by Tony Salter
Somehow – probably thanks to my dad – we ended up sitting in comfortable armchairs around a small round table, cappuccinos and glasses of water in front of us. I looked at Nicki. She was nine years older than me and I think I’d expected her to be slightly frumpy – almost middle-aged. I’d seen enough photos of our mother to have known better. There was nothing whatsoever frumpy about her – she was beautiful with a gorgeous confident smile and dark, laughing eyes. She wasn’t from a different generation at all; we could be friends as well as siblings.
My dad was managing the conversation while I sat slack-mouthed and punch drunk and probably sporting a pathetic grin.
‘… And you knew nothing about your real mother until I wrote to you?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘My dad refused to talk about her. He wouldn’t even tell me her name. I pushed him a few times, and he’d just tell me that I’d had enough parents already and I didn’t need any more. One time, when I was sixteen, I refused to let it drop.’ She looked at me and then back to my dad. ‘You know what teenagers can be like?’
We both nodded. There were plenty of memories to pick from.
‘Anyway, I managed to wear him down, eventually. After three days of me sniping at him, he grabbed me by the shoulders and shouted at me. “She’s dead. OK? She’s dead.” He then spun around and stormed out. He didn’t come back until the following day and I remember realising how much he must have loved her.’
‘I’ll show you the letter he wrote me at some point,’ said my dad. ‘Whatever I might feel about the circumstances of their relationship, I’m sure he loved Fabiola.’ He smiled. ‘Trust me. It wasn’t difficult.’
‘And she never told you anything about me?’ Nicki asked my dad. ‘You didn’t suspect?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t a secretive person but, considering that, it appears she had an awful lot of secrets. I only found out that she’d been part of an anarchist group after Sam was born and, as for the fact that she spent five years in a relationship with a woman right before I met her …’
‘Yes. That must have come as a surprise,’ said Nicki with a smile. ‘When I got your letter, I knew the names were familiar. It didn’t take me long to figure out that you, Fabiola and Sam were linked to the Julie Martin case.’
‘You don’t know the half of it,’ I jumped in. ‘Even from behind bars, she had the media running scared.’
‘… but she still claims she was innocent, doesn’t she?’
‘Believe me,’ said my dad. ‘Innocent isn’t a word that can ever be linked to that woman.’
‘Can we not talk about Julie, please,’ I said. ‘Those are not memories I want to drag up. I’ll tell you the whole story at some point, but not right now. Is that OK?’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to tell me anything if you don’t want to.’ A waiter interrupted her to ask if we wanted more coffee. She waited until he was gone before continuing in a low voice. ‘… But I do have to tell you that I actually worked for Pulsar for a few years.’
I turned to my dad; his shocked look must have been mirrored by my own. We blurted out our surprise in unison.
‘No!’
‘Seriously?’
‘When?’
‘I left about four years ago. They sponsored me through my MBA and then offered me a job.’
‘… And you met her?’ I said, images – good and bad – flashing unbidden in front of my eyes.
‘A few times,’ said Nicki. ‘I never saw any sign of the person they’ve been describing in the papers. She always came across as a charismatic, visionary leader. Most of her staff would have taken a bullet for her.’ She laughed. ‘Not a real one, of course.’
I didn’t know what to say. That bitch had even managed to stick her bloodstained fingers into this moment.
Nicki was smart enough to sense the mood. ‘Anyway, enough about me,’ she said. ‘I want to hear about you, Sam … and about Fabiola.’
Two hours and several cappuccinos later, all thoughts of Julie had faded away. I was over my initial paralysis and was convinced that the two of us would become friends. I wasn’t sure how Dad would fit in – I couldn’t see them having any sort of parent-child relationship – but we had a common bond. Mum might be dead, but she was still the glue holding us all together.
After half an hour or so, there was an unspoken agreement to stop asking each other serious questions, and we sat and listened to my dad talking about our mum. A new and fascinated audience had inspired him to dig deep into his memories and, although I’d heard most of the stories before, the pictures he painted of the young Fabiola Carlantino were almost as fresh to me as it must have been to Nicki.
Nicki had to leave for a lunch meeting and we all stood to say goodbye. There was no more awkwardness in our hugs and Dad and I waited and watched as she walked out towards the entrance. As she stepped through the double-height glass doors, she looked back at us and smiled, her hand lifted in a half wave, before slipping out into the bright afternoon.
I slumped back into my chair, feeling the nervous exhaustion overtake me, melting every bone in my body and leaving me sagging like an under-stuffed scarecrow.
‘Phew,’ said Dad.
I managed a feeble chuckle. ‘It’s two thousand and forty-two, Dad. Who actually says “phew”?’
‘Don’t be a smug smartarse,’ he said. ‘It’s not funny and it’s not clever.’
‘I’ll try,’ I said. ‘As long as you try not to be too much of an old fart.’ I punched him on the shoulder. ‘So …?’
‘I thought it went rather well,’ he said, grinning. ‘She’s lovely.’
‘Yup,’ I said. ‘She’s great. Wonderful. But bloody Pulsar, eh?’
‘You should have seen the look on your face.’
‘And yours,’ I said. ‘I guess it’s not such a huge coincidence. They’ve got over thirty thousand employees.’
‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘Six degrees of separation and all that.’
He was probably right, but “coincidence” didn’t sit well alongside Julie Martin any more than “innocent” did – however hard I tried, she still visited me every night in my dreams.
I needed to get that woman out of my head and made a mental note to bite the bullet and do something about it. I’d been putting off going to a counsellor for months – I didn’t have a high opinion of psychiatry – but it was long past time to deal with my issues.
‘I’m turning into a paranoid idiot, aren’t I?’ I said.
‘Give yourself a break,’ my dad said. ‘It’s probably just the six cups of coffee starting to kick in.’
‘Seriously, I thought Nicki was amazing,’ I said. ‘I’m sure we’ll get on and I can’t wait to find out what Daz thinks of her. I’ll figure out how to put my paranoia back in its box before then.’
We’d arranged to meet for dinner a couple of weeks later, after Granny’s funeral. She would have loved Nicki. I knew it.
Gossamer Threads
I couldn’t face going straight to the office after meeting Nicki. I needed time to myself, to think and to allow the adrenalin to find a way out of my system. I crossed Park Lane and started wandering aimlessly through Hyde Park.
Dad had gone straight back to Oxford. There were funeral arrangements to make and Daz was waiting for him at the Old Vicarage. As soon as it had become clear that Granny wouldn’t recover, he’d booked a week off work. As I thought about Dad and Uncle Daz, I wasn’t sure who would have been the most upset out of the two of them.
Daz never talked about his family and had made it clear he preferred not to. Maybe they were all dead, or there had been a massive family bust-up. Whatever the story, I had the impression that he’d learned to fend for himself from an early age.
As to how and why Daz had adopted me, my father and my Granny? That was bizarre. He was different – from Granny especially – in every way, but he really had become like a second son to her and no nephew could have had a better uncle than
I did.
I stopped and sat on a bench in the rose garden. There was no-one else there apart from two pretty Latin-looking girls chatting and laughing together. One of them reminded me of my mother and I took a sharp breath as I realised how much influence she continued to have on all of us, even a quarter of a century after her death.
Nicki, Daz, Julie, my family; all of us were joined by gossamer threads of Fabiola’s making. Disparate souls caught in her sticky web.
I sat on the bench for a long time, watching the grey squirrels run fearlessly along the upside-down arches of the rope swags and half-noticing the people passing by: mothers (or nannies) with prams; energy-conserving park keepers pretending to work; an ancient, wrinkled couple walking hand-in-hand; a group of teenagers who should surely have been in school.
My thoughts wandered without purpose, darting from place-to-place like so many dragonflies shimmering on a lily pond. I thought about my Granny, each memory bundled together by the joy and love in those sharp blue eyes. And I thought about Nicki – what I’d anticipated and what I’d found.
I hadn’t known what to expect, but each time I thought back to our short time together, I couldn’t help smiling. She was much more than I’d dared to hope for and I knew we’d become close friends.
I was jolted back to reality by my phone which was buzzing in my pocket like a trapped bluebottle. It was Lucy, Dave’s assistant.
‘Will you be in later?’
‘I was planning to taking the day off. I thought Dave knew.’
‘Yes. Sorry to hear about your grandmother. It’s just that we’ve got the Three-Sixty pre-launch meeting at half-past four and Dave needs you there if at all possible.’
I looked at my watch.
‘Of course, Lucy.’ I stood up. ‘Thanks for reminding me. Don’t worry. I’ll be there.’
I still had plenty of time to go home, change and read through the meeting notes, but I couldn’t believe I’d completely forgotten about the meeting. Ever since my dream – or nightmare as it turned out – job offer from Julie, I’d allowed my personal life to swamp everything else. I’d almost forgotten what a work ethic was.
That imbalance couldn’t continue. MySafe had a huge product launch coming up in just a few weeks and, even if my team did most the actual work for me, I needed to be around. There was also the possibility that I had a useful contribution to make. Someone needed to be in charge after all.
I was in good time for the meeting. There were only six department heads in attendance, three of whom had flown in from New York, and I shivered when I imagined how it would have looked if I hadn’t shown up. I owed Lucy a massive bunch of flowers.
Luckily no-one needed to know I was behaving like an unprofessional moron. The meeting went well – I’d been right to trust my team and product marketing had its ducks neatly lined in a row. Our Texan operations manager even went so far as to say that the campaign was ‘mighty impressive’.
I was halfway out of the door when Dave called me back.
‘Close the door behind you, Sam.’
As I turned back to face him, he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me.
‘Sorry to hear about your Gran,’ he said. ‘She was a great lady.’
‘Thanks, Dave,’ I said. ‘She was great, but she was also eighty-four, which is a pretty good innings. I think she was ready to go.’
‘Eighty-four?’ he said. ‘That’s impressive. I can’t see either of us making it that long.’
‘Not unless they perfect those cloned liver transplants.’
We both laughed and sat down.
‘So,’ he said, eyebrows arching. ‘How was it?’
‘You mean Nicki?’
‘Of course I mean Nicki, numbskull. What was she like?’
‘Well one thing’s for sure,’ I said. ‘You’re gonna like her … in fact, I’m thinking of making sure you two never meet.’
‘Cute, huh?’
‘I thought she was gorgeous … as well as charming, witty and sharp as a tack,’ I said. ‘But, then again, I might have a bit of a bias.’
‘Got any photos?’
‘A couple.’ I took out my phone and scrolled down. ‘Here you go.’
‘Oh yes. Definitely see what you mean.’ Dave took the phone from me and held it closer. ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘I’ve met her before.’
‘What?’ I felt my stomach lurch sideways. ‘How could you possibly …?’
‘It was with Julie,’ he said. ‘Three or four years ago. I only saw her for a few minutes, but it was definitely her.’
My stomach settled. ‘I suppose that makes sense,’ I said. ‘She told me she worked for Pulsar for a few years.’
‘This was after she left Pulsar,’ he said. ‘They were having coffee in Zak’s. They seemed pretty close considering Nicki was an ex-employee. She said she worked for some consultancy. I wondered if they might have been an item for a second or two. Something about the way Julie looked at her.’
‘Stop winding me up, Dave,’ I said. ‘It’s not funny.’
‘I’m not. I met her with Julie in Zak’s just like I said.’ He looked straight at me and I couldn’t see any signs he was lying. ‘It was only for a couple of minutes though, so don’t read anything into it.’
Dave stood up, went over to his desk and picked up a slim folder.
‘I got the first report from Milinsky Labs,’ he said.
‘And …?’
‘There isn’t anything specific … but there’s not nothing, if you get what I mean.’
I suspected that my expression gave a clear indication of how much I got what he meant and he handed me the folder.
After flicking through it and reading the summary, I was slightly clearer.
‘Let me see if I understand,’ I said.
Dave nodded.
‘They’re certain that Julie hasn’t got any online access, and all communications from the prisons she’s been in are clean?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But they’ve observed thousands of minor incursions to our personal and social media accounts. Nothing serious, all completely unrelated and untraceable. They say they’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘That’s about it,’ he said. ‘Nothing specific to worry about at the moment, but it can’t be a random coincidence. Something is going on and it smells like Julie. Milinsky are the best, so I think we just need to wait and see what they come up with.’
I slumped forward, squeezing my face in my hands. ‘It’s never going to end, is it?’ I said. ‘She’s never going to let us go.’
‘Of course it will,’ said Dave, his big confident voice almost convincing. ‘She’s safely behind bars. Maybe she set up something before she went away, but it can’t do that much harm. We’ve taken all the right precautions and, as soon as the lab figures out exactly what’s happening, they’ll shut it down.’
He walked over to the tiny replica jukebox on the windowsill and pulled on the front. It swung open to reveal two perfectly frozen shot glasses and a small, opaque bottle. He placed the glasses on the table and ceremoniously poured the clear, oily liquid.
‘Come on,’ he said, handing me a glass. ‘What better way to toast your Granny than with a shot of grappa?’
As the cold hit the back of my throat and the fire reached the roof of my mouth, I couldn’t help thinking that Granny would have been able to think of many, many better ways.
St Peter’s was decked out like the Great Pavilion at the Chelsea Flower Show. Every possible surface, nook or cranny overflowed with bright blooms – freshly cut flowers from cottage gardens mixed riotously with the paler pastels of Oxfordshire’s wild flowers. No sombre, formal wreaths and funeral bouquets in sight. Granny had been very specific in her will.
We’d all dressed up as she would have expected with no need for posthumous instructions. Even Daz was sporting a haircut and neatly trimmed beard to go with his brand new suit and tie, which was both touching and mildly amusing. Although he’d m
ade the effort, he still managed to look like a Dickensian street urchin, scrubbed clean and crammed into unfamiliar clothing against his will. I imagined Granny looking at him and tut-tutting before striding up to adjust his tie, straighten his collar and push his hair back over his ears.
He walked into the church arm-in-arm with Liz who was police-officer-smart in her black dress and hat; the pair of them were a perfect example of how some odd couples can appear so perfectly matched. I was also happy that they’d stopped trying to hide their relationship. Like most of their close friends, I was tired of being treated like an idiot.
‘Look at all those flowers,’ said Dad. ‘I’ll bet St Peter’s has never seen as many.’
Dad and I were standing to the side of the font, watching the church filling up. There wasn’t going to be room for everyone to be inside. Where had all of these people come from?
‘I always thought that Gramps was the flower ladies’ favourite,’ I said, ‘but they’ve really pulled out all the stops for Granny, haven’t they?’
‘I’m not a bit surprised,’ said Dad. ‘Mummy always let Dad play the front man, and he was a real charmer. People loved that, but when anyone actually needed something, it was Mummy who turned out and did what needed to be done. You should see the condolence cards I’ve been getting. So many, and from all over – not just locals.’ His voice cracked, and he looked down to the floor. ‘You spend a lifetime living close to someone and it’s only after they’ve gone that you understand who and what they really were.’
I nodded, looking at my own shoes.
He straightened up and slapped me on the shoulder. ‘Let’s try not to let that happen to us, eh?’
I didn’t know what to say. The concept of my father’s mortality wasn’t something I wanted to acknowledge, especially not at Grannie’s funeral. ‘No. Of course not, Dad,’ I said. ‘We’ll carry on popping down to the pub for a couple of beers and a chat. What’s better than that?’