And she explained that the only way to keep themselves safe was to carry out the plan she’d spent last night hatching.
The trouble is, even though I went along with everything Maxie said, even though I cried and cried when she said what he’d been doing to her, I still couldn’t see Bill as an abuser. I couldn’t be scared of him.
No wonder I have such problems with men.
And then, of course, quite inevitably, Matt’s face swam into her mind, replacing Bill’s. She was still struggling with the feelings she had for Matt, the very strong and powerful attraction she had sensed from the moment he’d caught her in the lobby of Franco’s, stopping her from falling; from the moment she’d looked into his eyes, and realized that she really was falling – for him.
Which was ridiculous, as she hadn’t even know his name then, hadn’t exchanged a word with him. Didn’t have the faintest idea that he was her sister’s husband.
Or maybe it wasn’t ridiculous at all. Maybe it was highly significant. Maybe it indicated, more clearly than anything else could conceivably have done, that she had, in the phrase she remembered Serita, her stylist in LA, using often, a ‘broken picker’ when it came to men. Someone with a broken picker made really bad romantic choices. They couldn’t help it. They were programmed all wrong, stuck in a bad pattern, and they were doing well if they could even acknowledge the problem at all.
‘You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge!’ Serita had often trilled, talking about friends of hers who kept dating guys she described as losers, spongers and lowlifes.
Well, OK, Deeley thought sadly. I have a broken picker. I’m acknowledging it. But how do I change that? How do I stop fixating on Matt, who’s clearly the last person in the world I should be fancying?
Because the truth was, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She’d been at Devon’s nearly a month now, and barely seen Matt at all; he had doubtless been avoiding her as much as she was steering clear of him. She had hardly gone up to the main house at all – not that Devon had invited her. Deeley had behaved as if the basement flat were an entirely separate entity, not connected with Devon’s house at all; she’d never once used the back stairs to go up to the ground floor, had tried to conduct her life as discretely from her middle sister’s as she could possibly manage. She’d seen Matt, of course. Through the safety bars on her basement windows, she had a good view of the street. He tended to leave for training first thing in the morning, but she’d see him coming back afterwards, in his sweats, parking his silver Jag and swinging himself out, striding up the short flight of steps to the front door with the easy, loose-knit movements of a professional athlete. Or, if he were off to a game, he’d be back later, dressed up in a nice suit for the post-game interviews. Never really late, though, never staggering home in the small hours, full of drink, having been partying at Boujis or Mahiki, surrounded by fellow players and identikit blondes. Matt was a homebody, that much was obvious.
But he never once glanced down at the windows of the basement flat to catch a glimpse of Deeley.
She loved to watch him. She knew it was wrong, but she loved it. She’d become an aficionado of rugby, catching every game on TV in which he played, even though she didn’t understand the first thing about the rules. Thank God the TV in the living room of the flat got all the sports channels. She was practically addicted to the sight of Matt, splashed in mud all over his sturdy thighs and thickly muscled calves, pounding down the field, the ball clasped firmly to his wide chest, fending off attackers with swerves of his wide, powerful shoulders. Every time he was tackled, she winced, grabbing the arms of her chair, on tenterhooks in case he came up limping, or with blood streaming from a fresh cut or, worse, didn’t come up at all. Every time he scored a try, or won Man of the Match, her heart flooded with happiness and pride in him.
Which was totally stupid, because he wasn’t hers in any way, and he never would be.
Her only consolation, strange as it sounded, was that Matt was a good man. He hadn’t made any effort to see her, to act on the powerful attraction that had flashed between them in Franco’s. She was just down the stairs from him; it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to drop down for a visit, making some excuse to hang out with her, try to seduce her.
Not that he’d have to try very hard, she admitted to herself honestly. He’d just have to touch me again and I’d go up in flames. I don’t think I’d have a shred of willpower where he’s concerned, not if we were close to each other, in the same room, with no one else around. Especially not if he put his hands on me.
She sighed deeply, thinking of Matt. At least my picker can’t be completely broken, not beyond repair, she reflected. Because I’m fixated on a nice guy, not a bastard. One who doesn’t want to cheat on his wife, especially not with her sister. One who positively goes out of his way to avoid his wife’s sister, in case he’s tempted to do something he shouldn’t.
And then, to her absolute shock, the memory of Bill’s face returned to her once more. But it didn’t obliterate Matt’s. Instead, it merged with it, and for the first time, Deeley realized that there was a strong resemblance between the sort-of-stepfather she had thought so perfect when she was young, and the man to whom she was so strongly attracted in the present. Matt was much more handsome; but Bill had been a boxer in his youth, and she had thought Matt was a boxer when she’d bumped into him. Both had naturally craggy features; both had broken noses that hadn’t reset completely straight; both were tall, muscular, imposing men, who carried themselves with confidence.
Oh my God, she thought, panicky. Matt reminds me of Bill . . . how fucked up is that?
‘Tickets, please,’ droned a voice beside her. ‘Miss? I haven’t checked your ticket yet, have I?’
Deeley started in shock, eyes flying open, jerked out of her trance. She reached across the table for her bag, fumbling inside it, producing her wallet and the return portion of her standard-class ticket.
‘I’d like to upgrade this,’ she said, handing it to the uniformed ticket collector.
He took it, sniffed, and started to input a series of keystrokes into the big black machine that hung around his neck. It took at least a minute; he might have been calculating the square root of an incredibly complex number, or working his way through a series of complicated algebraic equations. Eventually, without looking up at her, he announced, ‘That’ll be one hundred and forty-two pounds, miss.’
Deeley burst out laughing. ‘God, thanks so much!’ she said, when she’d stopped giggling. ‘I’ve been having such a weird day so far – I really needed a good laugh!’ She took a breath. ‘How much is it really, then?’
She trailed off, because the ticket collector had raised his head from the screen of his machine and was fixing her with a very beady eye.
‘It’s no joke, miss,’ he said coldly. ‘That is the correct first-class upgrade fare for the Leeds-London leg of this train trip.’
‘But that’s more than my entire ticket!’ she said in horror. ‘Though actually . . .’ she glanced at the receipt stub, ‘not by much. But still! I could probably have got a cab all the way back to London for a hundred and forty-two pounds!’
Across the aisle, a businessman, ostensibly reading his paper, nodded in agreement with her.
‘And there aren’t any seats in the rest of the carriages,’ she continued, getting cross now. ‘That’s why I came into first class. I mean, I bought a ticket – I should be guaranteed a seat, shouldn’t I?’
‘The ticket entitles you to carriage alone, miss,’ said the collector wearily. ‘Not to the use of a seat.’
‘That’s total robbery!’ Deeley said, even more crossly. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves!’
‘We have passed Doncaster,’ the ticket collector said. ‘It is conceivable that a seat might have opened up since you boarded the train.’
The businessman shook his head vigorously, and clearly not because of anything he was reading in the newspaper.
‘Oh, come on,’ Deeley said, picking up this cue. ‘I saw tons of people on the platform at the last station, and they weren’t just meeting friends getting off the train!’
‘As I said, miss, a seat is not guaranteed with purchase of a ticket,’ the ticket collector said. ‘You’re going to have to pay the upgrade or move.’
Sighing heavily, Deeley reached across the table for her bag. She was lifting the flap to open it when she paused. It wasn’t the quality of the embossed leather that stopped her; it was the satin of the lining, the thick, heavy, utterly luxurious feel of the material beneath her thumbs, material that didn’t even show for most of the time, which reminded her how much money she had spent at Fendi for this handbag. Money that she didn’t have any more; money that had never really been hers.
I should sell this on eBay, she thought in a flash of realization. Or at least, I should get all my stuff together and work out what I can sell. I’ve got tons of handbags, clothes, coats, jackets, shoes, piled up all over my bedroom in Devon’s house. Most of them I’ve hardly even worn. It’s just capital sitting there, money I could use.
Because she had no income coming in. Nothing at all. The payment from Yes! magazine had long since been spent. Deeley had been so excited by the approach from the journalist and the journalist had in turn been very keen; after all, Deeley was photogenic, single and a new face on the London social scene. But most importantly, she was the sister of two very well-known London celebrities. Yes! had hoped for a whole bounty of articles: the McKenna sisters reunited after years of separation, posing in Devon’s famous kitchen in designer dresses, smiling for the cameras.
But Maxie and Devon had closed that down indefinitely. And by the time they soften up – because they’ll want the publicity too, for their TV shows and handbag lines – the magazines won’t care about paying me much of anything. Because by then, I’ll just be some boring ex-girlfriend. I needed to strike while the iron’s hot, fresh from my ‘break-up’ with Nicky. In six months’ time, no one will care about me. I’ll be yesterday’s news.
Deeley needed a roof over her head much more than she did the payment from a few articles. She’d kept her head down, as Maxie and Devon had told her, and not taken any more calls from journalists, hoping that if she did what her sisters said, they’d forgive her. Take her fully into their lives, as she’d thought would happen when she came back to London. Let her be a part of the family again, the McKenna sisters together against the world.
But it meant that all she had financially was the lump sum that had been her pay-off from Nicky, via Carmen, sitting in her bank account, making no interest whatsoever. She needed to work out what to do with that money.
And she certainly shouldn’t throw away a hundred and forty-two pounds of it on an extortionate train ticket upgrade, just so she could sit in comfort for an hour or so.
‘Forget it,’ she said with decision, snapping shut the clasp of her bag. ‘I’m not paying your rip-off prices. I’d rather stand.’
She swung her legs out from under the seat and stood up, collecting her jacket with a dramatic flourish. The ticket collector looked her up and down, taking in the full opulence of her appearance, shocked that a woman dressed so expensively was balking at spending what would seem to be a very small sum to her. The businessman folded his paper noisily, slapping it down on the table and clearing his throat in an attempt to catch her attention. If she’d caught his eye, flashed him even the smallest smile, he’d have offered to pay the upgrade for her.
But then he’d have some rights to me, Deeley knew. He’d talk to me, try to pick me up, buy me a drink. And that’d be fair enough – he’d have paid for it, after all.
No. I’ve had enough of letting men pay for me. I lived off Nicky for five years, and I’d have gone on doing that as long as he wanted me.
Well, that’s over. I’m managing on my own from now on.
Without turning her head, she stalked out of the first-class carriage, head held high. Her glow of pride in her own ability to economize didn’t last long, however. She was taken aback to realize there was nowhere to sit at all, not even in the buffet car; she’d been expecting some tables there she might be able to squeeze onto. And the train, as she’d thought, was even more packed after the influx of passengers at Doncaster. One family had even commandeered a handicapped toilet, wedging open the door and camping out on the floor with their kids.
Squashed into the corridor, swaying back and forth, packed into a standing game of Sardines with her fellow travellers – all resolutely refusing to meet each other’s eyes, as if that would be a step too far in acknowledging the misery of their situations – Deeley was on her feet for the rest of the fifty-minute journey into King’s Cross. Her suede Isabel Marant boots weren’t, thank God, stiletto-heeled, but they were high enough to be hurting significantly by the time the train finally pulled into the terminal, after waiting for an unbearable several minutes just outside, as if the driver was amusing himself by adding a final extra twist of suffering to his passengers’ already horrible journey.
There was a stampede to get off as the doors opened. Deeley was carried along in the melee, stumbling over people’s suitcases and prams and sobbing children, but managed to hang back on the platform until the first urgent rush of travellers escaping from their incarceration had subsided. Then, walking slowly in her now painful heels, she made her way down the platform and into the main concourse of the station. Across the crowded floor, she spotted the sign for the Tube, but after her recent journey, she couldn’t face having to board two more trains to take her back to Mayfair.
And besides, I’ve got nothing to rush back for, she thought sadly. Just an empty basement flat. I don’t mind waiting for the bus.
Plus, it’s cheaper.
The pavement outside King’s Cross Station was just as busy. It was seven by now, a pleasantly warm late spring evening, but night was beginning to fall, and it seemed to Deeley that everyone but her knew where they were going. She was buffeted back and forth as she tried to get to the traffic lights, having worked out that the bus taking her to Marble Arch would be stopping on the far side of Euston Road. Buses, lorries and taxis poured past, honking and weaving, the tails of the bendy buses whipping perilously close to the pedestrians waiting at the crossing. Deeley stepped back a little as the second half of a 73, slowing down for a stop, swung so near her she could feel the wind of its wake. Directly behind it came a double-decker number 17, looming over its predecessor, and Deeley was just glancing to see if the lights were changing when she felt a tremendous impact in her back.
Something had crashed into her, right between her shoulder blades. She went flying forward as if shot out of a cannon, throwing her arms out in an attempt to balance, whacking into the people on each side of her, but not managing to catch onto anything that would slow her down. It all happened so fast she was completely powerless to help herself: she heard herself scream in terror, mouth wide open, as the huge red front of the 17 bus bore down inexorably on her. In another split second, she would be falling in front of it, into the road, under the huge wheels of the bus. No time for it to brake, no time for the driver to even see her – she was about to die, she knew she was about to die, this was it . . .
Her left heel caught on the edge of the pavement, or maybe a loose paving stone, she couldn’t tell. The impact jerked her upper body forward even more precipitately. The bus was so close she could see the dents in its metal front, the scratches on its windshield. Her hands flew up in a last-ditch, frantic attempt to protect her face. But whatever she caught her heel on saved her life. Because it slowed her down just enough for a man standing next to her to grab her round her waist and haul her backwards, a mere inch away from her seemingly inevitable impact with the number 17 bus.
It thundered past, its exhaust trailing stinking smoke, as Deeley fell against her rescuer, her scream cut off by the stranglehold of his solid arms. She struggled frantically for breath, limp against him, as he dragged h
er a good foot back from the edge of the pavement.
‘Jesus!’ he said above her head. ‘You got a death wish, love?’
Deeley scrabbled her feet back under her as he loosened his grip.
‘You’re not going to try that again, are you?’ he said, still holding onto her.
‘I was pushed!’ she managed to get out. ‘I didn’t jump – someone pushed me . . .’
‘Fucking hell – you all right?’ said a woman on her other side. ‘You took a right old tumble there!’
‘Says she was pushed,’ Deeley’s rescuer said.
‘Oh, I believe it,’ the woman said grimly. ‘There’s all sorts nowadays. Were they after your bag, love?’
Deeley scrabbled up her shoulder, realizing with great relief that her bag was still there.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said, sighing with relief.
‘Random nutter, then,’ the man said, letting her go now he was reassured that she hadn’t just tried to throw herself under a bus. ‘Care in the community – it’s a fucking joke, isn’t it? I blame Margaret Thatcher. She’s the one opened up the loony bins.’
‘Shouldn’t stand so close to the road, love,’ the woman advised Deeley. ‘It’s asking for trouble.’ She gave a valedictory nod and joined the crowd flooding across the road, dragging a tartan canvas pull-shopper behind her.
‘Thanks so much,’ Deeley said gratefully, turning to look up at the man who’d saved her; he was a burly construction worker, a fluorescent tabard over his work clothes.
‘Glad to help,’ he said, as people pushed past them, treading on their toes, complaining that their little group was blocking access to the crossing. ‘You OK? ’Cos I got to rush. You all right now?’
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