‘Lou,’ Ruth snapped, breaking into his thoughts and giving him a fright.
He looked at her. ‘Morning,’ he smiled. ‘You’ll never guess what I was just thinking ab—’
‘Do you not hear that?’ she interrupted him. ‘You’re wide awake, staring at the ceiling.’
‘Huh?’ He turned to his left and noticed the clock had struck six. ‘Oh, sorry.’ He leaned across and switched off the beeping alarm.
He’d clearly done something wrong because her face went a deep red and she fired herself out of bed as though she had been released from a catapult, then charged out of the room, her hair firing out in all directions as though she’d stuck her fingers in a socket. It was only then that he heard Pud’s cries again.
‘Shit.’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly.
‘You said a bad wud,’ said a little voice from behind the door.
‘Morning, Lucy,’ he smiled.
Her figure appeared then, a pink-sleeping-suited five-year-old, dragging her blanket along the ground behind her, her chocolate-brown hair and fringe tousled from her sleep. Her big brown eyes were the picture of concern. She stood at the end of the bed and Lou waited for her to say something.
‘You’re coming tonight, aren’t you, Daddy?’
‘What’s on tonight?’
‘My school play.’
‘Oh yeah, that, sweetie; you don’t really want me to go to that, do you?’
She nodded.
‘But why?’ He rubbed his eyes tiredly. ‘You know how busy Daddy is, it’s very hard for me to get there.’
‘But I’ve been practising.’
‘Why don’t you show me now, and then I won’t have to see you later.’
‘But I’m not wearing my costume.’
‘That’s okay. I’ll use my imagination. Mum always says it’s good to do that, doesn’t she?’ He kept an eye on the door to make sure Ruth wasn’t listening. ‘And you can do it for me while I get dressed, okay?’
He threw the covers off and, as Lucy started prancing around, he rushed about the room, throwing on shorts and a vest for the gym.
‘Daddy, you’re not looking!’
‘I am, sweetheart, come downstairs to the gym with me. There are lots of mirrors there for you to practise in front of, that’ll be fun, won’t it?’
Once on the treadmill, he turned on the plasma and started watching Sky News.
‘Daddy, you’re not looking.’
‘I am, sweetie.’ He glanced at her once. ‘What are you?’
‘A leaf. It’s a windy day and I fall off the tree and I have to go like this.’ She twirled around the gym again and Lou looked away and back at the TV.
‘What’s a leaf got to do with Jesus?’
‘The singer?’ She stopped spinning and held on to the weights bench, slightly dizzy now.
He frowned. ‘No, not the singer. What’s the play about?’
She took a deep breath and then spoke as though she had memorised the story by heart. ‘The three wise men have to find a star.’
‘Follow a star,’ he corrected her, picking up the pace now and breaking out into a jog.
‘No, they find a star. So they are judges on the Find a Star show, and then Pontius Pilate sings and everybody boos and then Judas sings and everybody boos and then Jesus sings and then he wins because he has the X-factor.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Lou rolled his eyes.
‘Yes, “Jesus Christ the Superstar” it’s called.’ She danced around some more.
‘So why are you a leaf?’
She shrugged and he had to laugh.
‘Will you come to see me, pleeeease?’
‘Yep,’ he said, wiping his face on a towel.
‘Promise?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said dismissively. ‘Okay, you go back up to your mum now, I’ve to take a shower.’
Twenty minutes later and already in work mode, Lou went into the kitchen to say a quick goodbye. Pud was in his highchair, rubbing banana and Liga into his hair; Lucy was sucking on a spoon and watching cartoons at top volume; and Ruth was in her dressing gown making Lucy’s school lunch. She looked exhausted.
‘Bye.’ He kissed Lucy on the head; she didn’t budge she was so engrossed in her cartoon. He hovered above Pud, trying to find a place on his face that wasn’t filled with food. ‘Eh, bye.’ He pecked him awkwardly on the top of his head. He made his way around to Ruth.
‘Do you want to meet me there at six or go together from here?’
‘Where?’
‘The school.’
‘Oh. About that.’ He lowered his voice.
‘You have to go, you promised.’ She stopped buttering the bread to look at him with instant anger.
‘Lucy showed me the dance downstairs and we had a talk, so she’s fine about me not being there.’ He picked at a slice of ham. ‘Do you know why the hell she’s a leaf in a nativity play?’
Ruth laughed. ‘Lou, I know you’re playing with me. I told you to put this in your diary last month. And then I reminded you last week, and I called that woman Tracey at the office –’
‘Ah, that’s what happened.’ He clicked his fingers in a gosh, darn-it kind of way. ‘Wires crossed. Tracey’s gone. Alison replaced her. So maybe there was a problem when they switched over.’ He tried to say it playfully, but Ruth’s happy face was slowly dissolving to disappointment, hatred, disgust, all rolled into one and all directed at him.
‘I mentioned it twice last week. I mentioned it yesterday morning, I’m like a frigging parrot with you and you still don’t remember. The school play and then dinner with your mum, dad, Alexandra and Quentin. And Marcia might be coming, if she can move around her therapy session.’
‘No, she really shouldn’t miss that.’ Lou rolled his eyes. ‘Ruthy, please, I would rather stick pins in my eyes than have dinner with them.’
‘They’re your family, Lou.’
‘All Quentin talks about are boats. Boats, boats, and more bloody boats. It is totally beyond him to think of any other conversation that doesn’t involve the words boom and cleat.’
‘You used to love sailing with Quentin.’
‘I used to love sailing. Not necessarily with Quentin, and that was years ago, I’d hardly know my boom from my cleat at this stage.’ He groaned. ‘Marcia … it’s not therapy she needs, it’s a good kick up the arse. Alexandra’s fine.’ He trailed off, lost in thought.
‘The boat or his wife,’ Ruth asked sarcastically, giving him a long sidelong look.
Lou didn’t hear her or ignored her. ‘I don’t know what she sees in Quentin, I can never figure it out. She’s in a totally different league to him.’
‘Your league, you mean?’ Ruth snapped.
‘It’s just that she’s a model, Ruth.’
‘So?’
‘The only thing Quentin has in common with a model is the fact he collects model boats.’ He laughed, then moved on, irritation quickly setting in. ‘Mum and Dad are coming too?’ he asked. ‘No way.’
‘Tough,’ she said, continuing with her lunch-making. ‘Lucy is expecting you at the play, your parents are excited, and I need you here. I can’t do the dinner and play host all on my own.’
‘Mum will help you.’
‘Your mother just had a hip replacement.’ Ruth tried her best not to shriek.
‘Don’t I know it, I collected her from hospital and got into trouble for it, like I said I would,’ he grumbled. ‘While Quentin was off on his boat.’
‘He was racing, Lou!’ She dropped the knife and turned to him, softening. ‘Please.’ She kissed him softly on the lips and he closed his eyes, lingering in the rare moment.
‘But I’ve so much to do at work,’ he said softly amid their kiss. ‘It’s important to me.’
Ruth pulled away. ‘Well, I’m glad something is, Lou, because for a moment there I almost thought you weren’t human.’ She was silent as she buttered the bread fiercely, the knife hitting the brown bread so roughly that it made holes.
She slapped down slices of ham, tossed a slice of cheese at it then pushed down on the bread and sliced it diagonally with a sharp knife. She moved about the kitchen, slamming presses and violently ripping tin foil from the teeth of the packaging.
‘Okay, what’s up?’
‘What’s up? We’re not in this life just to work, we’re in it to live. We have to start doing things together, and that means you doing things for me even when you don’t want to, and vice versa. Otherwise, what’s the point?’
‘What do you mean vice versa, when do I ever make you do anything you don’t want to?’
‘Lou,’ she gritted her teeth, ‘they’re your bloody family, not mine.’
‘So cancel it! I don’t care.’
‘You have family responsibilities.’
‘But I have more work responsibilities, family can’t fire me if I don’t turn up to a bloody dinner, can they?’
‘Yes, they can, Lou,’ she said quietly, ‘they just don’t call it being fired.’
‘Is that a threat?’ He lowered his voice angrily. ‘You can’t throw comments like that at me, Ruth, it’s not fair.’
She opened a Barbie lunch box, slammed it down on the counter, threw in the sandwich, pineapple rings and kidney beans in Tupperware, a Barbie napkin was laid on top and she banged it closed. Despite being tossed around, Barbie didn’t blink once.
Ruth just looked at him and said nothing, allowing her stare to speak for her.
‘Okay, fine, I’ll do my best to be there,’ Lou said, both to please her and to get out of the house at the very same time, yet not meaning a word of it. On her look, he rephrased it with more meaning. ‘I’ll be there.’
Lou arrived at his office at eight a.m. A full hour before another soul would arrive, it was important for him to be the first in, it made him feel efficient, ahead of the pack. Pacing the small empty space of the elevator and wishing it was like that every day, he revelled in not having to stop at any other floors before getting to the fourteenth. He stepped out of the elevator into the quiet corridor. He could smell the products left behind from the cleaning staff last night. The carpet shampoo, furniture polish and air-fresheners still lingered, as yet untainted by morning coffee and body smells. Outside the glistening windows it was still pitch black at the early winter hour, and the windows seemed cold and hard. The wind whipped outside and he looked forward to leaving the eerily empty corridors and getting to his office for his morning routine.
En route to his office he stopped suddenly in his tracks. He could see that, as usual for this hour, Alison’s desk was empty, but his office door was ajar and the lights were on. He walked briskly towards the door and his heart began pounding with anger as, through the open door, he saw Gabe moving around his office. He yelled, then ran and fired his fist at the door, punching it open and watching it swing violently. He opened his mouth to yell again, but before he could get his words out he heard another voice coming from behind the door.
‘My goodness, who’s that?’ came the startled voice of his boss.
‘Oh, Mr Patterson. I’m sorry,’ Lou said breathlessly, quickly stopping the door from slamming against his face, ‘I didn’t realise you were in here.’ He rubbed his hand, his fist stinging and beginning to throb from punching the door.
‘Lou,’ the man said, catching his breath after taking a leap away from the door, ‘call me Laurence, for Christ’s sake, I keep telling you that. You’re full of … energy today, aren’t you?’ He tried to get his bearings after the shock.
‘Good morning, sir.’ Lou looked from Mr Patterson to Gabe uncertainly. ‘I’m sorry to have frightened you. I just thought that there was somebody in here who shouldn’t be.’ His eyes landed on Gabe.
‘Good morning, Lou,’ Gabe said politely.
‘Gabe.’ Lou slowly nodded at him in acknowledgement, wanting nothing more right then than an explanation as to why exactly Gabe and his boss were standing in his office at eight a.m.
He looked down at Gabe’s empty mail cart and then at the unfamiliar files lying on his desk. He thought back to the previous night, replayed finishing up his paperwork and filing them away, as always, unable to leave his desk with unfinished work. Knowing that neither he nor Alison, who’d finished work at four, had left the files there, he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Gabe.
Gabe stared back unblinkingly.
‘I was just chatting to young Gabe here,’ Mr Patterson explained. ‘He told me that he started the job yesterday, and isn’t he just wonderful being the first into the office? That shows such dedication to the job.’
‘First in? Really?’ Lou faked a smile. ‘Wow. Looks like you beat me to it this morning because I’m usually the first in.’ Lou turned to Mr Patterson and offered his big white smile. ‘But you already knew that, didn’t you, Gabe?’
Gabe returned the smile with an equal sincerity. ‘You know what they say, the early bird catches the worm.’
‘Yes it does. It catches it indeed.’ Lou glared at him with a grin. A glare and a grin. Both at the same time.
Mr Patterson watched the exchange with growing discomfort. ‘Well, it’s just after eight, I should leave.’
‘After eight, you say. That’s funny,’ Lou perked up. ‘The mail hasn’t even arrived yet. What, em, what exactly are you doing in my office, Gabe?’ His voice had an edge to it that was clearly recognisable, as Mr Patterson looked uncomfortable and Gabe took on a peculiar smile.
‘Well, I came in early to familiarise myself with the building. There are so many floors for me to get through in such a short period of time, I wanted to figure out who was where.’
‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ Mr Patterson said, breaking the silence.
‘Yes, it is, but you already knew where my office was,’ Lou said tightly. ‘You had familiarised yourself with it yesterday … so what, may I ask, are you doing inside my office?’
‘Now, now, Lou, I fear I must jump in here,’ Mr Patterson said awkwardly. ‘I met young Gabe in the hallway and we got talking. As a favour for me, I’d asked him to bring some files to your office. He was delivering them to the desk when I realised I’d left one in my briefcase. Though he moved very quickly, I have to say that I’d just turned around when he was gone. Poof! Just like that!’ Mr Patterson chuckled.
‘Poof!’ Gabe grinned at Lou. ‘That’s me all right.’
‘I like fast workers, I must say, but I prefer fast and efficient, and my goodness you certainly are that.’
Lou almost said thank you, but Gabe jumped in.
‘Thank you, Mr Patterson, and if there’s anything else at all you’d like me to do for you, please let me know. I finish my shift at lunchtime and would be only too happy to help out around here for the rest of the afternoon. I’m keen to work.’
Lou’s stomach tightened.
‘That’s wonderful, Gabe, thank you, I’ll keep that in mind. Right Lou,’ Mr Patterson turned to face him and Lou expected Gabe, no longer a part of this conversation, to leave. But he didn’t. ‘I wonder if you’d be able to meet with Bruce Archer this evening, you remember him.’
Lou nodded, his heart sinking.
‘I was supposed to meet him, but I was reminded this morning of something else I have to attend.’
‘This evening?’ Lou asked, his mind racing.
While thinking about the offer he was picturing Lucy twirling around the gym in her sleeping suit and Ruth’s face when he’d opened his eyes prematurely from that kiss and caught her looking as beautiful and serene as he’d ever remembered her.
He realised they were both staring at him, Gabe’s eyes in particular searing into him.
‘Yes, this evening. Only if you’re free. I can ask Alfred to do it otherwise, so please don’t worry.’ Mr Patterson waved his hand dismissively.
‘No, no,’ Lou jumped in quickly. ‘This evening is no problem. That’s no problem.’
In his mind, Lucy, dizzy from the twirling, fell to the ground, and Ruth opened her eyes and pulled away from
their kiss, his promise of less than an hour ago having broken the spell.
‘Great. Great. Well, Melissa can fill you in on the details, time and venue, etc. I have a big night tonight,’ he winked at Gabe. ‘It’s my little one’s Christmas play, I’d forgotten about it until he came running to me dressed as star, would you believe. But I wouldn’t miss it for the world,’ Mr Patterson smiled.
‘Right, yeah.’ Lou felt a lump in his throat. ‘That’s important, all right.’
‘Right, so, enjoy tonight and well done for finding this lad.’ Mr Patterson patted Gabe on the back.
While Lou turned to glare at Gabe, he heard a familiar cheery call behind him.
‘Morning, Laurence.’
‘Ah, Alfred,’ Mr Patterson said.
Alfred was a tall man, six foot with white-blond hair, kind of like an oversized Milky Bar kid who had melted and been moulded back together by the hands of a child. He always spoke with a smirk on his face and in the kind of accent that came with being privately schooled in England, despite spending the summers in Ireland, where he was from. His nose was disjointed from his rugby days and he swanned around the office, as Gabe had observed the previous day, kicking the tassels of his boat shoes in the air, one hand in his pocket, with the air of someone – a naughty schoolboy – who was up to tricks.
Alfred’s eyes fell upon Gabe, then quite obviously looked him up and down in silence and waited to be introduced. Gabe imitated him, confidently giving Alfred the once-over.
‘Nice shoes,’ Gabe finally said, and Lou looked down at the brown loafers Gabe had described yesterday.
‘Thank you.’ Alfred was a little put out.
‘I also like your shoes, Mr Patterson,’ Gabe commented, looking across.
In a slightly awkward moment, all eyes looked down at the men’s feet. A peculiar thing for most, apart from Lou, whose heart was pumping at a ridiculous rate at the sight of the black slip-ons and the brown loafers. The exact shoes Gabe had described to Lou the previous morning. So Alfred was meeting with Mr Patterson. Lou looked from Alfred to Mr Patterson, feeling a sense of betrayal. It wasn’t official that Cliff ’s job was up for grabs, but if it was, Lou was hellbent on making sure it would be his, not Alfred’s.
Cecelia Ahern 2-book Bundle Page 8