Daniel stood up and paced around the table still clutching his hair. Like a demented Dickensian character, his frenzied laughter was interspersed with promises to track Sean down in the New Year. His hand slipped to cover his face as he bent forwards, his laughter slowly morphing into deep uncontrollable anguished cries. His body shuddered with violent racking sobs as he leaned on his folded arms against the kitchen wall.
He cried with relief. He cried for his parents. He cried for forbidden love.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
In Amsterdam, Blake sucked deeply on his Marlboro cigarette while he lounged on the deck of the White Squall. A young couple sat opposite him, searching through a plastic bag with The Dungeon Museum printed on it. The woman pulled out a set of plastic handcuffs and whispered something into her boyfriend’s ear. They both giggled, foreheads touching.
Blake exhaled a stream of silver smoke when he noticed the handcuffs; yet another bloody reminder of his court date to spoil his weekend away. He turned his attention towards the tour guide and idly admired her legs. The boat navigated the canals of Amsterdam, serenely passing below numerous bridges adorned with parked bikes chained to their railings.
Scattered on nearby seats were the other six members of the stag posse, fidgeting due to their self-imposed immobility on board the boat. Despite being November, the sun shone in an azure sky but a chill breeze nipped at their cheeks and fingertips. The tour guide had started her well-rehearsed speech, but only a handful of people were listening. Blake watched her out of boredom. He wasn’t particularly impressed with her looks, but she wore a very short skirt over black opaque tights and her legs were shapely. The woman continued, despite the lack of attention.
‘The first pleasure cruise in the history of the Amsterdam canals took place in 1621 when Queen Elizabeth Stuart of Bohemia was welcomed into the city.’
Blake turned to the others. ‘Are we pleasure cruising tonight, lads? Just looking, of course.’
Kent sniffed but didn’t answer.
Blake sensed that Kent was disappointed that he’d come on the trip. His colleague had been distant and terse with him since their night out at the Llama Lounge, ever since Blake had drunkenly admitted to deceiving Tess. But Blake was determined that Kent wasn’t going to spoil his weekend. He had worked damn hard to earn his commission in order to pay for this jaunt. ‘C’mon, what plays in Dam, stays in Dam,’ said Blake.
Kent turned to speak to another colleague, leaving Blake to flick his cigarette end into the sparkling water. He looked back at the tour guide who was still tediously reeling off facts.
‘Treating visiting royals and other VIPs to a cruise on our canals became a tradition that lives on till today. From Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and The Beatles…’
Blake watched cyclists peddle across a double arched bridge as the boat steered beneath it. The sun momentarily disappeared, leaving the boat in the cold shadows. He listened to Kent and Jude argue amicably about who was the greatest, Elvis or The Beatles.
‘Come off it,’ Kent said with a laugh, ‘you only prefer The Beatles because your name is in a song title.’
‘You’re only pissed off because the closest you’ve got to a famous name is Kent-ucky Fried Chicken.’
‘Bwark, bwark,’ teased Sam, from commercial sales, flapping his elbows to impersonate a chicken.
Blake smiled and lit another cigarette. He looked at his watch. ‘Half an hour, chaps. Kick off’s at three.’
Watches were checked and eyes scanned ahead to see if they were nearing the end of their trip. The tour guide had either finished or given up because she had taken a seat at the front of the boat.
The bar they were heading for was located along a narrow alleyway, a neon Budweiser sign flashing above its doorway. The air was full of the heady sweetness of cannabis and tobacco fumes, mixed with the stale smell of beer. They twisted and turned as they made their way through a crowd of supporters. Many people were eagerly waiting for the match to start on the plasma screen that was suspended on a bracket next to the bar.
Kent’s group settled into a corner on two long benches that sandwiched a long thin sticky table. Remnants of beer mats that had been previously stuck to the table and later peeled off, had left random torn shapes of paper on the top resembling countries on a map. A cloud of pale grey smoke hung in the air amidst a swelling sea of bodies. Eventually beer was ordered, the cannabis menu was perused and the match began.
With Arsenal winning 1-0 at half-time, Kent’s stag group was slowly becoming inebriated with drink and drugs. As usual, Blake was drinking and smoking to excess. He drew on his spliff, squinting through a plume of smoke. He was on his fourth pint and the mixture of marijuana and alcohol were slowing down his responses. Even blinking seemed to take more time.
‘What y’aving, Blake?’ called Jude, wiggling an imaginary pint glass in his hand.
‘Bitter.’
‘And twisted,’ mumbled Kent.
‘And another bag of puff,’ Blake yelled.
The second half of the match continued in much the same way as the first. Bawdy banter, several more rounds, more spliffs rolled and plenty of staggering towards the men’s toilet. The group were generally inebriated but had their wits about them, but Blake had reached the point of no return. As the pub goers watched the players on the screen, Blake was irritating many people by swearing whenever a player tripped or yelling obscenities when the camera panned into a pretty girl in the crowd.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ shouted Kent. ‘If we all get thrown out because of your big mouth, you’re on your own.’
‘Vuck off, yourshelf.’
‘Get out of my face.’ Kent pushed him backwards onto the bench, where he fell in a crumpled heap. Instead of retaliating, he lifted his legs onto the bench, lay on his side and closed his eyes. He was asleep in seconds.
When Blake woke, his mouth was dry and the table was empty. The match had finished, but peals of laughter and the chinking of glasses hung like a melody in the air. The bar was half-empty. He scanned around for his friends, but they were nowhere to be seen. He called to a barmaid who was collecting empty glasses from the next table.
‘Hey, d’you know where the others are?’
‘Others?’
‘My mates.’
‘No, but I don’t think they left you behind by accident.’
‘What?’
‘The note.’ She pointed to his chest. ‘Pinned to your shirt.’
Blake looked down, creasing his neck into a double chin. He swayed while trying to focus on the upside down writing, making him feel sick. The girl read it for him.
‘It says “My name is Priscilla and I’m staying at The Canal Hotel. Please deliver me there if I’m still here at closing time.”’
‘Bastards.’ Blake sat at the table for a full ten minutes before moving. It wasn’t just the nausea that kept him there, it was a growing paranoia. Whenever he looked at someone, they seemed to look away. Had his friends paid someone to kill him and dump him in the River Amstel? No, he was being ridiculous; it was just the paranoia from the spliff. He shuffled towards the end of the bench and waited a few more minutes. He’d just decided to make a dash for the exit, when a red-haired woman sidled up to him.
‘You look hot,’ she said.
‘What do you want?’
She smoothed her palms down her tight silver outfit. It clung to her body like a layer of paint. ‘I’m cheaper than the girls on Rosse Buurt. Do you like my dress?’
‘What do you mean, I’m lying to Tess? Who sent you? How do you know Tess?’ Blake was standing unsteadily on his feet, spittle foaming in the corners of his mouth.
The woman looked momentarily shocked, but on seeing the detritus of glasses, filters and full ashtray of rolled cigarette ends, her lips curled in disgust.
She sneered and made a sucking noise with her lips. ‘If you can’t handle it, don’t fucking smoke it.’ She narrowed her eyes in contempt, turned and sauntered towards anot
her solitary figure sitting at a corner table.
Once outside the cold biting wind hit Blake like a punch. The narrow cobbled street was full of people wrapped up against the bitter autumn evening. As the sun had sunk into the horizon, the temperature had plummeted considerably. It was now dark and Blake had no idea what time it was. He glanced up at the sky to see if it would give him some clue as to the hour, but only star-studded black strips of sky were visible between the rooftops of the nineteenth-century architecture.
Blake strolled alongside the inky canal. The seedy world of legalised prostitution was flagrantly displayed along the length of the road. The red neon signs that tempted voyeuristic eyes to part with their euros for sexual favours, reflected in the rippling black water. Shop windows lined the edges of the leafy waterways displaying scantily-clad women sitting open-legged, their skin tinged lobster pink from the red neon bulbs. Some wore skimpy underwear with stockings, whereas others were a little more modest in hot pants and T-shirts. Some displayed their bodies sprawled on chaise longues, others sat astride a simple dining chair.
Blake noticed one woman look at her watch and yawn. She was probably counting the hours until she could pull on her dressing gown, bed socks and sip a hot cup of cocoa, he thought. He sauntered to the next window and jumped back startled when he came eye to eye with another prostitute. She was tapping on the window and beckoning to him with a curled forefinger. He took two steps backwards to regain his composure. The woman laughed at him, not unkindly he thought. He saw humour in her eyes, rather than disdain for him as a sordid observer. He chuckled. The woman winked at him and ran her tongue over her lips. He smiled at the stranger who was dressed in the smallest sequined shorts he’d ever seen. The woman turned her back, but remained looking over her shoulder at him as she wiggled her way to a single dining chair placed in the middle of the room. His eyes were drawn to her buttocks. They protruded beneath her shorts like two soft hammocks of pink flesh.
The woman looked world-weary and close to forty, but she appeared to be kind and her legs were long and lean. Her breasts swelled inside her black bra, making Blake harden at the thought of an older woman taking him in hand, so to speak. What he’d give for an uncomplicated five minutes with her. No questions asked. No compliments necessary and no boring foreplay holding up the action. Tess hadn’t been forthcoming in that department recently and he needed a distraction from the relentless reminders of his court case next week. What better way to take his mind off things? The lads wouldn’t know, so Tess would never find out.
He looked at the woman, no longer aware of the hustle and bustle along the busy street. He no longer heard the music, the shocked giggles from huddles of women or the drunken shouts from groups of men. As if hypnotised, Blake only had eyes for the woman in front of him. She sucked her finger and ran it across her lips and down into her cleavage, not taking her eyes off him for a second. An invisible lasso had caught him and began to reel him in.
Chapter Thirty
Tess lay curled up on the sofa watching the six o’clock news. She heard Blake let himself into Rose Cottage.
‘Hiya, I’m back,’ he shouted.
‘Did you have a good time?’
‘Good thanks. I missed you.’
Tess heaved herself up from a pile of deep cushions and they hugged.
‘How was it then? Tell me all about it.’
Blake flopped into a chair and sighed. ‘Nothing to tell, really. We had a boat trip on the canal, drank a lot, watched the match and hired bikes one afternoon. That’s it. How about you?’
‘Work, mainly. I’ve done some baking and Holly and I walked over to the bonfire party at the pub.’ She massaged Blake’s shoulders through his chunky woollen jumper. ‘How’re you feeling? Have you felt okay while you’ve been away?’
Blake shrugged. ‘So-so. You know what it’s like. Good days and bad days.’
‘I know.’ Tess patted his shoulders to signal the end to his massage. ‘Do you fancy a cuppa?’
‘Sounds good, thanks.’
‘Stay there and watch the news and I’ll put the kettle on. Are you hungry?’
‘No,’ he called, as Tess walked out of the lounge. ‘We stopped off for a McDonald’s on the way back. I’ve driven straight over with my bags. Thought I’d stay over tonight.’
Tess called back from the kitchen. ‘That’s fine.’ She filled the kettle and switched it on. Blake’s bags were cluttering the hall, so while the water was boiling, it made sense for Tess to throw a load of Blake’s washing into the machine. She unzipped his backpack and pulled out several dark shirts, socks and a pair of jeans. She checked to see if any spare euros had been left in his pockets. The last time he’d left coins in his pockets, they’d blocked the washing machine. Tess pulled out a business card but the other pockets were empty.
With the washing machine churning, Tess pinned the card to the cork noticeboard above the microwave. No doubt Blake would ask for it in a day or two, so she’d better save it.
The following week was wet and blustery. Work had been slow and routine had become the order of the day. She’d thought about Daniel all week, reliving the wonderful evening spent at the bonfire. Her mind always lingered on the intense moment when they’d nearly kissed at The Rookery a couple of weeks earlier. He’d telephoned her to thank her for the article she’d given him about Sean, but they hadn’t seen each other since firework night.
Tess lay in bed listening to the rain tapping a rhythm on the windowpane. Her bedroom felt cold even though the radiator clicked intermittently, proof that the heating had come on.
She shuddered and snuggled deeper into her warm quilt, trying to find some comfort among the feathers. Her mobile rang.
‘Hello.’
‘Hello, darling, it’s Mum. How are you?’
‘Hi, Mum.’ Tess sat up, pulling her duvet to her neck. ‘I’m fine, but this weather’s awful, isn’t it? Is it as cold and miserable down south, too?’
‘It’s not too bad actually. I can see some blue. Listen, darling. I don’t want to sound pushy, but another party are interested in Crimpton’s Tea Room. Mrs Eccles from up the lane told your dad that a middle-aged couple have set up a second viewing. I thought that I should at least let you know, so you could make a decision one way or the other. It’d be such a shame if you decided to take it on, only to find that you’d been pipped at the post.’
Tess groaned. ‘I was hoping it would take a bit longer for them to get more interest. I suppose it was unrealistic to expect that they would.’
‘I’m afraid so. It’s a pretty café in a picturesque spot.’
‘Margaret did say she could do with covering a few more shifts at work now Christmas is creeping closer. I’ll ask if she can work full-time next week with Holly. I’ll get back to you.’
‘Okay. Just give me a buzz if you can get the time off and I’ll arrange a second visit.’
Daniel turned to look at his illuminated digital clock for the fourth time. The glowing red digits read 03.41. He had fidgeted in bed for almost four hours, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts. Had he missed something important that would ruin his exhibition? How was Denise feeling? Despite speaking on the phone with her every day since her operation, he still worried about her. Was Tess sound asleep? Would she ever leave Blake? He’d call her and arrange to meet up. He missed spending time with her.
Daniel flung his duvet back and sat on the edge of the bed. It was the middle of November and the room was cold. His naked body shivered as he reached for his jeans and a sweatshirt. Walking barefoot on the soft carpet, he made his way down the curved staircase, switching on lights as he went. Maybe a mug of hot chocolate would warm him up and help him sleep.
Daniel caught sight of an envelope partly posted through the letterbox. How did he miss that when he went to bed last night? Rubbing his eyes, he bent to pick it up. The envelope had his name written on it, in neat forward sloping handwriting. He carried it into the kitchen, presuming it was a reply to an e
xhibition invitation.
The kitchen greeted him with warmth from the Aga and the heady perfume from a vase of lilies. Dropping the envelope on to the kitchen table, he opened the fridge door and poured some milk into a saucepan. Goya and Gogh looked at him through sleepy half-open eyes.
While he waited for the milk to heat, he pulled out a chair and ripped open the envelope.
The first words he read were, Love Tess, at the bottom of the paper. He quickly unfolded the sheet.
Hi Daniel,
Mum phoned to let me know that someone else was interested in the teashop. I’ve managed to take some leave from work at short notice, so I’m driving to Cornwall for a few days. Tried to call you but network was down. I promise not to get behind with the menu.
Love Tess
Daniel read the note again then held it to his lips. There’d be no chance he’d sleep now. It struck him how much he looked forward to seeing Tess and how much he’d miss her. A hissing and spitting noise snapped Daniel from his thoughts. The milk was bubbling over the top of the saucepan and bouncing like white ball bearings on the surface of the Aga. He reached for the handle and moved the saucepan off the heat. As he was cleaning the Aga’s surface, he burnt his finger. Cursing, he crossed to the sink and held his throbbing finger under a cold stream of water. He watched over a second pan of milk and after switching the light off, on and off again, he walked upstairs carrying a mug of chocolate. Daniel sucked his fingertip. The pain had started to throb again.
Instead of going up a second flight of stairs to his bedroom, he stopped on the first floor and went into his studio. He sat at his desk, sipping hot chocolate. The light from the landing and the glow from his Mac were the only light source. He pressed a button that highlighted a screen full of photographs. Scrolling through photographs of his dogs, his nephews, Denise and Simon, his artwork and holiday pictures, he found the one he had been searching for. It was the photograph he’d taken of Tess in this very room, looking at his artwork. Her features were half smiling and half questioning. Her long dark hair flowed over her shoulders and shone like the surface of a conker. He touched her face on the screen with a finger, turned off the computer and looked at his watch. It was nearly four. Leaving his empty mug next to the computer, he walked towards the door, a single shard of light shining beneath it and showing him the way. The clock glowed 04.01 as Daniel stepped out of his jeans and pulled his sweatshirt over his head. He climbed into the cold sheets, shivered and closed his eyes.
You've Got My Number: Warm your heart this winter with this uplifting and deliciously romantic story! Page 19