Close Encounter with a Crumpet
Page 2
“Thank you, Simon.” What a thoughtful man. Gill clutched the pass in gratitude, stowing it carefully in her bag as they sat down.
“Now, you wanted to see it all? This is a good way to start.”
As the bus wound through the city, Simon pointed out the landmarks she’d mentioned. He seemed to enjoy her enthusiasm, but once in a while Gill caught a wistful look in his eyes. The third time she noticed him looking at her with one eyebrow lifted and a wry twist to his lips, she had to know the reason.
“Am I being too much the tourist? Is that what that look is for?”
“And what look would that be?”
“You know what look. The one you have now, halfway laughing at me and halfway embarrassed because I’m bouncing around like a tennis ball.” She stopped, almost ashamed of her own enthusiasm. “I know I sound like the eternal American schoolgirl, but I’ve waited so long to see all this. I’m just trying to take it in. I don’t seem to be able hold back or preserve any dignity at all.”
Simon leaned over and responded in a lowered voice. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a girl light up like a candle over something as simple as a bus ride through the city. Don’t hold yourself back, Gill. Don’t turn into one of those dried-up sticks—the ones who used to be women till they shut out life and became bored, too bottled up to feel anything.”
The smile faded from his face. He stared out at the passing traffic. “The world has a full share of those, darlin’ Gill. It needs more pretty girls, like you, who look with eyes wide open and take in all they see. At least I think it does.” He squeezed her hand and released it. “And if I’m wearin’ a look that makes you think different, you just forget I’m here and enjoy every minute. When you go flying off to your school full of rowdy boys, I want you to take as much of this day with you as your heart can carry.”
Gill found her heart full, and her eyes could barely stop looking as the red bus slipped through narrow streets and cobbled lanes. Intense traffic came at them from what to her was the wrong direction, and she was glad she wasn’t the one driving the behemoth through the congested byways.
“If you want to get off for a closer look,” Simon suggested, “just tell me. We can always catch the next bus. Or the one after.”
The wind, chilly against her face, had risen, and she shivered under her thin sweater. “I don’t know where I’d stop. It’s glorious, but I can’t hope to see it all.”
“I’m thinkin’ you’re cold and might need a place to warm up.” He pointed to a deep red building tucked into a side street. “There’s a pub up the way, where we can have a bite and get you out of the wind. After, we can have a bit of a walk about and see what’s going on in the theaters here in the West End.” His arm was cozy around her shoulders as he steadied her down the steep stairs. The bus came to a swaying stop, and a mechanical voice followed them out the door, suggesting they “mind the gap” between the bus and the sidewalk.
“You’ll like this place, I think. Belongs to a friend of mine. Not that he started the business, you know. Been a pub here for three hundred years, more or less. He’s just the latest in a long line.” He led the way along the narrow cobbled street.
Gill wasn’t about to admit she’d not been in a pub the entire time she’d been in England. The ladies of the tour group had been most specific in selecting tea rooms and hotel restaurants for their meals, keeping well away from people “not quite our kind.” The ancient door Simon opened spilled out a buzz of mixed conversation and showed a place of tiny tables, tall stools, and low light. She caught a half-dozen different accents, a number of foreign words, and a general feeling of wholehearted comfort.
“Fancy a beer, Gill? Nobody does beer as well as an English pub.”
She waved away his suggestion. “Not unless they have one on ice. No matter how good you make it in this country, I can’t abide it unless it’s cold.”
“Can’t promise that, but they’ll have a ginger beer and a glass of ice. Would that tempt you?” Thinking of a crisp ginger ale, pleasant and non-alcoholic, Gill agreed. “And a nice plate of fish and chips?” Simon added as he headed toward the bar to place the order.
Ginger beer, she quickly found, had nothing in common with her American ginger ale. The ginger had bite and, moreover, it was not a harmless soft drink. A beer would have been milder. “Good,” she decided after a second swallow. “I could make this a habit, especially after a long day with the boys.”
Simon seemed to hesitate before he responded. “And the boys, your young students, will they be the only men to come into your life now? You said it had been, what, more than six years? A long time since your Gary passed and the life you planned went with him.”
For an instant Gill was back in Boston, standing beside a flag-draped coffin, hearing her mother’s words. “Tragic that this should happen to you so young, Gillian. At least I was older and had a number of years with your father. You girls filled my time. No one else could take his place in our lives. I couldn’t think of it. That would have been disloyal. You’ll never find someone to take Gary’s place either, my dear.”
Gill came back to the present, brushing away the cobweb of memory. “Yes, six years is a long time.” She felt some surprise that Simon had remembered a name and a time span she’d mentioned only once. “But I’m very busy, and I have two sisters who live nearby, so I’m not really alone. My life isn’t what I planned, but whose is?”
“You might meet someone one day and change all that.” The words were softly suggestive.
Gill was quick to curb the idea, though it didn’t seem as impossible as it once had. “No, I don’t think so. I’m afraid I’d always be comparing anyone else to Gary and coming up short. That wouldn’t be fair. Or very loyal, either.”
Simon was silent for a while, then put aside his fork. “Look, Gill Banks, it’s not my business, but if I loved a girl and something happened, maybe I got run down by a lorry on the macadam, I wouldn’t want her to be spending her life mourning what she’d lost.” He brushed a curl back and touched her cheek. “I’d want her out in the world living for the two of us, like she counted every minute against the dreams that we’d never make real.” He picked up his fork again. “But I guess that doesn’t answer for every situation. It’s just how I’d see it.”
“No,” Gill agreed, a small pain of regret stabbing her. “Sometimes it doesn’t come out that way.”
The silence threatened to become a barrier. Simon pushed his plate aside. “Well, then, it’s Saturday night, and we’re in the heart of the West End. I think I can scare up a pair of tickets to a show. How do you feel about our Fab Four? Any Beatlemania in your make-up? Let It Be is still making a stir over at the Savoy.”
The breeze in the open bus had raised a small cowlick in Simon’s blond hair. Gill resisted the urge to reach over and smooth it, firmly focusing on his suggestion. “I’d never admit it to the people at home,” Gill confessed, “but I’m a secret fan of every song the Beatles ever sang. I’d love to see that show.”
Simon’s face lit up, his smile wide and merry. “We’re on, then.”
Gill gave another look at the man across from her and thought how graciously he’d salvaged her lonely outing. He’d stepped into her afternoon and turned a miserable day into an adventure. In Boston she’d never let a man who was almost a stranger whisk her off like this, but Simon, oh, Simon was a different thing entirely. And he wasn’t a stranger, not really. A very attractive acquaintance who wanted a visitor to have a better impression of his city. That was Simon. So Gill told herself.
Ignoring her quickened breath and the warm tingle that floated somewhere near her heart, she consciously discounted how appealing she found him. Though her glance wandered down to the tabletop, she wasn’t really studying those square, neat, competent hands that could be so gentle. Only in passing did she note the strength in them. But she couldn’t disregard those endearing, darting dimples at the corners of his mouth, no matter how she tried.
Two hours later, as the last encore ended and the cheers began to subside, she could still feel the energy.
“You liked it, did you, Miss Boston Librarian?” Simon put his jacket over her shoulders against the sudden chill of the night. “Not too wild for your Puritan ears?”
She spun around as if embracing the night. “Loved it! Loved every note of every song, and all the gaudy costumes and the screaming audience. I went back in time for a little bit.”
“You’ve seen the panorama of London from a bus, eaten fish and chips in a pub, and spent the evening with the Beatles.” The jacket threatened to slide away with her whirl of enthusiasm, and he slipped it back over her shoulders. “What would the American girl like to see next?”
Gill glanced down at her watch. After ten in the evening, and the sun had just gone down. She sighed. The ladies of the tour would be going off to bed about now. They’d surely noted her absence both at tea and again at dinner. She would come in for censorious glares at breakfast. “I suppose I should go back to the hotel. I’ll have to make some explanation for not returning this afternoon.”
“Gill, how old are you? A bit over twenty-one, I’m guessing.”
She laughed. “Actually quite a bit over. I was thirty-two in April. This trip was something of a late birthday present.”
“And a grown woman, by my view.” He folded his arms across his chest, his dark sweater shoved up to his elbows, and a stern glare wrinkling his forehead. “Where in the fine print of the tour description did it say you had to report to a pack of carping peahens on how you choose to spend your one free day of the trip?”
“It’s just…” She stopped. “I told you I work for the school, and the wives of a couple of board members are with the group. So I can’t offend them or they might take it into their gossipy heads to ‘speak’ to their husbands about me. No telling how they might interpret my absence, especially if they learned I spent the day with you. I need my job.” She put out a hand in concern for him, as well. “And they do seem to think you’re working for them on this trip, too. I wouldn’t want to cause you a problem.”
His knuckle stroked the curve of her cheek. “That’s my lookout, now, isn’t it? As for how you spend a day of your holiday, well, the twenty-first century is more than a decade old. You’re not a girl of sixteen to be chaperoned and kept out of temptation’s evil ways, unless you choose to be.” His hands rested on her shoulders, one eyebrow lifted in silent query as her glance met his. “What’s it to be, my American Beauty, home to a hot bath and bed at the hotel, or would you favor me with a dance or two at a little place I know?”
“Dance?” Gill took a step back. “I can’t do any of the strange dances I see people doing now.” She cringed at the memory of the gyrations her nieces insisted were dancing. “Mother sent me to proper dancing classes when I was a girl, but all I learned was old-fashioned things like the waltz and the foxtrot and the rumba. The most exciting thing we did was something called ‘West Coast Swing.’ No, I guess it’s the hotel and chaperones for me.”
He shook his head. “I know a place where a foxtrot can be heard.” Simon paused. “If a girl remembered how such an old-fashioned thing was done—and was of a mind to go.”
Dancing? It had been so long since she’d even thought of it. So long she wondered if she could still recall a step or two. Temptation called like a whistle in the breeze.
“The old gossips can think what they like. I’ll tell the board it’s none of their business if one of them tattles. I’d love to go dancing, Simon. Show me your little place.”
“Good girl!” And his lips brushed hers with the lightest possible kiss. Before she could gather her wits, he’d turned and flagged a passing taxi.
Simon did know his way around a dance floor, Gill decided, and though the club he took her to was small, it boasted a five-piece combo that played for dancers. A bit self-conscious at first, Gill found she could follow his easy lead, and steps came back to her more quickly than she expected.
“And you were going back to the hotel to make peace with the grannies.” Simon held her chair and waited till she was seated again at their small back table. “Isn’t this better than watching the telly with them?”
“I just wish I’d bought that frilly skirt.” She fingered the seam in her practical jeans. “I think I’d feel more appropriate to the place. Almost every woman here is wearing a vintage gown or cocktail dress.”
Simon glanced around. “Not a woman in the place as pretty as you. No need to outshine them more by gilding the lily. And you hold your own on the floor.” He listened as the music changed tempo. “That sounds like a rumba with your name on it. Shall we have a try?”
The enticing lure of “Amapola” filled the softly lit room. “It’s been a while. I’m not sure…”
“We’ll not find out what you remember sitting at the table. Let’s give it a go.” Simon took her hand and led her back to the floor. Once she’d slipped into his arms and the music caught her, she couldn’t have put a foot wrong if she’d tried. Rumba had always been her favorite dance, and the sensual rhythm moved within her.
Throughout the day she’d become increasingly aware of Simon and the potent charm surrounding him. Though she’d dismissed it, Gill admitted to herself she felt something stirring between them. It was more than the intimacy in his smile and the wicked twinkle in his eyes. It was something about the slight curl where his hair—hair any woman would envy—brushed his forehead. It was also the sheer love of living that seemed to flow around him. Something in the way he said her name, the warmth of his hand on hers, even the simple act of holding her chair as she sat, all those things and a dozen more spoke to her in a language she’d almost forgotten. Or had she known only one dialect of a tongue more ancient than time could measure? In the sultry moves of the rumba, a sweet heat filled her. Her heart seemed to catch in her breast.
As the music faded, Simon cuddled her to him, holding her close enough for her to feel both their hearts beating. “You know when something suddenly comes right. It did, for us, right there between one turn and the next. You had to feel it, Gill, as much as I did. I think every person in the room just felt the aftershock of our earthquake.”
Gill looked into his eyes, those eyes as blue as a summer morning. She couldn’t think when he brushed aside a curl to touch her cheek. Words were extraneous when she could almost hear his thoughts in her heart. “It was…the music, the place…maybe it’s magic.”
“Magic, is it?” Simon cocked that irresistible eyebrow at her. “Magic is about as close as I can come to putting a name to it.”
The band began a flowing waltz behind them, but Gill never noticed. She and Simon moved in a misty haze to the table in the corner, unaware of anything but each other. His arms circled her for a moment; his lips brushed the top of her head.
“I barely know you, Simon. I mean, we met, sort of met, a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t suppose we’ve said two dozen words to each other before today.” She put two cautious fingers against his face. “You’re a stranger, and still I feel as if there has always been a connection. What is this?”
Across the table Simon leaned forward to take her hands in his. “You said it, Gill. It’s magic, maybe a sudden spell that vanishes at midnight, or maybe one that can’t be broken. I don’t know. But I do know I looked at you two weeks ago, when you came on the coach, and
I saw sunlight break through the clouds.” He only stroked a line down the palm of her hand, but the gesture was almost scorching in its intimacy.
In a softer voice he confessed, “I told myself that somehow, before this tour ended, I’d have at least one good conversation with you. I’d find out what made the gold lights in your eyes shine and how you look when you laugh. I’d almost given up hope, and then I saw you in the cafe, unhappy as a wet kitten. When I said your name and you smiled, I saw that sunlight part the clouds again.” Reaching across the table, he cupped her cheek. “I grabbed the chance because I wasn’t about to let you slip away before I found out who Gill Banks is.”
Lost in the sheer delight of his admission, Gill couldn’t answer for a moment. Then she managed to draw away. “You know who I am, but who are you, Simon? I don’t even know your last name or anything about you. You may have a wife and children, a girl friend, a felonious past, anything, but somehow, at this moment, I don’t even care.” Caution had abandoned her, though she tried to retain her common sense. “My head says I should care, but when I try to listen, all I can hear is a rumba beating inside and shutting everything else out.”
“Maybe we need to get somewhere so we can talk.” He stood and drew her up beside him. “You do need to know more about the man than his name is Simon and he drives a coach, don’t you?” His mouth narrowed, and the merry twinkle in his eyes dimmed. “And if I don’t make myself plain to you, then once you get on the other side of the world you’ll be letting that head of yours tell you all kinds of rot that sounds likely and not to my credit.”
He took her to a coffeehouse across the street from the dance club. “We’ll have the place to ourselves for a bit, till the late crowd comes along. That will give us some time. We’ve a lot of ground to cover.”
The two chairs Simon drew together made a cozy niche. For a moment he looked at her, as if weighing his words or wondering how to start.