‘So what? It worked. A few weeks back, he told me he loved me so much that he was going to apply to the police instead. Now it seems Felix has got him to change his mind.’
‘But what’s all that got to do with you and Zac going on holiday?’ Anna asked.
Gaby looked close to tears. ‘They’ve got this assessment next week, right?’
Anna nodded.
‘And if they get in, Zac says they’ll be starting a couple of weeks after Easter and he wants to spend the time preparing, not going to Ayia Napa.’
Anna sighed. ‘Well, he might not get in – it’s pretty difficult.’
‘He says he’s not up for it – he can’t talk about anything but training and getting fit,’ Gaby muttered. ‘Anyway, I’ve told him, it’s the Marines or me.’
She pushed open a cubicle door, and paused, turning to Anna. ‘And by the way, if you’ve got any sense, you won’t even think about getting involved with Felix. I mean, what do you know about him?’
‘Who said anything about getting involved? I only met him three hours ago, for God’s sake!’
There was no way she was about to admit to Gaby that she had been praying all evening that he’d ask her out.
‘As far as I’m concerned,’ she went on as nonchalantly as she could, ‘he’s just a really nice guy.’
‘With some seriously big issues,’ Gaby concluded, slamming the cubicle door shut and sliding the bolt. ‘Zac says —’
‘I don’t want to know what Zac says,’ Anna interrupted.
‘Suit yourself,’ her sister replied. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘So how do you feel about us hanging out some place one evening?’ Felix said an hour later, dancing closer to Anna than anyone had ever done before and running his hands slowly up and down her back. ‘Before next weekend, I mean. Thing is, I really like you, Anna – you’re kinda, oh I don’t know.’
‘Gorgeous? Witty? Totally amazing?’ Anna teased, gasping inwardly at her own audacity. Never before had she felt confident enough to chat this easily with anyone, let alone someone she had only known for three hours and whose mere touch was enough to send shivers down her spine.
Felix laughed. ‘All that, of course,’ he replied. ‘But I was going to say you’re so normal.’
‘Oh. Now on a scale of one to ten, that scores about two and half in the compliment ranking!’
‘Trust me, when you’ve got a family like mine, normal is good.’
‘So tell me about them,’ Anna said quickly, recalling Gaby’s insinuations earlier that evening.
‘You really don’t want to know,’ he said, pulling away slightly and looking her straight in the eye. ‘Ever since I got home from my gap year – well, gap six months – we’ve been . . .’ He faltered and then grinned. ‘Well, let’s just say that right now we’re not exactly a role model for happy families.’
‘Right,’ Anna murmured, not really knowing how to respond.
‘But actually, tonight I’m glad I had a bit of a bust up with Mum,’ he said, ‘because I only turned up at Zac’s on the spur of the moment to escape the fallout and now I’ve met you and . . .’
He didn’t say any more. He gently tipped Anna’s chin and drew her towards him. The kiss when it came was all she had imagined it would be.
And the astonished expression on Mallory’s face as she walked by with Olivia just added to the magic of the moment.
As the DJ put on the last song, Anna was on cloud nine. Not only did she find Felix the easiest person in the world to be with, but she had rather enjoyed the sidelong glances and whispered comments from her mates as they jostled one another on the dance floor.
‘Sexy or what?’ Phoebe Harville had mouthed, as she and Jamie danced beside her. ‘Nice butt!’
‘Well, you certainly made him welcome!’ Louisa muttered under cover of a particularly noisy rendition of ‘Hug Me, Love Me, Snog Me Senseless’ from Charlie’s old school mates.
‘Got in there fast, didn’t you, Felix?’ Zac had teased, one eye on his friend and the other on Gaby, who was blatantly flirting with one of his friends on the opposite side of the marquee. ‘See – there are things more interesting than ten-mile runs and hours on the treadmill!’
That’s when his forced grin wavered and he turned to Anna. ‘You two are coming out with us lot next Saturday, right?’ he asked.
Anna glanced at Felix and then nodded.
‘So – well, see, Gaby – she’s upset because – well, the thing is I’m going to try for the Marines, and now she says she doesn’t want to know.’
‘She’ll come,’ Anna cut in quickly. ‘She’s always moody when she’s been drinking vodka tonics. She never learns.’
Zac’s face brightened so much that Anna felt instantly guilty for giving him false hope.
‘Yeah, that’ll be it,’ he said confidently. ‘I’ll give it a day or so and call her. You two can drag her along, right? Cool.’
Anna smiled at him, but the smile had more to do with the thought of being with Felix than with any hope that her sister would change her mind.
‘Hey, wait!’ Felix grabbed Anna’s arm at the end of the evening, as she made her way towards Gaby and Mallory who were gesticulating wildly at her. ‘I haven’t got your phone number.’
He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. ‘Go on, tell me.’
She watched as he punched the numbers into his phone.
‘Great!’ he said. ‘Look, I’ll call you, OK?’
‘Sure,’ Anna said enthusiastically. ‘It’s half-term this week so I’m free pretty much all the time.’
‘The trouble is,’ Felix began, and Anna’s heart sank, ‘Zac and I are doing the Mountain and Moor Challenge from Monday to Thursday. It’s going to be pretty full on, running, fly camping, canoeing and all against the clock.’
‘Sounds like hard work,’ Anna shuddered.
‘Good training though, for the fitness test for the Marines next week,’ he pointed out. ‘But it does mean I won’t be around. But I’ll call you Thursday evening and sort out something for Friday, yeah?’
‘That’d be cool,’ Anna said. ‘Can’t wait.’
‘Can’t wait for what?’ Gaby demanded, as Felix disappeared to find Zac.
‘Friday – he asked me out – well, as good as!’ Anna couldn’t suppress her excitement.
‘Oh wow, big deal!’ her sister scoffed. ‘You do know it’s totally desperate to look so enthusiastic with someone you’ve only just met? If you want my advice . . .’
‘I don’t,’ Anna replied calmly. ‘In fact, I can’t think of anything I want less.’
CHAPTER 4
‘How quick come the reasons for approving what we like.’
( Jane Austen, Persuasion)
FOR THE WHOLE WEEK FOLLOWING CHARLIE'S PARTY, Anna hadn’t been able to get Felix out of her mind. Not that she had tried very hard; she went over and over their conversations in her head, recalled his kiss in its minutest detail every night as she fell asleep and even went back to the childish habit of scrawling A F all over her journal. She knew it was crazy; but never having had a real boyfriend before, she wanted to do all the things her mates did and do them all at once. Just in case.
And at last Thursday evening came.
And he didn’t phone.
All evening Anna kept setting herself goals and making excuses for his silence.
‘He’ll be exhausted and having a shower and then he’ll ring.’
‘If I practise my saxophone for twenty minutes, he’ll ring – no, I might not hear the phone.’
‘I’ll count to one hundred in Spanish and then he’ll . . .’
‘Why do you keep looking at your watch?’ her father, who was indulging in a very vocal case of man flu, asked in exasperation at nine-fifteen.
‘It’s a guy!’ Gaby looked up from the Flats To Let section of the Evening Standard and raised an eyebrow. ‘He said he’d call her and like an idiot, she believed him.’
‘What? You mean, Anna’s got a boyfriend?’ Walter looked as surprised as if Gaby had announced that Anna had installed a baby elephant in the back paddock.
‘He’s not a boyfriend,’ Anna said at once. ‘He’s just . . .’
‘A really nice guy . . .’ Gaby mimicked. ‘Except he’s not. He’s black and has a real Fleckford accent.’
‘Why on earth —?’ Walter began.
‘And he gatecrashed Charlie’s eighteenth,’ Gaby concluded with a sneer.
‘Now that,’ Walter declared, ‘is simply not done. As anyone would know.’ He looked at Anna. ‘I knew things would go from bad to worse when you insisted on leaving Swancote Hall.’
‘What’s more,’ Gaby butted in, ‘he’s trying to break me and Zac up.’
That did it for Anna. ‘That’s so not true!’ she exploded. ‘You’re the one who’s dumping him if he joins the Marines.’
‘What? I thought Zac had abandoned that ridiculous idea,’ Walter exclaimed.
‘Me too,’ Gaby sighed.
‘Well, in that case, you’re being very wise, darling.’ Walter nodded approvingly at Gabriella. ‘You’re young, beautiful and talented – why tie yourself to someone who’s about to disappear for months and probably end up dead.’
‘Dad! That’s an awful thing to say,’ Anna protested.
‘Face facts.’ Her father shrugged. ‘Gaby’s too good for a run-of-the-mill raw recruit anyway. Now, tell me Gaby darling, what ever happened to that lovely Fanshawe boy?’
Anna was tempted to say that the lovely Fanshawe boy had dumped Gaby months before because he said he couldn’t afford her expensive tastes. But she was too busy waiting for the phone to care about anything else.
At eleven o’clock, having checked her mobile and the landline at ten-minute intervals all evening, Anna went to bed. She had been, she thought miserably, just the kind of idiot Gaby thought she was.
Anna was wandering listlessly around the house late on Friday morning, silently berating herself for even caring about someone who had clearly forgotten her already, when the phone rang. Heart pounding, she grabbed it.
‘Hi, it’s Shannon.’
‘Oh. Hi.’ Anna’s heart plummeted.
‘I’m thrilled to hear you too,’ Shannon teased. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing – did you have a good half-term at your gran’s?’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ Shannon ordered.
‘It’s just that I met someone at a party last Saturday and he said he’d ring, but he hasn’t and I thought when you rang it might be him and . . .’
‘A boy? I need details. What party? Why wasn’t I invited? What’s he like?’
‘It was these mates of mine from the village and . . . oh my God! Shannon, sorry, I’ve got to go. My mobile’s ringing – it could be him!’
‘Go girl!’ Shannon laughed. ‘Call me back. Soon!’
‘OK, bye!’ Anna punched the Answer button.
‘Hello?’
‘Anna? Hi, it’s Felix. I am really sorry I didn’t get back to you last night, but . . .’
‘No problem,’ she said, trying to sound as if she had only just remembered he was meant to call her. ‘How was your week?’
‘Great – and then I was on my way back and got this phone call from . . .’
‘Hang on, you’re breaking up,’ Anna said in panic.
‘ . . . phone call from Ruth . . . love her to bits . . . couldn’t bear not to see her . . . so . . . and . . . with her now and . . .’
And then the connection died.
Anna slumped down on a chair. He was with a girl. And he hadn’t made any secret of it, which told her everything she needed to know and . . .
The phone rang again.
‘Anna, sorry! Lost the signal. Look, in case it goes again – can we meet in about an hour? Is that OK? Something I need to tell you. Anna? Are you there? Anna?’
‘What? Me? Meet up with you?’ She hesitated. ‘The two of us?’
Felix burst out laughing. ‘Yes, I think you have all the relevant points there. Well? Is that a yes, a no, or a maybe?’
‘Yes, sure – that’s great. Where?’ She knew her voice sounded flat, but she had a pretty good idea what it was he wanted to tell her. That it was over before it had even started.
‘I’ll pick you up. I’m in Fleckford and Mum’s using her car, so I’ll have to get the bus. Remind me how to get to your place?’
‘It’s complicated,’ Anna replied swiftly, the thought of introducing Felix to her father being a bridge too far right now. ‘And I’ve got a car – so how about we meet in Fleckford? How about The Boatman, down by the river?’
‘Cool,’ he agreed. ‘See you then!’
Fifteen minutes later, when the entire contents of her wardrobe was flung on her bed and on the floor and she was despairing of ever getting her hair to look halfway presentable, Gaby burst into the room.
‘I need you to come shopping with me,’ she declared. ‘I can’t go to Sophie’s party in anything I’ve got already. I’m going in ten mins, OK?’
‘Sorry, I can’t,’ Anna replied calmly, stepping into her skirt and tugging at the zip. ‘I’m going out.’
‘Out? Where? Not with that Felix guy?’
The split second pause before Anna answered was enough for Gaby to suss that she had hit on the truth.
‘Have you told Dad?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Dad! DAD?’ Gaby had shot downstairs before Anna could open her mascara. In the event, it occurred to her that eye make-up was less important than a quick escape. She slipped downstairs and out of the back door. It was going to be bad enough getting dumped by Felix, without facing an inquisition from her father.
Anna had always been totally dismissive of chick lit books that talked about the effects a boy could have on an apparently sane female with more than her fair share of brain cells. She’d always assumed that phrases like ‘she went weak at the knees’ or ‘she lost herself in his smouldering gaze’ were evidence of a total lack of both perception and command of the English language on the part of the author. Now she wasn’t so sure. The smell of him when he hugged her, the firmness of his grip as he held her hand at the bar, and then led her to a table in an alcove by the roaring log fire, the way his nose went all squashy when he grinned – everything about him made her go crazy.
‘I just had to see you before we go out with the others tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t know anything about you really and yet I feel I’ve known you for ages. So come on, tell me all about you.’
‘There’s not much to tell,’ Anna replied awkwardly, wondering whether he’d been doing the same chat-up line with this Ruth girl hours before. He didn’t sound like someone who was about to finish with her; but then again, maybe he was going to tell her that Ruth would be coming along the following day as well.
‘Come off it, everybody’s got a story,’ Felix had urged. ‘I mean, I know you’ve got two sisters, one of whom has just broken my best mate’s heart – he hardly talked about anything else all the way up Pen y Fan.’
‘She’ll probably come round,’ Anna assured him. ‘She’s like that – goes into total meltdown and then spends weeks regretting it.’
She paused for a moment and then sighed. ‘I do think she’s crazy to give up on someone as nice as him, so let’s hope she comes to her senses.’
‘And so you’d be OK hanging out with a guy who joined up? Went to war, even?’
Those dark eyes were still penetrating into her very soul. Her heart rate quickened, her mouth went dry as she took a deep breath.
‘If I had a boyfriend I really cared about, then what he did wouldn’t make any difference,’ she replied. ‘As long as it was legal!’
‘Oh good,’ he said. ‘I’m very relieved to hear it.’ He grinned at her and slipped his hand into hers. Her heart went into overdrive and she turned to gaze through the window at the swans on the river in the hope that he wouldn’t see the
flush that she knew had flooded her cheeks.
‘OK, so come on – if you weren’t sitting here with me right now, what would you most like to be doing?’
Anna frowned. It was hard to think of one thing better than being with Felix.
‘OK,’ she said slowly. ‘I guess playing my saxophone with an awesome jazz band – preferably somewhere tropical that had white sand beaches and huge ice creams!’
She spent the next twenty minutes filling him on her passions (jazz, books, horses and tapas) and her loathings (maths, heights, the smell of popcorn and all forms of reality TV).
‘That is so weird,’ he said. ‘I thought I was the only person on the planet who hated reality shows.’ He took a sip of his drink. ‘And chat shows – I hate those, especially the ones where . . .’
He stopped in mid sentence and pulled a face.
‘Oh God, there I go again. I forget your dad’s on TV and . . .’
‘You know who my dad is?’ Anna’s heart sank.
Felix nodded. ‘Zac told me,’ he admitted.
‘And that’s why you’ve asked me out.’ She couldn’t conceal the note of irritation in her voice. ‘Because if it is . . .’
‘Don’t be silly, of course it’s not,’ Felix said. ‘I’ve never even seen your father – I’ve more interesting things to do with my life than sit around watching TV.’
Anna smiled. ‘That’s a relief. Sorry, I get a bit sensitive about it,’ she confessed.
‘Why? Because your dad’s so, well, direct?’ He laughed.
‘I thought you didn’t watch the show.’
‘Zac filled me in – said that he’s had a few run-ins in the past, and now he goes just about as far as he can go without getting sacked.’
‘He’s outspoken, that’s for sure,’ Anna admitted. ‘But what really gets me is the way all my friends at my old school angled to get invited to my place, not because they wanted to be with me, but just so they could meet my dad. And when they did, he ended up being so totally over the top and embarrassing.’
‘If you’re talking embarrassing parents, I bet my mother could give your dad a run for his money any day! The way she goes on and on . . . Oh. Sorry.’
Echoes of Love Page 5