Are You My Mother? (40 page)

‘
It’s not her, is it?’

Ruth shook her head. ‘I very much doubt it. She looks about twenty-two, and she’s black. Jamaica, I think she’s from. I’m sorry.’

I suddenly felt very, very tired, not least at the thought of how much I still had to do that night before I could collapse into a warm bed with a Jilly Cooper novel. I half felt like asking Ruth if I could kip on the daybed in the corner of her delivery room.

‘
Oh well. That’s why I’m doing this – I can rule out another one now.’

Ruth’s eyes were beginning to drift and flutter shut, so I slid off her bed.

‘
I really think I’d better go, though. They lock the door of my B&B at eleven. Can I take your address? Even if I don’t live up here, I’d love to keep in touch, and maybe see your baby at some point.’

She nodded. ‘Yeah…me too. Are you on email? We could email each other…’

I rooted around in my bag to find a biro and an old dry-cleaning receipt, on which I wrote down the details Ruth wearily dictated, as well as my own addresses, email and postal, which I tore off the bottom of the receipt and tucked into Ruth’s handbag.

‘
So,’ I said, smiling shyly at her. ‘It was a real pleasure to meet you. I’m sorry we didn’t meet sooner.’

‘
Selfishly, I’m not,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without you tonight, honestly. I can’t thank you enough for looking after me.’

I made self-effacing blustery noises, and flapped my hand dismissively, feeling ridiculously over-emotional. ‘Bye, then. I hope you’ll be OK. I’m sure you will. If you’re ever in London, look me up, won’t you?’

‘
Definitely. Bye, Emma. Thanks again.’

‘
Bye.’

I turned at the door to look back, but Ruth was already asleep, cut off from me and her new baby and, mercifully, all the fatigue and stress and anxieties that she still had ahead of her.

Chapter 31

The weirdnesses of the day were far from over. After an uneventful journey by minicab back to my car - which was, thankfully, untampered with - and then another easy drive back to the B&B, I was crunching the Golf’s wheels on the gravel driveway towards the front door with precisely four minutes to spare.

Another car, a smart silver Audi, swept in immediately behind me, but I was too tired to worry about whether I was taking someone else’s parking space. I just switched off the engine and the lights, pulled on the handbrake, and hauled myself and my bag of wet things – including the towel I’d rented from the swimming pool and forgotten to return – out of the car.

‘
Hello again,’ said a man’s voice by my right ear as I fumbled with the door.

Oh bugger, I thought. It’s the gorgeous Mr. Tilt. And I probably look as if I’ve been dragged through a bush backwards.

‘
Hello.’ I turned and looked up at him properly. He was devastatingly sexy, with skin like melting milk chocolate, and those big calf’s eyes.

‘
Been out on the town?’

I laughed, self-consciously. If only he knew. ‘No, not exactly. In fact, not at all. It’s been a very – strange – night.’ I wasn’t sure if it was fatigue or attraction making my words staccato.

He opened the door for me and suddenly we were standing in the hall, close together, in a soft pool of light from a small table lamp nearby. The dark and quiet of the rest of the house made our presence far too intimate, and I felt nervous energy zing around my stomach.

‘
So Mr. Thingy – Gil – presumably hasn’t locked up, then,’ I said, looking around me in an exaggerated movement, as if to say, ‘don’t try anything, buster. The guvnor’ll be along in a minute.’

‘
Oh, Mr. Thingy’s usually late.’ The man grinned, as if I’d said something funny. ‘I’ll lock up. There isn’t anybody else coming in tonight. I’m Robert, by the way.’

‘
Emma’, I said, thinking, he’s got a nerve. Locking up someone else’s guesthouse. And how did he know there were no more guests coming?

‘
So, Emma, I was going to make some hot chocolate and toast. Would you like to join me and tell me about your weird evening?’

I was about to say no and head for the stairs at a crawl, but what I’d mistaken for nervous energy in my stomach gave a long, low, growl, and I realised that I was absolutely ravenous.

‘
Yes, please. I’m starving.’

Robert moved down the hallway, casually switching on lights as if he owned the place, before ushering me into a large, pristine kitchen and pointing at a ladder-back chair by a big pine table. ‘Have a seat.’

Salivating at the thought of hot buttered toast, I watched him bustling about, pulling out saucepans and cartons of milk, peeling slices of bread off a loaf in the bread bin, clicking the gas into purple-blue life to heat the milk.

‘
You stay here a lot, then.’

‘
I’m living here at the moment, until my flat’s ready to move into.’

I almost said ‘wow, that must be expensive’, but stopped myself. It was so rude to comment on other people’s financial arrangements. Instead, I watched with admiration as he strode around the kitchen, unloading the dishwasher and setting out plates and knives. His body looked as if it was constructed of pure muscle, and it made me shiver. Then I thought of Gavin’s lanky, puny frame, and that made me shiver too.

‘
So I understand you’re in titanium. What does that mean?’

Spooning hot chocolate into two mugs, Robert stopped mid-scoop. ‘Titanium? As in, the metal titanium? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a TV agent.’

‘
Oh. Right.’ Janet must have been mistaken. Cool job, though. “In television” sounded much more glamorous than “in titanium”.

‘
What do you do, Emma?’

‘
I’m an aromatherapist.’

‘
Really? How interesting – do you know, I’ve always wanted to learn massage. It seems like it would be so rewarding. I had regular acupuncture when I had a dodgy back, and that was brilliant too.’

No jokes about massage parlours or Miss Whiplash outfits. No snickers or lewd expressions. Just interest and admiration in his voice. Robert handed me a plate of toast, nutty, brown, and delicious-smelling, a personification of himself.

‘
Jam or marmite?’

‘
Marmite, thanks.’

The marmite and butter marbled together in an intoxicating swirl of oil and brown, and the toast became slightly damp to the touch. I bit into it, and a drip of melted butter slid sensuously down my chin. Robert saw, and I had an overwhelming urge to beckon him over to lick it off me. I was shocked at how attracted to him I was, but decided it was probably to do with having had sex so recently. Amid long arid spells of celibacy, I hardly gave sex a thought, but the more I had, the more I wanted. I wondered what Gavin was up to tonight.

‘
This,’ I said, chewing and wiping the drip off with my finger instead, ‘is absolutely, completely delicious.’

Robert poured milk into the two mugs and stirred it round, releasing chocolatey vapours into the air of the cold night kitchen, twining us together with its warmth and scent.

He came and sat opposite me, pushing a mug in my direction and began to butter his own toast. I noticed his hands, brown, strong, with bitten nails and exaggerated wrinkles at the joints of his fingers. A cricketer’s hands.

‘
Do you play cricket?’ I blurted.

‘
Well, no, not anymore. Not since school, anyway. Footie’s my game, and squash. Why do you ask?’

I was mortified. ‘You, um, I mean, when I first saw you this morning, I thought you looked like a cricketer.’ How racist did that sound?
You’re slightly dark-skinned so I assumed you batted for the West Indies
…..oh God.

But Robert just laughed. ‘Yes, I thought that chinos and a cream jumper looked a bit stupid in the middle of winter, too, but by then I was out the door and it was too late to change.’

‘
Oh no, I didn’t think you looked stupid, just, you know….’ I was floundering badly, but worse was to come. I took too big a mouthful of hot chocolate, and hiccuped, at top volume.

‘
Sorry,’ I said, hiccuping again. ‘Hot drinks often do this to –
hic
– me.’ I covered my mouth with my hand in embarrassment.

Just then, the kitchen door opened and Janet came in, with her hair in rollers, wearing a dazzlingly white towelling bathrobe and matching slippers, as if she was at a health farm.

‘
Ah, it’s you two. Good, you’re both in. I can lock up, then.’

‘
All done already,’ said Robert. ‘You can go to bed now. Don’t worry, I’ll clean up in here first.’ To my astonishment he stood up, walked over to Janet, and put his arms around her waist, kissing her lavishly on the side of the neck. She giggled girlishly and pushed him away. ‘Oh, Robbie, you daft ha’porth,’ she said.

I shut my mouth hastily, aware that I was gaping like a moomintroll, and then hiccuped again. Oh please, I thought, don’t tell me I’ve stumbled into some kind of upmarket wife-swapping set-up. He’s her toy-boy. Did Gil know? What if Gil wanted me to…. The prospect of a tryst with Robert was, frankly, very appealing, but I’d never met Gil, and he was, presumably, Janet’s age. I was so busy panicking at the possibility of being propositioned by a sixty-year old B&B proprietor, and hiccuping, that I nearly didn’t hear Robert’s reply as Janet came over and kissed him goodnight.

‘
Night then, Mum. Sleep well.’ He looked at me, my dripping toast suspended halfway to my mouth. ‘You thought that I was just a lodger here, didn’t you?’

I nodded, mutely, before we both burst out laughing. ‘I thought you were Mr. Tilt from Birmingham. He’s –
hic
- in titanium, apparently.’

‘
Oh, him! He’s about forty-five, buck teeth, bald as a coot. You wouldn’t fancy him.’

I raised my eyebrows so far that they felt they would slide over the back of my head. The inference was unmistakably ‘but you fancy me, though, don’t you?’ and I didn’t quite know how to take it.

Then I thought, who cared if it was obvious? Yes, I did fancy him. He was utterly gorgeous, and the fact that he seemed to be interested in me too was hugely flattering, even with my chlorine-stringy hair, the ghosts of day-old mascara lurking shadowy beneath my tired eyes, and the involuntary explosions coming from my mouth at regular intervals. Despite all that, I saluted my return to life as a sexual, sensuous being…. well, in a manner of speaking.

Robert evidently realised what he’d said too, and took a long slurp of his hot chocolate to cover his confusion. I stared shamelessly at him, hiccuping. Despite yesterday’s events, it was the first time in years that Gavin hadn’t come into the equation.

‘
Right,’ said Robert assertively. ‘Time to get rid of those hiccups. I’ll get you a glass of water and then you have to follow my instructions.’

‘
Oh good –
hic
. I’m really bored of them now. But drinking out of the wrong side of the glass has never done it for me before.’

‘
No, it’s not that. This is a much better hiccup cure.’ He handed me a glass of tap water. ‘I’m going to ask you three questions, and no matter what the questions are, you have to reply “yes, Daddy,” and then take a sip of water. OK?’

I frowned at him. ‘Yes
Daddy
? Well, OK, if you say so.
Hic
.’

‘
Ready? First question; let’s see… Am I the short stop for the West Indian cricket team?’

‘
Yes, Daddy,’ I said obediently, taking a sip of water. No hiccup.

‘
Did you think, for a minute there, that there was something very fishy going on between me and the proprietress of this guesthouse?’

I gave him a hard stare. ‘Yes, Daddy,’ I said reluctantly. Another sip. I could feel an absence in my throat which signified that my hiccups had gone already, but I kept quiet in case I was imagining it.

There was something very odd about addressing somebody as Daddy again after so many years. I closed my eyes briefly and imagined that it really was Dad sitting there trying to cure my hiccups, and the feeling took my breath away.

‘
Last question: are you really sorry that you ever set foot in this guest house and do you wish that you were staying in that lovely hotel down the road instead?’

I laughed. ‘Oh yes, Daddy. You have no idea how sorry.’ A third sip of water.

‘
Well?’ said Robert, raising his eyebrows. ‘Are they gone?’

I swallowed tentatively, to make sure. ‘Yes. I think they went after the first question. That’s amazing! Does it work every time?’

‘
Ninety percent of the time, yes. I think it’s something to do with having to concentrate on answering ‘yes’ to ‘no’ questions, and then taking the sips of water.’

I smiled at him. ‘Thanks, anyway.’

‘
Don’t mention it.’

We sat in warm silence for a few minutes, until something occurred to me.

‘
I hope you don’t mind me asking, but….are you adopted? Being a different colour to your mum, and all.’ I winced, thinking that just bringing it up had made me sound even more of a racist.

‘
No, I’m not adopted. You obviously haven’t met my dad yet, then?’