Alberta Clipper (28 page)

But that evening
in London
had exposed a side of Mark that she had never noticed before.  She
gazed at him
as she sat cosseting her wine glass.  Suddenly there was a loud bang in the distance, and the huge black window came to life with a shower of red and gold drops of light
in the sky beyond
.

“Oh!”
Nina
exclaimed.

A couple of dogs started to bark madly somewhere.

“And so it begins,” said
Shay
, and he stood to clear the salad plates away.

~

The noise level in the room amplified in direct
proportion to
the
number of
empty bottles of wine collecting on the side board.  By the time the passion fruit sorbet glasses had been cleared, and the plates of boeuf bourguignon
had been set down
, it might have seemed to someone listening at the door that there were nineteen people sitting around the table rather than just nine.  Mark took a dish of baby potatoes from Sandra and turned to Christine who nodded at him.  He served them both before passing the dish to
Nina
. 

“French beans?” he asked.

“Please
.” 

She made no effort to reach for them herself, so he tonged some onto her plate and then his own.  He was turned slightly towards her in his chair, and she sat back
,
very straight
,
with her hands resting on either side of her seat.  The whole experience was strangely erotic.  He was almost feeding her.  And she was letting him.  Encouraging him.  Mark felt the red wine rushing to his face.  He no longer felt hungry.  He could hear the others compliment the food, the cook, raising glasses, toasting the cow that had met its demise so that it might be soused in burgundy and sage and thyme for their enjoyment.  He joined in, raising his glass, smiling at his hosts, all the while fighting the increasingly impelling urge to turn to his left and kiss Christine.  To hold her face, and to kiss her.  To taste her.  To take her hand and stand up and leave the room and go -

“What do you think, Mark?”

“Huh?”  He coughed.  “Sorry?”

“You see?” Erica turned to
Nina
.  “He's so overwhelmed by the food, that he can't even speak coherently.”  She looked back at Mark, her eyes glassy.  “We were just saying how
Nina
could open a catering business.  She's talented enough.  Don't you think?”

“Absolutely.
”  Mark forced himself to focus.
 
“
I'd rather she came back to CarltonWachs to work for me, though.”

Nina
exploded in a guffaw.  “Can you imagine?  No thanks, Mark.  Unless I could come back as
Shay
's boss.  Now that might be fun.”  She winked down the table at her husband. 

“Eh, no thanks.” 
Shay
looked at Mark.  “It's bad enough that I'm bossed about at home.  I have to hav
e someplace
that I can at least pretend to have some authority.”

“What did you do when you worked at CarltonWachs,
Nina
?” Sandra asked.

“I was an analyst, just like Mark when he started there.”  She sighed.  “You see Mark, if it weren't for the babies, I could be sitting where you are now.  And you might have been chopping onions all afternoon.”

“Isn't it fascinating how you all have such high powered, interesting jobs.”  Robert looked around the table.  “We have an analyst, a company MD, a meteorologist, an optician,” he smiled at his wife.  “It's not so very long ago that you would all have been housewives.  Full stop.  It's really wonderful how things have progressed.”

“Hmm.” 
Nina
looked like she was going to say something, when
Shay
almost shouted “And tax specialist,” across the table at Laura.

“Oh yes, let's not forget my dazzling career as a tax specialist.
”  Laura raised her glass in a mock toast.
 
“
It's incredibly fulfilling.” 

“And you work with Laura, Fitz?”  The candlelight flickered as Sandra spoke.  “Are you in tax too?”

“No,” Fitz shook his head.  “I mean, yes, I work with Laura, but I'm not in tax.  I'm a programmer.  Software development.”

“Wow.  Very interesting.”  Sandra sounded sincere.

“Fitz works on contract.”  Laura put her arm around the back of his chair, almost aggressively.  “He's very specialised.  He moves around a lot, because most companies couldn't afford to employ him full-time.  He's off to New York in February.  For three months.”  She turned back to her monkfish.  “I'm thinking of going over for a week before Easter.”  Fitz showed no obvious interest in this plan.  “Maybe you'd drag yourself away from your husband for a weekend,
Nina
?  We could go shopping.”

“Maybe.” 
Nina
looked at
Shay
.  “Maybe.”

“New York's so great,” Christine smiled at Fitz.

“It is great,” he nodded, with the look of someone who saw the trip as an escape as much as a job.

“When were you there?”  Mark heard the words before he realised that it was he who had spoken them.

“Oh years ago,
”
Christine said.
 
“With my family. 
And I attended a climate conference there with my last job.  My friend Emily came over, and we stayed on a night or two afterwards.  It's such a great city,” she looked back at Fitz.

“I was there last year with my girlfriends,” Sandra leaned forward to speak over Mark.  “We had the best time.  I love it.”

“Chicago's great too,” Mark said. 

Shay
stood up and went to get another open bottle from the sideboard.  “
It really
is,” he nodded, re-filling the empty glasses on the table.  Mark's was still half-full.

“Especially in the summer.  The beach is fantastic.”  Mark looked across the table at Erica and Robert.  “Right there in the city.”

“I've only ever been there in the spring,” Christine pushed her cutlery together on her empty plate.  “It is beautiful.  But New York,” she looked at Fitz, “it's just different.  It's like nowhere else on the planet.”

“You guys were in the States a couple of years ago, weren't you?” Robert said to
Shay
.

“That's right.  We went to Florida just after Lucy was born.”

“Don't remind me,”
Nina
sat back in her chair.  “What were we thinking, travelling with two small children and a baby?  The thought of it now makes me want to cry.”

“That climate conference is on again in February,” Christine said quietly to Mark as the others discussed the horrors of travelling with small children.  “It's in London this time.”

“Yeah?” Mark noticed that everyone else's plate
was
empty, so he shovelled a large forkful of beef into his mouth.

“You should go.”

Mark wasn’t sure he had heard her correctly.  Was she suggesting he go to London to the conference with her?  The piece of beef in his mouth seemed to be taking an eternity to chew.  How had he managed to find the one bit of tough meat in the whole dinner, just at this moment.

Christine fiddled with the end of her cutlery on the plate before her.  “I'll definitely be going, but it would be worthwhile you attending too.”  She looked straight at him.  “It's only on every three years.  It's quite intense, two full days of talks.”

Mark kept chewing the blasted piece of meat, imagining himself and Christine in London, together, alone, for two whole days.

“
T
he issues are becoming more, mainstream
, you know
.
”  Christine seemed to be talking very fast.
 
She twisted her napkin in her hands.  “
It's important that senior management have a good appreciation of where the thinking is.  How we can use the forecasts.  The new technolog
ies
involved.”

Mark swallowed the sinewy mouthful, not caring if he choked or not.  “Sure.  Definitely.  That s
ounds like a great idea.” 
He found
that he
couldn't eat any more, and he set his cutlery down on his plate. 
Spendi
ng two nights in London with Christine Grogan
definitely sound
ed
like a great idea. 
“
I'll get Petra to organise it as soon as we start back.”

“Great.”

“Great.”

“What are you two hatching there?”
Nina
stood up and took Christine's plate from her.

“Oh, just organising a dirty weekend in London,
Nina
, nothing you need to worry about,” Christine said. 

A photograph taken of the table at that second would have shown
Shay
choking on the wine he had been swallowing, Mark's cheeks blazing red,
Nina
's eyes almost popping out of her head, and Erica's mouth set in a hard smile across her face.

“Right so,”
Nina
broke the shocked silence
with a slightly manic smile
.  She lifted the stack of dirty plates before her.  “Anyone ready for dessert?”

~

Christine scoured her
hands with the fluffy white
towel that had a jolly Santa embroidered on it.
  What was she doing?  She had to sober up.  Jesus, she was flirting with Mark. 
Christine leaned forward with her two hands on the wash basin. 
This was not the way to go. 
She was so angry inside, but a rebound liaison with her boss was not the answer. 

Not that she wouldn't enjoy it. 

Until the first day back at work after the holidays.

God, no.

She needed
a fling
, that was true.  She wanted nothing more than to erase
any trace of
Gavan
from her body.  To
create new memories
to snuff out the old
.  But
she requir
ed a willing accomplice for that
, and
there was little hope of one
here tonight.  Unless she was to seduce Fitz, who looked like someone who would
happily b
e seduced.  B
ut no
. 
Now was not the time nor the place. 
No
t that she wouldn’t
like
a fling with Mark.  If he were just an ordinary guy.  If he were not her boss.

No. 
She
would just have to get through tonight, and try not to take her smouldering rage out on
anyone present.  She would
have a few drinks
, try and relax
.  She might as well. 
Nina
could put her in a taxi after midnight and send her home if she got too messy.  Although she felt worryingly sober now, standing here in the cool of the cloakroom.  She checked her watch. 
It was almost eleven
.  She fixed her hair a little in the mirror, and stood up straight.  A crescendo of voices came from the dining room, and then it was quiet again.  A moment later the handle of the cloakroom door moved.

“Oh, sorry.”  Mark's muffled voice came from the other side.  Christine checked the room quickly, and flicked back the lock.

“Hey,” she stood in the doorway, right in front of him.  They were almost touching.  The hallway was very quiet but
for an old pendulum clock tick-
tocking close by on the wall.  Christine wasn't sure why exactly, had she been waiting for him to say something, had he been waiting for her to move out of his way, but a second later she knew that they had stood there a moment too long.  She closed her eyes and felt his strong hands on her waist, behind her back, grasping her to him.  She felt his face on her cheek, her neck, his breath in her ear.  She thought she heard him say something, but it was just a gasp, a sigh.  Then he pulled away, and she felt a dragging, aching sensation below her stomach.

“Oh God, I'm sorry.”

“No!”  She reached out her hands, grabbing his arms.  “Don't be.”

Then something raised the volume on the dining room voices again, and they both instantaneously stood apart like dancers in a gavotte, he stepping into the cloakroom, she moving towards the noise. 

“Hey doll, you okay?” 
Nina
met her in the hall.  Christine thought she heard the cloakroom door close softly.

“Yeah, great.  Are we having dessert now?  Can I help?”