Guilty Feet (21 page)

The reality, however, had been somewhat different.

‘How do you know that it’s me who’s been lying?’ she said coolly when he told her what he’d learnt last night. That, for whatever reason, she had clearly told Jo that Aisling and he had been an item.

He didn’t let her into the flat. He just stood at the door, with folded arms, as if barring the entrance.

‘Because Aisling has no reason to lie about it,’ he said.

‘I wasn’t thinking of Aisling.’

He had to hand it to her; she was a very cool customer. He’d expected her to crumble when he accused her of lying, but she seemed determined to brazen it out.

‘Are you trying to say that
Jo
made it all up? Well, I’m sorry, Libby,’ he told her firmly, ‘but that really doesn’t make any sense.’

‘But why would I tell her something like that?’ she said. She shook her head in a bewildered fashion, and then suddenly her face twisted into a sneer. ‘Oh, I get it,’ she said. ‘You think I did it so that I could have you all to myself, don’t you?’

She was either an excellent bluffer or she was telling the truth, and for a moment Dan couldn’t decide which. When she put it like that it did sound unlikely, not to mention egotistical. He decided not to pursue that particular line for the moment. Instead he mentioned something else that had begun to bother him.

‘You suggested that Jo probably broke into my flat because she knew that we’d spent a night together—’

Libby tilted her head defiantly, ready for anything he could throw at her.

‘So if she really was crazed with jealous anger—’ it sounded so ridiculous when he said it that he wondered how he could ever have believed it for a single second ‘—why didn’t she do it when she thought that I was with Aisling?’

Libby thought about this for a moment, then a familiar glint appeared in her eye.

‘But don’t you see that
proves
I’m telling the truth?’ she said, shaking her head as if she was dealing with an idiot. ‘If I’d really told her such a stupid, pointless lie, she probably
would
have done something sooner.’

He found himself rubbing his left temple at this point. He hadn’t thought of that.

He sighed. ‘I dunno, Libby, I really don’t. But something very odd is going on here.’

‘It certainly is,’ she said sarcastically. ‘But if you prefer to take the word of a nutty ex-girlfriend, that’s up to you.’

And with that she had turned and flounced on up the stairs to her flat.

***

‘What’s up?’ Aisling wanted to know now. ‘You look like shit.’

‘Cheers, Ash,’ he said as he followed her into her pink and white living room that looked like a set piece from
Barbie
,
the
Movie
.

Steve was not in evidence, and Aisling explained with a wink that he was ‘recovering’ in the bath. She was wearing her bathrobe, and presumably was meant to join him there, but Dan needed to talk too much to feel any guilt.

‘I spoke to Libby earlier,’ he said as he flopped on the sofa he’d helped move around several times in the past, ‘and I’m more confused than ever now.’

Aisling sat down next to him, and when he’d given her the meat of their conversation she shook her head.

‘Jo wasn’t lying,’ she said adamantly. ‘I admit I don’t know her that well, but I do know when someone is mad with me and she was as mad as hell. To start with anyway.’ She batted her eyelids. ‘Until I worked my charm on her.’

Dan scratched his head.

‘And she would only be angry if she really believed that we’d been together? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘Precisely. But she was
normal
mad, not
crazy
mad—just like I would have been if the situation had been reversed.’ She held out her hands as if her point was proved. ‘So Libby
must
have told her.’

‘Just like she told her that we’d slept together.’

Aisling looked perplexed now.

‘Who’d slept together?’

Dan sighed. ‘Libby and me.’

Aisling frowned and shook her head. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I told her that, and you should have seen her face! I felt so bad that I said I didn’t think anything had actually happened.’

‘This is starting to do my head in,’ Dan said. ‘Are you saying that Jo
didn’t
know about Libby before last night?’

‘Definitely not. Why?’

‘Because Libby said that
she’d
told her and that was the reason she must have broken into the flat. I said that it bothered me—why hadn’t she done it before?—but Libby just twisted it round and used it as proof of her innocence.’

‘And talking of proof,’ Aisling said, suddenly very animated now. ‘I forgot to tell you last night, but Jo said that she was at her parents’ place on the night of the break-in and that
she
could prove it. Cheer up,’ she added, when Dan didn’t speak for a while. ‘At least you never got around to actually accusing Jo—which is something, I suppose.’

‘I suppose,’ said Dan, but, although he didn’t know why, he still had a very bad feeling about it all.

Chapter Sixteen

I was lucky in more than one way. I just caught Matt on his way to the gym, and because he was late, anxious to be on his way, I think I also caught him off his guard.

I didn’t go into too many details. That is I didn’t tell Matt about Brian Dick, or Giovanna. I just said that our parents were having difficulties in their marriage and a break would do them both the world of good.

It was obvious he wasn’t very keen on having our mother to stay with him. He put up several quite legitimate objections—that she’d be on her own all day when he worked, for example—and a few lamer ones as well, but in the end I pulled out my trump card and hit him with a dollop of guilt.

‘She’s in a bad way at the moment. She feels unloved and, let’s face it, you haven’t made very much effort with her since you left. It would make her year to get an invitation from you.’

The gym was evidently calling, and he made a reluctant grunt and finally agreed.

‘I’ll call her when I get back,’ he said gloomily, ‘but if she’s a pain I’ll hold you responsible.’

‘What’s new?’ I said. ‘I get the blame for everything anyway.’

He laughed, and told me to cheer up, and I thought that I probably would the minute my mother was well and truly California-bound.

Meanwhile I had another couple of calls to make.

I tried Cass first. I was curious to know how things had gone with Sid, and whether I could expect her to be joining us at Pisus. I was a little miffed that neither one of them had bothered to call me, but I was very determined not to show it.

She did answer the phone, but she sounded funny—as if, well, as if someone was in the room with her and it was making it difficult for her to speak. So I did what we’d always done in the past on such occasions. I asked her questions that required only yes and no replies.

‘Have you got someone with you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it Sid?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are things going well between you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you going to take up his offer of work?’

‘No.’

I wanted to ask why, but I couldn’t think of the right questions to ask, so I left that one.

‘Will you ring me and tell me why at a later stage?’

‘Yes.’

Then she giggled a bit, a very un-Cass-like sound, and I felt myself blush.

‘Are you in bed at the moment?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know that he’s only twenty-one?’

‘Yes.’

‘Better leave you to it, then,’ I said with a sigh.

‘Yes,’ she said, and giggled again.

Then I had a horrible thought.

‘Please don’t tell Sid about Sarah Daly. He’ll think I’m mad and sack me before I even start.’

‘You’re not still doing that, are you?’ She sounded serious now.

‘No,’ I lied.

‘Then I won’t.’

‘Cheers, Cass.’

It was getting on for six when I replaced the receiver, and I’d agreed to meet Tim at seven-thirty. We were going to start off at a restaurant handy for me to walk to in my high heels, and then hopefully we’d take a taxi on to Zoot.

I made a cup of tea and took it back with me to the phone.

I thought it was probably a good time to ring Nicola now.

She’d said that her fiancé’s parents were supposed to be meeting hers over the weekend, and now that Brian was back in the fold I assumed it was going ahead. She hadn’t said when, exactly, but even if it was tonight I didn’t imagine they’d arrive as early as six o’clock.

I rang her mobile and she picked up on the second ring.

‘It’s Jo,’ I told her quickly. ‘Is it OK to speak?’

‘Perfectly,’ she said in a dubious tone that made me worried straight away.

‘My father rang and told me what happened. How are things now at home?’

‘Lousy,’ she said. ‘I’ve just come from there and it’s been like treading on eggshells. They’re trying to pretend that nothing’s happened.’

‘I don’t know your fiancé’s name—’ I began. I’d been about to ask if he was with her, but she interrupted me.

‘Ex-fiancé! And his name doesn’t matter much now.’

I was shocked. ‘I’m sorry—’

‘Nothing to be sorry about. It’s all for the best.’

Now, when anyone says that things are for the best, they are, in my experience, usually trying to kid themselves. I thought about asking if she’d like to come over and talk, but then I remembered my date with Tim.

‘Do you fancy getting together tomorrow? For lunch, maybe?’

There was a short silence while she thought about this. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Know anywhere that does a proper roast lunch? I feel like a pigout.’

I smiled, glad that we had something in common.

‘There’s a pub near my place that does great Yorkshire pudding.’

‘You’re on,’ she said.

I gave her the address of the pub and we agreed to meet at twelve-thirty.

When I put the phone down I decided to check my e-mails before I got ready. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or not when there wasn’t a message waiting from Dan. I reasoned that he would have responded by now with his excuses if he didn’t plan on going to Zoot, which was good in that Sarah would get her chance to stand him up. But I couldn’t help wishing that he
had
made his excuses. That he wasn’t showing quite so much interest in another woman, even a woman of my own invention.

But I was over all that, I reminded myself firmly. Dan was a fink—whatever a fink was, but somehow it seemed to fit.

Dan had listened to and, more importantly,
believed
bad things about me. And Sarah, dear Sarah, was to be my avenger. So there was absolutely no sense being jealous of her.

There was, however, a message from my mother. I thought about leaving it till later, but dreadful temptation got the better of me and I clicked it open.

Dear
Joanna

Thankfully
one
of
my
children
still
cares
about
me
.
I
just
wanted
you
to
know
that
I
fly
out
on
Monday
to
spend
a
month
with
Matthew
.

Poor Matt, I thought gleefully. I doubted he’d been banking on her staying that long!

We won’t have a chance to talk before then, but I do hope you will use this time to do the right thing for once, and persuade your father to return to the marital home. I am prepared to put all our past difficulties behind us, and if he has any sense he will do the same.

There was a kind of threat in that last line, I thought. An ‘If not, then I’ll take him to the cleaners’, sort of threat. She’d clearly seen how it had worked on Brian Dick and was expecting the same sort of success with my father.

‘Well,’ I said out loud to my absent mother, ‘we’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?’

***

By the end of the meal Libby had fallen
out
of love with Dan and
in
love with Nigel.

Just like with Paul, who’d turned out to be such a disappointment, she could hardly imagine what she’d seen in Dan now. Dan, with his grubby little flat, his obsession with music, and his ridiculous hang-up about a silly ex-girlfriend.

With Nigel, however, she’d already discovered that he had almost everything that she’d ever wanted from a man. Nice car, a fat wallet, good-enough looks. And at that very moment she was on her way to his place in the nice car to check out the final part of the package. And if the flat measured up, well, then it was goodbye for ever to hard-up, hard-work Dan.

And Nigel clearly liked what he saw in her as well. He had hardly been able to keep his hands off her since they’d left the restaurant, and while some women might have found that off putting, Libby was delighted. She’d made quite an effort with her appearance—new hair colour, new skimpy dress—and it was nice to be appreciated. She didn’t often have that effect on men, and it was doing wonders for her slightly dented ego.

For which she held Dan entirely responsible. He’d treated her shabbily. Leading her on and then dropping her when he felt like it. Accusing her of being a liar! And, OK, so she might have told the odd fib or two, but all in his best interests. And maybe she had smashed a few of his precious CDs, but he had thousands more, and it had been in a very good cause. But if he couldn’t see that—well, then he deserved what he got.

‘We’re here, sweet thing,’ Nigel said now as he took one hand off the steering wheel and rubbed her thigh.

She looked up at the swish block of purpose-built flats that happened to be in a very desirable part of the city and smiled as she mentally ticked off the final good reason for being newly in love.

***

The food had been great, the restaurant fab, and Tim himself—well, he was exactly the sort of man every girl’s mother, and especially mine, would like her to bring home.

Good-looking, rich, courteous, attentive... So why had I spent most of the meal suppressing a yawn?

I wouldn’t say he was boring—exactly. He had lots to say for himself about... cameras, and lenses, and shops that sold cameras and lenses. And he didn’t even talk about himself all the time. He wanted to know all about me and my life, and he sat there rapt as I treated him to the odd amusing tidbit.

But I think it was the look on his face that got to me. That expression of his as he listened to me, as if I was a wondrous thing to behold. I don’t know why, but I found it quite annoying. I could see him building a pedestal for me in his mind, and I’m not very good with heights.

‘You look amazing,’ he’d said, for example, when I stumbled into the restaurant. I’d tripped over the step on the way in and Dan would have laughed till his sides split. But Tim? No, Tim thought that I looked
amazing
.

I think we were only fifteen minutes into the meal when I realised why this apparently extremely eligible man was still single in his mid-thirties. I’d fantasised that it was because he’d been waiting for someone just like me, but now I was beginning to see that he was waiting for
anyone
. Anyone who wanted to be adored—and if they liked cameras and camera accessories, then so much the better.

And, despite the fact that the whole point of the date was to go to Zoot, he wasn’t even dressed for a club. I was wearing my halfway-house vintage dress that looked elegant enough for a fancy restaurant but still sassy enough to dance in. Tim, on the other hand, was wearing a suit that would have looked good in a boardroom but not in one of the city’s hottest venues. He was going to look a prat, and if I hadn’t been so keen to get there on time I’d have suggested he went home and changed. I even considered cutting short the date, going to the club on my own—but it was important that if Dan saw me I had someone reasonably presentable at my side.

I was worried about the doormen, though, when we got there. They can be very choosy about whom they let in, and I thought they might object to Tim on the grounds that he might spoil the club’s funky image. But we made it OK, and we were safely inside by ten minutes to ten.

Tim was in very high spirits, unfortunately. And because he believed the reason that we were there was to dance, dance was what he insisted on doing. Straight away, before we even got a drink. And he was as bad as I thought he would be—arms flying, not to the sound of the music at all, but to some wild beat that existed only in his own head.

It was one of those moments when you feel like telling everyone around you that although it might look as if you’re with this embarrassing individual, you aren’t really. You’re just keeping an eye on them for someone else.

I suffered it as long as I could, and then signed to him that I needed a drink.

He was obviously enjoying himself so much that he was disappointed, but first and foremost he remembered he was an
attentive
escort
.

‘Phew,’ he said as he caught up with me, ‘that was fantastic. I’d forgotten how good it was to let yourself really go like that.’

I didn’t think I’d ever forget what it was like when Tim let himself really go, personally, but I managed a smile.

I was already scanning the bar area for Dan as we approached it. It was pretty crowded, but I sensed that I’d spot him immediately if he was there, and my senses told me he wasn’t. I glanced at my wristwatch: it was ten-fifteen, and I don’t know why but I felt slightly relieved. OK, so I’d decided that I wasn’t jealous of Sarah, that she was doing this for me, but I couldn’t quite shake off the feeling that she was muscling in. That she had her own agenda. And, yes, I know that sounds nuts, but that’s how it was, I’m sorry to say.