Wish Upon a Star (49 page)

Putting thoughts of her future out of her mind, Claire set off for the hospital. As she approached the entrance she found her step quickening. What if Mrs. Venables had worsened? What if Imogen—never very attentive to other people’s lives—had gotten the message wrong? When she stepped out of the lift she found herself almost running down the hall.

As she came to the corner leading to the neurology ward someone came round it from the opposite direction and they literally bumped one another. Claire dropped her purse, he scrabbled on the floor to pick it up, and as they turned to one another, both of their faces expressed the same surprise. It was Nigel and though Claire still felt coldly toward him, she felt relief flood her.

‘Your mother…’

‘Claire!’

They both stopped speaking. Claire rubbed her shoulder where she had collided with him and watched, with a nasty secret satisfaction, the red spot on his cheek where she had bumped him begin to swell. Nigel handed her purse back to her. ‘I’ve very glad to see you,’ he said. And to her astonishment he took her hand. ‘Mother has been talking about you without stopping since you left yesterday.’

‘Your mother is talking?’ Claire asked.

‘I can’t stop her. The nurses are gob-smacked. Even the neurologist says he hasn’t seen progress like this before, at least not in a woman her age. And yesterday evening she wanted knitting needles. Can you believe it?’

Claire nodded. With no one but Nigel to talk to, she would want to distract herself with knitting too. But the news was too wonderful to continue being small-minded. ‘Is she awake?’ Claire asked.

‘The day sister just took her down to physiotherapy. I was going to nip down for a cup of coffee. Care to join me?’

Actually, in her current frame of mind she couldn’t think of anything she’d like to do less, but she supposed that, since Nigel was offering an olive branch, she should drink a cup of oil with him.

And the coffee was oily. Though she’d fallen for everything British, Claire had to admit hospital cafés were as bad in London as they were in New York. Nigel had brought a ‘white coffee’ for her, a black one for himself, and rustled up a plate of biscuits so hard that they could probably be used to scratch their initials on the dusty window beside them. Once he took a chair opposite her at the little corner table an embarrassed silence set in. The main thing they had in common so far was, after all, Mrs. Venables.

The silence was getting prolonged and more than simply awkward. ‘Do you take sugar? I’m so sorry. I forgot to ask. Shall I get you some?’

Nigel’s exaggerated politeness reminded Claire of her theory that he was socially awkward. Of course, as she was too, she found it a most annoying trait.

‘Mother can’t go back home after discharge,’ Nigel announced.

‘Found a purchaser for your building?’ Claire asked with an insincere smile, then felt guilty when she saw Nigel’s face fall. He wasn’t really so bad. In fact, he was probably a better son than most. She wondered why he was unmarried; perhaps he too was a homosexual. She had learned to her discomfort that it was something she couldn’t judge here.

‘As a matter of fact, no. Besides, I can’t sell it without Mother’s approval. So I think what is going to have to happen is that she goes into special housing, and perhaps a nursing home first for rehabilitation.’

‘I can’t imagine your mother taking orders from someone else, never mind having to live someplace other than her own flat. She loves it there,’ Claire said in Mrs. Venables’s defense.

‘She’ll have to accept the change. There’s no other choice.’ Nigel took a sip of his coffee.

As the gray light that filtered through the grimy window fell on him, he looked aristocratic and, as Claire had noticed before, rather handsome. His fine forehead and pale hair emphasized his eyes, which were as blue as his mother’s, and though his lips were thin, he did have an attractive smile—when he chose to smile.

He was trying to smile now. ‘She’ll adjust to the situation in time.’ But as Claire stared at him without a response he gave up. ‘Look, I don’t expect you to like me; well, perhaps I do but that’s just bloody arrogance. I know I’ve been beastly, and I’m very much ashamed of myself. May I offer a sincere apology?’ He looked at her again and now his pale face flushed with what she thought might be embarrassment. The pink set off his eyes. God, she thought, I’m a truly desperate woman when I start to think that Nigel Venables is sexy.

She reached across the table and patted his hand, then withdrew her own. ‘Apology accepted,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about it. You were just being protective.’

‘No. I was being an ass. I still don’t know much about you but you’ve been marvelous.’

Claire was more than surprised—she was stunned by Nigel’s admission. Her life might not be good, but at least it was interesting, she thought. Far more interesting than it had ever been. Oh, she would hate to give up all of this for a commute on the subway.

‘I wanted to thank you for all that you’ve done for my mother,’ Nigel continued. ‘She really can’t stop talking about you. And she’s even eager to get back to the shop. I’m still not sure she’ll be able to manage it, but well, is there anything I can…do for you?’

Claire looked down at the plate in front of her and then nodded. ‘You can find some biscuits that are edible,’ she said.

‘My dear!’ Mrs. Venables said from a bed that was surrounded by cards and so many arrangements of flowers that she looked like a mannequin in one of the store window displays in Knightsbridge. She certainly still slurred her words, but she would be understandable to anyone, now, not just Claire. The improvement was overwhelming and Claire went to the old woman’s bedside and took her weakened hand in both of her own. ‘You look wonderful,’ she said. ‘Someone’s done your hair.’

Mrs. Venables nodded. Her blue eyes were bright with mischief, and both of them focused on Claire. ‘I tried to do it myself but couldn’t manage the hairpins…yet. So Nigel helped me.’ Claire saw her mouth tremble, but she thought it was with a suppressed laugh rather than a neurological tremor. ‘He was quite good. Here is my news. The doctor has told me I can be discharged soon.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ both Claire and Nigel said.

‘Yes. I’ve been lucky. He’s going to talk to Nigel. I shall have to have a visiting nurse at first, and more speech and physiotherapy, but I can do quite a lot of it at home. And I’ll make Nigel drop his silly idea that I can’t manage in the flat.’

‘Great. That’s great. So why don’t you rest now?’

‘I will,’ she agreed. ‘But perhaps you can check the shop. Just to see if there are any inquiries.’ The old woman closed her eyes and Claire thought, with a pang, of closing the shop. But of course it would have to be done. As Claire watched Mrs. Venables’s face go slack with exhaustion she felt her own fatigue overtake her.

‘Let me take you home,’ Nigel said. ‘You live near here, don’t you?’

Claire let him take her arm, lead her to the lift and to the taxi rank. He helped her into the cab and she closed her eyes. She must have actually fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes the taxi was turning off the Brompton Road close to the shop. ‘I’m two streets down and just to the left,’ she said, slightly embarrassed. Nigel was discreetly looking away.

‘Oh, good,’ he said and tapped the plastic screen between them and the driver. He gave the direction and they pulled up in front of Imogen’s building.

‘Thank you very much for the ride,’ Claire told him.

He reached across her and opened the door. ‘You’re very welcome. You mind if I take the taxi on to my office?’

‘Of course not,’ she said.

‘I’ll be going back to see my mother this evening. Would you like me to pick you up?’

Claire shook her head. ‘I’m just going to run a few errands and then I’ll go back this afternoon.’

‘Perhaps I’ll see you then.’

She smiled and nodded and stepped out of the cab. She waved him off then turned back to the house. It was only then that she noticed a man was standing on the doorstep. His broad back was toward her. For a moment she thought it must be Malcolm, but this man was much taller and his suit fit. Then he turned around. To her utter surprise, it was Michael Wainwright.

Claire didn’t know what to think. She was almost speechless, and rooted to the sidewalk. For a moment she doubted that it could be Michael Wainwright, but as he approached her she knew there was no mistake. There had been a few times when she had thought she had seen him but now it was truly him and he was standing on her doorstep! How did he possibly find her? And what in the world was he doing here? As he got closer she felt panic setting in. Try to act casual, she told herself, though it was the most ridiculous approach.

‘Hello, Claire,’ he said and took her hand. She had forgotten just how handsome he was.

‘Hello, Michael,’ she responded. ‘What are you doing here? Need something photocopied?’ The moment she said it she could have bitten her tongue but it was too late. She saw him recoil.

‘I guess that’s fair,’ he said.

Claire took as deep a breath as she could manage. ‘Would you like to come in?’ she said.

He looked around. ‘Maybe I could take you out,’ he suggested. ‘For a drink perhaps?’

Claire nodded. ‘There’s a place around the corner,’ she said. It was a posh wine bar and, though it was across from Mrs. Venables’s shop and just next to the estate agent’s, Claire had actually never been in there. She walked a little bit ahead of him so she did not have to look at his face or let him see hers. How had this happened? And what did he want? She tried to gather her wits but found it impossible. Out of the corner of her eye she looked up at him. After all the dreaming, after all the imagined conversations, now that he was here actually beside her, looking better than she remembered, she hadn’t a clue what to say.

He opened the door for her and they entered the place. It was early, so there were virtually no customers except a middle-aged man sitting alone at a window table. She and Michael moved to the back without even consulting one another. They sat down and he looked over at her, or perhaps he looked her over. It was hard to tell. ‘You don’t know how difficult it was to find you,’ he said.

‘Why were you looking?’

‘Well,’ he paused and took a deep breath. ‘I know you probably won’t believe this, and I’m sure you’ll blow me off after I say it. Which you’ll have every right to do. But the fact is I haven’t been able to stop thinking of you since you walked out of the hotel.’

Claire actually laughed out loud. In all the different conversations she’d imagined with Michael, this had never crossed her mind. Not once. ‘And am I supposed to believe in Santa Claus?’ she said.

A waiter arrived at their table. Without even asking her Michael ordered. ‘Two Chablis,’ he said.

She interrupted before the waiter could leave. ‘As it happens, I don’t like Chablis. The house Beaujolais, please,’ she said. She was very proud that her voice didn’t quaver. She remembered a phrase that Tina used to use when someone back in Tottenville was very full of himself: thinks who the fuck he is. And that was Michael. If he wanted her, of course he could find her. And if he found her he was capable of saying anything. Watch it Claire, she told herself sharply because she felt, despite her cockiness, the old attraction.

Once the waiter had left, Michael looked at her. It seemed he had the grace at least to act ashamed, but she remembered how he had acted when he told her about his ‘business dinner’ and she couldn’t repress a tiny shiver at the memory of the shame of that moment. ‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

And she remembered, too, how attentive he could be. ‘I’m fine,’ she told him and tried to say it with enough conviction so that he knew she wasn’t only talking about her body temperature. Of course, the trouble was that two weeks ago she was fine. It was only now, after all her recent problems and with her complete uncertainty about her future, that telling him that she was fine was not strictly true.

‘Claire, I know I don’t even deserve a chance at this conversation,’ he said. ‘But I hope you’ll hear me out.’

The waiter arrived with their wine and she made a noncommittal gesture. Her heart had stopped its crazy pace and she took a swig of wine to try to ensure that she would keep calm. But only a little wine she reminded herself. Too much would be as bad as any other overreaction.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘To begin with I know I behaved very badly.’ He paused. She didn’t make a move. ‘You saw me with Katherine, didn’t you?’ She gave as small a nod as she could manage. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘That was really stupid and wrong.’ She shrugged.

‘Perhaps,’ she said. ‘But you were free to do whatever you wanted to do. We had no arrangement. You didn’t break your word.’ She knew when she said it that she sounded stiff and angry but there was nothing she could do. She was stiff. She was angry.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I don’t expect you to listen to me but I want you to listen anyway. Now, if you tell me to get up and go away, I will, right this minute. But if you don’t then I’d just like you to give me three minutes without saying a word.’ He took off his watch and placed it on the table. ‘Just three minutes,’ he repeated. ‘What do ya say?’

Claire nodded silently. What could she say? Of course she was far too curious to simply tell him to leave; though she had certainly imagined running into him and turning on her heel herself.

‘Let me just tell you what’s been happening,’ he said. For another moment she thought he was going to launch into a description of business at Crayden Smithers. But thank goodness he didn’t. ‘When I asked you to come with me to London I was, well, in a bad place. I’d been going out with a few different women and one, well Katherine, was serious. I didn’t know what to do, so I behaved like a louse to her and to you. Of course, I didn’t know you, so behaving badly was easy.’ He looked away from her for a moment. Claire reminded herself that his job at Crayden Smithers was to pitch and he was doing a great pitch right now. And that, she told herself, was all it was.

‘The thing is I lost her and I lost you.’ Michael raised his hand, showing her his palm. ‘Before you say I never had you, I just want you to know that I know that. I was really—’ he paused—‘I was really into myself. I mean, everybody on The Street encourages that. And you know I’d had a couple of good years.’ She nodded. ‘Anyway, I made a couple of mistakes at Crayden Smithers and haven’t had a really good follow-up. But that doesn’t bother me. What does is that I had time to think and I realized I didn’t like what I was thinking. The truth is I backed off on the relationship with Katherine because she didn’t really mean very much to me. The window dressing was there—the degree from Harvard Business School and her job and her looks and—well, you know her social background.’