She walked up to the boys and held Bertie’s arm firmly. ‘Why did he put the ladder up his nose?’ she asked. Bertie started to cry louder.
Harry sat up and still holding his nose he said – somewhat nasally, ‘I wanted to see if it would fit.’
‘If it would fit? Oh!’ she clapped her hands to her head in exasperation. ‘My son the bloody scientist!’ She looked over at her husband. ‘He’s an Einstein!’
Both boys started howling.
She turned her back on them and walked out of the room.
‘It’s your shift,’ she informed her husband as she strode past him. ‘Your son and heir has a hole fixation. No doubt he’ll be a golfer like his father.’
She slammed the door behind her.
Charles strode up to Harry and picked him up with a gentleness Annie had never seen before. Annie opened the bedroom door and Charles carried his son into the drawing room where Victoria was now pacing. She had her coat on over her dressing gown and was muttering under her breath.
‘There’s no way out of it, we’ll have to take him to Casualty,’ said Charles, placing a now moaning Harry on to the sofa.
‘If I’m not back in time to go to that party, I’m leaving you all,’ she said and bent to pick up Harry, who clung feverishly to his mother.
* * * * *
Two hours later, Annie had managed to get Bertie to sleep when she heard the key in the door. She rushed to the hall.
Harry was clinging to his mother’s neck for dear life, and they all looked exhausted.
‘What happened?’
‘A nice doctor took the fire engine ladder out of Harry’s amazingly big nasal orifice,’ said Victoria somewhat proudly. ‘I’ll just put him to bed.’
Annie and Charles stood in the hall quietly for a while. Charles looked at his watch.
‘Fi and Sophie should be here in half an hour.’
Annie nodded. The last thing she felt in the mood for now was a dinner party.
Victoria came out of the boys’ room and shut the door silently behind her.
‘Right,’ she said, a determined glint in her eye. ‘I should be ready just in time.’
‘Ready for what?’ asked Charles.
‘The dinner party downstairs at David and Jake’s, of course,’ she said, looking at him with her practised look.
‘You can’t go to their dinner party tonight! Your son needs you.’
‘I’ll only be downstairs. I can pop up every half-hour.’
‘How can you even think of going to the party?’
‘Well, how can you?’
‘Well someone’s got to go,’ he replied as if this was glaringly obvious.
‘Well, why the hell should it be you?’ shrieked Victoria. ‘Why don’t I get to have some fun while you do some parenting for a change? I don’t believe this! Why does everything always happen to me?’
‘Because you’re the mother,’ said Charles firmly.
Victoria exploded. ‘Oh so that means I have to stay at home twenty-four-hours-a-day bringing up your children while you pop out to the office for a chinwag with my father and then on to the golf course to get a birdy in one, I suppose.’
Something told Charles it was not a good moment to laugh.
Victoria was on the home straight.
‘I wouldn’t mind, but it’s my father’s money we’re living off,’ she shouted. ‘So why should I be the one who has to stay at home doing all the hard work while you’re off gadding about EVERY BLOODY DAY?’
‘YOU are his mother,’ attempted Charles, trying to ignore the fact that she looked nothing like one, now that her coat was open, showing her lacy underwear and silk dressing gown. ‘Whoever heard of a father—’
But Victoria interrupted. She wasn’t going to let Charles stop her dramatic finale.
‘How can you stand there,’ she accused, ‘even thinking about going out for the evening, when your Son and Heir lies weak in his bedroom, after emergency medical attention for a fire-engine ladder up his nose?’
It hadn’t quite had the dramatic impact she had hoped for.
Annie had heard enough.
‘I’ll stay here with him’ she said quickly.
They both stared at her.
‘I’ll cancel the sitter and stay here with him,’ she said again. ‘I’m not really feeling up to going out tonight anyway.’
‘Oh would you?’ asked Victoria, her tone now grateful.
‘You’re a brick, Annie,’ said Charles. ‘It would make our evening.’
‘Oh, thanks Annie, you’re fantastic,’ said Victoria, looking straight at Charles. They were going to go out together. Like a couple. Like old times.
Charles looked straight back at her. God she looked good after a fight. All flushed and heaving.
Half an hour later, Annie stood in her room, staring at her reflection as she slowly took off her evening clothes. It turned out that the aliens saving her from going to the dinner party were none other than her family.
Meanwhile Victoria was lying, sweating on the bed. She turned her head to Charles, whose smiling face was half hidden by her dressing gown.
He wanted to say that her eyes looked alive and warm. He wanted to say that the sex was fantastic and he’d missed it. But he knew that it would probably all come out wrong.
‘Hole in one,’ he whispered and they both smiled.
She almost said that it was a shame he didn’t spend quite as long achieving this kind as he did the other. But she let it go.
10
‘CASUALTY?’ REPEATED SOPHIE, ‘whatever happened?’
‘Well,’ began Charles, and took a deep breath in.
Victoria interrupted.
‘Your nephew decided that it was worth sacrificing his olfactory nerve so that Mummy wouldn’t leave him for a whole evening. She’d been evil earlier in the day and had only read Postman Pat to him eight times instead of the requisite ten. Naturally she had to suffer for it.’
‘His what nerve?’ asked Sophie.
‘He put a toy fire-engine ladder up his nose,’ beamed Charles.
Everyone gasped.
‘A whole toy fire-engine ladder?’ asked David.
‘Oh yes,’ said Charles, proudly. ‘Doesn’t do anything by half measures, my boy.’
‘Ow,’ sympathised David, remembering a long-forgotten incident involving chewing gum, a throbbing eardrum and a doctor with halitosis.
‘So is he all right now?’ asked Jake politely.
Victoria smiled a delightful smile at Jake. Difficult not to, really, even for Victoria.
‘Oh, I’m sure he’s as right as rain,’ she answered. ‘Annie – that’s my sister – is staying with him and if he wakes up she’ll read him to sleep. He loves that.’
‘Oh does your sister live nearby?’ asked David.
‘She lives with us,’ answered Victoria. ‘Upstairs.’
Sophie was only too glad to pass Jake a glass of water, as some food went down the wrong way.
‘Oh, you’d love Annie,’ Fi started telling David. ‘She’s one of the nicest people we know, isn’t she Sophe?’
Sophie nodded emphatically.
‘So she lives up there with you?’ David said. ‘She’s more than welcome to pop down to our flat any time. Why doesn’t she pop down now?’ He was a free agent since the divorce and wasn’t going to waste any time. The more women the merrier.
‘Oh I doubt she’d want to do that,’ said Jake quietly.
Everyone looked at him.
‘I mean … I’m sure she’s far too busy to want to spend time with her father’s employees,’ he finished quickly. ‘More dessert anyone?’
‘She’ll have cancelled the sitter by now,’ said Victoria. ‘She wasn’t feeling up to going out tonight. Anyway if there’s one thing that Annie likes to do it’s fuss over children, especially when they’re sick.’
‘Well, we’re very grateful, anyway,’ said Charles quickly.
There was a lull in the conversation.
Victoria’s tone made everyone a little unsure as to what the right thing to say was. Everyone except Charles.
‘Ah yes, Annie’s a brick. Now there’s someone who’d make a good mother,’ he said without thinking.
Victoria glared at him, as the others all looked at their plates.
‘Shall we remove to the other room for coffee?’ asked Jake quietly.
* * * * *
The next morning was a Saturday and Annie slept in. Charles had arranged to play golf with Jake and had left the flat at seven.
Four hours later, Annie allowed herself the unusual luxury of a leisurely breakfast after slinging on an old vest T-shirt that was too small and pyjama bottoms that were too big and scooping her mass of hair on top of her head. She decided rebelliously that this morning she wasn’t going to shower until her body actually started to smell noxious. For the first time in living memory, Victoria was groomed before her.
Annie was exhausted. She’d been up until 3 am the night before, waiting for the sound of Victoria and Charles’s key in the lock. It was only after she heard it that she realised it wasn’t going to help her get to sleep. She’d eventually fallen into an exhausted slumber after dawn.
‘You missed a fabulous evening,’ yawned Victoria, pouring yogurt over her drained oats. ‘Except for the food, of course. I’d have thought that with-it troubleshooters would be up on their allergies. All I could eat was mushrooms and aubergine. But Jake Mead is gorgeous. I think Fi’s finally met her perfect husband.’
Annie’s throat contracted and she put down her toast.
‘Turns out he studied at your university when you were there,’ continued Victoria, munching loudly. ‘Did you ever meet him?’
Annie shook her head so fractionally that only her eyebrows moved.
‘No, I suppose it’s a big enough place,’ said Victoria, her eyes glazing over.
The front door intercom buzzed in the kitchen. Victoria walked over to it lazily.
‘Hello?’
‘IT’S ME,’ yelled Charles from downstairs, his voice reverberating round the flat.
‘You don’t need to shout, darling,’ said Victoria for the hundredth time. ‘That’s why we got the intercom.’
‘RIGHT YOU ARE,’ shouted Charles. ‘I’M WITH JAKE. WE DECIDED TO GO TO THE CLUB FOR A SPOT OF LUNCH AND A GAME OF TENNIS. NEED TO PICK UP MY KIT, JAKE THOUGHT HE’D POP UP AND SAY HELLO—’
Victoria buzzed them up, delighted.
‘Poor Fi,’ she said over her shoulder to a horrified Annie. ‘A sports widow before she’s even married the man.’ She ran to check her face in the mirror.
Annie’s limbs deadened. Her palms dampened. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. She hadn’t got a scrap of make-up on. Her hair was unwashed. Toxic fumes were escaping from certain regions of her body. And her sweat glands had gone into fourth. She wasn’t ready for this.
She must get out of the kitchen. Yes, that was it, go to the toilet. Her body was stuck static, yet her insides had spurted into action, racing round and round, bumping into each other, collapsing into uncontrollable hysteria and starting again. A complete Norman Wisdom experience was going on in her stomach. She tried to speak but no sound came out.
She heard the front door open.
She sped out of the room.
* * * * *
Ten full minutes later, Annie heard the door slam shut. Thank God. She padded back into the kitchen, humming ‘It’s Raining Men’ fiercely to herself. She walked straight past the kitchen table and over to the breakfast bar where the kettle was. She certainly deserved another coffee after that shock to her system. As she clicked on the kettle, she became aware that someone was in the room with her. She froze.
Someone coughed.
She raised her eyes and looked in the reflection of the window in front of her. Someone had stood up behind her. Annie held her breath and ever so slowly, turned round to face the stranger trapped in the corner of the room behind the kitchen table.
At first she didn’t even realise it was Jake.
A tall, broad man, with short, cropped hair and clear, dark eyes stared at her with a mixture of hostility and fear. She frowned. Was it him? The skin was soft, but there was an unfamiliar shadow round the chin. The cheekbones were pronounced, but they seemed to fit this man’s face better than Jake’s had. The legs were long, but certainly not skinny. And there was no boyish charm.
It wasn’t Jake. Which meant only one thing. She was about to be hacked to death by a complete stranger in her own kitchen.
Phew. For a minute there, she’d thought it was Jake.
The man shifted uncomfortably. And with a horrified squirm, Annie realised that he looked as if he was trying to pluck up the courage to ask for his ball back please.
It was Jake.
Then he spoke.
‘You must be Annie Markham.’
You must be Annie Markham? The bastard was pretending that they’d never met! In her own kitchen!
Conjuring up sensational powers of self-control, Annie let him live. She then gave him a tight, short smile that didn’t even reach her nose, let alone her eyes.
‘Must I?’ she clipped so dryly that the air seemed to evaporate around them.
They stared at each other, seeing nothing and everything.
‘Aha! So you two have met!’ exclaimed Victoria from the doorway. ‘Fabulous! Jake, this is Annie, my baby sister and saviour. Annie, this is Jake, Daddy’s troubleshooter and the entire family’s saviour. He’s about to thrash Charles at tennis. Ah well, boys will be boys—’
‘Oh yes,’ said Annie, her eyes never leaving Jake’s. ‘Boys will definitely be boys.’
She and Jake stared menacingly at each other, involved in an unconscious battle not to be the one to blink first.
For added confidence, Annie decided now was a good moment to place her hands with lazy confidence on her waist. With shock she realised it was flesh on flesh. Oh good God, she was in her too-big pyjama bottoms. They would be happily drifting down her tummy by now. Her life had surpassed itself in degradation. Maintaining furious eye contact, she started inching her hips forward so as to feel how far down her pyjama bottoms had got to. Jesus. She was perilously close to showing Jake what was strictly restricted viewing. Well, restricted to him, anyway.
She tried frantically to decide the pros and cons of pulling up her pyjama bottoms in front of him. Cons: it would show loss of face. Pros: she would be wearing trousers.
Nope. She couldn’t decide.
Was that gurgling noise her brain?
‘Well, they say a good game of tennis is fantastic for de-stressing,’ Jake was smiling at Victoria, taking his eyes briefly off Annie. ‘Though, the state my playing’s got to, I should think it’ll be rather a stressful afternoon.’
Victoria beamed back at his self-deprecation. So sexy in a big man.
Annie grimaced, while using the moment to hitch up her pyjama bottoms.
For a much-needed shot of confidence, she decided now was the ideal stage in the proceedings to cross her arms pointedly – with a hint of accusation that only she and Jake would understand. Thank Christ. Her vest was still on. Ten years old and in dire need of a wash, but still on.
‘If you really want to de-stress,’ she said softly, ‘why don’t you just turn your back on everything and run?’
Jake turned back to Annie and tilted his head to one side thoughtfully.
Aha! The old Tilting The Head Thoughtfully trick …
Annie tilted her head too. Extra thoughtfully.
Deuce.
She sensed her pyjama bottoms slipping down again and stopped breathing.
Victoria smiled uncertainly at them both.
‘Yes. Well,’ she said.
Jake turned to Victoria and flashed her a wide grin. Annie almost recognised the boy inside the man.
‘And I’m afraid I must run out on you now,’ he said tightly. ‘Much as it pains me to do so.’
And he turned his back and walke
d out.
Standing motionless in the middle of her kitchen, arms crossed, head tilted thoughtfully, Annie realised two things: one, Jake Mead had grown into a pratt. And two, it was possible for hair to sweat.
She turned slowly to the kettle.
As soon as she heard the door slam she started breathing again.
‘Isn’t he just divine?’ grinned Victoria. ‘I must phone the girls.’
In the silence, Annie leant on the breakfast bar staring blindly at the kettle. She’d like very much to make herself a coffee, but she couldn’t remember how to.
Jesus Christ, she’d seen him. Been in the same room as him. Made eye contact with him. Spoken to him. Understood him. Wanted to kill him.
Maybe next time he wouldn’t be able to smell her from the street.
Each time will be easier, she told herself, steadying her breathing. Each time will be easier.
Well, it certainly couldn’t get any worse.
‘Sophie and Fi are popping round!’ cried out Victoria. ‘We’re going to take the boys to watch Charles and Jake play tennis.’
Oh God, thought Annie. It just got worse.
* * * * *
Annie declined Victoria’s eventual invitation to spend the afternoon ogling Jake as he beat Charles at tennis. Instead, she spent her afternoon helping out at the charity shop in Hampstead High Street. Four hours of sorting the Nicole Farhi cast-offs from the Gap ones almost took her mind off the morning encounter.
But not quite. As staff and customers buzzed around her, she couldn’t stop herself from fuming at the new Jake.
‘You must be Annie Markham?’
Bastard! Before meeting him, she had idly wondered if they’d mention their past or if they’d both pretend it hadn’t happened – but to be so distant, so cold, so estranged. And to beat her at it. In her own kitchen. She was fuming.
And she’d been in her sodding pyjamas …
As she trudged back to the flat, she tried to judge Jake’s new looks objectively.
Boy, he’d got ugly.
Not exactly in his features – they were still the same and in all fairness, the close-crop hair showed off his eyes and cheekbones to every advantage. But there was a hardness in his face now that was cold and mean. And he’d got so broad in his old age. Bulky almost. It was intimidating.
Persuading Annie Page 10