by Mandy Baggot
‘FX Crew? Or the Needle Boys?’
Isla closed her eyes. Now it was like the lounge had just turned into the clubhouse in Sons of Anarchy. Any second now Raj was going to be talking about ‘packing a piece’ or ‘icing’ someone … and she knew enough ‘street’ to know that that kind of icing had nothing to do with Titanic.
‘Han … if you need some help then—’
‘I don’t need help,’ Hannah stated flippantly.
‘But, you need to get ready for work and—’
‘Ronnie Kray is right here.’ Hannah punched out a fist and hit the wheelchair’s arm.
‘Is that what you call that thing, though?’ Raj asked, smiling widely. ‘Wicked.’
‘I know,’ Isla began. ‘But—’
‘Raj can help me into Ronnie. Raj can help me into the stairlift. I can crawl the rest.’
‘Han, what about getting dressed?’
‘Don’t!’ Hannah exclaimed. ‘I’ll manage! I can manage! I don’t need you watching over me all the time.’
Isla swallowed, hearing the desperation in her sister’s voice.
‘Listen, I’d better go, yeah?’ Raj said, standing up and looking around for somewhere to place his coffee mug. ‘These letters and Christmas stuff ain’t gonna deliver themselves.’
‘You don’t have to go yet,’ Hannah said through wounded pride.
‘I will see yous later, sweets,’ Raj said, grinning at Hannah. ‘I might even drop into the flower place.’
‘Bye, Raj,’ Isla said as the postman made a move for the door. ‘Sorry about … the misunderstanding … and Hugh Grant.’
‘We’re cool,’ he replied, doffing the peak of his cap. ‘It’s all good, innit.’
There was utter silence as Raj left the room until the front door slammed shut. Isla was well aware what was coming next.
‘Why do you do that?’ Hannah yelled. ‘You always sodding do that!’
‘Sorry,’ Isla began. ‘I just … have to get to work but I wanted you to know that I had time to help … if you needed help.’
‘If I want help I will ask for it,’ Hannah retorted. ‘My voice didn’t get severed in the accident.’
Isla swallowed. Even after five years, it didn’t get any easier. Losing their parents in the car crash was one thing, but to have Hannah left permanently unable to walk was almost worse. Isla had been twenty, looking to leave home and start her own life adventure and then everything had been turned on its head. She was suddenly a guardian in charge of a fifteen-year-old trying to cope with being paralysed. Yet, somehow, through it all, her fun-loving sister was still able to be her fun-loving sister, just minus the ability to dance on her toes or rollerblade.
‘Well, we need to discuss who you give keys to the house to,’ Isla said, almost changing the subject.
‘Raj is my friend.’
‘Friends don’t automatically get keys to our front door.’
‘It was the back door, actually.’
Isla shook her head and sighed.
‘What?’ Hannah asked, cocking her head to the left a little. ‘Still surprised how irritating I can be without full use of limbs?’
‘Don’t, Han,’ Isla begged. ‘I’m just trying to … do the right thing here.’
Hannah sniffed hard and turned her head to face the glass again, a sure sign there was emotion flowing. Isla was caught between staying where she was, picking up her work bag and beating a hasty retreat or going to her sister and trying to resolve this now.
‘Hannah—’
Hannah interrupted. ‘What do you think of the couple at number eleven?’
‘I don’t know,’ Isla replied, moving towards Hannah, standing close, but not too close and looking out on to the still-winter-dark street. ‘I’ve said one hello, I think.’
‘They have a cat,’ Hannah continued. ‘Well, they did have. It arrived the day they moved in, in a basket like the big hampers Fortnum and Mason do, and it had a pink and diamante collar. Haven’t seen it since then.’
‘Maybe it’s an indoor person,’ Isla suggested.
‘Like me, you mean?’
Isla smiled at her sister, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘Hannah Winters, no one could ever call you an indoor person. You’re out more than I am!’
‘Always with a chaperone in case I fall out of Ronnie into traffic … or wheel myself into traffic and become the reason for delay in the Capital FM travel news.’
This was a disagreement they had quite often. Isla just didn’t feel comfortable with Hannah going out completely alone. She knew her sister craved her independence, needed it, but she was so vulnerable. A young woman on her own in the city was bad enough before the sun came up or after it had gone down, but a young woman on her own, in a wheelchair, unable to defend herself against, well, anything that might happen …
She patted Hannah’s shoulder. ‘Let’s get you upstairs and ready for when Poppy gets here.’
‘I do wonder what your job really is at Breekers,’ Hannah remarked, shifting in her seat as Isla got ready to aid her into Ronnie. ‘Because the conversation avoidance techniques you’ve got going on are so on point.’
‘On point? Not bangin’ bro?’ Isla asked, thickening her tone with all of Raj’s would-be gangster.
‘Don’t ever speak like that again,’ Hannah said, looking as if she was doing her very best not to laugh. ‘You sound like Keith Lemon attempting Snoop Dogg.’
‘Ready?’ Isla asked, positioning herself to lift her sister.
‘If I must be,’ Hannah said, sighing.
‘Wicked, though,’ Isla said, grinning.
‘Arrggh! Stop, I said!’
Three
The Royale, Hyde Park, London
Chase Bryan stepped out of the black cab and immediately felt the need to blow into his hands. God, it was cold. It was actually New York cold, despite The Weather Channel’s promise that London temperatures would be above freezing on their arrival. He ran a hand through his crop of tawny hair and took in his surroundings. Here they were. London. Hyde Park.
In some ways, Hyde Park was like Central Park in New York – a wide expanse of snow-coated greenery in the midst of the grey of the city. But it was also completely different, completely British. It was prettier in its design. Thick, sweeping pathways and tree-lined avenues, benches alongside the banks of the Serpentine. The last time he had been here there had been boats on the river, people enjoying the sunshine, lazing on the grass or in striped deckchairs with picnics, horses trotting past. It was no less awesome now, just covered in a dusting of white, joggers and commuters alike buzzing past the lion and unicorn on the Queen Elizabeth Gate.
Chase looked back to the hotel he was standing outside, lights bright against the dawn sky. The fascia of this building was either authentic nineteenth century or just downright tired. A bit like him – the tired reference. He was blaming the red-eye flight over from JFK as the reason he was feeling ill-humoured and the fact it was so goddamn cold wasn’t helping.
‘I’m dying … Daddy … I’m dying!’
Chase turned back to the taxi and quickly held a hand out to his younger daughter, nine-year-old Maddie. Her fingers felt like ice as he helped pull her down from the cab to join him on the pavement.
‘London taxis are cold,’ Maddie stated through juddering lips. ‘England is cold.’
He smiled, brushing a stray strand of tawny-coloured hair off her face, the rest of it carefully pinned into place and topped with a JoJo Siwa rainbow bow. ‘Hey, where’s my New York girl? We have colder winters than this at home.’
Maddie wrinkled her nose. ‘Am I still a New Yorker?’ she queried.
‘Who told you different?’ Chase asked.
‘Well, how about the fact that we don’t live in New York any more?’
The interjection came from his eldest daughter. Thirteen-year-old Brooke stepped out of the taxi with teenage nonchalance and angst all wrapped up in one looking-way-older-than-she-should package. Wavy dark
brown hair sat on her shoulders, yesterday’s make-up just about having survived the flight, and a fresh slick of lip gloss on her mouth. She was the image of her mother.
‘Did Mom say you weren’t New Yorkers any more?’ Chase asked. He instantly regretted it. This wasn’t meant to be a fight any more. The divorce was done. They had promised to concentrate on being better parents to their children. Although, unlike him, Leanna didn’t have the billion-dollar business counting on him and taking up the majority of his time. But she did have Colt and the new house in Montgomery. That … guy! Anger and bitterness fizzed up his spine before he could stop it.
‘It’s always Mom’s fault, isn’t it?’ Brooke said, hair flicking first left and then right, iPhone in her hand ready to take a selfie at a moment’s notice.
‘I don’t know if I want to be a Montgomery-er,’ Maddie continued. ‘It doesn’t sound the same.’
‘Because it’s not the same,’ Brooke replied.
‘I want things to be the same,’ Maddie snapped back.
‘Never. Gonna. Happen,’ Brooke said coolly.
‘Okay,’ Chase jumped in. ‘That’s enough.’
‘I don’t want to be in London,’ Brooke said. ‘Why did we have to come with you?’
The cab driver was putting their cases on the street now and the temperature seemed to be dropping even further. Traffic flowed past them, not quite like the yellow taxis and horn-blowing of Manhattan but there were plenty of vehicles including those London icons, the red double-decker buses. Christmas was here in earnest too. Whole fir trees hung from business premises, speckled with golden lights, signs flashing in multicoloured LEDs stating ‘Hark the Herald’ and ‘Merry Christmas’.
‘You know why,’ Chase said with a sigh. ‘For two reasons. Mom had to look after Mawmaw while she gets over her operation and—’
‘I don’t know why Pawpaw couldn’t do it.’ This came from Brooke.
‘Because Pawpaw isn’t that well either.’
‘He has a bad leg, Brooke,’ Maddie reminded her sister. ‘From the war.’
‘How could we forget about Vietnam?’ Brooke retorted. ‘It’s all he talks about.’ She snorted then and picked up her rucksack with one hand and her suitcase with the other. ‘There’d better be a big suite … and they better have a great room service menu.’
‘Brooke, wait,’ Chase said as the teenager began to move towards the hotel entrance. The second reason they were here was because he wanted to have them with him. It had been so long since he had been able to spend quality time with the girls. This job had taken over his life lately and he had had to let it. This was his new start. Another one. He had had so many new starts he was starting to wonder how many reset buttons he was going to be allowed to press. He squeezed his nails into the palm of his hand. He was still here. He was okay. Life was good. He had his children for the holidays and as soon as he had got the ball rolling on this new project it was going to be all about them. In truth, everything he had ever done, every decision he had ever made had always been about protecting them.
‘Mom says it’s best to leave her when she’s like this,’ Maddie said, teeth chattering together.
‘When she’s like what?’ Chase asked. ‘How she is every day?’
Maddie shrugged. ‘Shall I carry my suitcase, Daddy?’
‘No, Pumpkin, it’s too heavy for you … but thank you.’ He put his fingers out to Maddie’s coat, drawing the two edges together and fastening the poppers. ‘You go inside with your sister and I’ll pay for the cab and bring in our bags.’
‘Okay, Daddy,’ Maddie replied, turning towards the hotel frontage.
He watched her go, then his eyes went across the street to another hotel. Unlike the Royale they were booked into, this one was modern, sleek, with a black frontage that was trying its best to shout ‘luxury’. But something about it wasn’t working for him. And it was small. It only made him even more certain that the vision he had sold to Breekers was the right one to take the company forward, to branch out into an exciting new territory. It was going to be a reset for the company and an imperative distraction for him. As soon as he had caught up on some much-needed sleep.
Four
Notting Hill, London
‘You see,’ Hannah began, hands working at the wheels of Ronnie Kray. ‘This is a classic example of someone with the use of two legs falling foul of London life.’
She was referring to Poppy from the Life Start Community Centre who hadn’t turned up to walk Hannah to work. Hannah went to the centre a couple of evenings a week to meet with friends who suffered from similar life challenges. It was a run-down building that still had original, dog-eared versions of Trivial Pursuit and Twister (which was ironic as most of the attendees were in wheelchairs) and a CD/cassette combi to provide the music. Hannah had hated it when she’d first gone there at fifteen, fuelled by hatred for the position she found herself in, but Gabby – a very loud but gorgeously hilarious girl with spina bifida – had asked in no uncertain terms if Hannah thought she was too good for the group, and somehow a friendship had been forged.
Isla paid Poppy to walk Hannah the few streets to her job at Portobello Flowers. However, this morning, on the phone, Poppy had cited a gas main rupture on her street, but as soon as she started elaborating about pipe work and smart meters, Isla suspected she was reading the information from the British Gas website and was instead tucked up under a thirteen tog with a Warburton’s Giant Crumpet.
‘You don’t have to walk me all the way there,’ Hannah continued.
‘It’s okay,’ Isla replied. ‘Most of it is on my way.’ She checked her watch. She was going to be hard pushed to make it to the offices before nine.
‘Stop!’ Hannah said, wheeling to a sit-still.
‘What is it?’ Isla asked, one foot skidding on slush.
‘There,’ Hannah said.
Hannah was pointing to one of the benches on this section of street, opposite the black railings of the park. Sitting on the bench were a couple who only had eyes for each other. Life was going on around them – cyclists navigating around static cars, joggers navigating around static postboxes, people on their phones, people carrying briefcases/tote bags/dogs – but they were completely oblivious. And then it happened. Isla couldn’t tell who had moved first, but smoothly, slowly, the couple had become one, lips locked together in a perfect movie scene-stealing kiss.
‘And that’s the first one of the season,’ Hannah said with a sigh. ‘Mark it on the advent calendar and eat the chocolate.’
‘Oh, Han,’ Isla said. ‘I think this has to stop.’
‘Really? Another thing to add to the list of things I can’t do?’ Hannah asked, pushing herself forward again. ‘I can’t help it if I’m surrounded by people having a much better love life than me … actually, make that any sort of love life at all.’ She sniffed. ‘Apart from you.’
‘It will happen, Han, when it’s supposed to.’
‘Speaks the woman who could have any man she wanted.’
‘Why would you say that?’ Isla exclaimed. She hadn’t had a date in a year. Her last date was someone Hannah had set her up with. His name was Ptolemy and it had been Hannah who fancied him! Except because she was almost permanently in a sitting position, she thought that he wouldn’t be interested. And he wasn’t. Not because Hannah wasn’t amazing, but because he was obviously shallow and blind with no personality and therefore not worthy of her sister.
‘Because it’s true.’
‘My last date was Ptolemy.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘Han, it was.’
‘God! Was it really?’
‘Yes! And I only did that for you.’
‘And he was a right loser.’
‘Agreed.’
Hannah bumped herself down over the kerb and sped across the junction to the next pavement drop. ‘It shouldn’t be too much to ask though, should it? One perfect movie-moment kiss in Notting Hill. Just one. Just like when Julia Robert
s kisses Hugh Grant for the first time.’ Hannah sighed, before her eyes opened wide. ‘Maybe I could pay someone to do it … like someone really, really, hot … like …’
‘Gerard Butler?’
‘Eww! Are you still going through your liking older actors stage?’
‘Danny Dyer then?’
‘I do like Danny Dyer … but even he’s forty. Come on, Isla, fit men in their twenties. Go!’
‘Taylor Lautner.’
‘Too teethy.’
‘Liam Hemsworth.’
‘Chris is hotter.’
‘I think someone is a little picky … and, by the way, that’s a good thing.’ Isla moved out of the way for a delivery man carrying a large box. ‘You know as well as I do that if you pay for your kiss, or grab some random stranger for your kiss, that it won’t be a perfect kiss in Notting Hill, it will be an awkward kiss in Notting Hill and no one wants that.’ She put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. ‘What makes it perfect is the two special people who mean everything to each other and the amazing moment of connection.’ She swallowed. Just where was she getting this from? It wasn’t like she dreamed of a movie-moment kiss of her own …
‘I may as well give up now,’ Hannah said, grumpily. She shifted her chair to deliberately run over an empty McDonald’s coffee cup.
‘Han, what’s wrong?’ Isla asked. ‘It’s December. It’s our favourite month, our favourite season. Christmas is just around the corner and we’ve got so much going on. You’re busy at the florists, you’ve got the Life Start party, we’ve got the Breekers’ party, we’ve got the Beaumont Square Residents Wine and Cheese Night …’
‘I like Raj.’
Isla swallowed, shaking her head and half-hoping her sister’s words had been sucked in by the passing bin lorry, scrunched up by the claws and delivered back out in a different guise. Suddenly she was craving another caffeine hit … maybe even a triple shot.
‘And there’s the silence,’ Hannah said, pushing on harder.
‘No,’ Isla said quickly. ‘No, silence. Just …’ What was she ‘just’ doing? Processing? That sounded way too negative. ‘So, you like Raj.’ Repeating the statement. Wow.