She tried to imagine Graham’s face when he read it, but couldn’t. Maybe he’d be pleased. She might have made life very easy for him, leaving the marital home. ‘Maybe I should have consulted a lawyer first,’ she said.
‘And what does Charlotte think you’re doing?’
‘Getting some me-time with Cally and Paige.’
‘And really you’re going to track down a man called Ben who has a yacht. In Auckland. Otherwise known as the City of Sails.’
Bunty groaned. ‘I’m completely mad, aren’t I?’
‘Yes,’ said Kat, slamming her drink into Bunty’s. ‘It’s fantastic!’
‘So … does that mean you’ll help me?’
‘Try stopping me. After I’ve caught up with Simon for a few days.’ Kat waggled her eyebrows salaciously and staggered back to her seat.
Bunty dropped into her seat next to Charlotte, who was now snuffling gently into her triangular flight pillow (which she’d insisted on buying in Boots at the airport along with travel wipes, a personal fan, super-tight socks to prevent thromboses, and a panoply of other expensive objects that would be of absolutely no use from the second they got off the plane). Charlotte looked adorable when she was asleep, with her face clean of its usual half-scowl and her long lashes lying baby-like on her cheek. Three in the morning their time. Or was that New Zealand time. Whatever. Somewhere in the world it was three in the morning, and that was certainly time to get some sleep …
*
Pearl: So Bunty, what was going through your mind when you kidnapped your child and absconded twelve thousand miles to meet up with a man you barely knew?
Finn: And were you aware of the police chase going on behind you?
Bunty: No, I …
Pearl (shuffling her papers and shoving her glasses back up her nose. Stern). You were aware, of course, that it was illegal to take your child out of school.
Bunty: Not illegal, just sort of …
Finn: Tell us about Ben. What did you know about him?
Bunty: He … he owned a yacht. I met him through some introduction agency called the Croesus Club.
Pearl: That’s right, while you were still married.
Finn: Are there clubs for that sort of thing?
Bunty: No, I wasn’t married. Well, yes, technically I was, but it was over, or going to be over very soon, and Ben was so lovely and warm, and I needed him.
Pearl (bristling): Is that true, Bunty? Or do you think you were just bored out of your mind and needed to create a bit of drama in your life?
Finn: Nobody would blame you for that. Lots of us are bored. Not me, obviously (flashing toothy grin direct to camera).
Bunty: No! I don’t think … I don’t know … You’re confusing me. Stop it, Pearl! Stop it!
*
She woke up with a start, half-afraid that she’d been screaming ‘Stop it’ down the length of the plane. The only person she’d woken, however, was Charlotte, who was glaring at her from over her eye-mask like a sleep-deprived surgeon. ‘I wasn’t doing anything. I was asleep, in case you hadn’t noticed,’ she said, her voice oddly muffled by the mask.
‘Sorry, darling. Was I telling you to stop it?’
‘Well, du-uh.’
‘Bad dream. Sorry. Go back to sleep.’ And no more sleeping for me, ever, like bloody Macbeth, she thought crossly. So she felt guilty for disappearing without a showdown with Graham. Why should she? He’d started it.
Five-and-a-half films, one short stopover in Singapore and several tussles with Charlotte later, they landed in Auckland. Bunty peered back down the plane; Kat had risen like Boudica from the depths of her wine-induced coma, refreshed and lovely with a tumble of wild blonde curls and a dirty smile on her face. By contrast, Bunty felt wizened and dehydrated; she had probably shrunk two sizes and would be about to greet Cally as if she were dressed in her mum’s clothes.
But Cally didn’t care, even though she’d had to get up at 4.30 a.m. to meet them on time. Bunty returned her enormous squeeze. ‘I’m so sorry to land on you like this, with hardly any warning. And at this time of the morning!’
‘Bunty, I’m thrilled that you’re here. And 4.30 a.m. is a lie-in at the moment. Here’s David.’ And she pushed forward a buggy with a ten-month-old boy gurning cheerfully from its folds. ‘Pete’s moving the car. And Paige is just coming … Paige! Help Charlotte with her things, will you?’
‘She’s got rather a lot,’ said Bunty apologetically. Both mothers watched the meeting of Paige and Charlotte with interest. It had been well over a year since they’d seen each other, and email communication, no matter how rude, was no substitute for the real thing; they still stood formally, staring at each other warily like soldiers across no-man’s land. Then Paige said, ‘I’ve got the day off school.’
‘Yay!’ said Charlotte. ‘Me too. Well, more like two weeks.’
‘Awesome!’ said Paige. ‘And our school holidays start tomorrow so I’m off too! Yayah!’
And after gawping at each other with awe at their own brilliance, Paige grabbed Charlotte’s wheeled case and started off across the concourse, saying, ‘I love that pillow thing. What movies did you see on the plane? Did you? Awesome!’
Watching their giggling, retreating backs, Bunty linked arms with Cally. ‘And that’s the last we’ll see of them for two weeks. Or however long …’
‘However long it takes to find this man,’ said Cally, turning to watch a cuddly figure emerge from the customs area among a mountain of suitcases. ‘Oh, there’s Kat! Why did she take so much longer than you?’
‘Customs kept asking her questions,’ said Bunty with a grin. ‘She had so much luggage they though she was importing it to open a shop. Oh. There’s Simon, I guess.’
She’d only seen Simon briefly before, when he’d been in Fiji chasing after Cally, but from the way he was striding purposefully towards Kat she imagined that the tall, blond man could be no other. When Kat threw her arms around him and kissed him like there was no other oxygen in the room, she knew for sure.
‘That’s Simon,’ agreed Cally. ‘I’ll see if I can get her to put him down long enough to say hello.’
It took several minutes, but finally Cally managed to greet Kat and arrange to meet up with them in a couple of days when Kat’s ‘shag fest’ was waning, and then they burst out through the sliding doors into the brittle sheen of a spring morning.
Auckland.
She’d made it.
To Ben.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘I don’t know how you do it,’ said Bunty to Cally as they slurped coffee out of pudding bowls at a cafe in Mission Bay. The water lapped at the edge of the beach about a hundred yards away across the road, the sun dappling one slope of the volcano that stuck out of the sea a few miles out. Charlotte, sniggering at the next table with Paige, had already decided they would do a day trip out to Rangitoto. Not every day she got to stare down a volcano.
‘What?’ Cally’s face disappeared momentarily behind her coffee cup. Bowl. ‘Live here? I know, it’s awful, isn’t it?’
Bunty grinned. ‘I don’t mean that. I mean keeping up with appearances. You’ve just had a baby and look better than you have in years. Mind you, everyone around here looks sickeningly healthy. And gorgeous.’ Verity Reynolds and Susie Williams would fit right in, it appeared.
‘That’s how I do it,’ said Cally, nodding at two jogging mothers as she hauled David onto her lap and fed him her biscotti. ‘Nothing like a bit of competition to stimulate the ‘let’s get moving’ gene. Although to be honest, I’m not very good at it. It’s just life keeping me thin at the moment.’ In addition to being a new mum to David, an old mum to Paige and a partner to Pete, Cally had managed to score herself a rather plum job as events co-ordinator for the city’s arts foundation. She didn’t seem to take it too seriously, though, and still found time to stick around to keep Bunty company, and organise day trips for the days she and Pete wouldn’t be around.
Bunty breathed in, a heady
concoction of excellent coffee, brine and relaxation. This had been a good choice, she thought, watching the pert behinds of the mother-joggers fade into the distance. Charlotte was having an amazing time catching up with Paige, and loved the house, the pool, the city, the scenery and everything else around with unprecedented hyperbole. ‘Wicked!’ was definitely her word of the week, closely followed by ‘awesome’. Bunty, too, once the jetlag had subsided and she felt as though her legs were her own once more, was beginning to feel the tension slide from her shoulders as the sun played on her skin. It was a therapeutic place, and she was loving it.
Nonetheless, the aim of her mad mission played on her mind, and she dared to raise it again at dinner that evening, when Kat and Simon finally reappeared and they could all crowd around Pete and Cally’s pitted pine table.
‘Cally, that was fantastic,’ she said, pushing her plate away.
‘All Pete’s doing.’ Cally bumped hips with Pete in the open-plan kitchen where they were starting to load the dishwasher. ‘His pasta is always amazing.’
Pete smiled evenly. ‘After thirty years of feeding myself I know what to do with a handful of spaghetti and a bit of sauce.’
‘I bet you do,’ growled Kat in her sleaziest voice. Bunty watched over her glass as Simon laughed, shaking his head, and squeezed Kat’s fingers across the table. They were very different in so many ways, but for now it seemed to work.
‘Talking of which, well, not what you do with spaghetti, but you know, um …’ Bunty ran out of ways to introduce the topic she most wanted to discuss. ‘Ben,’ she said simply, having first checked that Charlotte and Paige were well out of the way, and not on a computer.
Cally wiped her hands on a tea towel and filled all their glasses, raising her eyebrows at Kat. ‘Yes. Ben. Tell us what you know about him and we’ll see how you can track him down.’
‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ said Bunty, ‘but I did feel such a connection. He’s got issues and baggage and everything, but then haven’t we all? You guys all did, and look how it’s worked out for you.’ There were so many triangles in the relationships of Pete, Cally, Simon and Kat that it was practically a Toblerone. ‘I just want to find him. Show him that I can be there for him. Let him feel loved and wanted.’
‘And how do you find him?’ asked Pete.
‘I’ve got this number for him,’ she said, showing him her mobile. ‘I’ve tried calling but there’s no reply. I think it may be turned off or run out of power or something. Is that a local number?’
Pete angled his reading glasses and read the little screen on the phone. ‘That’s a mobile. Could be anywhere. Sorry, Bunty. Do have his surname?’
‘He did tell me his surname, but it was so long and complicated that I didn’t get it, and I didn’t want to ask him again.’
‘Maori?’ said Cally.
‘Or Polynesian,’ suggested Simon.
‘That’s more likely if it was very long,’ said Pete. ‘But that’s not much to go on either.’
Kat sat up brightly. ‘He owns a yacht though. Let’s go to all the yachtie places.’
‘There are quite a few of those, though, Kat,’ said Cally.
Kat was not to be defeated, however. ‘Okay. We’ll start with the biggest and work our way down. It was a big yacht, wasn’t it, Bun?’
‘I never saw it.’ Bunty almost shuddered. She’d never seen it. What must they think of her, coming all this way with so little information? It was madness, but they were all helping her. ‘But I suppose so.’
Cally and Pete were looking at each other in a way that Bunty couldn’t quite understand, but then Pete said, ‘Right, then we start at the Viaduct. Tomorrow’s Sunday. It’ll be a good day to ask around.’
‘And we can fit in a trip from there for the girls,’ said Cally. ‘I’ll take them off to Rangitoto, if you like, while you go Ben-hunting.’
Bunty felt like crying, so grateful was she for all their help. For getting it so completely. For realising how unkind Graham had been, and how Ben could rectify things. She leaned over and gave Cally a hug. ‘Thank you for understanding.’
And Cally gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’m not really understanding, Bun, if I’m honest, but I am supporting. Like you’ve done for me. That’s what friends are for.’
Kat’s eyes had misted over. ‘Friends,’ she said breathily, clunking her glass against Bunty’s then Cally’s. ‘The three musketeers.’
‘Friends,’ said Cally and Bunty together.
Bunty took a slug of her drink, playing over in her head what Cally had just said. ‘Supporting’ was different to ‘understanding’, it was true. It was what she and Kat had done when they turned up in Fiji for Cally’s wedding to Alan, Pete’s son, even though they both felt it was a mistake and he wouldn’t be right for Cally at all. Now, seeing her with Pete, it was completely evident that it would have been far from just ‘not right’. It would have been a disaster.
But that wasn’t the same in this case. They didn’t like Graham, for a start. Either of them. They’d always thought he was too dull for Bunty, too organised for Bunty, a bit too ‘steady Eddie’ for Bunty.
And they hadn’t even met Ben yet. They’d love him. Just as she could. Even their names went together better. Ben and Bun. Ben and Bun for dinner tonight, darling! Oh, great, they’re fun! Ben and Bun. Lots of fun. Ben and Bun on the sofa. Ben and Bun, and Charlotte plus one …
‘Bunty!’
‘Hmmm?’
‘You’d gone completely,’ said Cally with a grin. ‘Jet lag does that to you. Takes you by surprise.’
Kat faked an enormous yawn. ‘Oh, yes, it’s got me too. I think we should be heading home to bed, Si. Big day tomorrow.’
‘Your wish is my command.’ Simon pulled out her chair and slipped her shawl around her shoulders. Honestly, thought Bunty, the man was straight out of the eighteenth century. And Kat lapped it up.
A few minutes later she fell into Cally’s spare bed herself, barely seconds after making sure that Charlotte was tucked up in the spare single in Paige’s room. Both girls were fast asleep, all talked out. Bunty felt a little talked out herself. But it was a big day tomorrow. The day to find Ben. She sank into a deep sleep, at ease for the first time in months.
*
Sunday’s dawn heralded another bright morning, but even before breakfast was over a bank of ominous grey clouds had smothered the sun. ‘Four seasons in one day,’ quoted Pete, squinting at the sky. ‘We’d better take our raincoats down to the Viaduct.’
‘You’re coming with me, pal,’ said Cally quickly. ‘We can drop Bunty off and then you can come to Rangitoto. I’m not climbing a volcano with David on my back.’
‘Well, I can’t, I’m old,’ said Pete, a half-smile playing across his tanned face.
‘Nice try,’ said Cally. ‘We’ll take the buggy. Get you in training for your Zimmer Frame.’
Pete looked so far from a Zimmer Frame that they all laughed. Mallory. Now that was old. Bunty watched her friends with a peculiar pang of nostalgia. What was going on at home, she wondered. But then she cast the thought from her mind. This was an important day. A red letter day. And the letter was B.
Simon had opted out of Ben hunting, preferring to get some work done while Kat helped her friend on her sleuthing trip, so after lunch they met up at Viaduct Harbour, ignoring the occasional chilly spray that swept over them, and strode along the jetty checking out yachts.
‘Wow. There is quite a lot of them, isn’t there?’ said Kat, leaning over the balustrade to stare in at one particularly gleaming example. ‘Excuse me,’ she called to the man clad in shorts and flip-flops who appeared out of the cabin. ‘Are you Ben?’
Bunty shoved her to one side. ‘Of course he’s not Ben. I can tell you if it’s Ben or not. Sorry,’ she called, pointing to Kat’s head. ‘Sunstroke.’
‘You have to wear your hat here, love,’ the man shouted back. ‘There’s a big hole in the ozone layer right over your head.’
‘Thank you.’ Kat rolled her eyes at Bunty. ‘Maybe he knows Ben. Ask him. Ask him!’
‘I can’t!’
‘But how else are you going to find him?’
It did seem pretty hopeless. Bunty didn’t even know what Ben’s yacht was called. ‘We’re …. we’re looking for Ben who owns a yacht,’ she called feebly, her words seeming to take ages to float down to the man on the boat. ‘Which ones are yachts?’
The man’s face split into a grin. ‘Ninety percent of these are yachts, love. Sail or engine?’
‘I … I don’t know.’
‘Let me guess. Ben – he’s youngish, good-looking, broad-shoulders?’
‘Yes!’ yelled Bunty. ‘That’s him.’
‘It’s half the blokes here, you mean. Sorry, love. Why don’t you try the Americas Cup guys?’
He pointed back along the wharf to the restaurant where they’d met for lunch. A pair of musicians were unloading electric acoustic guitars and amplifiers from the back of an SUV. ‘The guitar guys?’
At this the man on the boat threw his head back and laughed uproariously. ‘The yachties. Out the front. NZL 40 and 41.’
‘I don’t like him, he’s rude,’ said Kat. ‘How are we supposed to know what he’s blathering about?’
Bunty sighed. ‘I suppose I should have had a better idea. I didn’t really talk to Ben about his yacht. We discussed his children and his ex more, really.’
‘Fun.’ Kat peered down the wharf. ‘Look, there are some people on that boat, and it says NZL 40 on the sail thingy. That must be what he meant.’
They hurried back towards the restaurant, Bunty peeking over the railings at intervals to see if she could spot Ben. There was no way down to the men beavering away on the deck of the yacht, so they raced around the corner to the woman decked out in sailing gear at the top of the steps.
‘Are you on this next trip, ladies?’ The chipper young woman pointed down the stairs to NZL 40.
‘We just want to talk to those men,’ said Bunty, suddenly aware that she was ten years older than this woman, and possibly fifteen years older than the crew. ‘I don’t mean …’
As It Is On Telly Page 16