The Great Escape (24 page)

‘Who is it?’ Cal asks as Johnny slips his phone back into his pocket.

‘Huh?’

‘You told Mum you saw someone you know.’

‘Oh,’ Johnny laughs. ‘Yes, I think I have. See that person in that bar down there, sitting right by the window?’

Cal squints and nods. ‘Yeah.’

‘Well, I think I used to know her years and years ago, before you were born …’

‘Which one?’ Cal asks. ‘There’s three of ’em.’

‘What? Oh yes, so there are …’ Next to Lou is a blonde girl – Hannah, he realises now – and sitting opposite them, raising a glass to her lips, is Sadie. All three, just like the old days. Johnny feels ridiculous staring down at the bar, but is rooted to the spot.

‘Did you go out with them?’ asks Cal with a sly grin. Lately, he’s developed a keen interest in his dad’s lacklustre love life.

‘No,’ Johnny laughs. ‘I didn’t go out with them, Cal. They were just friends. It is possible for a man to have female friends, you know.’

‘Why are you red then?’

‘I’m not! I’m just hot.’

‘But it’s
not
hot,’ Cal insists. ‘It’s cold, Dad. You look really funny.’

‘That’s just me,’ Johnny chuckles. ‘I’m funny-looking, you should know that by now. C’mon, let’s go, Mum’s expecting you.’ He starts walking with Cal jammed at his side.

‘You must’ve gone out with one of them.’

‘Well, I didn’t, all right?’

‘Not even before you met Mum?’

‘Nope, not even then.’

‘Why not?’

Johnny chuckles, wondering how to put it. ‘They didn’t fancy me, Cal.’

‘Well, I think it’s weird.’

‘That they weren’t all madly in love with your old dad?’

‘
Noooo
,’ Cal exclaims. ‘It’s weird that you didn’t go in and say hello.’

‘Um …’ Johnny starts awkwardly. ‘It’s just … they looked like they were having a nice night and I didn’t want to butt in and spoil it. Anyway,’ he adds, making a conscious effort to slow his pace so Cal doesn’t have to trot alongside him, ‘I haven’t seen them for years and it might’ve been awkward.’

‘But it’s rude not to talk to someone you know.
You
told me that.’

‘Yeah, but they didn’t see me, Cal. It’s different.’

‘Spying’s rude too.’

‘I wasn’t spying!’

‘Well, that’s what it looked like. So anyway, which one did you fancy?’

‘That is
so
private,’ he chuckles, having regained his composure now that they’re a safe distance from the bar. ‘I couldn’t even begin to share that information with you.’

‘Which one did you like best then?’ Cal wants to know.

‘Oh, I liked all of them,’ Johnny says truthfully. Hannah had been his mate; Sadie too, although he’d found her exotic beauty slightly unnverving. And Lou: well, she was the loveliest girl he’d ever met, but even if she had been interested in him before he’d met Rona, Spike was always there, glowering in the background. Johnny didn’t believe in blurting out his feelings for someone who had a boyfriend, even if said boyfriend was incapable of keeping it in his pants for more than five minutes. So, in some ways, it had been the right thing to do: relocate with Rona to the furthest reaches of the suburbs, where he would immerse himself in impending fatherhood without the distraction of being utterly crazy about Lou Costello, and seeing her being betrayed by the man she loved.

Johnny had thrown everything into being a father to Cal. He’d been a part-time catering student while working in an Italian restaurant, and when his shifts had proved incompatible with parenthood, he’d started landscape gardening instead. Yet it still hadn’t worked out. His remote and beautiful Rona had slipped away from him and into the burly arms of Tristan Hunter, a highly-respected heart doctor, the son of friends of her parents and someone far better equipped to offer a young boy what he needed.
He
hadn’t minded getting involved with someone who had a partner already.

It’s ironic, Johnny thinks, putting an arm around Cal’s shoulders as Rona and Tristan’s smart red sandstone block comes into view, that Scotland’s top cardiologist appears to have no heart of his own.

Rona looks different tonight – slightly startled, as if her virtually line-free face would feel waxy to the touch. While he can understand that Rona might not wish to age prematurely, all these ‘top-ups’ she has seem totally unnecessary. Tristan, on the other hand, always looks plastic with no intervention whatsoever: six foot four inches of hulking manhood with a solid square jaw and weird, closely-cropped Action-Man hair.

He doesn’t seem to be around right now, thank God. Tristan’s presence never fails to make Johnny feel ill at ease, and his preferred topics of conversation – rugby, golf, the halogen lights they’re having fitted in the kitchen – make him feel as if the lifeblood is seeping out of his body. Once, when Johnny tried to steer the conversation to football – which he and Cal follow avidly – Tristan eyeballed him as if he’d confessed that cage fighting was more his thing. Football, as far as Tristan is concerned, is a game for uneducated oiks.

‘What have you got planned for tomorrow?’ Johnny asks Rona, trying not to peer at her face to figure out where those fillers have been pumped in.

‘Well, we’ll start with the usual birthday breakfast,’ she says with a smile.

‘Waffles?’ Cal asks eagerly.

‘Yes, of course, darling. Bacon, maple syrup – the works. Then we’ll go for a wander around town and have lunch, Tristan’s taking us somewhere nice.’

‘Sounds good.’ Johnny digs into his jacket pocket, pulls out a card and a small parcel and hands them to her.

‘Oh, thanks, Johnny! You needn’t have …’

‘It’s just tiny.’

‘You’re very sweet.’

He shrugs, eager to leave now as he hears the bath draining – that vast oval bath, big enough to contain a hunk of buffed-up manliness. ‘Well, I’d better be off. Okay if I come over about five-ish tomorrow?’

Rona smiles, and he notices now that her teeth look brighter than usual: startling Tipp-Ex-white, like a fluorescent strip. ‘That should be fine.’

He hugs his son, and as he turns to leave, Cal gives him another sly grin. ‘So are you gonna go see those ladies now, Dad?’

‘What ladies?’ Johnny asks with a frown.

‘The ones in that place. The place downstairs.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ he laughs.

‘What ladies, Johnny?’ Rona teases. ‘Planning a big night tonight, are you?’

‘God, no,’ he blusters, sensing his cheeks redden as Action Man appears in the hallway. He is liberally doused in citrusy aftershave and wearing some kind of stretchy lounge pants and a mottled grey top. He barks a man-greeting at Johnny, who tries to man-greet him back, wondering if there will ever be a point in his life when he’ll acquire loungewear.

‘What ladies in that downstairs place?’ Rona asks again with a tinkly laugh. ‘What are you up to, Johnny?’

‘Nothing! It’s … no one. Just some people I thought I knew …’ He rakes back his hair distractedly. ‘Anyway, I’m just going to head straight home.’

Lou Costello, he marvels, breathing in the crisp evening air after saying his goodbyes. Lou, Hannah and Sadie are here, which doesn’t make any sense at all. Maybe he imagined it. Should he go back and see if they’re still there? Of course not. He hasn’t seen them for over a decade, and he can imagine what they’d think of him, disappearing like that. ‘How d’you think it is for me?’ Rona had snapped one long, bleak night with Cal writhing in her arms, ‘when your best friends are girls? It’s okay for you – your life hasn’t changed one bit. But I’m completely alone. None of my friends have babies …’ Johnny had thought it better not to remind Rona that none of
his
friends had babies either.

So he’d made a decision – to do as she demanded and cut ties with the girls, because the thought of it not working out with Rona when they had a child was terrifying. He’d stopped returning their calls, and when Lou had sent him a playful letter, he’d put it on top of the microwave until he could decide what to do with it. The next time he looked, it had gone.

Too agitated to go straight home, Johnny orders a pint in the dark, cavernous pub he used to frequent as a teenager. He chats briefly with several people he recognises, even securing a lucrative landscaping job for next month. Work is good, life is good, he reflects, stepping out into the street. He has a son he adores, and these days, even he and Rona have begun to enjoy a fragile sort of friendship.

As Johnny is feeling at one with the world, he decides to play a little game with himself. If he turns the corner and the first person he sees makes eye contact with him, he’ll go back to the bar and see if the girls are still there. Johnny turns the corner. A couple are walking towards him. He wills at least one of them to glance at him, but they’re locked in conversation and disappear into a side street.

That’s that then, Johnny decides – a sign that he shouldn’t go marching into that cocktail place and make an arse of himself. He doesn’t drink cocktails anyway – at least he’s never tried one he liked – and he wouldn’t have imagined Lou and the others drinking them either. It was lager or cheap wine in the old days.

He’s tempted to have one more go at the game. If he turns the next corner and there’s a pigeon there, either flying or pottering about on the ground – he’s not fussy – he’ll walk right in and say … well, he doesn’t know
what
he’ll say. He’ll just have to wing it.

No pigeons. Not a single one, when they’re usually flapping all over the place, pecking at rubbish and scattered chips, even at night. Hell, he’ll just go in, like Cal said he should. He’ll just pop in and say hi, have a brief catch-up, and it’ll be no big deal at all. Johnny marches faster now, heart pumping, no longer caring about pigeons. Will the girls even remember him? Surely they will. He doesn’t think he’s changed that much, and they certainly haven’t from what he’s seen. He pictures Lou perched on that chrome stool, laughing, hair springing around her adorable face, and his stomach flutters in anticipation.

So how
should
he make his entrance, he wonders? Pretend he’s just happened to go in, as if he frequents cocktail bars all the time, and look around for some imaginary friend then just happen to spot them? How will he react if Lou explains that she and Spike split up years ago? He’ll have to remember to arrange his features to look suitably devastated.

He arrives at the bar and stares down. It’s them all right: Sadie, voluptuous in a drapey wrap dress, and Hannah, a bronzed beauty in a strappy top. And Lou Costello. Johnny stares, frozen in time, feeling as if his heart has stopped.

It
is
Lou, he’s certain of that – but she’s with a man, a big blond guy whose arm is casually slung around her shoulders. They’re laughing, Lou and her boyfriend, looking totally carefree and happy on a Friday night. Johnny blinks, allowing himself to take in the scene. Then he turns on his heels, pulling up the collar of his jacket as a cold wind whips past him, and hurries home to his flat.

THIRTY-FIVE

Hannah isn’t really a cocktail person but Felix isn’t making ordinary cocktails. There are fresh raspberries and redcurrants and cloves in there, bursting onto her tongue. Felix likes to keep his hand in – and his immaculate staff on their toes – and Hannah suspects he also enjoys showing off, pouring liquids from a ridiculous height, his hands flying as he speedily chops fruit on a granite slab. When Hannah asks how he’s managed to achieve all this, he explains, ‘Well, my ex, Amanda, once said I’d never amount to anything. And I thought
okay
… I’m going to prove you wrong. So,’ he grins, having joined them at their table now, ‘you could say that being dumped was good for me.’

‘Maybe it was,’ she says with a grin.

‘Anyway …’ he says, pointing to the glass she’s holding, ‘what d’you think of that?’

‘Delicious,’ Hannah enthuses. ‘Like liquid raspberries but with a kick …’

‘Mine’s like honey,’ Lou adds. ‘It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever drunk in my life.’

‘Mine tastes of fresh blackberries,’ Sadie says. ‘God, Felix, I don’t want to drink anything else now.’

‘But you must,’ he insists. ‘You see, what you’ve had so far was on the menu. You haven’t had a bespoke one yet.’

‘Bespoke cocktails?’ Hannah repeats. ‘How do they work?’

Felix grins. He is dressed in a sharp grey suit tonight, although his wayward blond hair appears to have been untouched since they said goodbye at Glasgow Central station. ‘The idea is, you tell me which flavours you love and we put them together to make a unique cocktail that’s especially blended for you.’

‘But how do I know what goes together?’ Lou asks.

‘That’s the whole point,’ Felix explains. ‘It’s our job to
make
the ingredients go together, but the chances are they do anyway because they’re tastes that you love, which tend to be from the same flavour spectrum …’

Sadie explodes with laughter. ‘Are you for real, Felix? Or are you just winding us up?’

‘Would I do that?’ he laughs in mock-horror. ‘No, it’s part of what we do in all our bars. It’s our unique selling point.’

‘Do they cost a fortune?’ Lou asks.

‘Not to you – they’re on the house …’

‘But Felix,’ Hannah exclaims, ‘we’ve already had one on the house –’

‘This is my wedding present to you, Hannah,’ he says with a grin, ‘and if you like it, I’ll give you the recipe and you can serve it to your guests. You could even sneak some into your miserable stepkids’ lemonades to perk them up a bit. So get thinking. I need three flavours each …’

‘But how do we know you’ll have the ingredients?’ Sadie wants to know.

Felix raises a brow. ‘We have everything here. We only need tiny amounts, that’s part of the magic.’ Hannah sees him glance towards the window, frown and look back again.

‘What’s up, Felix?’ she asks.

‘Oh, there was just some man out there a few moments ago, hanging about and staring in – at you three lovelies, I think …’

The girls turn to peer out, but all they see are people marching purposefully past the window. ‘Was he cute?’ Sadie asks.