by Rosie Blake
This added piece of normality made Clara feel reassured. She gripped the phone even tighter, knuckles strained white.
Gavin’s voice came back on the line. ‘You get yourself somewhere safe. I’m going to hang up now, OK, but I’m coming straight to you. Got that, Clara? It’s OK, just get somewhere safe.’
‘Thank you,’ Clara whispered, feeling her throat thicken with emotion.
She hung up and stood straining her ears for noise. Aside from her own breathing and the clashing chords of ominous imaginary music pounding in her head, she couldn’t hear anything else. It had gone quiet downstairs and she inched her way over to the door and glanced out.
She sagged in relief. He was still tied up, still where she’d left him, though he was bucking back and forth, trying to free himself from the wire. She had a momentary flicker of pride in her tying-up-burglar skills. Maybe she should barricade herself into the bathroom? Gavin wouldn’t be long; he had sounded really worried. He’d be here soon. She should definitely hide.
The man stopped bucking, perhaps seeing her silhouetted in the doorway. ‘I’m her son,’ he shouted from the foetal position. ‘I’m Louisa’s son,’ he repeated.
Clara froze. How did he know Louisa’s name? A lucky guess? Had he seen post in the corridor?
‘That’s what a burglar would say,’ she called out uncertainly, taking a step back towards the flat door.
Lady CaCa suddenly woke up, shaking out her wings, craning her neck. ‘JOE JOE MASTER JOE, LOVE ISLAND JOE.’ Her squawking drowned out the start of what the burglar was now yelling at Clara.
‘… the son of the woman who has let you house-sit, who has allowed you to reopen the toyshop she was planning to close, who has left you to care for a fucking nightmare of a parrot and the world’s most laid-back cat? A burglar would know all that, would they?’ he panted.
Clara had started to feel dread build during his speech, and by the end she had rushed out of the flat, clattered down the stairs and was bent over him. ‘You’re Louisa’s son. You’re Joe.’
He looked up at her through a faceful of wire, one eyelid clamped shut by a fairy-light bulb. ‘I am. And you must be our house-sitter.’
Clara swallowed. ‘Clara,’ she said in a small voice. Tentatively she started to attempt to unravel him. ‘So sorry… here, let me… sorry, there’s a bulb under your… in your, um, thigh bit.’
He was muttering, sweat along his hairline, red-cheeked, hair askew.
Clara felt the heat flood her own face as she tried to detangle the bulbs, pulling her hand away as she accidentally brushed the crotch of his suit. ‘Sorry, there was… there’s a couple of tricky wires,’ she said, watching him slowly shake them off him.
When he stood up he seemed to fill the entire corridor, blocking out the bare bulb above him, smoothing his hair as he looked down his nose at her.
‘STAY RIGHT THERE. GET AWAY, CLARA!’ came a shout from the doorway, and Gavin barrelled into the corridor, flicking the switch so that they were flooded with light. Clara blinked at the sudden change.
Gavin marched down the corridor in wellington boots, a tea towel still slung over one shoulder. The burglar – Louisa’s son Joe – was standing in a pool of plastic wire, a red mark on the side of his face where she’d hit him with the pole, the hobby horse lying ominously on the floor. His brown hair was sticking up and his grey eyes were glaring at her. She thought back to the photo she’d seen in the flat. Aside from the fact that the man in that had been smiling, it was definitely the same person. He was thinner in the face than she had imagined, paler. And a lot better dressed; that woollen overcoat looked designer, as did the suit underneath.
‘Get away from her,’ Gavin called, stepping forward before Clara could warn him and twisting Joe’s arm behind his back.
‘Agh.’ Joe doubled over. ‘Fuck.’
‘I’ve got him, Clara, don’t panic.’ Gavin twisted Joe’s arm harder.
‘Gah.’
‘Don’t squirm,’ Gavin shouted. ‘It’s all right, Clara, you’re safe n —’
Clara was holding both hands up, waving them, cutting him off. ‘Gavin, it’s OK, it’s Joe. I was wrong, it’s OK.’ She watched Gavin’s face register the words.
‘Joe?’ he repeated, letting go of his arm and spinning him around to look him in the face. ‘Joe as in… Louisa’s Joe?’ Gavin seemed flustered, leaping away from him. ‘What the hell are you doing creeping in here at two in the morning?’
‘I drove up from London. I was handling a deal in New York,’ Joe was saying, his mouth turned down. He bent to pull the wire from his feet. ‘God forbid I get attacked entering my own home,’ he growled, looking at Clara with such disgust she couldn’t help flinching.
‘Thought he was a burglar,’ she mumbled, almost to convince herself she had done the right thing. The horse on the floor stared back at her with its glass eye.
‘Well, why don’t we get upstairs and warm up, eh?’ Gavin said, sensing that the atmosphere was about to turn even frostier.
‘Good idea.’ Clara felt a rush of gratitude. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. The English like tea, yes, tea fixes everything.’
She padded back up the stairs in her slipper socks, aware of Louisa’s lurid dressing gown, her pyjamas underneath. She moved to the counter, smoothing her hair. She never felt in control when not wearing a bra. She hadn’t failed to notice that Joe, even puce with anger, was a bit gorgeous.
Clicking on the kettle, she held her breath as Gavin and Joe moved into the flat. Joe was removing his overcoat, a smart navy suit and crisp white tie below. He looked absurdly overdressed in the eclectic space.
Lady CaCa seemed the only one delighted to see him, marching up and down her pole, head flung back, repeating, ‘NICE TO SEE YOU, TO SEE YOU NICE, JOE,’ and not calling him a shithead once. Roddy merely opened one eye, noted that there were more people in the flat than normal and rolled over again, his paws up around his face as if telling them all to shut the hell up and let him sleep.
‘You’ve really done wonders,’ Gavin said, moving into the room, taking in the wiped-down surfaces, the clothes tidied away, the touches she’d added.
Clara nodded, grateful that he’d noticed the difference. The aching arms and red-raw hands were a fine pay-off if she had improved the place.
‘You can see the floor for a start,’ Gavin laughed. ‘I never knew it was this big. Louisa just always seemed to have so much… stuff. It looks so… so different.’ He moved through the room taking in the changes. Clara had discovered a stack of boxes and had put away a hundred and one things, draping throws and blankets over sofas and chairs and adding lamps to every nook and cranny.
Joe looked up from his iPhone, eyes scanning the room before dropping back down to the message he was tapping out. Clara felt her shoulders droop as the kettle clicked off, steam rising in a cloud.
‘Tea?’ she asked.
‘I’m not staying,’ Joe said, not looking up.
‘Oh.’ Clara found herself shifting from one foot to the other. Something about Joe made her nervous. She was trying really hard not to keep apologising. The livid red mark on his face didn’t help relax her.
‘You’ve got so many candles,’ Gavin said, bending down to look at a cluster on either side of the woodburner. There were more all along the mantelpiece, on the nest of tables, lined up on the windowsills, all different heights and sizes. ‘Bet they look brilliant when they’re all lit.’
‘Probably burn the place down,’ muttered Joe, just loud enough for Clara to hear. She felt herself stiffen.
‘This rug might be the softest thing I’ve ever felt,’ Gavin said, moving across to reach a hand out, stroking the blanket that was folded up on the back of the rocking chair. ‘It’s so cosy in here,’ he added.
‘I have some more things planned.’ Clara smiled over at him, glad of the distraction.
‘Going to get an architect in and bash down some walls, are you?’ Joe snapped, slipping his mobile into his i
nside pocket.
‘I…’ Clara’s mouth hung open. She was too surprised to think of anything to say. She folded her arms in front of her defensively.
Joe was rubbing at the red mark on his face.
‘Would you like some ice for that?’ she asked, turning to the freezer.
‘What, for the massive bump you made?’ he said, eyes narrowed.
She bit her lip. ‘I really am sorry.’ She paused. ‘At least I was protecting your property,’ she added, giving him a small smile, an attempt to charm.
He looked back at her in stony silence. Too soon.
‘Maybe I should get you to come into the pub, take a look around, give me some ideas,’ Gavin mused. He was in his own world now, oblivious to the frosty exchange in front of him.
‘I’d love that, Gavin,’ Clara said, desperately rootling in the freezer for the ice cube tray. Locating it, she stood up, pressing some pieces out onto a tea towel and offering it to Joe. He shook his head. ‘So where will you go?’ she blurted, watching him move around the flat, his lip curling as he took in the unmade bed, an abandoned bra on the floor. She felt heat creep into her face as he turned back to her.
‘I’ll stay at the pub. You got a room, Gavin?’
‘I’ve got a room, no need to pay,’ Gavin said, waving a hand in the air dismissively.
‘I’ll pay,’ Joe growled.
‘But really, that’s silly, you can’t stay there. Please stay here, it’s your home, your mum’s.’
‘I’d rather not,’ he said, pulling out the phone from his pocket for what seemed like the seven billionth time.
Clara felt as if he had dropped the bag of ice on her. ‘No need to be a svin.’
‘A what?’
‘Nothing,’ she mumbled, trying to remember that she had smashed this guy in the face and was sleeping in his home; she shouldn’t be rude. But he was making her angrier and angrier with his narrowed eyes and his slick suits and his stupid tappity-tapping on the phone that never seemed to stop vibrating. She felt cold water drip onto her leg and quickly deposited the ice in the sink behind her.
Joe had moved across to get his coat. Lady CaCa, clearly sensing that he might be leaving again, started squawking as he shrugged it on. ‘I AM YOUR FATHER!’
Gavin frowned. ‘Well, as fun as it is standing around here, I think I’d better get back. Long day tomorrow and all that.’ He turned to Clara. ‘You’ve got the new unveiling, haven’t you?’
‘Unveiling?’ Joe lifted an eyebrow in question.
‘Whole village is talking about it, Joe. She’s had a countdown going in the window,’ he explained.
Clara smiled weakly. The shop plans seemed a million years ago.
‘Something exciting?’ Gavin asked with a broad smile. Clara went to answer but he held up a hand. ‘Don’t ruin it for me. I’m curious too, you know. Right, Joe, shall we get off, leave Clara to get some sleep?’
‘I can stay at the pub instead, let Joe…’ Clara began, guilt making her trip over her words.
Joe had already walked across to the door. ‘No, please, I insist.’ He voice dripped with sarcasm.
‘But…’ Clara bit her lip as Gavin walked past, resting a hand on her arm. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said under his breath.
She swallowed her feelings, nodding at him as he turned away. Joe had already left the flat, his footsteps loud on the stairs below.
Chapter 13
Joe trudged along in silence next to Gavin, who, he noticed, had a tea towel slung over one shoulder. He drew up the collar of his winter overcoat, his temple still smarting from the blow from the pole. What had the bloody woman been thinking? Any harder and she might have killed him. He felt his head throb, the mild headache he always seemed to have now overwhelming him, so he barely paid attention to what Gavin was saying.
‘All changed a bit since you were last here, I imagine?’ Gavin indicated the shops opposite. Joe hadn’t been looking, only now seeing the empty glass fronts, the FINAL CLEARANCE signs in a couple of the windows.
He grunted, not trusting himself to speak through the headache.
‘Louisa packing up seems to have made it all real,’ Gavin went on. ‘I always thought we were just going through a bit of a bad patch. Like Gigglesworth, a few miles away, when the old pub on the corner closed and all the business went elsewhere. I thought we’d get through it, sit out the winter and start up again. Yulethorpe was voted Best-Kept Village only four years ago. It’s a great place…’ He tailed off, his head bowed.
‘Bit of a backwater,’ Joe said.
‘Not to those of us who live here.’ Gavin’s voice sounded gruff.
Joe shrugged. ‘No need for a raft of shops when people can get everything online. Seventy-eight per cent of the population buy things that way. The supermarkets deliver to the back of beyond.’
‘How depressing,’ Gavin said.
Joe paused. He’d never thought of it like that; he liked the convenience. He bristled at the implicit suggestion that he was doing things wrong.
‘I’m not too depressed when I’m eating wasabi prawn rolls delivered within the hour from the finest restaurant in London, and the internet means you can get things cheaper – not that that’s my concern,’ he couldn’t help adding.
Did he imagine it, or did Gavin roll his eyes?
‘I suppose you like interacting every time you buy a sandwich,’ Joe said, a defensive edge to his voice. He could hardly think through the throbbing in his head.
Gavin shrugged. ‘I’m old-fashioned, I guess.’
They’d reached the pub. Gavin led him in through the glass-panelled door, the room flooded with light that made them both blink. There was a bald man behind the bar stacking glasses on the edge of the counter. ‘All OK, Gavin. Everyone left. The tip jar hasn’t been touched.’
Gavin was thanking him as Joe looked around. It really did look bleak. Joe had never been inside the place before, though he’d heard all about it from his mother – the steak night, the Monday pub quiz, her games of darts with this Gavin character. Joe looked at him. He was enormous, round, meaty head resting on massive shoulders, a tattoo mostly hidden by his sleeve; Joe imagined a mermaid or a heart with an arrow. He knew he was being an arsehole but he couldn’t seem to snap out of it. He just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. He pressed lightly at the throbbing mark on his cheek.
‘I’ll show you the room.’ Gavin indicated a door to the left of the bar.
‘So what’s she like?’ Joe blurted out.
Gavin gave him a blank stare; the clock on the wall reminded them both that it was now nearly 3 a.m. ‘Clara?’
Joe nodded, resisting the urge to add, ‘Of course Clara, who do you think I meant, Mother Teresa?’ His head was pounding now; it had been a long night, after a long day.
Gavin had a think. ‘She’s one of those people who gets pleasure from the simpler things, you know.’
‘Simpler things?’ repeated Joe.
‘You know, she stops to really drink things in, live in the moment. She’s just… well, she’s peaceful.’
Joe looked up at him in amazement, wanting to point at the livid bruise on his face. Peaceful she was not.