by Alice Ross
‘Hi,’ he said, mouth curving into another disarming smile. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I made myself a drink and a sandwich while you were asleep. I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘No. No. Of course I don’t mind,’ blustered Chrissie, sending a silent prayer to whomever might be on duty, that she hadn’t been drooling, or snoring, or drooling and snoring, when he’d discovered her dozing. ‘Make yourself at home. Would you like anything else? I could rattle up an omelette?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Thank you. The hospital called to say Valentina is awake. A taxi will be here in twenty minutes to take me over there, so I thought I’d grab a quick snack.’
‘There was no need to call a taxi,’ Chrissie said, on yet another rush of guilt. ‘I can take you to the hospital.’
He quirked an eyebrow. ‘You don’t have to.’
‘I know. But I’d like to. I’ll just make a quick call to my ex-husband while you finish your sandwich, then we can be off.’
In the car fifteen minutes later, Chrissie decided to clear the air. She felt terrible enough about Valentina becoming ill on her watch – even though Mrs Hardman was probably right: there had been nothing she could have done to prevent the girl’s condition. Still, that nagging guilt, added to the guilt generated by her email to Raphael, wasn’t helping her skittish state at all. Which was why she really should broach the subject of her note.
‘I want to say how sorry I am,’ she began, eyes firmly fixed on the road ahead. ‘About the email I sent you. I called your parenting skills into question, which I had no right to do.’
Bracing herself for his reply, she was amazed to hear him laugh. ‘Actually, I want to apologise too,’ he professed. ‘You were right when you said Valentina is spoiled. She is very spoiled. And it’s my fault entirely. Giving into her so much has, I suppose, been my way of compensating for her mother not being around.’
Blimey. Chrissie had been expecting a bit of a contretemps. Not a willing confession. But she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been curious about his personal life. ‘What happened to her mother?’ she asked.
‘We divorced eight years ago. She moved to Australia, re-married and had another baby. Which, as I’m sure you can imagine, didn’t go down well with Valentina. We rarely hear from her now.’
‘Goodness, that must be a bit odd.’
He shrugged. ‘Just one of those things. What about you? You mentioned your ex-husband before.’
‘Yes. He re-married last week actually. But he doesn’t live far, and he sees the kids all the time.’
‘That sounds incredibly civilised,’ remarked Raphael, in a voice that sent tingles down Chrissie’s spine.
The hospital shop was located right next to the entrance. While Raphael popped inside to pick up a few bits and pieces, Chrissie observed him from the corridor, intrigued at the effect he had on the two women behind the counter. Blushing and giggling as they fussed about serving him, she felt strangely reassured that it wasn’t just her who came over all peculiar in his presence. A fact reinforced by the three nurses on the ward, who appeared similarly flustered by the Brazilian’s entrance. Flustered or not, however, the staff were doing a superb job in caring for Valentina, who was sitting up in bed, delighted to see her father. Chrissie spent only a few minutes with the patient, before leaving the pair alone and wandering down to the coffee shop, where Raphael joined her half an hour later.
‘What a relief,’ he puffed, plopping down in the chair opposite. ‘She looks two hundred times better than she did this morning. She’s still very weak and no one seems to know how long she’ll be here, but it doesn’t matter, as long as she’s getting better.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Chrissie. Then, because it seemed the right and decent thing to say, ‘And you’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you need.’
‘Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to impose.’
‘You won’t be. You can have Valentina’s room.’
He smiled. ‘Well, in that case, I insist on treating you to dinner one evening.’
‘Oh,’ she gasped, a tentacle of panic tightening around her chest. ‘There’s really no need.’
‘I insist,’ he insisted.
Making Chrissie’s tentacle tighten to such an extent, she could hardly breathe.
Chrissie had called Paul before she’d left for the hospital. As agreed, he’d collected Jess and Harry from school, taken them out for tea, then despatched them to their rooms to do their homework. Still at the house when Chrissie returned, she introduced the two men, who subsequently exchanged pleasantries.
‘Crikey,’ puffed Paul, when she was seeing him out afterwards. ‘Has he just walked off a film set? He looks like he could be the next James Bond.’
‘I know,’ agreed Chrissie. ‘He’s unadulterated eye candy.’
‘He totally fancies you.’
She gave a snort of ironic laughter. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. What on earth would a man like that see in me?’
‘Ask him and find out. And bring him to the party on Saturday.’
‘I couldn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because….’
‘Bring him.’
Chapter Ten
‘Anything happening with the After Eight Mints?’ enquired Gwen a few days later, after popping in to ask after Valentina.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Chrissie. With all the recent drama she hadn’t given the mints, or her alleged ghost, a second thought.
‘Any smell of parma violets?’
‘Not so much as a whiff.’
Disappointment flittered across Gwen’s face. ‘Oh, what a shame. Ruth and I were convinced Maisie was hovering about. Maybe she’s gone off to Lake Garda. She always liked it there.’
Chrissie blinked.
‘But tell me,’ her neighbour carried on, all usual animation returning, ‘how are you getting on with Valentina’s father? He’s a bit of a hunk, isn’t he?’
Chrissie feigned surprise. ‘Is he? I hadn’t noticed.’
‘Now why don’t I believe that?’ guffawed Gwen. ‘Even Gerry says he’s more chiselled than our Greek statue. Is he attached?’ she asked, eyebrows disappearing into her hairline.
‘Not as far as I know,’ replied Chrissie levelly.
Gwen punched her playfully on the arm. ‘Well, there you go then. Now, I must dash. I want to catch Sally next door. My am-dram group need a couple of hats for our next performance and she has some lovely ones. Mind you, so does Olly’s girlfriend. She was wearing a gorgeous black one when I bumped into them yesterday. Have you met her yet?’
‘No,’ muttered Chrissie. ‘I haven’t seen Olly all week.’ Not since the power cut when they’d shared his spicy meatballs. But she wasn’t going to dwell on how much she’d enjoyed that night. Because this evening was Paul and Meg’s wedding celebration party. And, for the first time in more weeks than was respectable, she was off to the hairdressers.
In town, on a mission to treat herself for a change, Chrissie’s hair was not only cut and coloured, but stylishly arranged in a sleek chignon. A session in the hands of the beauty experts then followed, during which she was prinked, preened, waxed, manicured and fully – but subtly - made-up. Then, pushing out the boat with unprecedented force, she splashed out on a new dress: a plum velvet shift, which skimmed her surprisingly slim frame perfectly. Constantly in overalls, she’d failed to notice how much weight she’d lost, and how toned she’d become, while working on the house.
‘Blimey,’ puffed Harry, when she appeared in the kitchen that evening – new frock teamed with strappy silver sandals and a smattering of jewellery. ‘What have you done with my mum?’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment, shall I?’ tutted Chrissie, the comment adding to her already heightened self-consciousness. For all her outfit made a nice change from overalls, the whole dressing-up thing really wasn’t her at all. Adroitly deflecting the unwelcome attention away from herself, she asked, ‘Are you going to comb yo
ur hair before we go?’
Harry shook his head. ‘Can’t. Comb’s gone missing again. Maisie must’ve taken it.’
Chrissie was about to remark how busy Maisie must be if she was responsible for everything that went missing in the house, when Raphael appeared. In his suit. More devastatingly handsome than ever, surpassing 007 and very possibly reaching 008.
‘Wow,’ he gasped. ‘You look… amazing.’
Blood rushed to Chrissie’s cheeks, given a kick-start by Harry sniggering behind her.
Praying her guest hadn’t noticed her reaction, she uttered, ‘Thank you’. Before wheeling round and making a great show of rummaging for something in her handbag. Goodness. She really should have stuck with her dusty - but comfortable - overalls. Not that she’d felt comfortable in them, or anything else, this week. Not with Raphael in the house. His blatant sophistication and good looks were far too intimidating. Thank heavens the kids were coming with them this evening. She couldn’t have handled going out with him alone. She’d only survived the week because he’d spent most of his time at the hospital, not returning to Lovelace Lane until Jess and Harry were back from school. A fact for which her nerves would be eternally grateful.
Chrissie had booked a taxi to ferry them to the party, the venue of which was a quaint pub on the outskirts of the city.
‘Blimey. You lot scrub up well,’ commented Paul, greeting them all at the door.
‘You look gorgeous,’ concurred Meg, embracing Chrissie warmly. ‘And your date doesn’t look too bad either,’ she whispered in her ear.
‘He’s not my date,’ Chrissie hissed back, as Raphael shook hands with Paul.
‘Shame,’ giggled the newly-wed. ‘He’s a dish. Not that I’m looking, of course. I’m a happily married woman now.’ She winked at Chrissie, before turning her attention to Jess and Harry, bringing up the rear. ‘Now, kids, there’s a chocolate fountain over there that needs testing before we open the buffet. You two up to the job?’
‘Too right,’ gushed Harry, scuttling off with Jess at his heels.
Suspecting it might be a while before she saw the two youngsters again, Chrissie made her way through to the lounge area, where the rest of the guests were gathering, all the while acutely aware of Raphael’s expensively-scented presence behind her. And all the while fretting about how she was going to keep him entertained. Exhausted just thinking about the boredom-banishing task, and wondering if perhaps it would have been better to be the only person attending without a “partner”, she’d almost reached the bar when a familiar voice called her name.
It belonged to Olly.
Who, she discovered as she spun round, was heading towards her in his duffel coat. A sight which not only caused her heart to skip several beats, but her stomach to perform an Olympic-worthy somersault.
‘Hi,’ he said, upon reaching her. ‘I thought it was you. Although I did do a double take. It’s the first time I’ve seen you in… you know… proper clothes.’
Chrissie pulled a face. ‘Crikey. I suppose it is.’
He chuckled, brown eyes twinkling at her from behind his specs. ‘You look very… nice.’
As his cheeks turned pink at the compliment, so, too, did Chrissie’s. Honestly. Thank goodness she wasn’t driving. She’d never felt more in need of a drink in her entire life. But, as she didn’t yet have a drink, she’d have to soldier on.
‘Well, this is a surprise,’ she puffed, mustering a smile. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’
He grinned at her. ‘Nor I you. I didn’t realise until tonight that Meg’s new husband is your ex. Meg and I go back years - to my medical days. We trained at the same hospital.’
‘My, what a small world,’ exclaimed Chrissie, lips now curving into a genuine smile as her shock subsided and it occurred to her how lovely – if not a little disconcerting – it was to see him.
A polite cough from Raphael, though – whose presence she’d all but forgotten - jolted her out of her reverie.
‘Oh. Sorry. I’m completely forgetting my manners,’ she blustered, salvaging what little she could of her diminishing equilibrium. ‘Raphael, can I introduce Olly, who’s staying with his brother on Lovelace Lane. Olly, this is Raphael, Valentina’s father from Brazil.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ said Olly, stretching out a hand to the visitor. ‘How’s your daughter?’
While the two men engaged in polite chit-chat, Chrissie pieced together more bits of her scrabbled composure. She’d experienced several weird coincidences in her life, but Olly knowing Meg definitely ranked amongst the strangest. Still, it was rather nice him having a link – albeit tenuous - to her family. Not that it made any difference to anything, of course. On the subject of differences, though, as the two men chatted, Chrissie couldn’t help but notice the gargantuan contrast between them: Raphael, the smooth epitome of class, everything about him reeking of style and money. And Olly, slightly ruffled in his duffel coat, resembling the eternal student.
‘Olly, you can take your coat off now. I’ve found us a table,’ announced a beautiful, willowy blonde in a red chiffony dress, appearing like an apparition at his side.
Bringing an abrupt halt to his conversation, a shadow of something Chrissie couldn’t decipher briefly hovered over Olly’s face as his eyes darted first to her, then to the new arrival. ‘Oh,’ he muttered, evidently doing his best to rally, while simultaneously pinning on a smile. ‘Er, Diana, can I introduce you to Chrissie. She lives next door to Carl and Sally. In the house that’s being renovated.’
Diana turned cool turquoise eyes to Chrissie. ‘Oh. Right. Yew Tree House, isn’t it? Sally tells me you’re doing most of the work yourself,’ she remarked, in a so-sharp-Chrissie-wondered-she-didn’t-cut-herself cut-glass accent.
‘Only bits and pieces,’ she replied, wondering if anyone would notice if she sloped off home. As if having 008 in attendance hadn’t been awkward enough, she now had a Bond girl to contend with too. ‘And this is Raphael, our exchange student’s father. From Brazil,’ she managed to croak.
‘Oh, I love Brazil,’ gushed Diana, flashing Raphael a smile so dazzling it almost brought on one of Chrissie’s rare headaches. Thankfully, the brilliance dimmed, as she then launched into a stream of what Chrissie assumed must be Portuguese.
Raphael, apparently delighted at this development, reciprocated in an equally foreign tongue.
‘Diana’s spent a lot of time in Brazil,’ Olly whispered to Chrissie, in a tone that hinted at the apologetic. ‘Researching river dolphins in the Amazon Basin.’
‘Riiiiight,’ uttered Chrissie, nodding as if she’d always known there were river dolphins in the Amazon Basin.
With most of Paul’s family at the party – many of whom Chrissie hadn’t seen for years – she managed to spend an enjoyable few hours catching up with people, relieved of her hostess duties by the multi-lingual Goddess Diana, who’d insisted Raphael join her and Olly at their table. Apart from an impressive foray onto the dance floor – to perform a tango with Diana that had everyone on their feet applauding - he had remained there the entire evening.
‘Diana used to be a Latin American dance champion in her youth,’ Olly had explained – with marked reticence - as he and Chrissie had watched the slick routine.
‘Riiiight,’ Chrissie had replied again. Resisting the urge to add, ‘Of course she did.’ ‘Well, she’s obviously an extremely talented lady,’ she’d commented instead. ‘You must be very proud.’
Olly hadn’t replied, regarding her a little strangely, before clearing his throat and saying, ‘Actually—’
At precisely the same moment Jess and Harry had bowled up, squabbling about the chocolate fountain. Leaving Chrissie wondering, as she stood at the bar now, observing the trio – Raphael completely absorbed in a tale Diana was relating, and Olly looking more bored than the wood she’d drilled holes in yesterday – what he’d been about to tell her.
Raphael returned from the hospital the next day, grinning from ear to ear.
‘Valentina can fly home in two days.’
‘Fantastic,’ gushed Chrissie, relief pulsing through her at the news. Not just because Valentina, although far from her usual robust self, was making a remarkable recovery, but because, as nice as Raphael was, she was finding it incredibly wearing having him around. Always so well-groomed, with never a hair out of place, he constantly made her feel like a bumbling Blob the Builder.
Her relief, though, was fleeting.
‘I haven’t forgotten my invitation to take you to dinner, though,’ he said, cobalt blue eyes twinkling at her, ‘which is why I’ve booked a table for this evening.’
‘I told you he fancied you,’ snorted Paul, when Chrissie informed him of her dinner plans.
‘Of course he doesn’t,’ she tutted. ‘He just wants to thank me for letting him stay.’
‘Yeah, right. I’ll bring the kids over here for the night. Just in case you want the house to yourselves later.’
‘Why would we want the house to ourselves?’
‘Well, if you can’t work that one out, then it has definitely been too long since you had a date.’
The conversation with Paul served only to shunt Chrissie’s nerves higher up the jittery scale. She’d attempted several – admittedly pathetic - excuses to wriggle out of the date, but Raphael had deftly whacked them all aside. Leaving her with the sensation of being squeezed into a very tight corner. A sensation that had intensified as the day dragged on. By the time the taxi rolled up that evening, her stomach had knitted itself into the world’s largest Gordian Knot, and her legs were shaking so much it was all she could do to stagger down the drive in her new purple frock and scramble into the vehicle.
Raphael – cutting an even more dashing figure than usual in his suit, and almost reaching a 009 on the scale of sexiness – refused to tell her where they were going. But, when the car pulled up outside Simeons, reputedly the best restaurant in the north-east, Chrissie experienced only a flicker of surprise. With a man like him – clearly used to the best of everything - she wouldn’t have expected much less.