Georgie sat upright on the pillow. ‘I bet they do,’ she said, and was rewarded with a throaty laugh.
‘Well,’ said Holly, pensive, ‘I have my moments. But come on, tell me.’ Lowering her voice. ‘Was there a message with them?’
Georgie felt herself blush. ‘Nothing – nothing much. Just – saying he couldn’t stop thinking about me.’ Was that what he’d said? She had a moment of panic, wondering what she’d done with the note before she remembered. Safe in her coat pocket. She shouldn’t be saying this. Talking about it made it real.
‘Oh, well, that’s not nothing,’ said Holly. ‘That’s nice. Isn’t it? I mean, of course you’re gorgeous—’ hesitating, as if she knew that wasn’t the right word for Georgie, ‘but I’d be flattered.’
‘Oh, yes, well—’ said Georgie. That wasn’t quite it, though, was it? More than flattered. She could feel it even now, the warmth uncurling in her, the flutter of excitement. ‘I – it’s just that—’ and now she had her opportunity, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask. ‘It’s just that I can’t really remember a thing about him.’ Lamely. And it wasn’t true, either. She could remember things. Too many. How his hand had felt. The flutter beat strong inside her.
‘Come on,’ said Holly, ‘he was talking to you all evening. Don’t remember that? He seemed really into you. You were cool as a cucumber.’
‘Really?’ Georgie could hear herself, sounding ridiculously eager, ridiculously pleased. She was just relieved she hadn’t behaved like an idiot, that was all.
‘Well, until you let him into the cab,’ said Holly.
‘It was me, then,’ said Georgie, stupidly, not cool as a cucumber after all and that feeling ebbing, that warm feeling.
‘Well, I suppose it was all of us,’ said Holly airily, ‘but you were the last one in and he just climbed in after you.’ She paused. ‘We laughed, didn’t we?’
Deflated, Georgie did remember that. Remembered shifting up to make room for him. Did that make it her fault? She remembered the laughing, as if they had all been in on it, it was all of them together, it wasn’t just Georgie. Laughing at his cheek, his insouciance. Cat sinking back on the seat, flapping a hand, tired.
‘So—’ Holly moved on, swift, ‘flowers, though, that sounds like fun.’ Expectant.
Georgie hesitated. ‘He called me. A couple of days ago, just to say—’ she faltered. It didn’t sound innocent now. ‘To ask if I was OK.’
‘Sweet,’ said Holly. ‘So you gave him your number, then.’ She laughed. ‘Georgie, you really are a dark horse.’
‘No – I—’ but Georgie hesitated. Explaining it, how he had got her number, his trick, was the only word for it, made her look such a fool. An innocent. And she was almost enjoying Holly’s disbelief; her admiration. It was all a game.
And Holly was impatient, anyway. ‘So did you answer?’
‘Of course not,’ said Georgie.
Holly laughed that big laugh again, as if she knew exactly what Georgie was thinking. That she’d wanted to. ‘No? Oh, well, please yourself but it’s still fun, isn’t it? Life’s too bloody short.’
It was what Cat had said. For a second Cat filled Georgie’s head, Cat making a weekend of it, letting her hair down, before she had to face weeks, months, of appointments, of being frightened. Life’s too short. Georgie wondered if she’d told Holly about the cancer, but she said nothing. She didn’t want to talk about it behind Cat’s back, to make it gossip. But Holly had moved on again, Georgie had a sudden vivid impression of Holly in motion, always with a suitcase in her hand on some doorstep or other.
‘So,’ she was saying. ‘You’re in London tomorrow, right? Shall we have a coffee or something, I’d like to meet your – your kid. Daughter?’
‘Um, yes,’ said Georgie warily wondering about Tabs meeting Holly. ‘Sure, shall I call you in the morning?’ Remembering she needed to call Dad, first. ‘Or we could just fix a time now? A place?’
Holly named a café, north of Oxford Street. ‘Let’s say I’ll be there at five,’ airily again. ‘It’s sometimes hard to get me on the phone.’ There was a hesitation. ‘Just—’ Holly began, then seemed to change her mind. ‘Look, I’d better go. See you tomorrow.’ And had hung up.
It took a while for Georgie to get back to sleep, although it was quiet outside now, she couldn’t even hear the distant hum of traffic that in the day was a constant. She thought of the wide dark forest between her and the big motorway circling the city, strung with lights. The grey suburbs, the arterial roads swooping between terraces, heading for the centre, traffic lights obediently turning green, amber, red, in deserted streets. High rises giving way to grand white stucco parades, the animals in the zoo pacing at night. Closer in and there were those crowded narrow streets, the signs still in windows, Model, third floor, men sitting outside coffee bars, baggy-eyed with sleeplessness, the streets still busy even at two in the morning. She’d seen all that, that night, from the taxi, driving back to the hotel and never knew she remembered it till now. She thought of him.
Where had he come from? Mark. Where did he live? Restless on the pillow Georgie had no idea. He knew where she was, or where she worked, at least. He could look at the village on the internet from a satellite image, he could see the gleaming slate of the church roof, he could note where the woodland gave way to neat developments; he could zoom in, he could walk the lanes with two fingers on a screen.
London was different. A big place, London. A tangle of rooftops, heading off at all angles, alleys and basements and places to hide, crowds to disappear in. And out of the blue, thinking of the busy streets, Georgie felt a throb of pure happiness: London was where she’d been born, on the long swooping terrace of red brick and cherry trees with Crystal Palace radio mast at the top of it where Dad had still lived till two years ago. And suddenly ten years out here in the sticks seemed like nothing at all. Georgie could see Tabs on their way to the zoo, holding her hand looking up at terraced windows, at buses, her head turning this way and that way, looking at the dogs cocking their legs, old men muttering to themselves, the upturned boxes of Turkish bread and plantain and Chinese cabbage spilling out on to the grubby pavements.
The feeling wasn’t a sleepy one, it was excitement, it was longing. Closing her eyes Georgie tried to back pedal, to find her life again, her comfortable quiet life with designer bathroom and cupboards for everything and a patio and a barbecue and all that wonderful green. Garden and churchyard and woods beyond. It was what Tim’s mother had said, approving, when they packed up to leave London and their married life. So good for the child. She always called Tabs that. Dad had been encouraging too but with a different expression, anxious, and Tim had said, heartily, nudging him with his shoulder, ‘We’re not talking the Amazon jungle, Jack.’ Dad had looked down at his feet, wanting to be happy for her.
My home, thought Georgie in the dark inside her head, settling on the kitchen because if any of it was hers that was but it was no good, the surfaces remained smooth and empty, where the kitchen she grew up in had been cluttered to every corner. The house felt alien, her and Tabs adrift in an alien suburb.
That was the image that sent her to sleep in the end, the two of them holding hands in a boat bobbing on a wide sea, a silver horizon, the white crests of waves. But somewhere in the night Tabs was gone, the boat was gone and Georgie was alone in the dark outside. She was running her hand over a scratch on the side of her car as if it was Braille and she was blind. Red flakes of paint on her hand. She tried and tried, because it was there somewhere, but she couldn’t read the message.
Chapter Fourteen
Saturday
Frank was woken by sirens. There were always some, Friday night, Saturday night, any night at all but that particular twenty-four, forty-eight hours in Soho was busy with crime, most of it petty. Drunk and disorderly, a bit of light thieving. The room was cold but light dazzled through the blinds and Frank raised a lazy hand to cover his eyes. Wearily he turned, fumbling for his phone
to see the time.
Too late – or too early – for this many sirens. There was usually a squad car or two parked up just waiting for the trouble even though most of the real violence in Frank’s experience took place further out, on the periphery of the city, stabbings and that, gang stuff. Tottenham or Walthamstow or Streatham, off those long arterial roads. Dangerous places. Soho was busy, it was safe.
But this morning the sound was close by, slowing to a whup, whup, and it wasn’t going away. Eight, was it? Frank squinted down at the phone. He hadn’t got to bed till three. They were very close: he could hear the crackle of walkie talkies. The other siren that meant an ambulance. He set the phone back face down, fumbled for the earplugs he kept on the bedside table and turned over, burying his face in the pillow. Back to sleep.
The day looked different: it sparkled with frost. The windows were all double-glazed so the house felt the same, warm, but there was light everywhere, bleaching the hall white, flooding the kitchen as Georgie stood, there, remembering it. Last night. The grass of the back lawn glittered in the early light, the birdfeeder was dusted white.
Tabs had woken her at seven, clambering into the bed, her sweet-sour morning breath on Georgie’s cheek. Tim had a rule about Tabs and their big bed: Christmas and birthday mornings only, and then grudgingly. Then he would be out and gathering wrapping paper within minutes, leaving it to the two of them.
‘Mummy!’ Tabs had said this morning, gleeful, when Georgie threw back the covers and Georgie hadn’t known what she meant, until she looked down. Nothing dramatic, a dusting of dirt on the sheets – and a trace of mud between Georgie’s toes. She’d been out barefoot, though, she hadn’t washed her feet afterwards. She’d drunk two – three? – glasses of wine. None of this was normal, and Tabs knew it.
She found herself thinking back: Tim’s birthday this year he’d been away, a golfing weekend. He had asked Georgie too and she’d pretended to give it some thought but she had known what he wanted was peace and quiet, man space – and one mention of the networking possibilities had been enough to get her shaking her head, blushing at the offer. It had been May, it had rained all weekend but he had returned with his spirits undented and Georgie had been happy. It was hard to please him on his birthday: she’d lost count of the cufflinks and ties she’d had to return.
‘I know!’ she’d said to Tabs, pulling her to her side, warm and compact, all coiled excitement ready to go. ‘I forgot I’d been out in my bare feet. Better get this changed before Daddy gets home. You go and choose what to wear.’ She began to pull off the sheets, weary. Stupid: the last thing she needed. But she should have thought.
When it was done and the old sheets turning in the washing machine, she’d gone into Tabs’ room. She’d been suspiciously quiet.
The bed had been heaped with crop tops and shorts, Tabs equating a single day out with the whole summer holidays. ‘Tabs,’ she said, ‘it’s freezing out there. Haven’t you looked out of your window?’ Tabs made a face, refusing to come. They compromised on shorts over woollen tights, a madly clashing jumper half a size too small for her, a bomber jacket Dad had bought her: all the things Tim would have put his foot down over.
She waited to phone Dad. He didn’t get up till nine: his treat, he always said, but sadly. When Mum had been alive – well, when she’d been herself, still Mum and not forgetting where the kettle was or who it was in the bed next to her – she’d be up at seven every morning to make a pot of tea whether Dad was awake or not.
‘George!’ He fussed, lost for words, delighted. It sounded so quiet, where he was: they’d been there a few times, her and Tabs, before he moved in and then after and it was nice. A little world that suited it. A two-room bungalow in a tiny church close. It wasn’t home – but then that was probably just as well. He had lost interest in everything after Mum had gone and home had been dusty, bags piling up, windows unwashed. He shied away from touching any of it. ‘Really? Really? Well, I can get to the zoo in – let me see—’
They fixed on an early lunch, and the zoo. Ten years older than Mum, he’d always thought he’d outlive her. He’d be tired after, Georgie knew: they’d pay for a taxi home for him. She tried not to think about five o’clock, and tea with Holly but Holly was there, intrusive, bright as a parakeet, nosy and knowing.
When she’d put the phone down Georgie turned to see Tabs all ready, backpack on, hugging herself at the thought of seeing her granddad. We should be able to do this every week, thought Georgie. Why don’t we?
They’d drive to the station, then take the train, it was decided. Georgie had decided. With Tabs strapped in, her backpack on her knee, coming back around the wing of the car, where the scrape was, Georgie hesitated. Bending she couldn’t see the red flake of paint any more and didn’t know if she’d dreamed it, or it had been dislodged in the night.
She’d had a car accident once only in her life, almost ten years before and it hadn’t been serious, but she still remembered it. Coming round the rear of a bus in pouring rain, barely moving, the bus had somehow shifted and forced the wing mirror back into the quarter light: there’d been an explosion of glass into the car and she’d stopped, stunned. The noise of it.
Cat had been with her in the car, in London, they’d been on their way somewhere. Shopping? She couldn’t remember. But she could remember the noise. The startling loudness, the shock. In the pouring rain Cat had looked after her, told her what to do. Indicate, stop here. She’d driven back home so slowly she got hooted at at every junction but she had paid no attention and when they got there Cat had explained to Tim what had happened, that it hadn’t been her fault, while he stood there white-lipped. ‘Never mind,’ he’d said, but she knew if Cat hadn’t been there it would have been something different.
Putting out her hand to the scratch, Georgie knew she hadn’t done it. Had someone driven into the car, while it was parked on their drive, then driven off? She couldn’t imagine it – but it was possible. The nearest house was twenty feet away, the hedges between the houses were well grown, because Tim liked his privacy. An accident, then. Under her hand the car moved, Tabs wriggling and bouncing for her attention, craning her neck. Georgie could see her mouthing something through the rear window and the other possibility materialised: the one that said, it might not have been an accident. She looked down and in the same second pulled her hand back, as if the car was hot.
As if she had had an accident, Georgie drove as slowly as she had all that time ago, carefully, the big modern houses sliding past them, the thatched cottage, hedges, the woodland. Past the church. All that wonderful green. It had turned overnight, with the cold, it blazed with red and orange. Could someone out here have it in for her? For them? For Tim? She settled on that thought, it seemed easiest. Because he was a man? And she was a woman who worked in the school office and tried very hard not to upset anyone, ever. Who could have it in for her? Those women who whispered about her in the harvest festival?
The sign for the station came into view and the turning took them away from the forest, but oddly, somehow she could feel it behind her. She imagined the leaves crunching underfoot in the cold, the smell of the leaf mould and dirt, the knotted roots and cobwebs in the air. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre. The station car park was half empty because it was Saturday. She could see a couple of figures on the platform through the picket fence. Turned to unbuckle Tabs and told her to wait, while she got the parking ticket. At the machine she was still going through the motions, whole day parking, inserted her credit card, PIN code.
But she was thinking about something else. Could someone have it in for them, really? She made herself consider Tim’s work. The neat two-storey house in the town with its forecourt and its receptionist, nothing to scare the horses, the reception area with water cooler and copies of Country Life. Could a tax accountant make enemies? She turned and walked back to the car, and for a second her heart jumped and raced, because there was someone in the car, someone she didn’t know – and then she stopped,
subsiding because it was Tabs. Of course it was, just Tabs gurning, pressing her face against the glass, little hands like starfish either side of it.
A couple of years back there’d been legislation, obliging accountants, like lawyers, to report wrongdoing to the authorities. Georgie remembered Tim scornful of it, as if. Accountants did know plenty; they knew about the money.
Idly she thought, I wonder. Tim’s office, the filing cabinet he kept locked. If he was in trouble, she could help him. He hadn’t sounded like he was in trouble, on the phone last night.
‘Come on,’ she said to Tabs, helping her out of the car. Holding her hand to cross the car park, she looked back. The little white car looked so modest, so anonymous, not flash at all.
They hurried on. Why not dent Tim’s car? Key it in the car park of the office? If it was just a warning, or vindictive? At the ticket window she gripped Tabs’ hand. She was an easier target, maybe. It felt like it, out here: she couldn’t wait till they were on the train.
There was no one she knew in their compartment: although they’d been the only ones to get on at their stop – Georgie looked up and down to make sure, then settled them at a little table. It was half empty. Five minutes into the journey, her mobile rang: Tabs barely looked up from her colouring book, earbuds in and listening to her music.
‘Cat!’ For some reason Georgie felt false, guilty. The natural thing to do would be to tell Cat what they were doing. She should tell them they were meeting Holly. But she didn’t.
‘You shouldn’t have, George,’ Cat said, weary and when Georgie hesitated, ‘the hamper?’
‘Oh.’ Georgie had quite forgotten she’d even done it: the memory set up a panic. It had cost three hundred pounds. Tim would understand. ‘Sorry – I didn’t know what to do. I wanted – is it the wrong thing?’
‘No, love,’ and Cat’s tone changed, she was wry. ‘Foie gras and stilton and chocolate biscuits. The boys are over the moon.’ She sighed. ‘And they do say I need to eat. For – reconstruction, you need a bit of belly fat, so—’
A Secret Life Page 13