Take a Chance on Me (7 page)

Leaving the pub by unspoken mutual agreement, Johnny beckoned to Cleo and together they started off across the village green. Behind them, Will got to his feet, brushed himself down and made his way back to his car.

The sky was alive with stars. Away from the golden glow of the street lamps bordering the green, the pitch darkness was absolute. As the grass crunched underfoot, Cleo shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and sighed. ‘I suppose I’ve got to thank you now.’

He laughed at her tone of voice. ‘Not if you really can’t bear to.’

‘How did you do that thing, anyway?’

‘What thing?’

‘Stick your arm out and send him flying.’

Johnny sounded amused. ‘Enjoyed that, did you?’

‘It was like something out of a comic.
Kerblam, whooof, splat
! But I didn’t see you
do
anything.’

‘Ah, that’s the joy of self-defense. You use your attacker’s strength against him. I did Shoto Ryu for a few years. You should give it a go,’ said Johnny. ‘Never know when it might come in handy.’

It was a nice idea, but Cleo knew what she was like. She’d join the self-defense class bursting with ambition and good intentions, then lose interest a week later because she hadn’t been awarded a black belt. As her teachers had so often written in her school reports during her unbothered phase, she lacked application.

Actually, speaking of her traumatic schooldays… ‘Could you stop calling me Misa, by the way?’

‘Sorry, didn’t realize I still was.’

‘You said it in the pub.’

‘Did I? Force of habit. I’ll make a real effort,’ said Johnny. ‘Scout’s honor.’

‘You never were a scout.’ Cleo glanced over her shoulder as they approached the cottage, double-checking that Will had gone. ‘Well, thanks for walking me back.’ It seemed strange to be on relatively cordial terms with someone you’d disliked for so many years. Taking out her keys, she said, ‘Next time I bump into you in the pub, I may even buy you a drink.’

This was her way of signaling goodbye, seeing as a handshake would be weird and she definitely didn’t want to give him a kiss on the cheek. Johnny, however, ignored the hint and headed on up the front path.

‘He might decide to come back. I’ll keep you company for a bit.’

‘Honestly, there’s no need.’

‘You don’t know that. Anyway, it’s not a problem.’

Cleo fitted the key into the lock. ‘For you, maybe.’

‘Hey, I’ll just stay for a coffee. You can manage that, can’t you?’ Deadpan, he said, ‘It’s not as if I’m asking you to cook me a meal.’

At least there was no evil smell of burning this time. In the kitchen, she added an inch of cold water to Johnny’s mug of coffee before handing it to him.

‘You know, it’s almost as if you don’t enjoy my company.’

‘It’s been one of those days.’

‘Pretty miserable, I suppose. Finding out your boyfriend isn’t the catch you thought he was.’

Cleo reached for the biscuit tin and pulled it across the table towards her. Unlike men, chocolate digestives never let you down. And to think how she’d paraded Will under Johnny’s nose, smugly showing off what a fantastic boyfriend she’d managed to end up with, so desperate had she been to prove she wasn’t the loser he and his friends had made so much fun of all those years ago.

‘You had high hopes for him, didn’t you?’

For heaven’s sake, there was being sympathetic and there was ruthlessly rubbing it in.

‘Not really,’ Cleo lied.

‘Oh come on, you did. It was pretty obvious.’

She rolled her eyes at his lack of tact. ‘So now you’re trying to make me feel
more
miserable about it? Who do you work for, the Anti-Samaritans?’

‘Hey, I’m doing my best.’ Johnny smiled. ‘I thought girls liked talking these things through.’

Cleo nodded and said pointedly, ‘With other girls.’

‘Oh well, can’t help you there. So, can I have a biscuit instead?’

There were only four left. Reluctantly she offered him the tin.

He took two.

‘Anyway, he’s a dick,’ said Johnny. ‘You’re well rid of him.’

‘Thanks. I do know that.’

‘You’ll find someone else. Eventually.’

‘You know what?’ Cleo shook her head. ‘This whole trying-to-be-a-girl thing. It really doesn’t suit you.’

He smiled briefly. ‘Just trying to help.’

‘OK, one, I know I could find someone else if I wanted. Two, Will was
a
boyfriend, he wasn’t the great love of my life.’ Counting on her fingers and wondering what the third point was going to be, because when you counted on your fingers there always had to be three, Cleo said, ‘And three, I don’t need another man anyway.’

Johnny leaned back against the fridge. ‘Ah, the old don’t-need-a-man thing. I love that line.’

She sighed. ‘What’s
that
supposed to mean?’

‘I mean it sounds great, and girls love to say that stuff because it makes them sound all strong and independent. But it’s not actually true, is it? Deep down they’re panicking, getting more and more desperate, and the next thing you know, they’re hurling themselves into a new relationship.’

‘That’s so patronizing!’

‘Happens all the time.’ Johnny calmly snapped a biscuit in half.

‘
I
don’t do that. I
wouldn’t
do it.’ Cleo was indignant.

‘Trust me, give it a few weeks and you’ll change your mind. I’m guessing you’ll go for whatsisname…’ He indicated the wall on the right. ‘…radio guy… the boy next door.’

‘
Ash
?’ Ha, so much for him always being right. ‘No way! He’s a friend, that’s all. And don’t tell me I’m desperate,’ said Cleo, ‘because I’m not. I’m just fine on my own.’

‘Don’t get ratty. I’m sure you’re right.’ His eyes glittering with amusement, Johnny said, ‘I’ll ask you again in six months, shall I?’

‘Fine, do that.’ Seeing as it had taken her twenty-nine years to find a man she’d liked as much as Will, the chances of bagging another by then were practically nonexistent. But it was hard to argue when you were desperate for a wee. Cleo moved towards the stairs. ‘I’ll be back in a sec.’ Unable to help herself, she pointed to the biscuit tin on the table. ‘And those in there are mine, OK?’

When she returned a couple of minutes later, Johnny had found a glossy magazine and was idly flipping through it while he finished his coffee. Which had to be lukewarm by now.

He looked up. ‘How long did you say you’d been seeing Mr Married-with-children?’

Oh please, couldn’t he give it a rest? ‘It was only three months. No big deal.’

‘OK, a word of advice. This is a common mistake women make. And, let me tell you, it’s a dead giveaway.’

‘What are you talking about now?’ Cleo checked the contents of the tin; she wouldn’t put it past him to replace the biscuits with a couple of satsumas. No, they were still there,
lucky for him
.

‘Still, at least you’ve saved yourself a couple of grand.’ Johnny flicked back through the magazine until he found the piece he’d been looking for, a double-page spread entitled ‘Make Him Love You More this Christmas!’

Outraged, Cleo said, ‘I wasn’t going to buy that for Will!’

He gave her the kind of look that signaled she wasn’t fooling anyone.

‘I
wasn’t
.’ Honestly, now she wished he’d eaten her biscuits instead. Jabbing her finger at the photo of the Breitling watch she’d circled, Cleo protested, ‘I only did that because I liked the style and the shape of it, the steel strap and the dark blue face.’ It was the truth, but it sounded like the feeblest of lies. Her own face heating up, she went on, ‘I was going to see if I could find something that looked the same but didn’t cost so much.’

‘Right.’ Johnny nodded, evidently still not believing her. ‘Well, that’s good. Because let me tell you, there’s nothing more embarrassing than being on the receiving end of a seriously over-the-top present.’

‘But I wasn’t
going
to—’

‘He buys you a bottle of perfume and a pair of cheap earrings if you’re lucky. And then you go and give him…’ Johnny consulted the magazine. ‘Bloody hell, only a three thousand pound watch.’ He raised his eyebrows in mock horror. ‘Awkwardness all round. Unless of course he doesn’t find it embarrassing, but then even you must realize what kind of a man that makes him.’

‘For the last time, I was never going to buy Will a three thousand pound watch! All I wanted was one in the same style that didn’t cost more than fifty quid!’ Cleo whisked the mug from his free hand, splashing dregs across the table. ‘Finished this? Good. And the biscuits? Marvelous. OK, thanks very much for seeing me home, but you can go now. I don’t need a bodyguard. Will isn’t coming back and I’m going to have a bath.’

Johnny took a pen out of his jacket pocket and scrawled a number on the magazine, beneath the article’s headline. ‘That’s my mobile. If he turns up and you need a hand, give me a call.’

That was
so
not going to happen.

‘Bye.’ Briskly she ushered him to the door.

Pausing in the doorway, Johnny said, ‘I’m flying back to New York tomorrow. So have a good Christmas.’

‘You too.’ Cleo wondered if she would.

He raised a teasing eyebrow. ‘And we’ll see if you’re still single next summer.’

‘I will be.’ Did he think he was setting her an impossible task? It was the easiest challenge she’d ever been set. With her disastrous history when it came to the opposite sex, it’d be a piece of cake.

Johnny strode off across the green. Cleo watched him disappear into the frosty, inky darkness. Then she closed the front door, went back to the kitchen, and chucked the magazine into the recycling bin. To be honest, six months without a man in her life would be par for the course.

How had she managed to get herself into such a mess? Abbie could barely breathe as she arrived at Kilgour’s to start her shift on Monday morning. Some people had a great gaping hole where their conscience was meant to be, being naughty was a huge thrill for them and telling endless streams of lies came perfectly naturally… it was all part of the adrenaline rush, bringing fun and excitement into their lives…

Dammit, why couldn’t she be like that?

Oh God, and there was Des now, carrying Christmas trees from the shed and stacking them outside for customers to look over and buy.

A different kind of rush, the nauseous kind, overtook Abbie as she approached him. Des was wearing an unfamiliar red sweater and cleaner jeans than usual. When he saw her and whipped off his knitted grey beanie hat, she saw that he’d had a haircut. His just-washed, reddish-fair hair stood up in a whoosh of static.

Oh God, he’d only gone and given himself a makeover.

Des hefted a six-foot spruce down from his shoulder, then turned to face her with hope in his eyes and a rush of color to his pale cheeks. ‘Alright, Abbie?’

‘Not really, no.’ Now that she was within six feet of him, she could smell the lavishly applied aftershave. Double-checking that there was no one else within earshot, she took a deep breath and said, ‘Look, I need to talk to you, it’s really important—’

‘Des, are we bringing out the rest of the ten-footers?’ Huw poked his head out of the shed and Abbie came out in an icy sweat. OK,
this
was why she would be such a useless adulterer, should she ever seriously contemplate it. Huw was married to Glynis, who worked in the shop and
lived
for gossip. It didn’t bear thinking about...

‘No, that’s enough for now.’ Addressing Huw, Des said, ‘Half a dozen of each size is plenty. Give the customers too much choice and they can’t make up their minds.’ He turned to Abbie and added calmly, ‘Is this about your shifts? Better come up to the office.’

Abbie couldn’t believe it; there was no trace of a quaver in his voice, not a nanosecond of hesitation. He’d said it like an absolute pro.

Which was just as well, really. At least it meant one of them was on the ball.

‘Women wanting to change their shifts. Bane of my life.’ Shaking his head in a man-to-man way, Des said to Huw, ‘When you’ve finished here, can you unload the poinsettias? I’ll be back in five minutes.’

Upstairs, he firmly closed the door of the office behind him.

‘OK, tell me what happened. Did you confront him?’

Were there listening devices hidden behind the radiators? Was someone crouched under the desk? Dry-mouthed, Abbie said, ‘I did. And it wasn’t what I thought. Oh God, this is so complicated…’

‘Worse than you thought? Or better?’ Des searched her face for clues.

Faltering at first, then speeding up as the words spilled out, Abbie explained everything. The whole sorry, tragic situation. Finally, her eyes filling with tears, she said, ‘So at least that’s one good thing. Tom didn’t cheat on me after all.’

‘So… you’re not going to leave him?’

‘Of course I’m not going to leave him! He’s my husband and I love him.’ Abbie wiped the back of her hand across her face. ‘And he hasn’t done anything wrong.’

‘Oh. Right. Well then, I suppose you wouldn’t want to.’

‘But now it’s more important than ever that he mustn’t find out about, you know… what nearly happened the, um, other evening.’

‘You mean on Saturday?’ Des looked taken aback. ‘When we spent the night together?’

‘Oh, don’t say it like that!’ It came out as a panicky squawk. Shaking her head apologetically—because, God knows, she needed him to be on her side—Abbie begged, ‘We just have to forget about it.
Completely
.’

Des’s shoulders slumped. ‘OK, don’t panic. If that’s what you want, it’s what we’ll do.’ She saw it sinking in that the raised hopes and self-administered makeover had been for nothing. Summoning up a regretful smile, he made a clearing gesture with his outstretched hand and said, ‘There, forgotten. Gone.’

***

Having to pretend nothing was wrong, when everything was wrong, was excruciating. By the time Abbie arrived home at six o’clock she was exhausted with the effort of it all. To make matters worse, Magda and a couple of the other women at work had noticed Des’s attempts to smarten himself up. All day long they’d been teasing him, asking him if he’d got a crush on someone, and trying to guess who the object of his affection might be. They’d expected her to join in too. And she’d been forced to jokily suggest that it could be the willowy blonde who came into the garden center every week for a sack of birdseed.

She’d barely stepped into the house before Tom, home early for once, rushed to greet her. His eyes shining, he said, ‘She’s written back.’

Abbie hid her disappointment. Together they’d composed the message last night and sent it off to Georgia’s email address. As she’d watched Tom press Send, a part of her had prayed they wouldn’t hear from her again.

But of course
that
hadn’t happened, and her punishment for being so sulky and unsupportive had taken the form of a double-quick reply. Following him through to the living room where the computer was set up, she stood behind Tom while he sat down and gazed raptly at the email up on the screen:

Hi Dad!

Oh my God, it feels so amaaaazing to say that! You can’t imagine what a thrill this is. Thanks so much for writing back (at last!!). You sound dead cool. Then again, why wouldn’t you be? You’re my dad! Yee ha, I just said it again! OK, stop panicking, I’m not completely mad, just a bit overexcited, in case you hadn’t noticed!

So how soon can we meet up? I’m in Newcastle at the moment but I can come down any time you like. How about this weekend, would that be good for you? Please say yes! I’ll catch the train down on Friday and you could meet me at the station, it’ll be just like in a film, you have no idea how many times I’ve dreamt of this! Am I rambling? Sorry Dad, I’ll be normal when we meet up, I promise.

Let me know if Friday’s OK. CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU!!!

Love love love

Your long-lost daughter

Georgia

That was it. The words were practically zinging off the screen. They sounded as if they should have been flashing and dancing, strewn with glitter and written in neon. Tom was still gazing at them, transfixed. Glad she was standing behind him so he couldn’t see her face, Abbie said with forced brightness, ‘Well, looks like you’ve made her day!’

When they had composed yesterday’s email, Tom had told Georgia about his marriage and had stressed how much they were both looking forward to meeting her. OK, it hadn’t exactly been the truth, but she wouldn’t have wanted to hear
that
, would she?

But in Georgia’s excited email there was no mention of her at all. It was directed solely at Tom. Clearly, as far as she was concerned, meeting her father was all that mattered.

Abbie swallowed hard. It was as if she didn’t exist.

A tear dropped down one cheek. Too late, she realized Tom was watching her reflection in the computer screen.

Turning, he said, ‘She’s looking forward to meeting both of us.’

‘It’s OK. Doesn’t matter.’

‘She’s eighteen, that’s all. She dashed it off without thinking.’

‘Tom, you don’t have to make excuses for her. As far as she’s concerned, I’m irrelevant.’

He looked stricken. ‘You’re
not
.’

‘Look, maybe it’s best if you meet her on your own.’ Abbie shook her head; in a parallel universe, Georgia would have been her daughter and she would have been Georgia’s mother. But it hadn’t turned out that way, had it? Instead, they were strangers and there was nothing anyone could do about that. ‘It’ll be easier for both of you if I’m not there, playing third wheel. She doesn’t want to meet me.’

***

When delicious five-star cooking smells were wafting through the night air, somehow a packet of plain crisps and a bottle of mineral water didn’t quite cut it.

Still, that was chauffeuring for you. Cleo was waiting in the restaurant parking lot and, strictly speaking, she shouldn’t even be eating crisps in the car. But she was being ultra-careful not to spill crumbs, and by the time the clients staggered out at the end of the evening, the chances were that they’d be hard pushed to notice a fully grown polar bear in the passenger seat.

She knew this because one of them had been out twice already to apologize for keeping her waiting and to slurrily explain that chances were, they’d be here for a while yet. She’d smiled patiently in return and assured him that it was fine, no problem, she was more than happy to wait.

Well, why wouldn’t she be? It was double time after eleven o’clock and it was their insurance company that’d be footing the considerable bill.

Still, they were successful, hard-working executives, this was their annual Christmas party, and they were entitled to enjoy themselves. Cleo didn’t begrudge them their fun. She had a warm car to wait in, a radio for company, and a good book to lose herself in.

And a phone ringing on the seat next to her, at twenty past eleven at night. Probably Grumpy Graham wanting to know if she’d picked up yet.

But a glance at the screen told her it was from an unknown number. Cleo knew other people who simply didn’t answer such calls but she could never help herself; they were the telephone equivalent of Chance or Community Chest. And if it was Will again, calling to beg her to change her mind… well, she’d just hang up.

‘Hello?’ Guessing which it would be, that was the thrill. Had she come second in a beauty contest and won twenty pounds? That was her favorite—as a child, when she’d picked this card, it had actually made her
feel
beautiful. Or was she about to get a speeding fine?

‘Oh… hi. Can I ask who I’m speaking to, please?’

Cleo froze. Maybe it was her guilty conscience making her paranoid, but the voice was female, doing a good job of pretending to be casual but with an unmistakable layer of tension underneath. Oh shit, don’t say Will had told his wife everything.

Although if he’d done that, why was she asking for her name?

‘Sorry? I can hardly hear you, it’s a really bad line.’ Scrumpling her crisp packet, Cleo raised her voice. ‘Um, who is this please, and what is it you want?’

And prayed the reply wouldn’t be, ‘I want to shoot the bitch who’s shagging my husband. Oh and by the way, I’m standing right behind your car.’

Instead, still with that faint edge to her voice, the woman said, ‘I’ve been given this number to call. Could you just tell me your name?’

‘Sorry, I’m losing the signal here…’ Cleo scrumpled the crisp packet noisily, right by the phone, and switched it off. Then dropped it onto the passenger seat and stared at it, dry-mouthed with guilt and fear. She wasn’t just being paranoid, was she? There was surely no mistaking who the caller was. Somehow or other, Will’s wife had got hold of her number and had been suspicious enough to call it, which meant she might not know for sure that her husband had been playing away but she certainly suspected it. Unless, of course, her view was that Will was being chased by some shameless trollop who deserved to be hunted down and punished, because how dare another woman try and steal her husband… and how lucky that her brother was a professional hit man who would love nothing more than to track down and torture the bitch who was trying to wreck his sister’s marriage by—

‘Aaarrrgh!’ Cleo let out a shriek as the rear passenger door was wrenched open. Crisps flew out of the packet as she leapt a foot in the air… oh God, never mind contract killers, her own guilty conscience was going to be the death of her.

‘Oops, shorry, shorry, were you ashleep there? Ssshh, don’t wake her up, she’s having a little shleep…’ Mervyn, the fattest of the insurance execs, put a sausagey finger to his lips as he collapsed with a
whumph
onto the back seat.

‘I wasn’t sleeping.’ Leaping out of the car so she could hold the door open for the others behind him, Cleo hastily brushed crisp crumbs off her navy skirt. ‘You just gave me a bit of a start. There, careful, shall I look after that bottle for you? Has everyone had a good evening?’

‘Shenshational. You should have come in with us, joined in the fun. We could’ve shown you a good time.’ The dark-haired one flashed her a confident grin.

‘Well, that would have been lovely, but one of us has to drive you lot home.’ Humoring well-oiled clients was all part of the job description. Ushering them into the car, Cleo said, ‘Seatbelts on, everyone.’

‘You’re a pretty little thing, you know that? Doesn’t your boyfriend mind you doing a job like this?’

Cleo smiled. ‘Everyone has to earn a living.’

‘He’sh trying to find out if you’ve got a boyfriend,’ the fat one explained helpfully.

‘Is he? Now, would you like some music on the way back?’

‘She’sh playing hard to get. God, I love it when women do that. How old are you, shweetheart?’

‘Seventy six.’

‘Really? That’sh amazing—you don’t look a day over sheventy three.’

His friend said sorrowfully, ‘You see, Merv, that’s where you go wrong, mate. Women definitely don’t love it when you say stuff like that.’

The banter continued for a few miles, then petered out as the occupants of the back seat fell into a collective drunken stupor. Relishing the silence—well, apart from the piglike snores emanating from fat Merv—Cleo drove back down the motorway to Bristol. Forty minutes later, she pulled up outside the first address, opened the rear passenger door, and tapped the dark-haired one on the shoulder.

Opening his eyes, he smiled blurrily up at her. ‘Hey, beautiful.’

‘Hey.’ Cleo leaned back to avoid the worst of the alcohol fumes. ‘You’re home.’

He peered through the window. ‘Already? That was quick.’

‘We aim to please, sir.’

‘You certainly please. And it’s James,’ he said as he clambered with an effort out of the car. ‘Not sir.’

He was in his late forties, crumpled, and inebriated, but still confident enough to be flirting with her. Opening his wallet, he took out a business card and pressed it into her hand. ‘There you go, that’s me. Now listen, how about you and me getting together some time soon? You give me your number and I’ll call you.’