Broken Places (9 page)

Giving silent thanks for his dentist, he speared a melon chunk on his fork, but, before he could consume it, an extremely ancient bloke shouted in a booming voice from further down the table, ‘I know you, Eric, don’t I?’

Eric regarded the fellow blankly. Never in his life had he set eyes on this chap, with his swarthy face and sparse wisps of silver hair.

‘Yes, we were together at Dunkirk. I was injured pretty badly and you helped me into the boat. We were both up to our necks in water, I remember, but you were a true hero.’

Dunkirk was twenty-odd years before his birth, but apart from that mere detail, it seemed unlikely in the extreme that he would be playing such a starring role – rather yelling, choking and spluttering as he tried to save himself from drowning. Fortunately, he was spared from having to answer by a tall, suave man in a smart grey suit, with a blue shirt and matching tie.

‘Good to meet you, Eric. My name’s Alistair and I, for one, am an
enthusiast
for books. Although music is my first love. I’m an opera singer – or
was
.’

‘Gosh!’ said Eric, goggling. He had been to the opera only once, with Christine, and had felt completely overwhelmed by the sheer passion of the thing. The arias had left him rapt and reeling, as the tenor poured out the depths of his soul for a love that knew no bounds; a love that would go through torture; confront death, disaster, exile, for the sake of the beloved. Yet, in the interval, Christine had said dismissively, ‘It’s lust, that’s all. He just wants to get her knickers off!’

‘Yes,’ Alistair continued, ‘I could sight-read at the age of five, although I’d never had a music lesson – not one in all my childhood. Yet, at eight, I had a greater grasp of technique than some singers have at
thirty
-eight. I’ve sung in all the major opera houses – Covent Garden, the Met, La Scala … By the way, La Scala pay much more than Covent Garden. My fee over there’s a minimum of eighty grand a night. Although, actually, I retired in my forties, because now I prefer to conduct.’

But why on earth, thought Eric, would someone so rich and famous be sitting down to dinner here, rather than gulping champagne and caviar with fawning impresarios?

‘Mind you, most contemporary opera singers are useless. Some can’t even sing in tune. In fact, I’ve been known to read the riot act and refuse to conduct a second performance unless the understudy takes over the role.’

Was the guy deluded, Eric wondered, like the old Dunkirk survivor? Perhaps this lunch was for the disabled
and
deluded, in which case he wasn’t keen to stay too long. In fact, he gladly handed over his more or less untouched starter in return for a plate of lukewarm turkey. The sooner he finished his food, the sooner he could find some excuse to leave.

Two hours later, he was still trapped, captive, in his seat.

‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch,’ the deacon had announced, once coffee had been served, along with chocolates and
pannetone
. ‘So now all you good folks have to sing for your supper!’

Eric’s first instinct had been to bolt, but the vicar and various other clergy were standing by the piano, and the whole bevy of helpers had come trooping from the kitchen, virtually blocking any chance of escape. And the singing had been interminable, since the deacon’s little plan was to work through every nationality in turn, asking, first, any Spaniards present to stand up, then any French, Italians, Portuguese, Greeks, Americans, Japanese – and so on, ad infinitum. In each case, only two or three had risen to their feet – sometimes none at all – yet each national song was still
faithfully
thumped out:
O, Tannenbaum, Frère Jacques, Bog Sie Rodzi, Kimi ga Yo
, and many more he could neither pronounce nor spell. A pair of young girls from Hong Kong had protracted things still further by making a succession of false starts on a dozen different Cantonese songs, breaking down in giggles between each aborted attempt.

After that, it was the turn of the English and the whole bunch of them, him included, had valiantly worked their way through ‘Away in a Manger’, ‘We Three Kings’, ‘O, Come all ye Faithful’, ‘When Shepherds Watched’ and ‘Joy to the World’. This last had seemed singularly inappropriate, since the longer the proceedings lasted, the less joy there seemed to be, although he was in the minority when it came to sheer hilarity. Many of the other guests were in various stages of inebriation, and were clapping, cheering, heckling, or trying out weird descants of their own. The opera singer, he noticed, maintained a strict silence throughout, claiming he had to save his voice for a performance of Tristan at Bayreuth.

Next had come a seemingly endless vote of thanks, not just to the cooks and bottle-washers, but to the butcher who’d donated the turkey, the baker who’d supplied the bread, some foreign lady from Wapping who had made the special stuffing, a guy with an allotment who’d grown the (organic) potatoes, and countless other kindly souls. Each benefactor had been applauded separately and uproariously, thus spinning out the proceedings even more. Privately, Eric had begun to wish that some local worthy had donated a bottle of Airwick, to counter the increasingly unpleasant smell arising from the tattooed bloke. He ought to be more compassionate –
presumably the chap was homeless and thus without a bathroom – but his usual forbearance was sorely strained at present. Nor did his stupid
headgear
help. Vera had insisted, once the crackers had been pulled, that they all don their paper hats, and he’d been landed with a puce-pink number that clashed deplorably with his hair.

‘And now,’ declared the deacon, raising his voice above the hubbub, ‘a real treat for us all! Two of our parishioners, both keen members of the Tideswell Players, are going to perform some scenes from
Scrooge
, accompanied by Sydney on the guitar. For those of you new to England,
Scrooge
is a famous novel by one of our best-known writers, the great Charles Dickens….’

Eric shifted in his seat. The last thing he needed was a lecture on Charles Dickens. Besides, he was dying for a pee and increasingly worried about the safety of his bike. Some passer-by might vandalize it, simply out of spite. However, if he got up now, while the ‘actors’ were making their way to the piano, and before the performance began, he might be able to sneak out.

Fortunately, Lily, all grudges forgotten, was in a clinch with a drunken Brazilian, Vera was blissfully snoozing, and the opera singer engaged in a long argument with Malcolm. Edging his chair back as quietly as possible, he slipped unobtrusively from his seat, muttering something about needing to find the gents.

‘The toilet’s the opposite way!’ some helpful person called, as he began sloping off across the nave.

‘Er, need to check my bike first,’ he gabbled, breaking into a sprint as he approached the glass doors that led to safety and the street. He was through them in a trice but, in his haste to get away, collided with someone coming in – a woman carrying a cake. Before he knew what was happening, the woman tripped and all but fell; the cake flying from her grasp and smashing into pieces, as it landed upside-down on the flagstones.

Dumb with horror and embarrassment, he lent her a supporting arm, steadying her against the wall. Although incredibly relieved to find she wasn’t hurt, he was in agonies of shame about the cake. A large, elaborate creation, judging by the wreckage, it was now a shattered mass of crumbs and cream. Yet still he couldn’t speak, although for quite another reason. This was his
mother
– yes, in the flesh and leaning on his arm – the mother he had pictured throughout his motherless childhood, and correct in every detail, except not older than him but young and wildly sexy. He stared in rapturous disbelief at the firm yet cuddly figure, just this side of chubby, the
glorious auburn hair (not carroty, like his, but still decidedly red, to prove that he’d inherited it), the sweet face, rosy cheeks.

‘Damn!’ she exclaimed. ‘My cake’s a gonner! And it took me the whole morning to make.’

Never before had he felt such crushing mortification. His first
all-important
encounter with his ‘mother’, and he had made a total hash of it. But a mother who made cakes couldn’t be more perfect – and was just as he’d imagined her: cosy, homely, nurturing, as she sieved flour and beat eggs, yet at the same time lushly sensual.

‘I … I’m horrified,’ he stuttered out, at last. ‘I mean, to be such a clumsy oaf. I could have injured you quite badly, and look at your poor cake! I just don’t know what to say.’ He
did
know: hold me, kiss me, put your lovely arms around me, never let me go.

‘Don’t worry,’ she smiled. ‘It’s not an arm or a leg, as my sister always says.’

He gazed at her in still deeper admiration. A natural philosopher, as well as a beauty and a cook; someone who didn’t bear grudges or make the slightest fuss, even when she had every right to do so. Suddenly
remembering
his paper hat, he snatched it off in discomfiture. Just his luck to meet the love of his life when he looked half-tramp, half-clown. The woman, though, seemed hardly to have noticed, absorbed as she was in her dilemma.

‘The only problem is, I made the cake for Freda’s hundredth birthday, which happens to be today. I expect you know her, don’t you?’

‘Er, no.’

‘So you’re not a parishioner?’

‘No,’ he said again, although the word on his lips was ‘
Yes
!’ – yes to taking her back with him, yes to keeping her for ever in his flat, his home, his heart.

‘She went down with a cold last night, so she’s not actually here for the lunch. But Sydney promised to deliver the cake later on today, as long as I brought it here to the church. Thing is, I can’t make another – not at this late stage. I’m due at my sister’s for Christmas lunch and she lives down in Guildford, which is a good forty minutes’ drive. The whole gang will be ravenous by now – my parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, my other sisters and their families – and you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll all be saying “Trust Mandy to be late!”’

Exactly the sort of family he had wanted all his life: a whole big, loving
tribe of them, who would come together faithfully for every Christmas, Easter, birthday, anniversary. ‘Look, you get off,’ he urged. ‘I’ll clear up this mess and tell them it was all my fault.’ Thank God the pair of them were in the porch, he thought, which meant no one had actually witnessed the
collision
. Otherwise streams of well-meaning helpers would have come rushing to Mandy’s aid and this miraculous one-to-one encounter would never have occurred.

‘But
you
were leaving, too. And you seemed in a tearing rush.’

‘Not at all. I …’ The sentence petered out, as frantically he began to rethink his plan. If she hared off down to Guildford, he would never set eyes on her again. Somehow, he had to accompany her, or at least try to spend more time with her than this inadequate few minutes. ‘Well, actually, I
am
in a bit of a hurry. I’m desperate to get to …’ He paused – somewhere on the way to Guildford, where she could drop him off – and somewhere a fair bit further than his flat. ‘Kingston,’ he declared. OK, it would mean
abandoning
his bike and he would be stuck in Kingston with no public transport over Christmas to take him back to London, but he would just have to beg a refuge from his former neighbours, Annabel and Ted. Who cared what they might think? Nothing had ever seemed more crucial than to stick close to this woman. Even lying didn’t matter. In fact, lies were now essential. ‘Trouble is, my car’s been nicked.’

‘Oh, Lord!’ she said. ‘How awful! But look, I can give you a lift. Kingston’s directly on my route.’

‘Are you sure it’s not a nuisance?’

‘Not at all. I’d be glad of the company. Though I don’t even know your name.’

‘Eric,’ he said reluctantly, tempted to change it to something more romantic or heroic: Apollo, Tristan, Romeo, Alexander, Galahad … And if only he could change his clothes, as well; wear a laurel-wreath, a toga, a
figleaf
or a halo – anything to catch her eye; keep him in her memory.
She
was dressed in a fuzzy mohair sweater, which lusciously defined her
just-waiting-to-be-fondled
breasts, and was as blue as her blue-speedwell eyes. A coat was slung across her shoulders – again adorably soft and fluffy, and which made him want to hold her close and stroke her. And her short grey skirt displayed her lovely legs; legs clad in patterned tights, but naked now as he ran his hands along them.

‘Great to meet you, Eric. But excuse me a moment, will you? I’d better go and find Sydney and explain what’s going on, and also say hello to a
couple of other people here. One of my sisters lives close by, so this is her local parish. That’s how I got roped in – to make the cake, I mean.’

‘Is she here?’ he asked anxiously, refusing to have an inconvenient sister cramping his style on the journey down to Kingston.

‘No. She went to Guildford last night – sensible girl! I always leave things to the last minute.’

Thank God, he thought – and yes, perhaps there
was
a God; a
benevolent
God who had arranged this miraculous meeting. Although the lunch itself had been a trifle disappointing – tasteless, tepid and overcooked – he no longer cared a jot, since he was now tucking into Mandy: nibbling on her succulent flesh, sucking up her juices, savouring each delicious crumb as he rolled her round his mouth.

‘I mean, I should have made that cake last week, not on Christmas morning. And I rushed in here at a speed of knots, knowing I was
frightfully
late, so the whole thing’s really my fault.’

‘No, it’s
my
fault. And I’ll replace the cake, of course – that goes without saying. I’m afraid it won’t be home-made, but I’ll buy the nicest one I can find and deliver it in person to this Freda lady, if that would help at all.’

She laughed – the most wondrous sound he had ever heard.

‘Don’t worry. I make cakes for a living, so one more’s not going to bother me.’