by Imogen Clark
Ray had sat at the end of the bar, not talking to the other men but quietly minding his own business. She hadn’t noticed him leave, though, and the next time she let her eyes stray to where he was sitting his stool had been occupied by a bloke in a Newcastle United shirt with a ketchup stain down the front. She felt herself sink a little, her shoulders suddenly sagging under the weight of a long shift. He must have realised how out of place he was and gone to find a pub that was more suited to his classiness. Shame.
Melissa hadn’t given the unlikely stranger another thought until he reappeared a couple of weeks later. This time, he walked into the place as if it were his local with all the swagger that she expected from the regulars. He made straight for her and ordered another single malt, his smile acknowledging that they were already acquainted. Melissa had the impression that he was there specifically to see her, which she based purely on that smile. It was a Wednesday and the pub was quieter, so when he pulled a stool up to the bar, arm resting casually on the mahogany, she had time to chat whilst she wiped the clean glasses and put them back on the shelves.
‘Hello again,’ he said.
When he smiled his eyes glistened like there was some kind of mischief about him. Melissa recognised it at once, not being a complete stranger to mischief herself.
‘Can’t keep away, pet?’ she asked him, casting her eyes around the shabby tap room. ‘I can see how tempting we must be.’
‘It appears not,’ he replied. ‘I wonder what could possibly have lured me back.’
He winked at her but instead of being flattered, Melissa felt mildly disappointed. It was the kind of banter she indulged in every night of the week, but she’d been hoping for something a little more original from this one. Maybe she’d just misread him. He’d probably come in for a change of scene or a cheap thrill, flirting with whoever caught his eye but with no danger of being caught out. Automatically, her eyes flicked down to his left hand but there was no wedding ring. Still, it seemed highly unlikely that his friends, whoever they might be, would drink in a place like this.
She gave him half a smile and turned away to serve another customer. She wasn’t just here to titivate, no matter what the landlord might think. She would flirt as and when she felt like it and definitely not to order with any random stranger who wandered in off the street and fancied his chances. The other barmaid, Mandy, served him, and for a while she just got on with her work and took no notice of him.
She had more or less forgotten about him but then he spoke to her again, his voice low but clear. He had a posh accent with no trace of Geordie in it.
‘You’re good at this,’ he said, smiling broadly at her and pushing his hair away from his face. He was older than her, she thought, but not by much.
‘At what?’ she asked without stopping what she was doing.
‘Your job,’ he said. ‘You’re fast and efficient. You tot up the bill in your head rather than on the till and you’re always right. You are friendly but not over the top. You keep a tidy bar and you have a smile for everyone.’
Now she was flattered in spite of herself. It was all true. Everybody thought her job was just pulling pints but there was a lot more to it than that. It was rare that anyone acknowledged it, though, least of all Gary the landlord.
‘Thanks,’ she said, a blush pinking her cheeks. ‘Ready for another?’
‘Actually, I think I’ll switch to beer,’ he said. ‘You can have too much of a good thing.’
She pulled his pint, conscious of his eyes on her arm as it flexed to pull the pump back. She was proud of her arms, the muscles taut and smooth and the skin kept tanned by trips to the sun-bed parlour down the road. She assumed he would be imagining what the rest of her body was like and so she straightened her spine and sucked in her stomach.
‘What time do you finish?’ he asked.
Men were so predictable.
‘Around 11.30,’ she said.
‘Can I take you for a drink?’ he asked.
‘Not much open after closing except the clubs, and I don’t fancy that,’ she said. ‘There’s a greasy spoon round the corner that stays open for the taxi drivers. We could go there if you like?’
She assumed that he would baulk at that and then suggest the bar of whichever hotel he was staying in – he wouldn’t have wandered into this pub if he knew his way around town – but he just nodded.
‘You here on business, like?’ she asked.
‘Have you got me marked down as a travelling salesman?’ he asked. There was that twinkle again.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘Are you?’
‘Nope.’
He didn’t give her any other details and she wasn’t about to gratify him by asking. Melissa was nobody’s fool. She just shrugged. It was nothing to her what he did, but part of her was glad that he was classier than just a salesman.
He looked at his watch, a heavy silver thing that looked like the ones she saw advertised on the sides of buses.
‘So, shall we go to this café of yours later then?’ he asked, and Melissa surprised herself by nodding. ‘And I haven’t even asked your name. You must forgive me.’
‘It’s Melissa,’ she said. ‘And yours?’
His eyes flicked away from her to the space above her head and a little smile played across his lips.
‘Ray,’ he said. ‘Ray Allen.’
‘Nice to meet you, Ray,’ she said, holding out her hand. Her pink nail varnish was chipped and she curled her fingers under so he might not see. He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips.
‘Enchanted,’ he replied.
8
MELISSA – THEN
After the cup of builders’ tea in the late-night café, Melissa did not see Ray again for a couple of weeks. There was no phone in her caravan and whilst Mrs Craven who ran the site office would take calls in an emergency, Melissa didn’t give the number out to any Tom, Dick or Harry. He hadn’t offered her his phone number either, so she’d had to wait until he made a reappearance at the pub.
This time, she found that she really wanted him to show up. She enjoyed his company. He was interesting and had a sharp wit that kept her on her toes. It made a nice change from the local lads who were only after one thing. Ray knew stuff. He told her about planets and politics and how electricity got into the walls so it could come out of the sockets.
‘What is it you do?’ she’d asked him as the taxi drivers came and went with their bacon rolls. ‘Are you a teacher or something? Because you’re dead clever, like.’
‘No,’ he said, shaking his head and laughing at the idea. ‘You’ll never guess. Have a go.’
Melissa had no idea and trying to guess would just reveal how very little she knew in comparison to him, which might put him off her, so she decided to come up with some jokey suggestions instead to cover her awkwardness.
‘Royal food taster?’ she said.
Ray grinned. ‘Nope.’
‘Balloon pilot?’
‘Not even close.’
‘Zookeeper?’
‘Getting a bit warmer,’ he said.
She was intrigued. ‘Vet?’
‘Cold again. I’m going to have to tell you, aren’t I? I’m in security,’ he said, and Melissa’s heart sank. He was a security guard. How boring was that? Half the boys she knew from school worked nights guarding building sites and dark offices all over Newcastle. As far as she could tell, all that was required for the job was an ability to deal with the terminal boredom without shooting yourself.
‘What kind of security?’ she asked, because it would probably be rude not to show any interest at all.
‘I’m a bodyguard,’ he said.
Now she was listening.
‘A bodyguard?’ she said, eyes wide. ‘But don’t you have to be, like . . .’ Melissa flexed her arms and squeezed her barmaid’s muscles so that they bulged.
Ray pretended to look insulted. ‘Are you saying I’m a weed?’ he asked.
‘Well, no,’ Melissa
replied, backtracking quickly. ‘But you don’t look like a bodyguard.’
‘And what does a bodyguard look like?’
Melissa was thinking of a Rambo-type character, but Ray definitely didn’t look like Sylvester Stallone.
‘Well . . .’ She stalled. She didn’t want to offend him and scare him off just as she was getting to know him.
‘I do more strategic work,’ he said, saving her blushes. ‘My company engages me to look after high-worth individuals and I put together plans based on where they are going and what the risks might be.’
Melissa was impressed. She didn’t even know that was a thing.
‘So who do you guard, like?’ she asked. ‘Would I have heard of any of them?’
‘Probably,’ said Ray. ‘But I can’t tell you. It’s totally confidential. I wouldn’t be much of a security consultant if I told anyone who asked the details of what I was doing, would I?’
Melissa wanted to say that she wasn’t just ‘anyone’, but she took his point. And Ray had suddenly become even more attractive. Who else had a boyfriend who did secret work as a bodyguard?
‘So do you work in an office, then?’ she asked.
Ray shook his head. ‘I work contracts, so I’m on duty when the clients are away from their homes. I travel with them to make sure everything is secure. Then, when they’re safely back home, so am I.’
‘And the money’s good doing that, is it?’ Melissa couldn’t believe she’d just asked him such a personal question, but he didn’t seem at all fazed.
‘You won’t find me complaining,’ he said. ‘It can be a bit inconvenient being away so much, but the pay more than makes up for it.’
Melissa really wanted to see him again. She started taking a little bit more care when she got ready for work, picking out her newer blouses and adding an extra coat of mascara so that her eyelashes curled better. Each night when Gary called time and Ray had failed to show, she had to make a conscious effort not to be disappointed. There was no reason for him to come back, she told herself, except to see her. She let herself hope that she would be a big enough draw on her own.
And it appeared that she was, for there he was again, turning up just as they were calling time. Melissa’s heart leapt but she tried to keep her face neutral. It wouldn’t do to let him know just how pleased she was to see him.
‘Whisky?’ she asked, even though she probably shouldn’t be serving him now, but Ray shook his head.
‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘I don’t like to rush my liquor. I wouldn’t say no to a quick after-work cup of tea, though.’
He winked at her. His eyes were almost exactly the same honeyed tone as his hair and they drew her in despite her best intentions.
‘Oh, you know how to spoil a girl,’ she laughed, rolling her eyes at him, but actually a cup of tea with this gorgeous man would tick all her boxes. Well, nearly all of them.
‘Or I could take you home?’ he added, his tone light as if he hadn’t just propositioned her, but his grin making it clear that he knew exactly what he was suggesting. ‘Do you live nearby?’
Melissa considered his offer. There was a possibility that he really did mean to just give her a lift home, but she doubted it. She’d met his type before, and she recognised the confidence in his own ability to get precisely what he wanted. She could do a lot worse, though. It wasn’t every day that she met a man who might actually lift her beyond her day-to-day drudgery into something more exciting. Ray seemed safe enough and posed no threat to her. He was smart and clean and polite. And surely, he had come back specifically to seek her out? Why else would he be in this dump of a pub? What the hell, she thought. What did she have to lose?
‘I don’t live in town,’ she said. ‘You’d need a car, like.’
‘Well, that’s all right, because I have a car,’ he said with a smirk. Something told Melissa that the idea of his not having a car amused him.
‘Not some old rust bucket, it is?’ she asked him. ‘A girl’s got standards, you know!’
‘It’s a very nice Merc that comes with my job,’ he said. ‘And there’s not a patch of rust on it anywhere.’
Melissa nodded her approval. ‘Well, I live about fifteen miles out of town. Still want to give me a lift?’
‘Of course, and it’s good that it’s so far away,’ said Ray.
‘How do you make that out?’
‘All the longer to get to know each other,’ he replied.
And so it was decided.
9
GRACE – THEN
For a while after Hector was born, Grace was totally engulfed by the delicious bubble that new motherhood brings with it. Whole days disappeared in the discovery of her son’s freshly learned skills and talents, for was it not early for him to be smiling, sitting up, crawling? Each day Grace would wait for Charles to return from his time with the orchestra, and barely had he got in through the door than she was regaling him with stories of that day’s antics.
‘I’m certain that Hector is very bright,’ she’d say. ‘He has this way of holding his head when I’m talking to him. I’m sure he understands what I’m saying completely. I wonder if he’ll read early. What do you think, Charles?’
Charles would smile fondly at her. ‘I think six months is a little early to grasp the rudiments of the alphabet,’ he’d say affectionately, ‘even if he does have an IQ to rival Mozart’s.’
Grace knew it was silly really. All mothers believed their children to hold special talents – it was only natural. But still, there was no reason why she might not actually be right.
By Hector’s first birthday, the bloom of new fatherhood seemed to have faded somewhat for Charles. He was less interested than he had once been in the day-by-day account of what the boy had eaten, when he had slept, how his new teeth were developing. As Grace delivered her nightly report on their son’s progress, he would often be reading the paper or casting an eye over a musical score. He listened to Grace’s words and understood their meaning, but he was very far from engaged.
This lack of interest disappointed rather than surprised Grace. Her own father had been little more than a shadowy presence in her life as she was growing up. Her mother coped well and seemed almost relieved when her father went down to London and failed to return for days and sometimes weeks on end. It was a pattern that she had hoped would not repeat itself now that she was the mistress of Hartsford Hall, but maybe there just wasn’t enough about small children to hold the interest of their fathers. Perhaps when Hector was big enough to kick a football or even hold a violin his father’s enthusiasm for him would be rekindled.
It appeared, however, that Charles had a new interest to occupy him.
‘How would you feel,’ he asked her as she lay on a mat with Hector, helping him post coloured blocks into a wooden box that had once been her sister Charlotte’s, ‘if I had a go at racing one of the cars?’
Grace picked up a little wooden cylinder, its colour faded with age from pillar-box red to a warm raspberry. She handed it to Hector, who grasped it in his plump little fist and then tried to jam it into a square hole. He really hadn’t got the idea of this. Maybe, as Charles had suggested, their child wasn’t a genius after all?
‘Which car?’ she asked cautiously.
Charles’s enthusiasm for his new crazes generally had to be moderated somewhat before they were practical, and Grace was reluctant to let him have free rein over her father’s extensive collection of vintage models.
‘I was thinking the Mini,’ he said.
Grace relaxed a little. Her father had bought the 1965 Mini for her and Charlotte to learn to drive in and the pair of them had careered around the estate in it until they passed their tests, at which point it had become theirs, giving them some much sought-after independence from the estate. It was a mossy green with a cream roof and sported plenty of dents and scratches, which held testament to her own lack of skill behind the wheel.
‘I learned to drive in that car,’ she said with a sm
ile. ‘And,’ she added, ‘I lost my favourite lipstick under the driver’s seat and it never, ever reappeared. I think it must still be rattling around its innards somewhere.’
Charles appeared too excited about his plan to worry about her lost lipstick.
‘There’s a meeting over in Cheshire next weekend,’ he said, bouncing up and down on his toes like a little boy as he spoke. ‘I thought I might go over there and check it out.’
Grace weighed up the pros and cons of the plan. It was important that Charles had interests outside work. Everyone said so. She didn’t feel the need for a hobby herself – she had Hector, after all, and that was more than enough to occupy her for now. It would mean Charles being away for a whole day, though; maybe a night, too. Still, knowing Charles, this would be a hare-brained scheme like so many others. He would see what it was all about and then decide that it wasn’t for him and move on to the next thing. And it wasn’t as if he’d asked to use one of the expensive cars or anything that could go particularly quickly. How much danger could there be in racing Minis around a track?
‘That sounds like a great idea,’ she said. ‘Maybe Hector and I could come too, take a picnic and make a day of it.’
Grace saw straight away that this wasn’t at all what Charles had in mind.
‘Well, you can if you’d like,’ he said with a shrug. ‘But I’m not sure how much fun it would be for you. I’ll be off chatting to the other drivers and . . .’
Grace shook her head at him. ‘I get it,’ she said gently. ‘It’s a boy thing. It’d probably be a bit loud for Hector anyway. We’ll stay here and you can tell us all about it when you get back.’
Charles was beaming like a schoolboy who’d just been given permission for a midnight feast.
‘But,’ said Grace, arranging her features into a stern expression. ‘You must promise me one thing.’
Charles’s smile slipped and he suddenly looked worried. ‘What?’ he asked nervously.