Flights of Angels

by Victoria Connelly

  There was a moment’s pause as they stared at each other in the semi-darkness.

  ‘I’m not moving,’ Felicity said in a quiet voice.

  Simon felt his heartbeat accelerate, but he was determined to stay in control of the situation. He wasn’t going to get involved in one of her silly little games. He was the one calling the shots now, he reminded himself.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, calmly getting out of bed and walking across the room. ‘I’ll sleep in the other room, then.’ And he left her alone in the bed, smiling to himself as he crossed the landing and locked the door of the smallest bedroom behind him.

  If she thought, for a moment, that she could follow him into a single bed, she’d be disappointed.

  Chapter 34

  ‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ Kristen said, pushing a heap of pale chocolate krispies round her cereal bowl and examining the brown milk with intense eyes.

  ‘Do what?’ Claudie said, biting into a slice of toast.

  ‘Spend another day away from Jimmy.’ She sighed. ‘And another night.’

  ‘You miss him?’

  Kristen put her bowl down and looked up at Claudie. ‘Oh, Claudie. I don’t know how you coped.’

  Claudie looked down at the black and white floor of the kitchen. The black was faded and scuffed and the white was really more like grey.

  ‘I didn’t cope,’ she said, ‘I just existed.’ She shrugged her shoulders as she tried to remember if there was some sort of formula she could pass on to Kristen. ‘You become the most basic of creatures. You breathe and sleep. Sometimes you get the urge to eat, but not very often. You become somebody else.’ She switched her gaze from floor to ceiling. ‘It’s like there’s a little person deep inside you who takes over the controls.’

  Kristen nodded as if Claudie’s words were the wisest she’d ever heard.

  ‘I feel so miserable without Jimmy,’ she confessed. And it’s making me more miserable because I know my situation isn’t anything compared to yours.’

  Claudie pulled a stool up next to Kristen at the breakfast bar.

  ‘How do you continue?’ Kristen asked.

  Claudie gave a tiny half-smile as she sat down. ‘You should never underestimate the will to live. It’s more powerful than you realise.’

  They looked at each other with the kind of peace and understanding born from years of friendship.

  ‘But life can be such a bitch,’ Kristen said.

  Claudie nodded. ‘And sometimes you feel you’re not really living at all. Those first few months after Luke died were so bleak, so black, that I felt I’d died as well but, gradually, it did start to get better - not much - but it was no longer so black. It was more like a strange kind of twilight.’ Claudie’s eyes misted over as if she were experiencing it again. ‘You can see life going on around you - just like it always did but, somehow, you’re not quite ready to be a part of it again,’ she said, remembering Gene Kelly’s words to her in the grounds of St Mary’s.

  ‘And it doesn’t help when you’ve got bullies for friends - who are always trying to get you to do things you don’t want to do. When I think of all the terrible things I must have said to you -’

  ‘You were wonderful, Kris. The best friend anyone could hope to have.’

  Kristen swallowed hard. ‘Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Claudie agreed, ‘but we’ve got Paris to look forward to, haven’t we?’

  Kristen nodded, but the ensuing silence gave the impression that neither of them thought it was that big a deal in the scheme of things.

  A strange plop from outside grabbed their attention, and Claudie and Kristen turned round to see that a huge dropping had been fired at the kitchen window by what must have been an enormous seagull.

  ‘How on earth do they manage to do that?’ Claudie gasped, walking over to the window and staring at it in undisguised horror.

  ‘It’s meant to be lucky, isn’t it?’ Kristen said, joining her at the window.

  ‘Not for the poor sod who has to clean it up.’

  They looked at each other and, before they knew it, they were laughing.

  What was it that made Sunday the most boring day of the week, Simon wondered? Even having a pregnant ex-girlfriend around the house didn’t seem to liven things up.

  As he booted his computer up, he thought of the night before and how he’d not been able to sleep after leaving Felicity in his bed, even with the door of the little bedroom locked behind him. He’d turned on the bedside lamp and had stared around the room at Felicity’s things.

  Her double-decker bus of a suitcase lay open on the floor and she’d already managed to hang most of her clothes away in the single wardrobe in the room. Where were her other clothes, he wondered, and had she made plans to have them sent over? She’d better not have.

  He peered into the suitcase. He wasn’t normally a nosy person, but his eyes were drawn to the strange collection of things she had in there. There were three pairs of strappy heels that were just perfect for walking round Whitby; a hairdryer the size of a small car; and three huge photo albums. No wonder her case had almost pulled his arm out when he’d hoisted it up the stairs.

  It didn’t taken him long to dip into the photo albums. At first, it had been to look for clues as to what Felicity had been up to since she’d left. But there were no new boyfriends to be found, and no signs of any candidates for father of the baby; only photos of him. Had Felicity left it out hoping that he’d find it?

  The whole of their life together was in those three large photo albums. There was the day they’d moved into the house. How happy they’d been, and how funny everything had seemed back then, from the damp on the kitchen wall to the boiler that thumped whenever you wanted more than a cupful of hot water.

  He turned a few pages and there they were on their nasty package holiday to Spain with Felicity in an amethyst swimming costume at the side of the pool, and Simon with an ice-cream the size of his head.

  They’d been happy back then. Life had been one big adventure, one big laugh. So what had gone wrong? Where had all the fun gone? Had all the love simply drained away as if some emotional plug had been pulled?

  As he’d closed the final photo album, he’d felt something inside him soften towards Felicity. As absurd as it seemed, he could feel a few maybes floating around his head. Maybe. It was the most dangerous of words.

  Now, he looked out of his study window as an elderly couple walked passed on their way to church. He looked at their frail arms, intertwined and delicate as December twigs, and a sadness enclosed his heart. Would he ever walk arm in arm with somebody on a Sunday morning?

  And then the word maybe popped into his head again. Maybe Felicity really was the one?

  He turned back to look at his desk and his eyes narrowed as he saw Felicity standing in the doorway. She looked pale and tired, her long limbs milky and bare in an insubstantial dressing gown. How long had she been standing there watching him? Had she been able to read his thoughts?

  She walked into the room and he could smell her perfume. She hadn’t got dressed but she was wearing lipstick and perfume, and the scent reminded him of the very first time he’d seen her.

  ‘Simon,’ she whispered, extending a hand out to stroke his face.

  It felt good. It felt like the first time. Maybe it was?

  He closed his eyes and let her kiss him.

  Chapter 35

  Back at work on Monday, Kristen was waiting for Claudie to go to lunch. She was certainly taking her time: faffing about with Mr Bartholomew’s booklets, closing down all her files, straightening her in tray, and fiddling with the contents of her handbag. Any more time-consuming nonsense and Kristen was going to have to march over there and physically propel her out of the office.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t love her friend dearly. She did. Which was exactly why she wanted rid of her: to enable her to make her phone call to Simon to see what was happening with the trip to Paris.

&
nbsp; ‘Sure you won’t come with me for a sandwich?’ Claudie called over to Kristen, completely oblivious to her friend’s train of thoughts.

  ‘No! Er - thanks. I’ve got to finish this letter before lunch. Mr Simpson’s orders.’

  ‘Okay. See you later, then,’ Claudie smiled, throwing her bag over her shoulder and leaving the office.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ Kristen said under her breath, picking up the phone and dialling Simon’s number. She’d been longing to hear what had been happening with him and Felicity all weekend, but hadn’t been able to ring in private from Claudie’s.

  Listening to the ringing tone, she bit her lip, trying to anticipate what he would say. With any luck, he’d have sent Felicity on her way the minute she had left his house on Saturday. But, if he’d done that, surely he would have called Claudie to apologise?

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Simon?’

  ‘Kristen?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I’m at work, so I can’t talk for long.’

  ‘Neither can I.’

  ‘Why?’ Kristen asked, fear coursing through her body.

  ‘Felicity’s upstairs.’

  ‘What do you mean, she’s upstairs? What the hell’s going on, Simon?’ Kristen hissed, turning her back on Angela who was peering round from her computer at the far end of the office.

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Don’t give me that old cliché!’

  ‘It’s not a cliché. There are things we need to sort out. It’s not as simple-’

  ‘Bollocks!’

  ‘Kris!’

  ‘God!’ Kristen gave a fiery sigh. ‘You haven’t slept with her, have you?’ There was a moment’s pause. A pause which seemed to indicate Simon’s guilt. ‘Simon?’ She could hear him cursing quietly at the other end of the phone.

  ‘I didn’t sleep with her,’ he all but shouted.

  Kristen closed her eyes. Why didn’t she believe him? Because she knew Felicity? Because Simon didn’t sound at all like Simon at the moment?

  ‘What about Claudie? How do you think she’s feeling about this?’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘She was really upset on Saturday night.’

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘Of course she was, you bastard. You’re the first date she’s had since Luke, and you went and stuffed it up.’

  ‘I didn’t do it on purpose. And don’t call me a bastard!’

  Kristen bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’ve probably set her back a fair few months on the emotional healing scale.’

  ‘This is terrible,’ he groaned.

  ‘Yes, it is. I trusted you with this, Si, and only you can sort it out. So get sorting!’ She was about to hang up but remembered something. ‘What about Paris? What are you going to do about that, then?’

  ‘Don’t worry. Paris is still on. I’ll sort things out before then.’

  ‘You’re damned right you will.’ Kristen had noticed that Angela had suddenly found an important job to do just in front of her desk, so she sent her a narrow-eyed glare.

  ‘Well,’ Simon sighed, ‘you’ve had your turn at telling me off - what’s happening with you and Jimmy?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have you two made up yet?’

  ‘No,’ Kristen said.

  ‘Well it looks as if you’ve got some things to sort out too.’

  ‘I don’t think they can be sorted,’ she said.

  Simon suddenly whispered into the phone. ‘I’ve got to go, Kris. Felicity’s coming downstairs.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, her voice sounding loose and pathetic.

  She put the phone down and stared across her desk. Angela had returned to her own and had used her sense in not questioning Kristen about her call.

  In truth, Kristen half wished that she hadn’t called Simon. It had brought Jimmy to the forefront of her mind again.

  How could she sort things out? She was the one who’d done the walking out, so surely it was up to her to make things up? Or had walking out meant that the ball was now in his court? It was all so complicated.

  ‘Right,’ Angela said from her retreat at the other side of the office, ‘I’m off to lunch.’

  Kristen nodded and watched as she walked towards the door, her hideously large diamond engagement ring seeming to leave a wake of light behind her. Kristen drummed her ringless fingers on her mousemat and stared down at the telephone. Should she? Could she? And, if she could, what exactly would she say?

  She picked the receiver up and dialled the familiar numbers. Monday lunchtime. He might well be down at the harbour on his boat but there was a good chance that he would be in.

  ‘Hello.’

  Kristen gulped. He was in.

  ‘Hello?’ Jimmy said again, making Kristen freeze. It seemed an age ago since she’d heard his voice. ‘Kris? Is that you?’

  Kristen nodded but her voice had gone AWOL.

  ‘Kris? Talk to me.’

  I want to. I want to! she cried to herself but her mouth, dry as a desert, refused to co-operate, so she hung up.

  ‘Who was that?’ Felicity asked as she walked into the living room.

  ‘Just someone about a website,’ Simon said quickly, as if he’d rehearsed the line.

  ‘That’s good,’ Felicity said, and Simon swore he could see pound signs registering in her eyes. ‘Anyway,’ she said, moving close enough to inflict a heady dose of perfume upon him, ‘what are you doing this afternoon?’ She snaked a long arm round his waist.

  ‘Well, I -’

  ‘Only, we could always have a repeat of yesterday.’

  Simon wasn’t sure which was hammering faster: his heart or his brain. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ he said, aware that her long nails were toying with the waistband of his trousers.

  ‘But it was so good,’ she cooed into his ear.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you mean, no?’

  ‘It wasn’t a good idea.’

  Felicity leant back and glared at him. ‘Not a good idea?’

  ‘No,’ Simon replied, trying to keep calm as he watched the dragon rising behind Felicity’s pretty face.

  ‘I see,’ she said, her good humour slipping away at an alarming rate.

  Simon scratched his head. ‘I’ve got to do some work,’ he said, making to leave the room.

  ‘In that case,’ Felicity said, an injection of venom in her voice, ‘I’m going out.’

  Simon watched as she stalked out of the room, and couldn’t help wishing that she was going - full stop.

  Chapter 36

  Claudie had been idling round the shops during her lunchtime when she’d come to a sudden halt. It was something she hadn’t done in months. Not since the angels had arrived anyway.

  It had happened quite a lot in the weeks after Luke had died. She’d be walking round the shops and would see something she knew would appeal to Luke: a pair of boots or a rucksack in a window display, and she’d think, I must remember to tell him that. Call it instinct or habit, but whatever it was, it wasn’t an easy thing to shut down. And it was surfacing again.

  Claudie stared hard at the mannequin wearing the dark red shirt. It was the sort of shirt a man chopped wood in, the sort of shirt whose sleeves were always rolled above the elbows. Luke’s sort of shirt.

  Her eyes misted over as she stared at it. Who would buy it? Who would buy Luke’s shirt? For one moment, unable to bear the idea that a stranger might have the nerve to wear it, Claudie thought about going in and buying it herself. But that was silly, wasn’t it? And didn’t she already have half a wardrobe of his clothes at home?

  Shortly after the funeral, Luke’s mother had visited and taken it upon herself to pack her son away into boxes and bin liners, but Claudie had drawn the line at his shirts. And his green wellington boots.

  ‘What can you possibly want with those?’ Mrs Gale had asked as she looked down at the pair of scuffed rubber boots flaking mud by
the back door. But how could Claudie get rid of those? That was the mud they’d trod through together a week before he’d died.

  God, that walk! Luke had bought her her first pair of wellington boots since she was five, and had driven her out into the middle of the countryside.

  ‘You’ll love it!’ he’d enthused, marching her through a wood whose path had been lost under a chocolate river of mud.

  They’d squelched and skidded, unable to look at anything but their feet for fear of falling over, and had arrived back at the car looking as if they’d bathed in the stuff.

  Getting rid of his boots would be a kind of amputation, and she hadn’t been able to do it. She hadn’t even been able to clean them. They just stood there, sentinel-like, by the back door.

  Claudie thought of Mrs Gale for a moment. She’d rung almost every day during the first couple of weeks after the funeral, but then the calls had stopped. There’d been nothing to talk about any more, and Claudie’s role as a daughter-in-law had ended.

  Outside the shop, Claudie closed her eyes for a moment but the red of the shirt burned bright in her mind. She could buy it; just get it over and done with, but it wouldn’t make it Luke’s, would it? He would never wear it and make it his.

  Sometimes, Claudie would just open the wardrobe door and stare at his clothes, as if trying to breathe life back into them. She’d even stuck her nose deep into the soft materials in an attempt to seek out a little piece of him. She’d seen people do that a thousand times in the movies. But it had been hopeless. She’d smelt nothing but Lenor.

  She opened her eyes and looked again at the red shirt and, as much as she wanted it, she knew that it didn’t make any sense.

  When Claudie got back from lunch, Kristen got up from her desk to go.

  ‘You okay?’ Claudie asked her.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m just going to pop home and get some things. I’m beginning to run out of undies.’

  ‘Won’t Jimmy be in?’

  ‘No. He usually goes out around lunchtime for a quick pint.’