Alberta Clipper (36 page)

“Mark.  Hi.”  She smiled widely at him.  “This is Francois.”

French.  Shit.

“Hello Francois.”

“Mark.  A pleasure.  You are also CarltonWachs, no?”

“Yes,” Mark nodded.

“Francois works for BP.  In Texas.”  Christine looked wide-eyed at Mark.

“Wow.  Interesting.”  Mark noted Francois's delicate gold neck chain.  “That's a long way from Paris.”

“Lyon.”

“Pardon?”  The word unintentionally left Mark’s lips with a French accent, and he could see Christine cover her mouth with the back of her hand to hide her snigger.

“I am from Lyon.”

“Oh, right.”  Mark smiled broadly at him.  “Eh, you two okay for drinks?”

Christine and Francois both nodded, and Mark tried to catch the attention of one of the barmen.  Standing behind Francois, he could hear him tell Christine about his home in Texas.  His opinion of Americans was evidently rather low.

“Beans!”

“I beg your pardon?” Christine said.

“
Ze menu said
caviar, and I got a bowl of beans.  A, sort of, 'ow you say, salsa.”

Mark could hear the disgust in his voice, and raised his eyebrows at Christine, who seemed to be trying desperately not to laugh.

“Zees is what zey call caviar in Texas.  Alors.”

Mark was having no luck getting served, as the hundreds of delegates descended on the understaffed bar for their pre-dinner drinks.

“Francois, if you'd excuse me, one of our colleagues is across the bar.”  Mark heard Christine say, and she gestured vaguely at the other side of the room.  “Perhaps we'll see you later?”

Francois looked a little perturbed.  He looked at Mark, who faked recognition of a fake colleague some distance away, and walked off towards them.  Christine followed him.  

“Dear God, I thought I'd never get away from him,” she said over Mark's shoulder.  Mark pointed to a space the other end of the long bar, and they walked over to it.  He got served immediately. 

“You really can't be left at a hotel bar by yourself, it appears,” he looked at her meaningfully.

She kept her eyes on her glass, but she was smiling.  “So, are you glad you came?  So far?” she asked. 

Mark paused for a second.  Did she mean -

“Did you learn anything
new
today?”

Of course
.  The conference.
 
“Actually yes,
”
he said.
He took the straw from his glass and left it down on the bar.  “It was an interesting day.”  Before he could say more, a
loud gong sounded for dinner, and
they followed the crowd which had started to move towards another large ballroom set with what seemed like hundreds of circular tables.

“This hotel is enormous,” she said.

“London is enormous,” Mark replied.  He found them two places at a half empty table and pulled out a chair for her.

“Thanks.  You never thought of moving over here then?”  She set her drink down and sat as a bowl of soup was dropped before her by a dispassionate-looking waiter in a grubby white shirt.

“Nah.”  Mark sat down next to her.  “I'm not a big fan.  Chicago now, that would be different.  I'd live there happily enough.”

The idea of transferring to the Chicago office had crossed Mark's mind a number of times since they had started back after the Christmas holidays.  There was talk of a new mergers and acquisitions department being set up, and it being headquartered over there.  It might be a bit of a stretch professionally, but he reckoned the chief executive role could be his, if he wanted it.  And he wasn’t convinced that the bank had long term plans for Ireland anymore.

“I like America,” he said, buttering a roll that had the texture of soft cardboard.  “I like the people.  The way of life.”  He smiled at Christine.  “The weather.”

“I do too,” she put her soup spoon down.  Mark tried not to look at where the top of her sheer blouse was caught under her bra-strap.  “But it can be severe.  I like that it's always relatively mild in Dublin.  In can get so cold in the States.  Especially in Chicago.”

“Those pesky Alberta Clippers,” Mark grinned.

She looked up at him.  “I'm impressed.  You remembered.”

Mark
started
to say something, but thought the better of it. 
Their bowls were cleared and plates of turkey and ham were frisbeed down in front of them. 

“Do you think this is leftovers from Christmas?” Mark examined his food dubiously.

Christine laughed. 
The waiters moved around the table, dumping nursing home vegetables down on each plate without comment.  Mark and Christine picked at the food. 

“Not exactly
Nina
's standard,” Christine said.  She blushed, and Mark guessed she regretted the remark and its allusions.  But before he could reply, the woman sitting to his right asked him where he was from, and he spent the next five minutes in conversation with her and her Canadian colleagues seated next to her.  At the first opportunity, he turned to include Christine in the conversation, but at that moment, a man who had just walked past their table stopped abruptly and turned.  Mark heard the man say Christine's name, but it was her reaction that made his heart thump.  She
had
turned to see who had called her, and
then
stiffened
.  Her whole body, her face, her mouth,
seemed
froze
n
. 
Petrified. 
Her shoulders
had
stopped mid-turn.  But it was her eyes that most shocked Mark.  Was it dread?  Fear?  But then, by the time the man spoke again she appeared to have recovered herself.  Almost. 

“It is you, isn't it?  Christine?  Wow.  How long has it been?  Four years?  Longer.  Your hair is different.  How are you?  You look great.”

The man stooped and kissed Christine on both cheeks, seemingly oblivious to the effect he was having on her.  The second kiss gave Mark and unobstructed
view of her face.  She looked…
crushed
.

Mark could hear the Canadian solar energy expert behind him trying to get his attention, but he couldn't stop staring at
Christine
. 

“Nick.  How are you?  I thought you were in South Africa?”  Mark thought her voice sounded strange.  He sensed the Canadians had sta
rted to talk amongst themselves.  He knew he was being rude,
but he couldn't take his eyes o
f
f
her
.

“No, no.  Well I was until last summer.  I'm back in the UK since September.  I'm with the MOD now, actually.”

“Wow,” Christine said.  “That sounds interesting.” 

She didn't sound like she thought it was interesting. 

“How about you?”  He man hunkered down, his hands on the back of her chair.  They would have been almost face-to-face, had Christine not recoiled in her seat.

“Eh, I'm with a bank.  In Dublin.”  Her eyes flickered at Mark.  “This is my boss.  Mark Harrington, Nick Appleby.”

“Hello Mark,” Nick extended his hand and Mark shook it.  On examination, he didn't appear to be a particularly offensive guy.  He was good looking enough.  Probably around the same age as Christine.  He sounded English.  Posh English.  But there was no doubt in Mark's mind that Nick Appleby had done something in the past to perturb Christine.  Or maybe he hadn't, but she had wanted him to.  Mark tried to catch Christine's eye, but she was staring straight ahead, past them both.  Her eyes looked dead in her head.

“Christine and I did our Ph.D. together,” Nick said to Mark.  “Mesoscale modelling of supercooled liquid water,” he laughed as it rolled off his tongue.  “It seemed so important at the time, and yet I don't think I've ever modelled a single drop of supercooled liquid water since, have you?”

“No, no.”  Christine affected a smile.  “Not once.”

At that moment, a waitress pushed past Nick to pick up Mark's plate of half-finished food. 

“All done?” she asked without waiting for a reply.

“Yeah, thanks,” Mark said. 

As Nick stood to allow her access, Christine turned away from him towards the table again.  Mark turned to the lady on his right with an apologetic smile.  “Forgive me.  We were discussing your business in Newfoundland?”

“Don't worry darling,” the lady put her hand on Mark's arm.  “That's what
's great about these little get-
togethers.  We get to bump into old friends.  Thank you, dear,” she smiled at the blank face of the waitress who had deposited an empty cup and saucer in front of her.  Mark felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to see Nick nodding his goodbye and walking away.  A squeal of feedback hushed the room briefly, and Mark recognised the first speaker of the morning session standing behind a lectern at the top of the room.  He introduced the
banquet’s keynote
speaker, a well known Scottish television presenter and producer of natural history programmes.  Applause filled the room temporarily, followed by the instantly recognisable caledonian tones of the man.  He raised his voice above the din of crockery on crockery, and made a thinly-veiled joke about the quality of the meal.  The room swelled with communal laughter.  Mark looked at Christine.  She didn't laugh.  He was fairly sure that she hadn't heard a word the man had said.  He couldn't be sure that she was even aware that someone was addressing them.  She was just staring.  Staring at the cheap centrepiece on the table in front of them.

“Christine?”  Mark cocked his head.  “Christine?”  He put his hand on her arm.  She almost seemed to be in a trance.  He turned towards her in his seat.  “Christine.”  He shook her arm gently.  One or two of the others sitting at their table turned their heads and glared at him.  Mark ignored them.  Then Christine suddenly pushed her chair out and stood up. 

“Sorry Mark, I'm not feeling very well.”  She lifted her bag from the back of the chair.  “I'm going to go back to my room.”

Before Mark had the chance to say a word, she was gone.  He stared after her, watching her until she walked through the wide double doors of the room and out of his sight.  He turned back around in his seat.  He wasn't sure what to do.  What the hell had just happened?  Whatever it was, he was certain that it was something pertaining to that guy Nick.  For a second he entertained the idea that it had been something siniste
r.  But the guy had seemed very
normal.  He hadn't come across as the scary type.  But then, who knew what people were capable of.  Mark began to feel angry.  He looked around him to see if he could find where Ni
ck was sitting, but the room seemed to be
full of thirty-something men of average height and average looks.  He couldn't see Nick
Appleby
anywhere. 

He sat listening to the speaker's voice without hearing a word he said.  There was another possibility, of course.  Christine could have been in love with the guy.  Maybe she had felt about him the way that Mark felt about her.  Maybe she had spent the last four years trying to forget him, and now all of that time had been a waste, because the first sighting of him had put her right back where she had started.  Mark wiped his forehead.  He could relate to that feeling.  But whatever it was, he couldn't sit here, drinking coffee while she was upstairs, distraught.  She needed a friend, that was clear, and right now he was the closest thing she had to that.  Then Mark noticed her phone on the table next to her empty wine glass.  That decided it.  He excused himself to the nice Canadian lady, and he lifted the phone and his jacket and walked out of the room through the same double doors.

The receptionist had clearly never heard of customer confidentiality and she gave Mark Christine's room number without even glancing up at him.  He took the lift to her floor, and walked along the dimly lit corridor until he was outside her room.  He felt for her phone in his pocket.  The corridor was eerily quiet.  He pressed his ear to the wood panelling.  There wasn't a sound.  No sobbing, no television, nothing.  He stood away from the door again.  He couldn't tell if the lights were on inside or not.  He waited a moment.  Then he knocked.

“Christine?”

Nothing.

“Christine?  He said a little louder.  “Christine?”

Nothing.

“Christine, I have your phone.”

He thought he heard a noise coming from inside, but he couldn't be sure.  The walls of the hotel were so thin that it might have been coming from an adjacent room. 

“Christine?” 

Could she have gone for a walk outside?  Maybe she was sitting in the bar downstairs?  But no, that was unlikely. 

“Christine.  Christine, I know you're in there,” he lied.  It was worth a try.  “You don't have to talk to me, just open the door and take your phone so I know that you're alright.”

Nothing.

“If you don't, I'm going to have to go down to reception and get the manager to open the door.  Christine.  Christine, I'm worried.”