The Best of Times (5 page)

Everyone seemed very cheerful; looking not just at his fellow passengers, but the people in the street, briskly striding men, pretty girls with peroxided hair, Russell thought how amazing it was, given that thousands of British civilians had already been killed in this war and London was being pounded nightly by bombs, that the city could look so normal. OK, a bit shabby and unpainted, and everyone was carrying the ubiquitous gas mask in its case, but on this lovely clear spring day there was a palpable optimism in the air.

The bus stopped and the woman conductor shouted, “Westminster Abbey.” Russell was on the pavement before he realised the girl he had given his seat to had got out too, and was looking at him with amusement in her blue eyes.

“Are you going into the abbey?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You know,” she said, “we do speak to strangers. Sometimes. When they’re very kind and give us seats on the bus, for instance. I bet you’ve been told we never speak to anyone.”

“We were, ma’am, yes.”

“Well, we do. As you can see. Or rather hear. Now, that’s the abbey to your left—see? And behind you, the Houses of Parliament. All right? The abbey’s very beautiful. Now, have a good time, Mr … Mr …”

“Mackenzie. Thank you, ma’am. Thank you very much.”

Her amusement at what he had been told about her countrymen had made them friends in some odd way; it suddenly seemed less impertinent to ask her if she was in a great hurry; and she said not a great hurry, no, and he said if she had just a few minutes, maybe she could come into the abbey with him, show him the really important things, like where the kings and queens were crowned.

She said she did have a few minutes—“only about ten, though”—and together they entered the vast space.

She showed him where Poets’ Corner was; she pointed out the famous coronation stone under the coronation chair, and then directed him to the vaults where he could see the tombs of the famous, going right back to
1066
.

“I’ve never been down there myself; I’d love to go. You know Shakespeare is buried here, and Samuel Johnson and Chaucer—”

“Chaucer? You’re kidding me.”

She giggled again, her big blue eyes dancing.

“I never thought anyone actually said that.”

“What?”

“‘You’re kidding me.’ It’s like we’re supposed to say, ‘Damn fine show,’ and, ‘Cheers, old chap.’ I’ve never heard anyone saying that either, but maybe they do.”

“Maybe,” he said. He felt slightly bewildered by her now, almost bewitched.

“Now, look, I really have to get back to work—I work in a bank just along the road, and I’ll be late.”

“What …” Could he ask her this? Could he appear possibly intrusive but … well, surely not rude … and say, “What time do you finish?” He risked it. She didn’t seem to mind.

“Well—at five. But then I really do have to be getting home, because of the blackout and the bombs and so on—”

“Yes, of course. Well—maybe another time. Miss … Miss …”

“Miss Jennings. Mary Jennings. Yes. Another time.”

And then, because he knew it was now or never, that he hadn’t got another forty-eight for ages, he said: “If you’d accompany me around
all those people’s graves for half an hour or so, I could … I could see you home. Through the blackout. If that would help.”

“You couldn’t, Mr. Mackenzie. I live a long way out of London. Place called Ealing. You’d never find your way back again.”

“I could!” he said, stung. “Of course I could. I found my way here from the States, didn’t I?”

“I rather thought the United States Army did that for you. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude. Where are you stationed?”

“Oh—in Middlesex.” He divided the two words, made it sound faintly exotic. “Northolt.”

“Well, that’s not too far away from Ealing, as a matter of fact. Few more stops on the tube.”

“Well, what do you know?”

“Goodness, there you go again,” she said, giggling.

“What do you mean?”

“Saying, ‘what do you know?’ It’s so … so funny to hear it. It’s such a cliché somehow. I didn’t mean to sound rude, to offend you.”

“That’s OK. But … maybe in the cause of further cementing Anglo-American relations, you could agree to meet me. Just for half an hour.”

“Maybe I could. In the cause of Anglo-American relations.” She smiled back at him. “Well … all right. I’ll meet you here at ten past five. Anyway—better go now. Bye.”

And she was gone, with a quick sweet smile, half running, her brown curls flying in the spring breeze.

And so it began: their romance. Which now—most wonderfully, it seemed—might not be over …

• • •

Patrick Connell was tired and fed up; he’d stopped for a break on the motorway, and was drinking some filthy coffee—why couldn’t someone provide some decent stuff for lorry drivers? They’d make a fortune.

Life on the road wasn’t a lot of fun these days, and you didn’t
make the money either, because you were allowed to work only forty-eight hours a week, and that included rest periods and traffic jams, and the traffic just got worse and worse …

And so did the sleep problem.

It was turning into a daytime nightmare. It started earlier and earlier in the day, a dreadful, heavy sleepiness that he knew made him a danger. Even when he slept well and set out early, it could catch him halfway through the morning; he would feel his head beginning its inexorable slide into confusion, force himself to concentrate, turn up the radio, eat sweets: nothing really licked it.

He’d actually gone to the doctor the week before—without telling Maeve, of course; she was such a worrier—to see if he could give him anything for it. The doctor had been sympathetic, but couldn’t. “If I give you pep pills, Mr. Connell, you’ll only get a kickback later, won’t be able to sleep that night, and that won’t help you, will it? Sounds like you need to change your job, do something quite different. Have you thought about that?”

With which unhelpful advice Patrick had found himself dismissed; he had continued to take his Pro Plus and drink Red Bull and eat sweets and struggle on somehow.

Everyone thought lorry drivers could do whatever speed they liked; everyone was wrong. The lorry itself saw to that: a governor in the fuel pump that allowed exactly the amount of fuel through to do the legal fifty-six mph and no more. Some of the foreign drivers removed the fuse, or adjusted the pump, but Patrick wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that. Not worth it. You got caught, you lost your licence. And anyway, then there was the tachograph fixed in your cab that told it all: how many hours you’d done, how long you’d stopped, whether you’d speeded at all. So you literally got stuck in some god-awful place, unable to leave because your hours were up. And they could be up simply because of being stuck in traffic, not because you’d made any progress.

What he longed for more than anything right this minute was a
shower and a shave and a change of clothes. Life on the road didn’t do a lot for your personal hygiene. On the English roads, anyway; it was better in Europe. Like the food. And the coffee …

CHAPTER 4

“What a perfect summer it’s been,” said Jonathan, smiling at Laura, raising his glass of Sauvignon to her; and, “Yes,” she said, “indeed it has. And it’s even nice here now. For our return.”

“I thought maybe in future we could spend Easter in France, as well as the summer,” he said.

“Well … well, that would be lovely, except—”

“Except what?”

“Well … the thing is, Jonathan, the children are growing up so fast, they’ve got lives of their own now, and they want to be with their friends.”

“They can be with their friends the rest of the year,” he said, sounding mildly irritable.

“I know, but …” Her voice trailed off. How to explain that a remote, albeit beautiful farmhouse for weeks at a time wasn’t going to be quite enough for children approaching adolescence? She’d hoped Jonathan would realise that for himself, but he didn’t seem to.

He had a very strong controlling streak: everything had to be done his way, and she could see that already Charlie was beginning to kick against it. And, of course, the girls, while wonderfully sweet and biddable at the moment, would inevitably reach the same point. But it hadn’t happened yet; and Laura was quite adept at ignoring difficulties. She had even considered having another baby, in order to ensure that at least some of the family remained small and compliant; but
babies weren’t that compliant, and Jonathan found them difficult anyway. Probably best to enjoy the near perfection of the present.

“Oh, now, I hope this is all right, darling,” he said. “I’m going to have to be away next Thursday night. Big conference in Birmingham: old medical student chum’s gone over into the pharmaceutical business; he seemed to think if I spoke he’d get a better attendance rate.”

“Well, of course he would,” she said, smiling at him. “You’re such a draw these days at these things, such a big name—I was so proud of you at that conference in Boston. That was fun; I loved being there with you. Maybe I should come next week …”

“Oh, darling, I hardly think Birmingham could compare with Boston. Not worth you packing your bag, even—”

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, “if you’d like me to come.”

“Darling, don’t even think about it. I thought you had enough to do next week, what with getting the children fitted up for school and seeing that madwoman in Wiltshire about doing her house up for Christmas. What an absurd idea! Paying someone to put up a few garlands and fairy lights …”

“Jonathan,” said Laura, almost hurt, “not everyone has the time to do it for themselves. Or the … well, the ideas. That’s what I’m for.”

“Of course. I’m sorry, sweetheart, stupid of me. And you’ll make it look so lovely. Do you have any ideas about it yet? I’d love to hear them; you know I would …”

He did that sometimes: professed interest in what she did. It was only professing—he didn’t really care if the Wiltshire house was decked out with barbed wire—but it was very sweet. He was very sweet … She was very, very lucky.

• • •

Georgia knew virtually every word of every character already. Linda was right: this was a fantastic part. The series was a thriller about a grandmother who vanished from the family home without a trace. She could have just wandered off, she could have met with an accident, she could have been murdered. The part Georgia was up for was
the granddaughter, Rose, very close to her grandmother, angry at the way her dad belittled and bullied her, convinced he had something to do with her disappearance. The more she read it, the more excited about it she became; she could really develop the character as she went along. She couldn’t think of anything else.

The first audition was a week from Friday; it was at the casting director’s office, and there would be loads of girls there, anywhere up to twenty or thirty. Tough as that was, Georgia didn’t mind the first audition as much as the later ones: it was less tense; the chance of getting the part seemed really rather remote; it was possible to relax just slightly. But it was still hideous.

The first thing that always struck her was how many girls there were, all looking rather like her. Which was logical, but always seemed surprising. And her next reaction was invariably that they were all much prettier than her.

Then there were all the awkward little conversations, the longest with the girl immediately ahead—
Oh, hi, how are you, what have you been doing, love the dress/boots/hair
. And then the long wait while she did her bit, and came out smiling, or looking really tense. And then they called you in and it began. At this stage, it was usually just you and the casting director, who would read a scene with you. With the camcorder running, of course. And then you waited—and waited. The first callback came within a day or two; if it didn’t, forget it. And if it did come, that audition was much scarier: you knew they liked you; the pressure was on. And there were still five or seven or even eight of you. All, it seemed, better actors than you. You just felt sick for days and days, waiting. And quite often for a big part—like this one—there was a third call, with the choice whittled down to maybe two of you. That was really agony.