by Isabella May
“Oh, looky-looky, what have we here?” Sheba couldn’t contain her excitement. “It’s only The Angel of Push and Pull.”
“I had no idea there were so many different types of angels.”
“Oh there are, you’d be surprised. Many are the commercial angel card packs who keep it all nice and romantic and spiritual with their phrasing, but a lot of the more practical angels that surround you are forgotten about. Take the Parking Angel for example. How many times have you called on him to help you find a car parking space? Exactly.”
Words escaped Alice and so she sat there, mute, wondering what the Angel of Push and Pull could possibly have to reveal to her.
“Any idea as to how you’d interpret this one in your current situation, Alice?”
It was all Alice could do in response to bite her lip and shake her head sideways.
“My instinct tells me this angel speaks of the drama centred round a man… I see him being pushed and pulled in two different directions… by two different females, as it happens, a bit like a tug of war. Except she who wins his heart will give up the resistance, let it be.”
Sheba pushed her half-moon glasses closer to her eyes and directed them at Alice, waiting for a response.
“Oh, okay,” Alice mumbled. Still, this could all be coincidental, she tried to convince herself. “Let’s just get on with this now, shall we? It’s late after all. I should be letting you get to sleep. I should be getting my own beauty sleep.”
“My darling, you could go a hundred years without needing that. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a celestial being stay in one of my caravans,” she laughed, and then got serious again. “Now then: focus, breathe in and out. That was your present; we’re on to your all-important future next.”
“No pressure then.”
Alice made it snappier this time, almost tugging a whole cluster of cards in the process.
“Steady on, you are one eager beaver, aren’t you? If I have to take the whole of that heap into consideration, we’ll be here all night.”
She pushed the cards that ‘didn’t speak’ to her back into the pack, laid the final card upright once again and breathed deeply, her heart almost in her mouth as to the news she was about to witness.
“Will you just look at that, now isn’t this all quite something?” Sheba was a mathematician who’d finally sussed out the Riemann Hypothesis. “And here it ends… or shall we say begins… with the Angel of Twin Hearts.”
“Meaning?” Alice had taken to biting her nails.
“Meaning, my dear, the one who takes up space in yours is your true twin, your soul mate. Though another may attempt to come between you, love conquers evil, always. Maybe it won’t happen today, and maybe not tomorrow either, but from the one you are supposed to be with, you can never stay long apart.”
How uncanny was that? Sheba knew nothing of Georgina, well, at least Alice presumed not.
All of which pointed to that wonderful, wonderful mixology course. London couldn’t call for Georgina quickly enough.
Chapter Twenty-Two
GEORGINA
He sat there like a flump before Hyde Park’s bandstand, head down, cigarette balancing between his crinkled, unappealing lips, feeling about his leather jacket for a lighter – she guessed that’s what he was looking for, anyway. As she walked closer to him, and the amateur trombonists began to practice their tooting, while a bigger throng of Sunday afternoon strollers deposited themselves on stripy Victorian repro deckchairs, Lennie located a shiny silver rectangle, unclipped it, lit his fuse and drew in a large puff.
She’d suggested they meet here for purely selfish reasons – collaboration aside; it was a shorter distance from The Esmeralda and its world of pomposity, saving another taxi fare and Georgina’s legs. Yes, she should have returned immediately after her lunch break to complete the final quarter of the poncy weekend ‘Brunswick Mixology Course’, but the opportunity to meet with Lennie was now or never. The Hooray Henry running the show was sure to understand when she explained she’d “been mugged, had had to call in to the local police station…” and then of course he’d probably feel sorry for her, lend her a few notes which she’d ‘forget’ to reimburse… or River could just put it down on expenses.
The thing was, in a couple of days Lennie would be back in Los Angeles, his touting for new band members in London had been a full-blown disaster, he’d admitted via his text message, with Bear and Alex loafing about in Camden’s bars and pubs as opposed to putting any feelers out. All of which had only bolstered Georgina’s confidence, further loading a weapon whose trigger Lennie would surely be only too obliging to pull.
Plus the fact, there was only so much exhibitionism anyone could take from that pair of Manchester-band-hair-cut plonkers from Up North, who thought they were God’s Gift at everything and, seemingly delighted in showing her up at any and every opportunity at the training bar. It had hit her for six, this shocking revelation that she wasn’t quite hip enough for this city and the idiots it attracted when they’d pulled out the ultimate trump card: sniggering at her attempt to serve them Cosmopolitans during the role play exercise, causing her to spill the contents of the tray all over the hotel’s pristinely cream carpeted floor, regardless of the fact she could normally handle such a trivial part of her job day in and day out with ease in Glastonbury. Here she was a small fish in a very large pond, and the moment when she could hop aboard that coach headed for Somerset at six-thirty pm could not come quickly enough.
“Georgina, sweetheart, you’re looking ravishing… if I may say so, my dear, how lovely to see you again.”
Lennie dive-bombed in for a highly unsophisticated kiss – thankfully on just the one cheek – as the French horn hit a bottom F, and the stench of stale tobacco, fresh smoke and last night’s booze joined in. Any brownie points for using her full name went straight out the window and into the Thames.
“Hello again, Lennie.” She accepted his offer to occupy the deckchair next to him, grateful for the breathing space and narrow passage of air. They were right at the front of the semicircle, hence him standing out like the Great Wall of China. A traditional ice cream cart trundled past them, peddling its wares, flattening Georgina’s carefully pre-planned choice of words with its squeaky wheels, igniting a momentary panic.
“Got rum n raisin?” Lennie shouted as the vendor whizzed past.
Surely he couldn’t be serious, food and a fag in the same mouthful? His vulgarity strangely soothed her immediately; she could more than handle a man like this.
“And for you, princess?” He turned to look at her with tender eyes, whose fake intensity made her snatched Subway baguette of half an hour ago do a loop the loop in her stomach.
“No… thank you, not for me.” She hoped, in both senses of her reply, that he’d read between the confectionery lines there.
“So then, what can I do for you?” he asked as he dropped his coins in the vendor’s open hand.
“Two things,” she said, determined to keep this business-like. “Just two things: your time and your money.”
Lennie took a lengthy drag on his Malboro, exhaled at a leisurely pace, and then switched to the ice, his mouth sucking the top off as would an over-eager child, making for quite a revolting sight. Any minute now she was sure he’d go in for the kill; chomp the end off of the cornet, tilt his head back and let the juices dribble.
“My time and my money, she says, hmm…” He returned to his glow stick, as if that might help him decide if he was in for the ride. “Yeah, all right, I’m listening, doll. Talk to Uncle Len.”
***
Hours later, as the coach was finally able to put the miles between the fume-filled capital and Georgina, Windsor Castle popping up and back down again in the distance like a Jack in a box tormenting the working classes, she ran over the outlines of the plan in her head.
October.
Although any day but the thirty-first. Even she wasn’t cruel enough to take things that far. Lennie
would need picking up from Castle Cary train station. Well, that was easily sorted; Blake could do the honours courtesy of Dad’s car. The Guinevere would make the perfect ‘HQ’ for the before and after party, River and Airhead Alice (her new nickname, well, she was a blonde, she’d asked for it) never likely to set foot inside again. Zara had also confirmed that October was perfect for her, just before the Christmas cake orders and mince pies piled up. As for the skills and the resources, the cover up; those things could be organised nearer the time.
And then the coach driver made a surprise announcement over the tannoy system.
“Right… um ladies and gentleman: can I just have your attention please? A bit of an urgent situation has come up and we’ll be making a very brief detour to the next service station…” He broke up for several seconds as the passengers exchanged puzzled glances with one another, and a murmur which threatened to become a ruckus briefly took over the slow lane of the M4.
The coach driver let out a hearty cough and then resumed his patter.
“Nothing to be concerned about, folks, the coach isn’t about to break down or anything… I promise.” And now he substituted words for a string of unconvincing chuckles, “just an unscheduled mini-break to pass on a message to my… err… to my colleague.”
The murmur and confusion reduced to a simmer and soon the driver pulled over to the coach bays of Reading services, where a racing green Bentley was somewhat cheekily hogging two entire parking spaces. Georgina watched, amused, as its driver with her concave Miss Piggy-style snout, and her lengthy frame, emerged from behind the wheel. She slammed the door shut, designer looking clutch bag in her posh piano-fingered hands, and then appeared to climb up the steps to talk to him. But this was no cardboard cut-out of your bog standard coach driving colleague. Maybe she ran the entire fleet?
“Thank you, thank you so very much,” her Queen’s speech filtered down the aisle to where Georgina and her bags occupied the left hand side of row fourteen. The woman then turned to stride brusquely, proprietorially, eyes locking with Georgina, who began to shift uncomfortably in her seat, no idea what was going on.
“This is for you, darling.” She produced an envelope which blatantly looked like it carried a wodge of bank notes inside it, pressed it into Georgina’s palms and whispered, “from Lennie, via moi, for the uh… well, let’s just call it Operation Payback, shall we?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
RIVER
When you are raised in a town like Glastonbury you are different, marked with an indelible ink, somehow more spiritually tuned in and turned on. Well, unless you are Blake – or Georgina, as River was realising more and more with the passing days. And that’s why the news of Lennie’s potential promotion to father hardly surprised him.
River was waiting in the living-room for Heather, perching like a canary on the window sill, feet resting on the coffee table trunk when she walked back through the door after her convention.
“Bit late, aren’t you?” he remarked.
“Hi Riv, how’s the bar?” She barely looked at him, wrapped up in raincoat and bags as she was. “And what are you doing here anyway? Oh, do watch you don’t infringe on the spacing of my set of Buddhas on the ledge there, won’t you? I thought you and Alice were still staying at The Guinevere? Ooh, have you found a house? How exciting… sorry, yes, I got side-tracked with Terry. He’s going to be staying tonight, you know, as in… in my room… in my bed… under my duv—”
“I’m pleased for you, Mum, really, that’s great. But I think it’s about time you filled me in on the past before you get carried away with the future.”
“What do you mean?” Heather stopped for the first time to study her son properly, she appeared genuinely confused.
“What I mean is this: is there a distinct possibility that my former band manager could be my father, in your esteemed opinion?” He lifted the smallest of the Buddhas and cradled it in his palm, transferring it from hand to hand as if weighing up Heather’s possible responses.
“So you know.”
The colour drained from her face then and she crumpled onto the futon, dropping her Tibetan and hemp holdalls at her feet. How she’d hemmed everything into them as opposed to a suitcase for her gargantuan excursion, River had no idea.
“It wasn’t exactly hard to put two and two together,” he chirped, setting the figure back down again with its spiritual friends.
“Look,” she sighed, her initial breeziness long since gone, “I never said anything that night when he paid you a visit, because although he’s undoubtedly the guy I had a one night stand with at the festival thirty-five summers ago—”
“He’s wh… hang on… are you saying you slept with him… at… at Glastonbury?”
What was it with the freakin’ festival’s ability to make everyone forget themselves? But then River realised this was the most ridiculous of questions.
“I’m afraid I was a complete mess at that time,” her head wobbled at the recollection, “searching for myself… all too often in the arms of a stranger. The thing is: your real father could be any one of three men as it… as it turns out.” She tempted a peek at her son, her face a picture of regret.
River felt like one of those ten pound diving bricks the swimming instructor used to lob in the pool, sinking slowly in a giant chlorine vat devoid of air; that and the girl from the Mamma Mia film. Although unfortunately for him, there was no wedding to Alice reeling in the other two male contenders for father, for a knees-up the evening before a ceremony atop a pretty Greek island hill.
Actually, make that fortunately. If ever anything permanently romantic happened between them, after the rigidity of their ‘contractual’ obligations with the band, he was sure they’d both had their fill of rules and regulations. Partners-for-however-long-they-stayed-happy-together would be marital status enough. But it was as good as wishful thinking anyway. He couldn’t even begin to compete with the type of men from her past, and as for that kiss which had sprung forth from nowhere on the very futon he was also now parking his backside on, well, as meaningful as he’d wanted it to be on Alice’s part, he gaged it came only from her pity; which was a fact that had him don an immediate iron veneer, impenetrable to feelings, for however long he could keep up the act.
“I’m as sure now as sure can be,” Heather reminded him his thoughts were leading him astray yet again, “I always knew the guy’s name began with ‘L’. It’s hard to forget a face when you’ve been—”
“La-la-la-la-la, all right, Mum, I get the picture, no need to go into the finer points.” River childishly stuck his fingers in his ears.
“Much as you despise him,” Heather shouted to make herself heard, “the music in his blood has clearly been passed down to you. And you’re each as stubborn as the other.”
“That’s as may be,” he said, elbows on thighs, hands now curled up into tight balls and resting on his chin, “but fortunately I didn’t inherit his sleaziness… if indeed he is my pops after all. And what about the other two, any clue of their whereabouts, any photos of your time together so I can hunt for traces of myself in their long lost faces?”
“I’m sorry, River.” Heather began to shake and then tears streamed quickly down her cheeks. “You had a right to know and I should have told you a very long time ago. I always said I would when you turned thirteen. But the truth is I was a right harlot back then, a lost soul, constantly looking for reassurance from a male, I was embarrassed to let you in on that. What kind of a role model would you have thought me?”
“It’s okay, Mum. Come here.” He hugged her close to him, astounded at his ability to accept such a major fuck up. “Maybe I’m a freak of nature… and that would be a very literal description if he is my dad, but family are the ones you choose to spend your time with. You have been Mum and Dad to me. And that’s always been enough. It’s been more than enough, because you’ve always been there, always supported me, no matter what I’ve done. It’s like when I look at you and comp
are you to Alice’s parents… and I know, I know, ‘we don’t do judgmental in this household’,” he did his habitual fingers around his head thing, to highlight the importance of Heather’s wisdom, “but just for today, let’s… for sixty seconds anyway. What I’m trying to say is: you’re poles apart. Alice may have had both of them around as she grew up, and bags of money to boot. But all of that is worthless when it isn’t coming from here.”
He put his hand over the left side of his chest and wondered if in another life he ought perhaps to have been a vicar.
Heather sniffed and then smiled. “You know my theory on these things from the stories I’ve told you about my own upbringing.”
He knew what was coming next and bit his tongue.
“We choose our parents, River. We don’t always take the easiest path because where’s the spiritual lesson in that, how would our souls grow otherwise? But we do choose them.”
“Yeah, I know.” He felt a smattering of guilt then at the tales Heather had passed on to him about the way her father – his grandfather, who he’d fortunately never met – had beaten her as a child, his grandmother besides. When he looked at it like that, he supposed he could have chosen more extreme parents. Although, try as he might, the idea of him floating about on a cloud looking at a giant TV screen with potential mums and dads lined up on it – as Heather had so often tried to put the idea into context when he was a young child and he’d frequently questioned her as to the whereabouts of his daddy – seemed ludicrous. Surely, if he had spotted Lennie – a younger, trimmer version, or not, he’d still have wanted to avoid the creep at all costs.
“I think we could both do with a nice pot of catnip. What do you say?”
“Just this once then, I’ll put it on and you put your feet up.” He took that as her hint that he should move now to the kitchen, and he reluctantly left the traces of Alice’s touch behind him. “But I didn’t just come here to confront you, Mum. There’s something else you should know.”