Dianne was quiet.
“Have you much more to do?” Jenna asked eventually, fingers crossed under the table.
“I haven’t got anything for Paul yet.”
“Has he asked for anything?”
“No. He says he can’t think of anything.”
“Men are like that,” said Jenna. “If they can’t have a Ferrari then they can’t think of anything else.”
Dianne opened her mouth to speak and shut it again. The men Dianne knew probably had Ferraris already.
“Are you going back to London for Christmas?”
Dianne hooked a stray strand of hair from under her fur collar. “Well… yes, I think so.”
Jenna was startled. “You’ll not get booked on a flight now if you haven’t decided.”
“Oh, I’ve booked two tickets.” Dianne arched her brows. “I’ve never been away from home before at Christmas.”
Jenna was puzzled. “Why wouldn’t you go?”
“Paul doesn’t want to go. He says he wants to be with his mother this Christmas.”
Jenna nodded. It was the first Christmas since Adam and Paul’s father died. “It’ll be a tough Christmas for them all.”
“But I’m his wife,” said Dianne.
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Jenna looked at her, her cup paused half-way to her mouth. “So?”
Dianne tossed her hair. “Well, he can see his mother any time. I haven’t seen my father in months. And this is our first Christmas together. We should stay together.”
“Hazel will have a bad Christmas. Paul and Adam both know that. And it’ll be hard for them too,” she added. “It was mid January he died, so the first anniversary isn’t too far away either.”
“Well, Paul lives here now. He can see her any time,” Dianne repeated.
Jenna studied her. She hadn’t realised that Dianne could be quite so single minded. She decided to say one thing and then keep quiet. It wasn’t any of her business.
“I think it’s not that he can see his mother any time. It’s that she needs to see him. He knows his mother will need him particularly this Christmas.”
“When a man gets married,” said Dianne stubbornly, “his wife should come before his mother.”
“I don’t envy him his choice.”
Dianne’s eyes widened. “But Paul should come with me. He doesn’t need to choose.”
“Did you ever meet his father?”
“Once. He was already very ill when Paul and I met.” She sat back. “Did you meet him?”
“He died before I met Adam.”
“So you only met Adam this year?”
Jenna smiled. “About six months ago. At a friend’s barbecue.”
“Adam suits you.”
Jenna put her chin on her hand. “Why do you think so?”
Dianne waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, he’s… solid, straightforward.” She took a sip of her coffee. “And he has a good job with a regular income.” She laughed. “Bella says if you can’t marry old money, then marry someone making new money!”
Jenna rattled her spoon on the table. “Is that what you did?”
Dianne examined her manicured nails. “I thought so. Paul was making money then. And I wanted him.” She touched the golden pine cones surrounding the red candle in the middle of the table.
Maker of Footprints Page 7
