Reversing Over Liberace

by Jane Lovering

  “Now that Luke’s got the smell of money, I think it would take more to put him off. Oh, has Cal rung back yet?”

  Katie looked at me pityingly. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you? No, Willow, he hasn’t rung. I would tell you if he did.” Cal, since dropping me off at my front door, hadn’t been seen or heard from. I’d left so many messages that his answerphone tape was full, but he hadn’t replied. “Why are you so uptight?”

  “Because I had fantastic sex with him the other night.”

  “You what?” Katie sank back into her chair. “You lucky, lucky cow. Can I have a turn with him next?”

  “You’ve got Dan.”

  “Your point is? No, I don’t mean that. Dan’s lovely. It’s just, jeezus, woman, if you were any more jammy, you’d be a pudding. Cal, eh?” She got up and shouldered her filing pile, heading out of the office, but sprang back through the door a moment later. “No, it’s no good. I’ve tried, but I’ve got to know. What was it like?”

  For the sake of sparing Cal’s blushes, should I ever get to see him again, I only gave her the edited highlights. But even those were enough to make her shake her head and mutter things about lucky, lucky bitches. She made me go over and over it. Spellbound, she insisted, by the romance of it all.

  “There’s nothing romantic about cold floorboards under your bum.”

  “Listen, Willow, with a man like that, it would be romantic shagging in the freezer section in Sainsbury’s. He was born romantic, you can tell. Why else would he grow his hair and wear all that black?”

  “Jazz wears black.”

  “That’s only so the dirt doesn’t show. Jazz has all the romance of a bin liner. Come on, Willow, admit it. Your man is the ride of the century.”

  Katie was so determined to make Cal and I a couple in her head, she neglected to acknowledge that he hadn’t even returned my calls. Hadn’t been in touch at all. Not as much as an email, in fact. So, all in all, I was rather shocked, when I reached home, to turn the corner, enter my own kitchen and walk into the man in question holding forth to Ash, whilst wearing a tea towel round his middle and carrying a wooden spoon. There was a wonderful smell of cooking and something bumped and spluttered on the stove.

  I stared and walked out. “I’m coming in again,” I announced, from the hallway. “So if either of you is a mirage, this is your chance to leave.” When I looked again, they’d stopped talking. Ash was leaning against the wall supervising a saucepan and Cal was retrieving something which smelled of garlic from the oven.

  “Ah, you’re back. Just in time.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Cooking garlic chicken. In a minute I shall be serving garlic chicken, so would you like to give the others a shout?”

  Feeling like a visitor in my own home, I rounded up the remaining brother and fetched OC from the garden where she was reclining in a hammock whilst Grace slept in her car seat. “How long has he been here?” I asked her, as she clambered dozily out of the swinging canvas.

  “Since this morning, I think. Turned up on the step with a chicken and a laptop, not long after you’d gone.”

  “Sounds like Cal. He’d never turn up with a bottle of wine, would he?”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. Nothing. Thinking aloud.”

  We sat around the kitchen table and ate Cal’s delectable roast garlic chicken, although I noticed Cal himself didn’t seem to have much appetite. Whenever our eyes met, he’d hold my gaze for a second or two and then look away. He was fiddling with his cutlery or turning his attention to Ash, until I began to feel awkward and concentrated on the food on my plate. I found myself grateful for the interludes when Grace cried and needed fetching from her chair, or when the water jug needed refilling.

  Eventually we’d all finished. Ash leaned back in his chair and lit a joint, blowing the smoke carelessly, which made OC huff and remove Grace to the living room. Clay made some excuse about “finishing a drawing” and left for his attic, and I started clearing the table.

  “I got your messages.” It was the first remark Cal had directed at me since we’d sat down. “You said you wanted to talk?”

  Ash, demonstrating the first ounce of tact in thirty-two years, stood up. “Right. I’m off. Enjoy yourselves, children.” Pressing the remains of the joint into Cal’s hand, he swept off, trailing his wrists dramatically.

  Being alone with Cal made me nervous. “Perhaps we should…” I indicated the living room.

  “No. We need to… Look, I’m sorry, Willow. I never meant to compromise anything. Our doing what we did, it wasn’t…it just happened. If you never want to mention it again, then say so, and as far as everyone else is concerned then nothing went on between us. Ever.”

  “Why the hell should I want to deny it?” To cover the heart-pounding confusion, I began stacking plates into the dishwasher.

  “Because, you and I, come on, Will, you know it would never work out.”

  “Why not?” I kept my back to him. There was a feeling in my throat as though my adrenal glands were trying to climb over my larynx, fizzing and burning and filling me with light-headedness.

  “Because you’re…you can be with anyone you want. Why the fuck would you want to shackle yourself to a limping tech-head?”

  Noises off. Grace had begun an extended wailing session in the next room, upstairs a thumping beat indicated that Ash was playing music, and the pipes were gurgling as Clay, in his nest under the eaves, began one of his four-hour baths. After Cal’s remark, these sounds fell into the quiet like stones into a pond.

  “Because”—I raised my voice slightly—“I think I’m in love with you.”

  Of course, the second I started to speak, all the sounds died away. Even Grace stuttered to a standstill and I yelled the end of the sentence into near-silence. An embarrassed pause followed, then Grace started up again. I suspect OC might have scared her on purpose.

  “Oh.”

  “Is that all you can say? ‘Oh’?”

  “I’m thinking. You haven’t, possibly, been beaten with a stupid stick today? Or, maybe, eaten some hallucinogenic sandwiches?”

  “No, Cal. I’m well aware of what I’m saying.” I turned around and faced him and my heart did a quick waltz around my chest at the way he was looking at me.

  “To use Ash’s vernacular, no shit.” He tried to get to his feet, but tangled his bad leg around the chair as he stood, sending himself lurching against the table. “Willow, are you sure you’re not just rebounding? I’m the last person to want to investigate your reasons for this really quite astounding statement, but I want you to be sure.”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” I said, into the grave-deep eyes. “But do you know the really crazy thing?”

  “What, apart from the fact that this joint burned my fingers?”

  “This isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. All the messages asking you to call me, I’ve thought of a way to get even with Luke.”

  “Again, with the no shit.” Cal shook the smouldering roach from his hand. “Hell, I’m becoming dangerously predictable here.”

  “The day you become predictable is the day I hand over my badge as Sheriff Strange of Weirdsville, Arizona. Population: you and me.”

  “Look, shall we go over to my place and talk? I’ve brought his laptop back for you, but, like I said, all the files are copied onto my computer at the farm.”

  “I think we might need some of them.” I led the way to the front door. “And maybe the help of your boys.”

  “You really have got plans, haven’t you?”

  “You’d better believe it.”

  On the way over to Cal’s flat, I outlined Plan Revenge. Cal whistled once or twice, nodding slowly most of the time, apart from when he was pulling out to overtake woodlice and tree sloths, which were the only things in the known universe to be moving slower than us. When I’d finished, we’d arrived.

  “Whew, some plan. Can you carry it off?”

  “If everyone helps
out. If it all comes together. I know it’s going to take some organising, but I think we owe it to everyone he’s ever shafted.”

  “Going to take guts, Willow. Can you pretend like that?”

  I stood very still. Could I? Could I really do it? Then I thought about all the wedding magazines under my bed, about the plans I’d had, about the life I’d envisaged. “Oh, yes. I can do it.”

  “Good.”

  In the flat I flopped down on the big sofa overlooking the window. “Coffee?” Cal stood nervously in the kitchen. “Or something else? Or, shall I cook?”

  “We’ve just eaten garlic chicken,” I reminded him. “Coffee is fine.”

  “Or tea? Or there’s some hot chocolate.”

  “Cal. Coffee is fine.”

  But he didn’t move, simply stood, staring at me. “God, you must be mad.” He ran fingers through his hair. “Wanting to be here, with me. I mean, look at the place, look at me. Not exactly Johnny Depp, am I?”

  “You really don’t have any ego at all, do you?”

  “I think there’s a jar in the cupboard somewhere.”

  “Cal, shut up.”

  “It’s the fact I’m… You women, always with the willy thing.”

  “Cal, shut up.”

  “I keep looking at you, waiting for you to disappear in a puff of smoke.”

  “Callum Moore, if you don’t shut up and come over here I bloody will disappear.”

  “Ooh, I like a woman who knows her own mind.” He sank down onto the sofa beside me.

  “And if you don’t kiss me properly within the next ten seconds, I’m going.”

  “I like a woman who knows my mind even better.”

  “It’s like living in a fridge magnet factory, being with you.” But his lips were cool on mine, his fingers gentle on my face, the slight scratch of stubble against my cheek and his hair in my eyes, and I could forgive him anything.

  Apart from eating all the bread. I was still working on forgiving that.

  Cal’s bedroom was pale green and terracotta, poster-sized blow-ups of computer innards framed and hung around the walls. Windows racked with blinds against the night. A fan, circling, blowing streamers of tape which made tricksy little shadows. A drenched oasis in a cracked-earth reality.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself.” Cal lay tangled in the sheets, a cunning fold of bedding covering his groin and leg but leaving his chest bare.

  “Did you arrange yourself like that before I woke up, just so you’d look debauched?”

  “Give me a break. My bauch is without question.” Cal sat up, still trailing sheets artfully.

  I gave a little shiver, remembering the shameless sex that had carried us through the night. Exciting, edgy, nothing like the sex that I had with Luke. “You were incredible, Cal.”

  Instead of the self-deprecating remark I was expecting, Cal smiled, slowly. It was like watching a cat grin, enigmatic, poised and very slightly smug. “Yeah,” he said. “Wasn’t I just.”

  I’d even dared, last night, to look at Cal naked and uncovered. I’d averted my eyes before, scared that he might be twisted or deformed, but to my relief the leg looked almost normal, slightly less muscle tone than his right as we’d worked up a sweat between us—but nothing scary.

  A sudden thought struck me. “What’s it going to be like for you, if I have to keep pretending to Luke that he and I are still an item? I don’t want to sleep with him again, urgh, but I’m going to have to keep you in the background.”

  Cal still had that lazy smile stuck to his face. You could have taken his picture and used him to illustrate the statement self-congratulatory. “I’ll live with it. It’ll be worth it in the end. And besides.” He rearranged my hair as it fell on my shoulders. “Why should I worry? I’m a much better fuck.”

  “Ah, the return of the ego.”

  “Can you blame me? You’ve made me feel like this doesn’t matter anymore.” He twitched the covers aside and slapped at his weak leg. “Like I could conquer mountains, swim the Atlantic. Anyway. Enough about you, now let’s talk about me. I’m thirty-four, Sagittarius, I like cooking, photography, reading…”

  “Shut up.” I laughed. “I don’t want to know.”

  “You don’t want to know all about me? Good God, woman, what kind of girlfriend are you? Next you’ll be saying that you don’t want to know how much I earn.”

  “Listen, I knew everything about Luke Fry. Back in the old days, I could probably have given you a chart showing how often he crapped! Didn’t help me, did it? So, yes, I do want to know about you, but let it come in its own good time, Cal.” I climbed out of the bed and began searching for my erotically discarded clothes. “And I’m really not bothered about the size of your salary.”

  “That’s not what you said last night.”

  “That wasn’t your salary.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Cal, you are absolutely insufferable.” I giggled, hauling my knickers off the trendy bent-poled lamp in the corner. He looked at me with suddenly hooded eyes.

  “I’ve done with suffering,” he said quietly. For a breathless moment we stared at each other. I could see his chest twitch with his heartbeat. He was so thin that each pulse trembled his skin. He moved slightly in the bed and the covers slid lower, revealing the dark hairs ringing his navel and running down in a pencil line. His body was perfectly shaded, the hollows deep and his flesh pale, his face highlighted with stubble and the twitch of his untidy hair. “Willow.” It was a whisper, a plea, gently, unbearably sexy.

  “Oh, bugger.” I pulled off what clothes I’d managed to put on and fell back into him again.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “Oh, and here’s your laptop. Cal’s fixed it, done it for nothing in fact, as a favour. He said he’d got all the bits in his workshop.”

  “Willow, what’s the matter? You’re talking fit to bust here. Is something upsetting you?”

  I paused, fork halfway to my lips. Was it my paranoid imagination or did he think I’d been checking up on him? What kind of person did he think I was? Apart from blindingly stupid and gullible, obviously. “No, everything’s fine.” I swallowed a mouthful of venison. “Just a bit jittery. I can’t make my mind up about getting married. I mean it’s so expensive. I looked at dresses yesterday with Katie, some of them were over a thousand pounds.”

  Luke clicked his tongue. “That does seem a bit steep.”

  “And I thought, what’s the point in wasting Ganda’s inheritance on stuff I’ll only wear once. I’d rather save it for, you know, investing.”

  I watched his face carefully, but he was good. Bloody good—he never so much as twitched a muscle. “At least investing it will get you a return.”

  Not if I invest in you, sunshine, I thought, suddenly vicious. You only proposed to me so that you could talk me into putting everything in joint names, then sue me through the courts for your half. I forced down another venison sausage, but couldn’t resist a quick stab. “And if we get married I wouldn’t put up with any bad behaviour from you, you know.”

  Luke gave me a cheeky grin. “You quite like my bad behaviour.”

  I pretended to laugh. “Not that sort.” And anyway, Cal’s ‘bad behaviour’ knocks yours out of the window. Now there’s a man who knows how to be BAD. “I meant, if you were unfaithful or anything.”

  Luke poured more wine, clinked glasses with me. All without a flicker of guilt. “Willow, married to you, why would I stray?”

  “Excuse me a second, Luke, I need to…powder my nose.” I almost ran from the restaurant, clutching my napkin to my mouth and only just making the Ladies before dinner returned in an unsightly rush. How dare he? How could he? How was it possible for anyone to lie so convincingly? It had strained every facial muscle I had to tell him that I’d got a “slight infection down there” and the doctor had recommended no sex until it cleared up. His disappointment had been obvious, but then I supposed it must be a perk of the job, having rampant sex to convi
nce me of his honest intentions.

  “So. How’s the business?” was my bright opener when I returned.

  “Not too bad. Showroom’s getting there, I sold the Morgan yesterday, hence.” He indicated, with a wave of his knife, the undoubtedly expensive restaurant we were eating at. Equally undoubtedly paid for with part of the twenty-six grand he’d had out of me so far. “I’ve had a few other leads on cars that might be up my street. One in Michigan, if I can afford to fly out for a look.” No movement, not even his eyelashes stirred my way.

  “Oh? Well, if it’s a sure thing, maybe I could give you the cash to get out there?”

  “I’m not committing until I know it’s a really good deal. But thanks, I’ll let you know.”

  I bet you will. “Um, Luke.” My hands started to sweat under the table and I surreptitiously wiped them on the linen tablecloth. “I’m going tomorrow to see Ganda’s invention?” Why did I phrase it as a question? Duh. Come on, Willow. “So I’m hoping that they’ll give me at least part of the money soon.”

  “Oh.” Affecting total nonchalance.

  “Only, I was thinking.” I hoped he didn’t hear the sudden intake of air. “I’d really like to invest some of it in your business. And, I was thinking, what about if the following weekend we go away somewhere? I thought, kind of, a hotel somewhere really special. I’d book it and everything, as a celebration.” Tinkly little laugh. Was I going too far?

  “I think that sounds very nice.” Maybe there was no too far where Luke was concerned. “Next weekend, you said?” A dip into his pocket and he drew out a brand new, very expensive, palm-top computer, pressed a few keys. “Yeah, that all looks pretty free. Um, just so I can let the bank manager know, how much were you thinking of investing? Sort of? I mean, you don’t have to be precise, obviously. It won’t matter one way or another, but, ball-park figure?”

  “I was thinking about a quarter of a million. Would that do?”

  A double blink. That was the only sign he gave that he was impressed. “Two hundred and fifty thousand? That sounds very generous. You should get a nice little return on that, depending on sales, but James is doing well with the cars in Boston, so…”