Walking on Air

by Christina Jones

  ‘Actually, I think I saw that . . .’

  Stan groaned. ‘I’ll have prawn cocktail and steak and chips and Black Forest gateau – or as near as you can get.’

  ‘You will not!’ Faith skimmed the menu. ‘French onion soup with proper croutons . . . beef stew with garlic and carrot dumplings . . . and – oh, something appley with Calvados. How does that sound?’

  ‘Expensive.’ Stan grinned. ‘No, that sounds fine. And I’ll have to have wine, will I? No beer?’

  ‘No beer.’

  ‘Bugger.’ He removed the tie altogether. ‘So, how’s Billie doing with the plane? I wish I’d been in when she phoned this afternoon. I’d like to have talked to her about it.’

  ‘Give her a ring tomorrow. I’ve probably forgotten all the technical details, but she was chuffed to bits that she’d actually sat in it.’

  Faith reported everything she’d been told during that afternoon’s telephone call.

  Only pausing to give their order to the waitress, whose accent owed more to Paignton than Paris, they discussed the development of the Boeing Stearman in some depth.

  ‘I think she was terribly disappointed that it wasn’t a jet, actually.’ Faith sipped her spritzer. ‘But she says it’s all gone together like a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle and is sitting in her shed like something out of the crash scene in Reach For the Sky. The painting is practically finished, but there was a bit of a hold-up with the letting agents over fumes, which delayed things. And someone wants to buy up their leases or something, but she didn’t seem too concerned about it. Otherwise, no news . . .’

  ‘Still no man on the scene, you mean.’ Stan chuckled, eyeing his huge steaming bowl of soup with delight, and lifting his spoon.

  Faith raised her eyebrows. ‘W-e-l-l – there are several men involved in the project, as I understand it. Billie has mentioned various names . . . Jonah Sullivan, who owns the plane – which makes him sound very Richard Branson – pops in from time to time but mostly at night when she’s not there. Apparently there’s also someone called Barnaby –’

  ‘Barnaby! Bloody Barnaby?’ Stan spluttered through a mouthful of soup. ‘Why the hell can’t anyone in this family settle for a nice ordinary person with a nice ordinary name?’

  ‘I don’t think his name’s going to be a problem, love. I hardly think he’s likely to become our son-in-law. At least, that’s not the impression she gives on the phone.’

  Stan seemed slightly mollified. ‘Well, I’m pleased that this warehousing thing is working out for her. I had my doubts, but she could do worse than getting a toe in the avionics door. . .’

  ‘It’s hardly British Aerospace! Boeing Stearmans were even before my time.’ Faith broke open her bread roll and sniffed the steam. ‘And I’d say they’d used a touch too much yeast in here . . .’

  The meal over, the bill paid, and the restaurant emptying for the night, Faith stood up. ‘I just need to pop to the Ladies . . . Yes, again – you know what my bladder’s like. No, you finish your brandy. No rush . . .’

  This was pretty stupid, she thought, picking her way through the maze of tables and chairs. She’d left it far too late. And who was she going to ask, anyway? The only member of staff they’d seen all evening was their charming but very young waitress, who’d obviously had no connection with Rustique’s early beginnings. Surely there was some sort of maítre d’, or someone in charge?

  She headed for the cloakroom, hoping that no one had spotted her taking the same trail only ten minutes before. She didn’t quite make it.

  ‘Your coat, madam?’

  Faith blinked. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your coat?’ The woman behind the well-polished walnut desk beamed. ‘Was that what you wanted? Or were you making for the Ladies room? Only I thought you’d just come out of there, so –’

  ‘No – my coat! Yes!’ Faith smiled maniacally, noting the name badge pinned to the neat grey and white striped blouse. ‘Er – yes . . . Marion. Thank you. The black one . . . And my husband’s is the tweed . . .’

  Faith took the coats, fumbled in her handbag for a tip, and smiled. ‘Thank you so much, we’ve had a lovely evening. I – um – wondered if there was anyone I could thank personally? The manager? Or the owner . . . ?’

  ‘It’s Mr Reynolds’ night off – but I’ll be sure to let him know. Your first visit, was it? I hope you’ll be back.’

  ‘Oh, yes – definitely, yes. Mr Reynolds? Does he own Rustique, then?’

  Marion, pocketing the tip, hoisted herself back on to her stool and shook her head. ‘No, he’s the manager. Been here since we opened. Done a great job. I’ve worked in some places where they’ve been OK to start with and then got complacent, you know? But Mr Reynolds has kept the standards high – and we’ve got customers coming back every week who ate here on the opening night. That’s got to say something, hasn’t it?’

  Faith nodded vehemently, thanking the gods of Devon for the loquacity of the locals, and cursing herself at the same time for booking a table on Mr Reynolds’ night off. Now she’d have to go through the whole palaver all over again – and Stan would never swallow it twice, she was sure of it.

  ‘Mind,’ Marion leaned forward, ‘it’s not been all beer and skittles.’

  Well, no, probably not. What was? Faith tried to lighten the gloom. ‘More champagne and boules?’

  ‘Beg pardon?’ Marion obviously ranked alongside Stan in the translation stakes. ‘No, what I mean is, we’ve had some pretty dodgy publicity . . .’

  Faith perked up. ‘Really? So you’ve had reporters here, have you?’

  ‘Dozens of the sods when we opened,’ Marion looked like settling in for a gossip. ‘All looking for an angle . . . all tarred with the same brush. Scum of the earth. Mr Reynolds and me – we gave ’em short shrift, I can tell you.’

  Faith, who had just decided that Marion looked nice and chummy and chatty, and had been going to admit to parenting a journalist, rapidly changed direction. ‘Were they – um – critical about the food then? Because if so, I can understand you being angry. It’s wonderful, and –’

  ‘No! Not the food. The ownership. They all wanted a piece of the action, like they do. Vultures.’

  Faith, who had now got hopelessly lost, was beginning to wonder if it might not be advisable just to cut her losses and make a return visit when Mr Reynolds was in situ. Then the word reverberated in her brain – ownership. That had to be it. Billie had been sent here, along with the other journalists, because there was a story on the ownership . . .

  ‘Your husband looks like he wants his coat,’ Marion said.

  Damn! Faith grabbed the Harris Tweed and practically vaulted the chairs and tables. ‘Here!’ She thrust the coat at Stan. ‘No, look – finish your brandy . . . What? Oh – well, finish mine. I only took a sip because of driving. Sit down and relax. I won’t be a moment . . .’

  She belted back between the tables as fast as the tight Jaeger skirt would allow.

  ‘Goodness,’ Marion said admiringly. ‘I like to see a woman who knows how to take good care of her man. After all, you reaps what you sows, don’t you? Now, where were we?’

  ‘You were telling me about the ownership.’ Faith slid her arms into her coat, spending ages tucking in her scarf and fiddling with the buttons. ‘And the journalists . . .’

  ‘Ah, right, yes. Well – oh, excuse me. . .’

  Faith groaned with impatience as Marion retrieved coats for another table of leavers. Fulsome in their praise, they looked as though they too wanted to stop and chat. Faith clenched her fists to prevent herself treating them as she would Lilac, Delphi, Mungo and Thad, and shoving their arms into their sleeves, buttoning them up, and shooing them out of the door.

  She was still fumbling with her own buttons when Marion came back. ‘Regulars. Nice people. Big tippers. I always find it comes from being born the right side of the Tamar.’ She peered anxiously at Faith. ‘That is – er you’re not . . . ?’

  ‘Good God, no. Bor
n in Honiton.’

  Marion hoisted herself back on to her stool. ‘Yes, I thought so. You can always tell. Well, these sewer rats from the tabloids – they were everywhere. Wanting to know the ins and outs. We couldn’t tell them anything, of course, because we didn’t know much ourselves. Well loads of people do it, don’t they? Add a second string to their bow? Pop singers and actors and that? You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, do you?’

  Faith said no, of course you didn’t, and began to wish she’d stayed at home with one of her mixed grills on a tray in front of the telly.

  ‘So, all we said to them was you’ll have to go up country and ask Mr and Mrs Squires – them being co-owners like – and of course once living in Willowbridge before they retired, that makes them like locals even if they have moved to Somerset, though God knows why, and –’

  Willowbridge . . . Willowbridge expats . . . Why did that ring a huge clanging bell? Ah, yes . . . Craigie MacGowan had said Billie had moved on to the Willowbridge expats column, hadn’t he? So that must be it – the connection between Rustique and Billie’s exodus. Nothing at all that happened here – just something that happened as a result of being here? Something she’d discovered?

  ‘Sorry?’ Faith reached into her handbag for an envelope, a scrap of paper. ‘Who did you say owned the restaurant? Squires? What a coincidence! I’d love to write and thank them, especially as they used to live in Willowbridge. My neck of the woods, so to speak . . . I knew them well – wondered what had happened to them . . . Good old – er – Ned and Doreen.’

  ‘Declan and Maeve,’ Marion laughed, obligingly copying a telephone number from a list on the wall onto the proffered gas bill. ‘Mind you, they might well be Ned and Doreen really. They used to run the chippy in Willowbridge – as you’ll know, of course – so this was a bit of a step up the catering ladder, so to speak. They might well have reinvented their names – especially after all the publicity with the boy. This is the number we always give out. I think they might monitor the calls still, but you’ll be OK, being a friend. I’m sure they’d be pleased to hear from you. At least you’re not a reporter trying to dig the dirt on their son, are you?’

  ‘Perish the thought!’ Faith said happily just as Stan joined them. ‘And thank you again for such a lovely evening. I really couldn’t have wished for more . . .’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Miranda gazed round the daytime interior of Bazooka’s and winced. She’d had no idea, during all those hazy tequila-spiked nights, how disgusting it really was. The walls were nicotine-soaked, the banquettes dusty, and the tables white-ringed and shabby. Even the dance floor, which had looked like spangled glass under the strobes, was scuffed and dull.

  ‘Bloody hell, doll.’ She shook her head at Reuben. ‘The pits, or what?’

  Reuben straightened up, a retractable tape measure in one hand, a calculator in the other. ‘It’s why nightclubs are nightclubs. Darkness, music, and mind-altering substances can perk up the ambience no end.’

  He grinned at her before leaning across the bar again, inserting more figures and muttering. Miranda, on her Follicles lunch break, lusted over his neat bum and well-muscled legs, and grinned back even though he couldn’t see her. She wasn’t quite sure whether or not they were a couple. She wasn’t even totally convinced that they were friends. Still, she was sure of one thing: they weren’t lovers. At least – not yet.

  Ever since the evening three weeks previously when she’d stayed in his bedsit, she’d been seeing a lot of Reuben. That is, she’d spent a lot of time in his company. She hadn’t seen anything of him in a physical, fleshly, bodily way at all. It had all been very circumspect. They’d talked into the small hours, then she’d curled up on his unromantic single bed and he’d slept on a rather unpleasant plum-coloured armchair. And all their meetings since had taken place away from the flat, of course. She’d decided it would be politic not to mention the Reuben-developments to Billie. Billie seemed to have enough problems of her own, with all the goings-on at the warehouse.

  And it had been disappointing to learn that there still weren’t even any decent men involved with either the warehouses or the Boeing Stearman. Well, that wasn’t quite true. There was Jonah Sullivan, who Billie had said was totally gorgeous to look at but a bit spiky, and who was also firmly attached to his secretary and his ex-wife, so he was ruled out. Also, Jonah Sullivan apparently, like Dracula, seemed to do all his best work in the dead of night so Billie rarely saw him. Then there was someone else who was stinking rich and called Barnaby. Miranda had become more interested at this point – but Billie had said Barnaby was the sort of man your mum always fancied, which knocked that one on the head.

  So, what with one thing and another, Miranda had carried on seeing Reuben on the basis that what Billie didn’t know about wouldn’t worry her unduly. Apart from meeting during the day, usually for a lunch-time drink in Mulligan’s where they’d discuss their respective businesses, she and Reuben had actually been out together on several evenings.

  Much as she’d like to say differently, Miranda had decided that none of these could actually fall into the category of a date. They had visited various other clubs in the area, usually to recce the fixtures and fittings. Reuben didn’t dance, drank very little, and had seemed oddly pleased that she was there. Even so, she was no nearer to knowing exactly what made him tick.

  Although, she admitted, still pleasurably watching him bend and stretch, he certainly seemed to have mellowed; the purchase of Bazooka’s had given him a real purpose. He wasn’t half so snappy, and his put-down lines were witty these days without the biting edge.

  He hardly ever mentioned Billie, and when he did, it seemed his interest in her welfare was genuine. Miranda smiled to herself. He’d become really concerned when she’d told him about someone buying up the leases on the industrial estate. He’d asked her several times what she thought Billie would do if she had to leave the warehouse.

  ‘Not come and drive a cab for you again, that’s for sure!’ Miranda had laughed. ‘Or manage your nightclub!’

  Reuben had nodded solicitously. ‘No – I didn’t think she would for a moment. Poor Billie – out of the frying pan, so to speak. I do hope things work out for her.’

  And Miranda had said she hoped so too, and thought what a nice man Reuben was, and again, how wrong Billie had got him.

  ‘There.’ Reuben straightened up and snapped off the calculator. ‘That’s done. What do you fancy? A drink in Mulligan’s, or what?’

  Miranda nodded. ‘A quick one. I’ve got a customer at two.’

  She waited while he locked the double doors. Bazooka’s had already been closed for ten days. The refurbishment would take at least six months. Caught Offside was due to open towards the end of May or the beginning of June next year at the latest. Whatever happened, Reuben had said, he wanted to be up and running for immediately alter the Cup Final, when all footie junkies would be screaming for their next fix, and to be able to capture the European matches through the summer. Miranda, who knew very little about football and cared about it even less, had merely smiled.

  While Kitty, Debs, Anna and Sally had all mourned the passing of the club and grizzled about forking out for taxi fares to take them to Winchester or Southampton or Newbury for a decent night out, Miranda had been relieved. Giving up clubbing, apart from as a spectator on the fact-finding missions with Reuben, had been a damn sight easier than giving up smoking. At least now she had an excuse not to tart up and get plastered and end up with a man who was a definite also-ran, in preference to ending the night with no man at all.

  They pushed their way into Mulligan’s. As usual it was packed with the twelve-till-two brigade. Miranda touched Reuben’s shoulder. ‘Grab a seat somewhere, doll. I’ll get the drinks.’

  He nodded and disappeared into the throng. Miranda shoved her way to the bar, deciding that she liked this display of sexual equality – and thrusting to the back of her mind the knowledge that Billie woul
d say it was just because Reuben was too tight to buy a drink.

  While she was waiting to be served, she watched Reuben fight his way to claim two tall stools in the corner. He was, she decided, an OK bloke. Certainly the lunching office ladies seemed to think so – it was almost like the Diet Coke ad. All the Amberley Hill business women in their sharp suits eased up their sleeves, flicked back their hair, and watched Reuben with interest from the privacy of their Pierre Cardin metal specs frames.

  Miranda felt a moment of proprietary pride. Crazy. Reuben had never kissed her. They hadn’t even touched in a personal way: she somehow couldn’t see Reuben holding hands or snuggling up. It was, she felt, really refreshing. Like starting all over again. She was still smiling in a slightly soppy born-again-virgin way when the barman snapped at her.

  ‘Uh? Oh, yeah – two lagers . . . Actually, better make that one lager and a gin and tonic – no, half of lager and an orange juice . . .’

  Well, they both had to go back to work, didn’t they? Trying to cross Mulligan’s with two drinks was like one of the more difficult games on It’s a Knockout. Miranda, who reckoned she could do it with her eyes closed and without having to play her Joker, sidled round the walls, manoeuvred the tables with a zigzag swerve, dived between the karaoke machine (silent) and the jukebox (belting out ‘Paddy McGinty’s Goat’), and squeezed herself triumphantly alongside the tall stools.

  ‘Only half a pint?’ Reuben frowned. ‘Skinflint.’

  ‘Tight-wad yourself, doll,’ she said companionably, hitching herself onto the stool. ‘So, what excitements have you got planned for this afternoon?’

  Reuben shrugged. ‘Keeping that skiving shower working will take all my time. Cab-drivers – huh. They take the biscuit. Can’t leave ’em for a minute. It’ll be nice to branch out into something else. What about you?’