THIRTY-SIX
I headed out into the street past a grinning Francis. It was time to face Marcus. If he’d heard from Basher that I was the mystery man at the party, then it was better to approach it head-on. It might be a shock for him but there wasn’t much I could do about it other than plead innocence of Jane’s identity and a complete loss of control of my unsettled hormones.
First, though, I needed to speak to Hugo. As an updater of all that was going on in my life, he would be able to provide a useful summary. That way, I might at least be prepared if Marcus asked any strange questions.
I rang him on the way, and he surprised me by saying he would meet me at his place.
‘Are you sure?’ I was thinking of Juliette and wondering if she would be spreading salt and garlic across the threshold before I got there and putting poison in anything I might drink.
He meant it and said so with a faint laugh in his voice. Curiouser and curiouser.
He met me at the front door and virtually dragged me into his study, where he thrust a whisky into my hand. ‘Jake,’ he boomed. ‘Glad to see you again. Where have you been, you dog? Juliette will be down in a second.’
I took a hefty snort of the whisky. The last time I’d shown my face there Juliette had made it very clear that I should be tarred and feathered and rolled down a hill in a barrel. As far as I knew nothing had changed. So what the hell was going on?
Juliette entered with a cool smile on her face, designer-dressed from coiffed head to varnished toe, as clinically elegant as always. Then she came up and kissed me on the cheek. It was a hair-light touch, but a kiss nonetheless. Christ, this was getting spooky. I took another slug of whisky and looked for stray pieces of kitchen cutlery with sharp edges.
Once Juliette had a drink we all sat down and exchanged pleasantries. They seemed keen to know if I’d had any contact with Susan. I told them I’d been out of touch, not caring much if they thought it was deliberate or not. Then Hugo gave his wife a look, and she sat back and went silent. Stone me, this was getting better.
‘Jake, old son,’ he said sombrely, peering into his glass ‘I’ve – we’ve got some news for you. It may come as a bit of a shock.’
I looked at them and thought that whatever it was, it had to be a belter for Juliette to have allowed me back into her Kensington pad. And with a kiss, no less.
‘Go on,’ I said, when he hesitated.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Hugo,’ Juliette murmured impatiently. ‘You men are so hopeless.’ She looked at me and took a deep breath – the sort you take when you want to get something out in a rush. ‘Jake, Susan has a new person in her life. That ghastly Dunckley person seems to have disappeared, although that was probably a good thing. What she saw in him in the first place, God only knows. He was such a creep.’
‘Juliette,’ Hugo muttered.
‘Sorry – I was merely saying. Anyway, she has a new person in her life. It looks serious.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘I doubt it. Her name’s Debbie.’
Her? I looked from one to the other. ‘Say again.’
‘Sorry.’
Sorry that this Debbie was a woman or sorry she had to tell me? I wasn’t sure. Either way it didn’t matter much. I looked at Hugo and he nodded.
‘And it’s a relationship?’ I wasn’t sure how to put it; asking if it was serious didn’t sound quite right.
Susan, Juliette informed me, had decided to get fit – a change of lifestyle which went with the separation. Two days after she had walked out on me, she had joined a gym in Knightsbridge, met Debbie, one of the resident instructors, and the rest, as they say, was history. The last Juliette had heard, Susan was moving in with her new partner and saying goodbye to her old lifestyle and hello to modern exercise fabrics and a new diet.
That explained the woman Dot had seen with Susan at the house.
By the expression on Juliette’s face, it was a greater shock to her than it was to me. I would love to have been a fly on the wall when she met up with her circle of girlfriends and gave them the news. Smelling salts all round, at a guess… and a new topic of conversation.
‘Of course, this doesn’t really help her case against you,’ said Hugo the pragmatist. He jumped when Juliette punched him on the shoulder. ‘Well, it’s true!’
‘I don’t care about that,’ I said, before they began fighting and rolling around on the floor. And I didn’t. It was over, so whether she’d shacked up with another woman or the Dalai Lama’s second cousin was immaterial.
‘Don’t you feel anything?’ Juliette gave a shudder. ‘I can’t take it all in.’
‘No,’ I said, and drained my glass. I needed to get some fresh air. And to see Marcus.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ I told them and headed for the door. ‘Thanks for telling me.’
I left them on the doorstep and headed across town to Marcus’s place. When he came to the door and smiled, I knew everything was okay.
‘Jake.’ He reached out to punch my shoulder. ‘Why didn’t you call? I’ve been worried. Come in.’ He grabbed me by the arm. ‘Come through to the kitchen.’
I wondered what was up. He seemed unsettled – as if he’d been given a surprise he didn’t quite know what to do with but was determined to handle – and, at the same time, somehow grown up. No longer the kid brother.
‘What’s up?’ I asked. ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’
‘Don’t be daft.’ His voice was pitched low, and I wondered if he’d fallen out with his flatmates. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you – about Susan.’
‘No need. I’ve just seen Hugo and Juliette.’
‘Oh.’ He looked relieved. ‘You okay with it?’
‘Why not? As long as she’s happy.’
‘She said she won’t make any demands. That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said, and clapped him on the shoulder. He needed the reassurance, if only to prove Susan and I weren’t going to be at each other’s throats for the rest of our lives. ‘It’s good.’
He sighed and whatever tension he’d been storing up in him flooded out in a rush. ‘The thing is,’ he continued in a low voice, ‘there’s someone here to see you. She arrived a few minutes ago. She wants to talk.’ He glanced towards the front room, and I felt my guts turn over. Jane, I thought. Now she’s free of Basher she wants to take up where we left off. Oh, boy, this is all I need. No wonder he was rattled.
‘I can explain,’ I said. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘There’s no need. Really.’ He surprised me by smiling. ‘And I’m pleased – I really am. You did it.’
‘Did what?’ Had he been smoking something?
‘Made a smart move. Remember, we talked about it?’
Oh, that. I waved an ‘oh-that-was-nothing’ hand. It seemed a long time ago and I still wasn’t sure I was any smarter. Being with Lilly-Mae would be smarter. Not this.
I walked through into the front room and pulled the door closed behind me. Whatever Jane and I had to say to each other was best done without witnesses. Our brief dalliance seemed a lifetime ago, and with the threatening bulk of Basher lurking somewhere in the shadows, it was a situation which held as much promise as a snowball in hell.
I stopped in my tracks as a tall, slim figure rose from the settee. Elegant as I remembered her, eyes large and smiling, her mouth slightly open in what could have been anxious expectation, but what I hoped was something else. The room seemed to stand still and I felt a silly grin begin to spread across my face.
‘Hello, Jake,’ Lilly-Mae didn’t so much speak the words as breathe them, and I developed a warm, fuzzy glow all over.
It took me right back to when we’d first met and the way she’d looked at me as I climbed from the pool at Cedar Point Road and… I wondered how Charles Clayton would feel about me taking a little longer to make up my mind about joining him.
Or maybe a lot longer.
‘Lilly-Mae,’ I said,
hopelessly relieved and delighted and tongue-tied all over again. Now I knew what Marcus had meant. He’d met her only minutes ago and already he knew – and was pleased.
Yes, Marcus, I thought. This is smart. Exceptionally so, in fact, for me.
‘Charles told me where you’d be,’ she explained, and put up her hand to touch my face. ‘I remembered his number from when you called him from Charlotte. I was worried about meeting Marcus but he was so nice to me and told me I had to wait here for you because you needed someone.’
‘He said that?’ My voice sounded croaky.
‘And Charles said I wasn’t to bring you back for a while.’
‘He said that?’ I was repeating myself because I was reeling from the fact that she had managed to track me down.
‘Uh-huh. R and R is what he called it. My dad calls it that, too. Rest and recreation. And I reckon we both need some R and R. Don’t you?’ She moved closer and breathed into me, and I could see the beginning of moisture glittering in those lovely eyes. ‘Sorry I took off, Jake. I had some stuff to sort out. I went home.’ She shrugged against me, soft and gentle. ‘That’s okay, isn’t it?’
Hell, she’d come all the way over here and found me. How could it not be okay? ‘It’s brilliant,’ I said, and kissed her.
A long while later she sighed and said, ‘So you’ve got room in your life for a lil’ ol’ southern gal, then?’
‘Damn right,’ I said, and hugged her. Over her shoulder I saw the door open and Marcus’s grinning face appear. ‘How do you feel,’ I whispered to her, ‘about taking that R and R somewhere hot and quiet? We could buy new costumes and go swimming. Although the costumes wouldn’t be mandatory, of course, depending on the location.’
I was gabbling but she didn’t seem to mind. She laughed and moved against me in a way that made my spirits soar. ‘Costumes. You said costumes again! God, that’s so cute! I just love your accent, Mr Foreman.’
‘Tomayto, tomarto,’ I said easily. ‘You’ll get used to it…’
Acknowledgements
To the monkey on my shoulder which made me wonder if I could try something different. David Headley, for his support and encouragement, as always. Rebecca Lloyd, for making this story so much better than it was.
Published by The Dome Press, 2018
Copyright © 2018 Adrian Magson
The moral right of Adrian Magson to be recognised as the author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organisations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781912534029
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Smart Moves Page 25