Hush Hush

by Mullarkey, Gabrielle

  Using some internal re-set button, Conor’s face reverted to pre-growl mode. As he drove away, he balled the ticket and shoved it in the ashtray.

  ‘Where are we going?’ ventured Angela. ‘I’ve only got an hour for lunch.’

  ‘I’m in a rush, too. Thought we’d picnic al fresco in a little park I know not far from Oxford Street. An oasis of calm amid the madding crowds.’

  ‘Won’t traffic be a killer?’

  ‘Not with a madman at the wheel.’ He grinned sardonically, crumpling his brown face into all sorts of interesting planes. ‘Not to worry. I intend to show that I’m a perfectly safe driver. The sort who escorts hedgehogs across the road.’

  He reached his destination quickly, and without incident. He even managed to park legally.

  ‘Told you there’d be no problem,’ he smiled triumphantly. It was yet another smile from his wide repertoire. ‘I’ve got some sarnies and a rug to spread on a bench. I made cheese and ham separately, in case you’re a veggie.’

  ‘You’ve gone to a lot of trouble,’ said Angela, surprised and touched.

  But then she realised that was the wrong thing to say. The back of his neck flared red as he stomped away towards a pair of wrought-iron gates, swinging a carrier bag, the car rug slung over one shoulder like a clan tartan.

  ‘Sorry!’ she panted, scampering after him. ‘I wasn’t accusing you of ‒ going to a lot of trouble. I mean, not in a chasing me up sort of way. You know what I mean?’

  She looked around, stopped in her tracks by the miniature prettiness of the park. On all four sides, ugly buildings glowered over plane trees shrivelled by noxious fumes. But within the magic circle of drooping branches lay springy grass and tangle-free bushes, stacked and polished like museum-piece tumbleweeds.

  Conor spread the rug on a bench between two etiolated silver birches, delved into the carrier and thrust two packets at her, wrapped in greaseproof paper. ‘Ham’s the one on the right. Eat.’

  While she nibbled a cheese sandwich, he unscrewed the top of a flask and poured her a cup of hot, black coffee.

  ‘Forgot milk,’ he grunted. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘I prefer it black,’ she lied, taking the cup. No one had ever taken her on a picnic in the heart of London before, and she wasn’t going to split hairs.

  The drone of inner-city traffic barely penetrated the greenery, heavy with dewy dampness. Sparrows hopped hopefully out of the underbrush, and she began throwing crumbs. ‘I’m enjoying this!’ she enthused, turning to him with a smile. ‘It was a lovely idea. Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ For once, he too looked almost relaxed, his legs stretched in front of him. He tackled a ham sandwich with wolfish delicacy, then thought better of it and laid it carefully back in the greaseproof paper. ‘I come here to think,’ he revealed. ‘Few people bother coming in because they think it’ll be full of druggies and dossers. It’s one of London’s many well-kept secrets.’

  Angela nodded dreamily, nibbling a crust.

  ‘How’s the first week in the new job going?’

  ‘Not too bad,’ she laughed. ‘A few ups and downs along the way, but no one’s given me my marching orders yet.’

  He hadn’t seen her laugh before. It sent an electric spark to those blue eyes, magnified by her glasses.

  Angela looked down at the crumbs round her shoes. ‘I wish I was wearing my lenses,’ she muttered, ‘but they’re not always up to a full day’s work on a Mac screen.’

  ‘I like your glasses. They suit you.’

  ‘Pull the other one!’

  ‘All right, God’s honest truth ‒ I don’t notice them one way or the other. Kate wore reading glasses as thick as Coke bottles.’ He stopped and pounced on the rest of his sandwich.

  ‘Why ‒ you know ‒ did you track me down, Conor?’

  She’d never said his name before. Its aftershock lingered on her tongue.

  He launched into a response with pre-prepared overtones. ‘Because I’d like to get to know you. Meeting you on the plane struck a chord with me. You’re a plain speaker, like myself. If we didn’t get on, neither of us would bother pretending otherwise. Right?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  He coughed into a brown fist. ‘Maybe I’m being previous, though. After all, you’ve just lost your husband.’

  ‘My mum says you can’t expect opportunities in life to crop up at convenient times. Or, in my case, after a decently elapsed time of mourning.’

  ‘Is that what we’ve got ourselves here? An opportunity?’

  Now it was Angela’s turn to blush. It spread like rose wildfire across her alabaster complexion. Again, most attractive, Conor thought.

  ‘I don’t know what we’ve got ourselves. Except ‒ I wouldn’t be much cop as a surrogate mother.’

  His eyebrows shot up into his matching hairline. ‘Oh, I see. You think I’m after a babysitter for when I’m working abroad? Not on my agenda, Mrs Carbery. My son and I have managed perfectly well for two years, without me duping some impressionable woman into glorified housekeeping duties. I can and do employ a functionary in that capacity.’

  ‘All right, keep your hair on! I wasn’t impugning your squeaky-clean character. I was just letting you know that a woman isn’t automatically au fait with the domestic scene because she is a woman.’

  ‘I do know that. I was married to Kate.’

  ‘I mean, Robert thought women were born with an ironing gene.’

  Conor glanced down at his shirt. ‘Ironing’s a doddle for today’s reconstructed man. Another sarnie?’

  Angela was chafing to hear more about Kate. But she’d already strayed into dangerous territory, offering that disloyal titbit about Robert. She wasn’t prepared to get a handle on Kate by trading indiscretions. Anyway, caution ruled with prudence. A man whose wife had seen fit to leave him had to be approached with open-eyed cynicism.

  They sat in thoughtful silence for some time. He poured himself a coffee without wiping the mug first ‒ endearing himself to Angela. She didn’t like fussy germbusters.

  ‘Jesus, is that the time!’ After a couple of sips, he suddenly threw the coffee onto the grass and leapt up. He seemed to twitch in all directions, folding up the rug, stuffing leftovers into the carrier bag. ‘Sorry, but we’ve gotta go like the clappers. I’ve a meeting back at company HQ in five mins, on the other side of London.’ He paused belatedly. ‘Having too stimulating a time to notice it ticking by.’

  Angela said nothing. Compliments made her shy. Especially from someone as scratchy and complicated as Conor McGinlay. Why had he bothered chasing her up? One undiscussed possibility loomed large. Sex. Maybe he wasn’t getting it, and thought a recently widowed woman must be desperate. Well, he’d be right if he assumed that. She did miss sex, like vinegar on chips. But sex with her husband.

  As for Conor McGinlay, she couldn’t imagine him going without by choice.

  If he was on the prowl, it must be down to the fact that he spent long spells trapped in remote locations with other blunt, stocky civil engineers. But there were plenty of female civil engineers these days.

  Her negative thoughts accompanied her back to his car.

  ‘Hop in,’ he said urgently. ‘Now I’m afraid I may drive like a madman.’

  A few minutes later, he screeched to a halt in front of traffic lights. ‘This is where we part company, I’m afraid. Angela?’ He rested a fan of fingers on her skirted knee. ‘Can I ask for your phone number again? Write it down on the back of this.’

  He unballed the parking ticket and scrabbled about for a biro in the glove compartment. His urgency gave her no time for coy reflection. She scribbled down her number.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll ring soon,’ he said, with such fervent humility that, as he sped away and left her on the pavement, it took her a few seconds to register her situation. He’d dropped her off near Regent’s Park Tube station.

  Angela peered into the station’s dark maw, jostled by impatient travellers at the top of the
entrance steps. She gazed wistfully at Conor McGinlay’s receding tail-lights. And she’d left the freesias in the back of the car. ‘Excuse me!’ huffed an angry woman, clattering Angela with shopping bags. ‘Of all the places to stand!’

  Angela shifted guiltily. She’d been blocking the stairs, just like a meandering tourist. She looked around for a taxi. But it would cost a fortune in lunch-hour traffic from here to Victoria. And she only had a tenner.

  The heat of anger penetrated the frozen top layer of terror. It was Conor McGinlay’s fault ‒ dragging her across London and then dumping her, leaving her barely enough time to get back within her lunch-hour, even if she did take the Tube.

  And facts were facts. She’d have to take the Tube.

  She moved, trance-like, down the steps, Persephone descending to the underworld, leaving behind light and air (such as they were in London).

  She wasn’t going near the automated ticket machine, which claimed, in theory, to change twenty-pound notes. Instead, she joined the fractious queue at the window. She bought, without incident, a single to Victoria, and turned to do battle with an automated turnstile.

  She hated these ruddy things. Once, commuting years ago, she’d been almost through the turnstile when a bloke stood on her coat belt and yanked her back, trapping her in no man’s land while a shrill beeping noise made it clear she now had to ‘seek assistance’. Easier said than done, down here in Satan’s grotto.

  She was sweating. This was bigger stuff than dodging the three-headed dog on the shores of the river Styx before you haggled with the ferryman.

  At the foot of the escalator, she scanned a wall-map, working out her route: one stop on the Bakerloo Line to Oxford Circus, then straight down to Victoria on the Victoria line. It couldn’t have been easier, even for a Tube-phobic like her.

  The platform was filling up. The tunnel mouths at either end emitted faint rumbles. Travellers peered expectantly down the platform, as if waiting for something to roar out of a tunnel and claim a virgin sacrifice. Angela concentrated on Conor’s probable reaction to this silly hang-up of hers. He’d be gobsmacked at first ‒ then impatient, and finally, derisive. Wouldn’t he? After all, she hadn’t dared tell her own mother, or Rachel.

  A train roared into the station, nearly tearing off her earlobes. She’d forgotten that visceral roar, loud with the hunger and ruthlessness of life in the urban rat-maze.

  She prayed she’d be standing in front of a door when the train stopped. She was unlucky. The door she’d been banking on slid along the platform and a grim crowd set off in pursuit. Angela followed half-heartedly.

  Then she got a lucky break. A man disembarking tangled with an over-eager punter pushing his way on, and a Tube tantrum broke out. Angela wriggled unnoticed between them and grabbed a pole to cling on to.

  Only one stop till I change, she told herself, as the train slid off. I’ll have to do it all again in a minute.

  After an uneventful minute, the train lurched to a stop in no-man’s land between stations. Time lengthened ominously. People in seats shifted wearily. A man in tight jeans opened his legs out even further and gave his balls a good airing. Angela tutted with silent disapproval, glad that Robert had never been that sort. She couldn’t imagine Conor exhibiting his bits like a hothouse plum either. Though really, she reasoned guiltily, it was a sign of an unhealthy mind to even ponder Conor’s endowments.

  Tight-Jeans caught her eye and winked.

  Angela blushed furiously.

  The Tannoy system crackled. A voice wavered through static like Neil Armstrong faintly asking Houston if they copied. ‘… defective signal … inconvenience, should be moving in … minutes … thank you.’

  Nobody bothered to seek an interpreter.

  Angela’s head buzzed. Stale air gusted through an open window, wafting in a bouquet of diesel and garlic with a topnote of Brylcreem. From nowhere, a sea of whiteness rose up to engulf her.

  ‘Oh my God!’ were the last words she heard before she crumpled to the floor, face down on a pair of laceups. Amazing, really, that there’d been enough room to faint into.

  When she came to, she was on the seat gallantly vacated by the plum exhibitor. She could see his denim legs in front of her, but little else. Her head was wedged firmly between her own legs. She tried to sit up, but a hand shoved her back down. ‘It’s too soon. Wait a bit longer!’

  ‘Poor old gel, she’s still green,’ said plum exhibitor and Angela decided nothing worse could befall her.

  The train was moving and could’ve been for some time. She jerked her head up in panic. Had she missed her stop? ‘Haven’t reached the next station yet,’ said the woman who’d shoved her down. ‘There was no point pulling the emergency cord when you blacked out cos we were stuck anyway. You OK now? Claustrophobia, is it?’

  ‘How wouldn’t it be on these trains?’ snorted a man nearby. ‘Those people who picket veal lorries should take a look at our travelling conditions.’

  ‘And no proper explanations when you’re stuck,’ nodded plum exhibitor. ‘Never mind there could be someone in your carriage having a baby or an epileptic fit.’

  Angela understood from this that she’d constituted an unreasonable burden to her fellow veal calves. She sat up, stricken with embarrassment and irrational rage at Conor McGinlay.

  She staggered off the Tube at Oxford Circus, and clung to the pissy tiles of the platform wall until the surge of humanity had eased off.

  As she found the platform for Victoria, a Tube train was pulling in.

  Angela prepared to hop on, relieved to see that both platform and arriving train were relatively empty. Her lungs swelled briefly with elation, just as giddy as her recent panic. She was going to make it! A whole Tube journey by herself, without hysterics or throwing up!

  Then she glanced down the platform and saw Pauline standing at the far end. Something in Pauline’s stance sent icicles up Angela’s spine.

  Pauline’s toes hugged the edge of the platform. Her arms were rising slowly, her calves bunching purposefully through the clingy cotton of a long ethnic skirt. She was aping the graceful trajectory of a pearl-diver, poised to take flight with an angelic leap of blind faith. And she was waiting ‒ waiting for the onrushing train to come her way.

  ‘Pauline, no!’ Angela had thought her cry would emerge as a bat-squeak. Instead, she heard her desperate roar bounce off the echoing roar of the Tube train.

  Pauline looked up in astonishment. Just for a second, she teetered dangerously, arms flapping. Oh my God, thought Angela. She is going to fall in front of the train. And all because I yelled at her.

  Pauline stepped back from the edge. She waited calmly as the Tube doors slid open, then boarded.

  Further down the platform, Angela boarded, heart hammering. She had made a spur-of-the-moment incursion into Pauline’s life, prompted by instinct. But what of the consequences? Pauline, who’d probably been daydreaming, would think she was mad, hate her, make work a misery.

  At Victoria, Angela hung back in the exodus from the station, keeping Pauline within her sights. Pauline strode ahead, not a chestnut hair out of place beneath her velvet Alice band.

  Angela scampered towards the sanctuary of Marchbank Publishing. Eyes down, she almost tripped over Pauline, who’d stopped to look at a display of pipes and pipe-racks in a shop window.

  ‘H-hello,’ nodded Angela, continuing to walk.

  Pauline left her vantage point and fell into step beside her. Her silence drove Angela to gabble. ‘Sorry about that ‒ shouting at you on the platform.’

  ‘You thought I was going to chuck myself under the train,’ said Pauline as a cool statement of fact.

  ‘Course not!’

  ‘I sometimes think about playing chicken on Tube platforms,’ confessed Pauline dreamily. ‘I enjoy facing my fear and inciting other people’s. I like to stand too close to the edge, and look up to see terror on the Tube driver’s face. Isn’t that wicked?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Angela felt Pauli
ne’s habitual stare and shrank deeper within herself.

  ‘Was that your boyfriend, the bloke who came in with the flowers?’ asked Pauline.

  ‘No. Yes. Sort of. We only met the other day.’

  ‘He’s a looker.’

  Angela said nothing. Agreeing would sound big-headed and demurring like false modesty.

  ‘They’re all shits,’ said Pauline suddenly. ‘I can’t stand women who’d rather tolerate a shit than be on their own.’

  Was that a challenge or an accusation? ‘Yeah, well,’ said Angela nervously. ‘I’m wary myself. There’s a lot in that old saying, never trust a man with testicles.’

  Pauline laughed. A great snorting laugh of vented agitation. Beneath its sharp edge lay the faint belltone of unhappiness. Some man had treated Pauline like a shit. Recently. Angela toyed with the idea of confiding the Tufnell Park incident.

  But then the revolving doors of work loomed before them, and Pauline disappeared inside. She didn’t hold the lift for Angela.

  Back at her desk, Val was waiting. ‘Angela! You kept quiet about him. Red-haired, Irish, bringer of flowers and springer of surprise lunch dates. He’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Is he?’ Angela curdled with embarrassment as Marla looked up as well. ‘I haven’t known him long. You don’t think he’s a bit ‒ rugged?’

  ‘If you can’t see he’s gorgeous, you need bifocals,’ sniffed Val.

  Pauline said nothing. Now and then, throughout the afternoon, Angela felt the heat of Pauline’s stare on the side of her neck. But this time, it had a different intensity, a subtler pitch. It was a thoughtful, not a hostile stare.

  She walked to the station that night with a light tread. She had picnicked with a man who was interesting and interested in her. She had made a Tube journey. And she had forged an unspoken alliance with Pauline; without trying to, and without knowing why. ‘You’re no longer scared of her,’ she could hear Sadie murmuring. ‘You’ve glimpsed her vulnerability. If fear is the beginning of wisdom, understanding is the beginning of friendship.’ As usual, Sadie was getting carried away. She read too many self-help books.