Flights of Angels (15 page)

‘Now be fair! He’s been under a lot of strain too,’ Claudie said.

‘I don’t believe you, Claudes! How can you even think about defending him? He had
no right
!’

‘I know he didn’t.’ Claudie handed her a mug of tea and urged her to go through to the living room.

‘He took complete advantage of you.’

‘Yes he did,’ Claudie nodded in assent. ‘I still can’t believe it.’

‘How did this all begin anyway?’ Kristen demanded, pacing up and down the living room in her anxiety.

‘I don’t know,’ Claudie said, not wanting to relive the experience. ‘I was crying.’

‘What about?’

‘For goodness sake, Kris, sit down? You’re making my head spin.’

Kristen sat as told. ‘Is this where he was sleeping?’

Claudie nodded.

‘You’ll have to sell it,’ Kristen said with a snarl.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

There was a moment’s pause as they sipped their tea and dwelt on Daniel’s bad behaviour.

‘So why were you crying?’ Kristen asked again.

Claudie drew a deep breath. ‘It was silly really,’ she said. ‘But there was a spider in my room, and Daniel squashed it.’

‘You mean you let him into your bedroom?’

‘What else could I do? You know I hate spiders! I couldn’t deal with it myself.’

‘And then what happened?’

‘I don’t know. I just got upset. I think it was the way he just flattened it. The way - one minute it was alive, minding its own business, and the next it was dead.’

‘But it wouldn’t have felt a thing, Claudes.’

‘That’s what Daniel said.’

‘You just got to thinking again?’

Claudie nodded. She’d done a lot of thinking over the past few months and she sometimes thought her head would explode.

‘And that’s when the bastard took advantage of you? God! If I ever lay my hands on him, I’ll murder him!’

‘Don’t worry, I did a good enough job on my own with my knee.’

‘He might have raped you!’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘How do you know? If you hadn’t kneed him, who knows what would have happened?’

Claudie felt a smirk tickling her mouth.

‘You
did
knee him, didn’t you?’ Kristen’s lips were also beginning to twitch.

‘Oh yes,’ she said with great satisfaction. ‘I reduced him to a pulp all right!’

‘Ouch!’

‘He won’t be trying that again in a hurry.’ They both laughed. ‘Thanks for coming round, Kris,’ she smiled across at her friend, wondering what on earth she’d do without her.

‘That’s all right.’

‘What did you tell Mr Simpson?’ Claudie asked, aware that it was nearly half past nine, and that Kristen should have been in the office by a quarter to.

‘Nothing. Angela’s covering for me.’

Claudie chewed her lip as she thought of life at the office continuing without her.

‘I might come in later this afternoon,’ she said.

‘What? Are you mad? Mr Bartholomew will just send you home again.’

‘I don’t care. I’m fed up of being at home. And besides, I miss-’ she paused. What was she going to say? ‘I miss you all.’ There, that was true enough. She couldn’t really say that she missed her flight of angels. But it was true. She missed Jalisa’s dance routines, and Mr Woo’s kind face. She even missed Bert’s hurrumphing and continual scratching of his head.

‘Well we miss you too.’

For a moment, Claudie could have sworn it was Jalisa’s voice she’d heard. She cast her eyes quickly round the room, half-expecting to see her tap dancing on the television, but there was nobody there.

‘I suppose you’d better be off. I don’t want to get you into trouble,’ Claudie said.

Kristen nodded but she didn’t look as if she wanted to make a move just yet. ‘God I feel miserable,’ she said suddenly.

‘Sorry if I’ve ruined your morning.’

‘It’s not you. I don’t know, I’m just fed up lately. Got anything to cheer us up? Just a quick fix.’

‘Well I haven’t got any cigarettes, if that’s what you mean, but we could just watch the opening of
On the Town
.

The young girl in the pet shop hadn’t been able to tell whether the fish Simon had chosen was a male or a female. And they hadn’t had any goldfish in silver either.

Poor Pumpkin, Simon had thought, as he’d lowered the plastic bag into the water and watched as the new arrival swam out into its new home. What if it was another male, and what if the two of them didn’t get along? Was that possible? Did goldfish argue? Pumpkin wouldn’t thank him at all. At least, at work,
he
could get up and walk away from Mandy the man-eater. Poor Pumpkin would have no choice but to keep on swimming around his little bowl.

Now, sat at his office desk again, he was beginning to feel very much like Pumpkin. Mandy hadn’t dared to mention her amateur sleuth role of the day before, and Simon was too much of a gentleman to mention it either. But he felt trapped by her. All morning, he could feel the intensity of her gaze upon him. He felt like he was under a microscope never mind in a goldfish bowl, and she hadn’t stopped talking all morning.

Simon did his best not to respond.

‘So,’ she began again, ‘are you meeting her this lunchtime?’ Did Simon detect a slight derisive note in the way she said her?

He cleared his throat. God, he wished she’d shut up and leave him alone. As if he was likely to divulge personal details to her of all people. But was he meeting her? As far as Mandy was concerned, Simon was really seeing somebody. It was a ridiculous scenario but, if he wanted to keep her off his back, he had to keep it going.

The image of the moonshine woman filled his mind again. Now, she would be a great girl to meet at lunchtime. She would be able to get a man through a nightmare morning at work. He wondered briefly what it would be like to meet up with her, and then a naughty thought occurred.

‘No,’ he said, ‘she’s got to go shopping.’ He immediately pictured her browsing in the little bookshop, her large chocolate eyes mesmerised by the magical world of the books. She might very well go there regularly during her lunch hour for all he knew. ‘But I’ll be seeing her tonight.’

‘Right. Doing anything special?’

‘No,’ Simon said, ‘just hanging out.’ A smile was playing about his mouth as he tried to imagine what it would be like hanging out with Miss Moonshine. What would his living room look like with her in it? Far more exciting an option than two goldfish, that was for sure.

‘And you won’t tell me her name?’

Simon shook his head, not taking his eyes away from his monitor in case they gave him away.

‘Still your little secret, is she?’

‘Yes,’ he replied, replaying the scene in the bookshop when he’d handed her the book she’d coveted. That beautiful rainbow smile. ‘She’s my secret,’ he added. So secret, he mused, that she doesn’t even know herself.

Kristen was determined not to get excited about Friday. She knew Jimmy pretty well, and it wasn’t very likely that he’d be booking a romantic meal for two. During their whole two-year relationship, the closest they’d got to a romantic meal had been lunch in a pub in Wensleydale. He was a simple man with simple tastes, and would much rather spend his money on a few pints than a plate full of unpronounceable food. Still, it was fun to try and guess what it was he had planned for them. Probably a bag of chips by the harbour, looking out at the boats and dreaming of summer.

Looking out of the window whilst her bosses set up the meeting room, she realised that she couldn’t imagine a time pre-Jimmy. All past boyfriends seemed as remote as the stars. Apart from Simon that was. He was far too precious to forget. Their relationship had probably been the shortest of Kristen’s, and yet there’d definitely been something about him. Something wonderful, but very platonic.

And Jimmy? What was she going to do about Jimmy-the-completely-unweddible? To be fair, he’d been quite plain with her from the start of their relationship on the issue of marriage, and, being a woman, Kristen had nodded and agreed very politely whilst secretly thinking that she’d be able to change him; that she’d be the one to make him see the light.

Two years on, and several near rows on the subject, they were still rolling along together in unwedded bliss, and she’d been doing very well over the past few months. She had hardly made any references to marriage at all, except at Claudie and Luke’s wedding. Well, who wouldn’t make the most of an opportunity like that to drop a few hints?

But it was only a matter of time, Kristen knew that. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted more than he seemed prepared to give her and, although she loved him, she really couldn’t see a future with him if he didn’t want the same things as her.

Claudie sneaked up the stairs to the office, checking that the bosses weren’t around before she dived through the double doors.

‘Claudie!’ Angela shouted in surprise.

‘Shush!’ Claudie waved her hand up and down.

‘What are you doing back?’

‘I got bored.’

‘Really? Away from this dump? You’re mad!’

‘I know,’ she said, looking apologetic. ‘It’s just, I spend enough time on my own as it is.’

‘You don’t have to explain,’ Angela said. ‘I know what you mean. But won’t old Bart kill you?’

‘I don’t think so. Listen, I’m just going to sit here quietly for a couple of hours and then sneak home before five.’

Angela nodded. ‘Well they’re in a meeting anyway, so they probably won’t even know.’

‘Is that where Kristen is?’

‘Yes. She’s got the ghastly job of taking the minutes.’

Claudie nodded, thinking that at least Mr Bartholomew would keep out of her hair.

Pulling out her chair, Claudie began inspecting her desk for angels. It seemed very quiet. Unnaturally so. Perhaps there was something in their contract to say that if a client went missing, then they would withdraw their services. But surely they knew that the circumstances had been beyond her control, and surely they would have given some notice, or left a message or something?

Claudie began to look around for a possible note from Jalisa and panicked. They weren’t coming back, were they? They’d abandoned her. Left her to it. The flight had fled. It served her right, she supposed. She hadn’t been the best of clients. Still, wouldn’t Lily and Mary have said something to her if they had been planning on leaving?

Claudie sighed. It was ridiculous even thinking about it. After all, how could she possibly be expected to explain the behaviour of angels?

‘For she’s a jolly good fel-low!’ suddenly, from out of nowhere, an unmistakable voice assaulted her ears. It was Jalisa.

‘For she’s a jolly good fel-low!’ she sang. But where was she? Claudie’s eyes danced around the desk.

‘For she’s a jolly good fe - el - low! And so say all of us!’

In a blink of an eye, the five of them were standing by her keyboard. ‘And so say all of us. And so say all of us!’ they chorused. ‘For she’s a jolly good fe - el - low. And so say all of us!’

Claudie’s smile almost shot off her face, taking her ears with it. ‘Gosh! I’ve missed you guys!’ she all but screamed.

‘Have you?’ Bert was the first to speak, his eyes almost watering in delight.

‘Of course I have! It’s only been two days but it feels like a lifetime,’ Claudie said, looking over her shoulder and making sure Angela’s head was still in the store cupboard.

‘And we’ve missed you,’ Jalisa confessed. ‘They put us all in storage for a while, which was awful, and we were just praying that you’d come back.’

‘Storage? What’s that?’ Claudie’s forehead buckled with wonder, as she imagined the five of them placed neatly on a shelf and told not to move.

‘Well, it’s called The Waiting Room really, but it’s secretly known as storage. It’s where angels go when clients are having a break - for whatever reason,’ Jalisa explained diplomatically. ‘Instead of training us up for another mission, we have to wait, just in case.’

‘I’m glad you did,’ Claudie said. ‘It wouldn’t have been much fun having to break in a new flight.’

‘To tell you the truth,’ Jalisa said in a hushed voice, ‘I thought they were going to have to do just that.’

‘Really? Why?’

Jalisa turned round and glared at Lily and Mary who were both looking decidedly guilty. ‘They were under the impression that
some of us
had been visiting out of bound areas.’

Claudie could feel herself blushing. ‘Really?’ she said, trying to inject some innocence into her response.

‘Yes!’ Jalisa said. ‘And if they were ever found out, it would mean a filing job in Death Warrants for a very long time!’

Claudie glanced quickly at the Tudor twins who had suddenly become engrossed by a pile of paper clips and were avoiding eye contact with Jalisa.

‘Well, everything seems to be all right now,’ Claudie said, clearing her throat and anxiously thinking of how she could change the subject. ‘And how are you, Mr Woo?’

Mr Woo looked up from where he’d positioned himself on Claudie’s pocket dictionary, his expression a little merrier for being addressed. ‘I good. You good also?’

Claudie smiled. Some people asked as routine, but when Mr Woo asked how you were, you knew that he genuinely wanted to know. ‘I’m well, thank you. But I’ve been missing having your advice to hand.’

‘Have you?’

Claudie nodded, thinking of how she’d wished he could have been there the night before when she kicked Daniel out.

‘But I bet you’ve missed my jokes more, eh, Claudie?’ Bert interrupted, his face breaking into two with a cheeky grin.

Claudie nodded, the word
jokes
hitting her for the first time. Bert - the joking angel.
Each member has been specially chosen for the job: possessing some quality or ability to help you
, that’s what Jalisa had told her, and jokes were one of the many things she’d loved about Luke. She hadn’t made the connection before, but it made perfect sense to her now.

She gazed down at Bert. ‘You must tell me all your latest jokes. I need cheering up.’

He beamed back up at her. ‘You bet!’ he said, giving her a cheeky wink.

Mr Woo turned around and glared at him, his gentle demeanour disappearing in an instant. ‘Stinky bird egg - she talking to
me!
’