by Jenny Kane
After tapping out a message to Kit to say she was fine and thinking things over, Amy read Rob’s text again. Paul really was coming to visit. It would be so lovely to see him. Maybe we could go to Covent Garden, work our way around some coffee stops. Perhaps the National Gallery and then lunch in St. Martin-in-the-Fields vault? Perhaps …
Amy’s head filled with possibilities as she approached the bustling train station. By the time she’d got home, her indignation over the unexpected interview had evaporated. Kicking off her shoes, Amy picked up the phone and lay back on the sofa. First she rang Peggy and, side-stepping questions about the job by claiming she was thinking things through, made sure she could swap her next day off from Monday to Tuesday. That done, she called Rob, ‘Hi honey, can I have Paul’s mobile number? I want to arrange something for our day together. You got any ideas about what we should do?’
Amy was quite surprised when she looked at the clock as she put down the phone. Could they really have been talking for an hour and a half? It was a mobile too. Amy panicked as she remembered about her phone bill. Then she remembered that she wouldn’t have to worry in that way anymore, not if she took the job.
Sitting back, Amy felt unexpectedly content. Somehow Paul had put it all in perspective. He was right. She was lucky. Her friends needed a vacant position filling; she needed a job, was qualified, had heaps of business experience, and so naturally they’d asked her first. Amy had argued her point to Paul, explaining how wrong-footed she’d felt, and why she needed to break the mould herself.
‘But you did break the mould, silly.’
Amy could hear the smile in his voice, but persisted in her belligerence, ‘No I didn’t. I had no idea about it.’
Paul’s soft tone was patient, ‘But don’t you see, Amy? You broke the mould by coming south in the first place. That took guts. Perhaps this is your reward.’
Amy’s stomach grumbled, reminding her she hadn’t eaten anything since nibbling a small portion of jacket potato at about 11.30 that morning. As she opened the kitchen cupboards in the hunt for food, she smiled. A reward for all she’d put herself through. She liked the sound of that.
Fifty-four
January 17th 2007
Phil wasn’t at all sure how it had gone. Amy had certainly impressed Chris. She’d impressed him too. In a totally ad hoc way they had plunged in with a whole string of interview-type questions. He hadn’t intended it that way, and was worried he’d been a bit heavy handed, but Amy’s knowledge of marketing, accounts, and all the various facets of business, had been far wider than he’d anticipated. But then, as Amy had explained, in the past she had needed to understand all the ins and outs of a company before she could start setting it right or suggesting improvements to its productivity.
Amy had still appeared rather shocked, though, and Phil had an uneasy feeling that, by having it sprung on her like that, she’d been more offended than thrilled.
He turned the television channel over in an attempt to find something less depressing than the news. There were people arguing. He turned over again. Two people were humiliating a third person, and the audience were evidently finding it hilarious. Despairing of modern programming, Phil switched the set off.
Kit was singing to herself as she came downstairs after saying goodnight to the twins, two empty milk mugs in her hand. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Thanks, love,’ Phil stood up and followed her into the kitchen. ‘Sorry, I should have made it.’
‘Don’t worry.’ Kit went through the motions of hot drink preparation, before regarding her husband carefully, ‘I’m sure she’ll accept it, don’t worry so much.’
‘You didn’t see her face. I’m sure I’ve upset her in some way.’
‘Come on love, it was a huge thing for Amy to take in. It’ll be fine. Anyway,’ she handed Phil his drink, ‘do you think we could change the subject? I’ve got something to tell you.’
Phil’s tea remained undrunk. He’d listened to his wife’s news with growing admiration. When Kit passed him the copy of the email she’d received that morning, Phil thought he might burst with pride.
Words hadn’t seemed adequate. The erotica Kit sold via the Internet was one thing, and he was proud of her for making a name for herself in such a competitive market. This was something else. Much more. A publisher had expressed an interest in printing and marketing an anthology of Kit’s short stories. More than an interest, as the contract Kit had showed him indicated. A book which was all hers. Phil pulled his wife closer and kissed her passionately.
It wasn’t until after they’d made love that Kit managed to say, ‘I’m glad you’re pleased for me.’
‘Pleased! It’s fantastic. At last you’re being recognised in your own right.’
‘Not to mention that I’ll get the royalties rather than one-off payments.’
‘Well, that’ll certainly help more than a bit. Especially now I’ve gone and messed our financial security up.’
Kit kissed him again, cuddling close to his naked body. ‘You’ve done the right thing. It’s not as if you’ve cut us adrift in an open boat! And anyway, you’ll continue to make some money from Home Hunters, and if it doesn’t work out, you can sell it for a fortune. Face it Phil, we aren’t exactly poor, and in the meantime the book will help a little bit.’
Phil looked doubtful. ‘I don’t want to throw a spanner in the works, love, and the royalties will certainly be extremely useful, but I don’t suppose it’ll sell that many copies, not with the Internet putting similar stuff out there for free.’
Kit was smug, ‘The publishers don’t seem to agree.’
‘Really?’
‘They called me this afternoon. If I agree to their terms, they plan to do an initial run of two thousand. Apparently they sold over four thousand copies of the last erotic anthology they marketed.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Phil pushed Kit gently down onto the bed, and moved on top of her. ‘Come here, you!’
No one said anything else until it was time for breakfast.
‘I don’t think I’ll tell anyone else about this yet.’ Kit munched her way through a bowl full of cornflakes as Phil moved around the kitchen, packing himself some lunch.
‘Why not? I thought you’d be out there shouting it from the rooftops today. You’ve worked so hard for this.’
Kit put down her spoon. ‘So much has happened lately. I want to savour this between ourselves for a while.’
Phil came over to Kit and kissed the top of her head. ‘If that’s what you want, love, then you tell everyone when you’re ready.’
‘Thanks, Phil. Maybe I’ll announce it later in the week, when I’ve got over the shock myself!’
Fifty-five
January 18th 2007
Standing with her back propped against a wall, Amy gazed at the building opposite which had been her place of work since October. In only a few months Pickwicks had become as friendly and comfortable a place to spend her days as she could have wished for. Precisely the fresh start she’d needed.
As she admired the red-brickwork that rose above the café windows, Amy saw for the first time why Peggy and Scott had decided on the name ‘Pickwicks’. If you ignored the occasional outbreak of graffiti and modern signage in the street, the architecture had a very Dickensian feel. Perhaps ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ would have been more fitting, she thought – but it was too much of a mouthful, and anyway, it wasn’t a shop.
She’d have to go inside in a moment. Peggy was expecting her. There was a great deal to do. Extra sandwiches needed to be prepared in advance so that Peggy and Scott could disappear early for another physio session.
Amy hadn’t slept much last night. Torn between that nice kind of not sleeping, full of happy hopes, and the guilty kind of sleeplessness, brought on by the knowledge that she was about to leave Peggy hunting for a new waitress. The fact that Peggy was already in the know didn’t ease Amy’s conscience one bit. In the past Peggy would have managed without any waiting staff for
a while, but now Scott was more restricted in both his hours and his movements, good help was essential.
The flowers that filled various pots and vases in the café window were beginning to droop. Seeing them so desperate for water, Amy snapped out of her introspection and headed towards the door. She’d help Peggy out until a replacement was found. If Phil really wanted her to work for him, then he’d surely agree to that.
Even as she thought about it, though, Amy had doubts, a familiar lack of confidence filling her. Maybe she shouldn’t be that pushy, or Phil might change his mind. Yet, it felt like the right thing to do, so she’d do it. If she lost out then she’d simply have to go back to scanning the job sheets.
‘Are you mad?’ Peggy looked at Amy as if she’d been teleported in from another planet. ‘Don’t you dare jeopardise your future for this place!’
Amy was rather taken aback by Peggy’s forceful outburst, which went on. ‘Scott, come in here and talk some sense into this girl will you.’
Scott wheeled himself into the main café, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘This waitress here,’ Peggy pointed at Amy, ‘has, as you know, been offered a promising career doing something she loves, but is planning to tell Phil she won’t take it until we’ve found a replacement for her.’
Scott’s eyes sparkled as he spoke. ‘Oh, stop giving her a hard time, Peg.’ He turned to Amy. ‘You’ve been a star. Without you … well. I’m not sure how we would have coped. But you don’t owe us anything.’
‘I …’ Amy stuttered.
‘On the other hand,’ Scott adjusted his position on the chair, ‘you owe yourself plenty. So, if the job appeals, take it. We’ll be fine.’
Amy stared at her hands and felt tears prick at the back of her eyes. A trembly ‘thank you’ was all she could manage for a moment.
Scott inclined his head and wheeled himself back into his kitchen. Peggy was smiling at her affectionately. ‘He’s right; the job is yours for the taking, so take it.’
‘I owe you both so much, Peggy.’ Amy hugged her boss and, so as not to burst into tears, hurried into the kitchen to wash her hands, before filling a large jug with water and heading off to save the dehydrated flowers.
*……*……*
Squeezing a jet of creamy white mayonnaise into the shards of carrot and cabbage she’d just massacred felt extremely satisfying. Amy shivered as she plunged her hands into the icy-cold mixture, moving the contents of the bowl around until it was evenly mixed. She was on her final stir when her mobile began to ring.
‘Scott, can you get that for me? I’m rather sticky.’ Amy lifted her coleslaw encased fingers as if to prove her point.
‘Sure,’ Scott picked up her phone from the kitchen side and flipped it open. ‘Hello? Scott here, Amy’s on her way, who’s speaking please?’ Amy giggled at the affected secretarial voice he’d put for the call. ‘Oh, hi, Phil, Amy’s washing coleslaw off her hands. You OK?’
Amy started to move faster as she listened to Scott chat with Phil. He’d want to know if she was going to take the job.
‘Hello Phil. Sorry about that, I was up to my elbows in mayonnaise.’
Scott watched her quietly from his corner. He whistled softly to himself as he weighed out some flour for pastry while Amy told Phil that she would, if he was pleased with her references, be more than happy to take the job.
Fifty-six
January 23rd 2007
Disappointment welled up inside Amy. ‘What do you mean, you can’t come?’
Rob felt a twinge of guilt as he put on the best fake stuffed-up-nose voice he could muster, ‘I’m sorry Amy, but I can’t make it. This cold has really got hold, and I’d hate to give it to you guys.’ As an excuse, Rob knew it sounded a bit lame. ‘Paul’s going to be around London for a while. There’ll be other times for the three of us together.’
Amy was nervous, more nervous than when she’d caught up with Rob on her arrival in London.
Paul was late. She examined the inside of the intricate medieval stone work opposite her. The doorway to St Martins-in-the-Fields wasn’t easy to spot, Amy had walked past it by mistake before she’d come in, and she’d been here before. Maybe the British Museum would have been a better place to meet, or the Victoria and Albert? Amy glanced at the entrance for the tenth time in as many minutes. Paul might not even recognise her; after all, it had been a long time since they’d seen each other.
Her drink was already half gone. Amy checked her phone again. No messages. Giving up, she dug into her bag, bringing out the ever present novel.
Paul had spotted Amy as soon as he’d manoeuvred his six-foot-two frame through the low stone doorway. He’d been confident she would be in the café’s furthest corner, and sure enough, there she was. Amy had always adopted a position where she could hide. As he watched her, Paul wondered if it was even something she was conscious of.
There was a coffee cup by Amy already, and the book her nose was stuck into was a paperback of the more ponderous variety of classic. Most of the girls he met these days wouldn’t even have considered picking it up.
She was definitely a bit slimmer than he remembered, and her hair was sleeker, tethered back into two shoulder-length bunches that made her look younger than she was. Amy hadn’t managed to get them level, and one bunch was noticeably higher than the other. Paul found he was dying to straighten them out for her.
Her clothes were the same as in the old days, though; knowing Amy, Paul thought with a grin, they might well be exactly the same. Jeans and a stripy blue jumper, probably with a T-shirt beneath, very probably a black one. The only really noticeable difference between now and then was that she was wearing knee-length boots with a wedge heel rather than trainers.
Rob was right. Essentially, Amy Crane hadn’t changed a bit.
Suddenly aware that she was being observed, Amy looked up from her book.
‘Hello!’
Her face broke into a welcoming beam. ‘I thought you might have got lost.’ She stood up and found herself smothered in a massive bear hug. Paul smelt nice; all warm and clean without the overpowering scent of the male perfumes Amy so despised.
‘Tube delays. I couldn’t get a signal down there to let you know.’ Paul felt awkward, not quite sure what to say next, having held her slightly longer than perhaps was normal for a couple of friends. He’d engineered this opportunity to get her alone, and now he was here, he was tongue-tied.
Amy unwittingly came to his rescue. ‘You getting a coffee then?’
‘Yes, sure. You want a top-up? Black I assume?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Any cake?’
‘No thanks.’
Amy watched Paul flirt with the Polish girl behind the counter as he placed his request. He seemed taller than she remembered. His black hair was still cropped very short, but it wasn’t as severe as the shaved style he’d favoured as a student. His jeans were blue rather than black, and his shirt, although crumpled, was smarter than the off-white T-shirts she’d always associated with him. Smarter. He was definitely smarter. A huge brown overcoat, which probably weighed a ton, covered the back view of him almost completely, with the heels of his Doc Martens only just visible below the hem.
How come she hadn’t noticed how attractive he was back then? Amy felt taken aback at the alien notion, and abruptly pushed the idea away. Yet that hug …
Amy reined in and dismissed her wild flight of fancy as Paul returned with their refreshments. After they’d covered a wide range of comfortable reminiscences and laughed heartily at their past selves, Amy brought the conversation back up-to-date.
‘So, is anyone special waiting for you back on site?’
Paul pushed his cup aside. ‘No. No one’s twiddling their trowel and pining for my return.’
‘That’s not like you.’
Paul regarded Amy as if she was nuts. ‘I’m not stuck in a timewarp, Amy. I’m thirty-four. That pretty much makes me the father figure. I’m the oldest guy on site by a
t least five years. It’s the twenty-somethings that have the trowel-twiddlers waiting for them these days.’
‘But surely …’ Amy was genuinely shocked. She was so sure that things would have been just as she’d left them. ‘You must meet heaps of nice people.’
‘Sure I do. I have many friends, both male and female, right across the world.’
Amy wasn’t quite sure why she pushed further, ‘But no one special?’
‘Not since uni.’ Paul sighed, not sure if he was ready to go where this conversation might take them.
‘Uni?’ Amy couldn’t believe it. This was Paul. The guy every girl had wanted to date back then. Well, every girl bar her. Yet none of the string of young women he’d dated had ever lasted more than a fortnight, and for the life of her, Amy couldn’t remember if Paul had especially liked any of them. ‘Who was that then? You never said at the time.’
Paul hesitated, before taking the easy way out, ‘You never met her. Let’s go and explore. Gallery, museum, or a walk in the park?’
Amy was disappointed by his answer, but accepted it for now. She looked at her watch; it had already gone one. ‘How about we nip into the National Portrait Gallery, have a quick mooch around and then grab a bit of lunch.’
‘Good idea, is there a good café in there?’
‘Two; but the Portrait Restaurant is fantastic, you get views right across London. I went in with my friend Kit before Christmas.’ Amy paused. ‘It’s a bit expensive though. We could go into the Lounge area, that’s better price-wise, although maybe we shouldn’t …’ Uncertainty took hold, as Amy’s words trailed off.
Paul intercepted her rambling, ‘Amy, this is my treat.’
‘But archaeologists earn crap money.’ Amy blushed as she blurted out the sentence.
‘Oh, thanks!’ Paul laughed at her, ‘Although I can’t argue. However, I have news on that front. Come on, I have heaps to tell you yet. Show me these amazing views of yours, and tell me about your new friends.’