‘It’s ANNIE,’ she hissed at him, her breathing heavy. ‘A-N-N-I-E. Annie.’
This close to him, she noticed that his eyes hadn’t really changed at all. Except that she’d never seen them this startled before. After the slightest of pauses, his expression changed from startled to sardonic.
‘Ah yes,’ he whispered slowly, ‘how could I forget?’
What the hell was that supposed to mean? The idea that Jake might actually think that he had a right to be angry with her was so new to Annie that she just stared in open bewilderment at him.
Neither of them knew how long they stood like that before Fi appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘Hiya Annie!’
Annie and Jake jumped away from each other and Annie ran up the stairs.
When she reached the flat, the boys were fast asleep on the drawing-room sofa. Everyone was in there with them, all staring at Tony, who was standing motionless in the middle of the room, on the phone. Annie had clearly interrupted some very important transaction. She felt conscious of Jake behind her as he finally followed her into the room and went straight over to the sofa.
Tony seemed about as tense as her. His whole body was rigid and his eyes were fixed in the mid-distance as if he was concentrating so hard, he couldn’t possibly focus as well. Annie was about to greet everyone, but realised they were all fiercely watching Tony.
Suddenly Tony took the phone away from his ear, pressed a digit on it and placed it back to his ear. Sophie and Fi held their breath. No one said a word. He did it again. And again. Now he closed his eyes in thought and did it again. Suddenly, he started clicking his fingers furiously at Fi and in a flurry of activity, she picked up a credit card on the coffee table and, almost dropping it, passed it to him. Frowning in concentration, he pressed a large number of digits into the phone, his shoulders hunched and the tip of his tongue protruding from his lips. Silence.
And then finally, a serene beam burst on to his face and he breathed a deep sigh of relief. Everyone joined him and with a flourish, he put the phone down and said proudly,
‘Six tickets to see tomorrow’s screening of At Home With My Llama.’
The others grinned and calmness descended on the room. Tony turned to Annie, seeing her for the first time.
‘Hi, Annie,’ he said. ‘You are coming to see the film with us tomorrow, aren’t you? Of course, I can always cancel – I’ve got a spare hour tomorrow to call the cinema …’
Annie shook her head quickly. She didn’t want to see a grown man cry.
‘Sounds great,’ she lied.
‘How was the date?’ asked Fi.
‘Awful. I’d have sent up a flare, but it was a non-smoking restaurant.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Anyone else interested in Available Angus? Body the size of a brick shithouse, brain the size of a split atom.’
‘What’s his number?’ asked Fi.
‘I’ll ask him. He’s still paying the bill.’
Tony coughed loudly.
‘Well, we’re meeting at the cinema tomorrow at eight,’ he told Annie. ‘Don’t be late.’
‘I’m never late,’ said Annie.
It was Jake’s turn to cough.
‘Won’t be long!’ came Sophie’s voice from her bedroom.
‘I’ll go and get the boys’ stuff,’ whispered Fi and she left the room, followed swiftly by Tony.
Suddenly Jake and Annie were alone in the room with only the sleeping boys as distraction. Annie glanced over at Jake, but he was determined to act as if she was invisible. She was beginning to find his immaturity infuriating. She paced the flat.
Meanwhile Jake, seemingly unaware she was even in the room, was rifling through some magazines that were on the coffee table, whistling gently under his breath. Right, she thought. She crossed her arms and started wandering round the room humming just as loudly. Jake stopped whistling, leaving her off-key on her own.
Worse, she was humming ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree’.
There was a rustling on the couch.
‘What’s that noise?’ asked Harry, waking up. ‘Where’s Mummy? I’m scared.’
Ever so gently, Annie knelt down by Harry’s head and started to stroke his hair.
To say that Jake was unmoved by the sight would have been unfair. And untrue. The sight of Annie Markham, her golden hair tumbling down her back, her soft skin luminous from the effects of good food and drink as she soothed her nephew, moved him quite significantly. He felt repelled.
Jake didn’t have long to wait for Sophie. She entered the room, looking young, fit and very pretty. With his eyes scanning her skin-tight outfit, Jake replaced the magazine on the coffee table.
Sophie beamed over at Annie.
‘We’re out clubbing,’ she squealed. ‘It was the first window Jake could spare me this week because he’s been so busy.’
‘Don’t wear him out,’ said Annie kindly. ‘He’s not as young as he was.’
‘Yeah well, some things keep a man young,’ replied Jake, grinning meaningfully at Sophie.
Annie smiled conspiratorially at Sophie. ‘Like immaturity and a younger date,’ she confided.
Sophie giggled and then stopped.
Annie wished them both a happy evening and explained to Sophie that if she kept Jake in the shadows, no one would notice his age.
She watched them go and then glanced over at the magazine Jake had been reading.
‘How to get over your ex!’ screamed the cover.
Meet him in seven years’ time, she thought ruefully as the door slammed shut so violently it almost came off its hinges.
14
THAT EVENING, CHARLES leant back in his leather armchair, and took a sip of Laphroig. He felt very much at home. Sitting in the oak-panelled club lounge with four of his best golfing buddies was quite simply one of life’s joys. The meeting had been far more important than even he had realised.
‘They don’t stand a chance, you know,’ his friend, Bill, was saying. ‘They’ll realise that if they want anarchy they can go to another club and that’ll be the end of it. This is a respectable, traditional place and a few sex-starved young’uns aren’t going to change that. Over my dead body. All we have to do is work at convincing the rest of the club.’ He took a gulp of his brandy.
‘Mind you,’ said Marcus wistfully. ‘Wouldn’t half add some colour to the place, don’t you think? Women playing golf, eh? Little skirts … short socks … and whatnot?’
Marius and Edgar exploded.
‘Heresy!’ cried Marius.
‘Cut off his head!’ shouted Edgar.
‘Find him a prostitute,’ said Bill.
They all laughed into their drinks and Charles joined in happily. Then he pictured Victoria in a tight Pringle sweater and crossed his legs.
* * * * *
The next day Cass woke early. She always woke early. Six-thirty am to be precise. It was as if her body was on a natural alarm clock. Her first conscious thought, as always, was that the silence might burst her eardrums. Brutus was sleeping soundly next to her.
She got out of bed quickly, padded through the bedroom-sized wardrobe and selected an outfit for the gym, humming determinedly to herself. She gave her bikini-beautiful body the once-over in the mirror. Taut long limbs, slender torso, long, narrow waist, full breasts. And thick Fallopian tubes.
In the car, she put on bright, poppy music to provide her with skim segments of escapist romantic fiction and friction. It worked less and less these days. The gym was large, warm and welcoming. Cass handed in her membership card to the receptionist, and the young girl looked at it and then smiled a waxy smile and called Cass by her first name, which always irritated Cass. Surely she’d know her name by now without having to glance at her card – she’d been coming for five years.
She went via the pool so that she wouldn’t have to walk past the crèche.
Inside the enormous air-conditioned aerobics studio, two other immaculate women we
re already there, waiting for the instructor. No one looked at each other or spoke a word. They all stared at their own reflections, the room stark with resounding silence.
Cass looked at the reflections of the other women, trying not to eye their stomachs. Both women had generous, rounded bellies and she forced her eyes away from them and hoped to God the instructor wouldn’t be too late.
Five minutes later, there was a full class and a loud, bossy instructor who barked out instructions and kept telling them to ‘make it worthwhile’. Cass bounced and strained with all her heart to the loud pounding music, but the silence was always there in her head.
By the time she was back home, Brutus was sitting up in bed, focusing intently on a syringe in one hand, and tapping the air out of it with the other. Without a word, she climbed on to the bed, and got on all fours. A quick tap on the backside and a sharp jab of pain. Then, thank God, a soft kiss.
Half an hour later, she and Brutus breakfasted, talking about everything and anything except what was on their minds. Then, while he was out playing rugby with friends, she went shopping.
Dinner was now always in front of the television, regardless of whether or not there was anything they wanted to watch. They used to listen to music together and read, but now music seemed to depress Cass.
Later, she lay in bed, as usual, picturing her unborn children, their laughter echoing behind a heavy glass door she couldn’t open.
Meanwhile the silence in her life – where there should have been mewling, puking, spewing, crapping, gurgling, squabbling, laughing, shouting, crying – was always there, threatening to drive her mad.
* * * * *
As Annie parked her car round the back of the cinema, she thought about all the things she’d rather be doing than joining Tony and Fi, David, Jake and Sophie on a stupid film outing.
Baking, she thought. She’d always wanted to learn how to bake.
She sat behind the wheel, watching people rush by in the rain, finding it almost impossible to muster the energy to leave her car. She was late, the film had probably already started.
A knock on the car door startled her.
She looked at the window to see the grinning face of David.
She smiled and opened her door, touched when he held the umbrella over her head.
‘You must be knackered,’ she said to him, as they sped to the warmth of the cinema. ‘Are all your meetings as fun as yesterday’s?’
‘Oh no. Some are quite boring.’
‘Aren’t you exhausted?’
Once inside, David grinned at her as he closed the umbrella. ‘That’s exactly why we need to get out,’ he said. ‘To forget all about it.’
They queued to pick up their tickets.
‘Shall we get the tickets for the others?’ asked Annie.
‘No need. Instructions were to meet inside if possible. If not, we’ll meet up in the bar on the corner afterwards. We’ll probably find them all inside. Jake left early to pick up Sophie.’
The small cinema was already filling up. There were only a few seats left, and David and Annie chose two seats in the middle of the back row.
Annie scanned the cinema for Tony and Fi, hoping desperately not to spot Jake and Sophie while she was at it. She was relieved when she found none of them.
And even better, it looked like no one was going to be sitting in the two seats smack bang in front of her. Feeling smug and cosy, Annie lowered herself in her seat.
‘Want any grub?’ asked David. She shook her head. ‘Won’t be a tick,’ he said and forced twenty people to stand up and let him out.
Annie sat still, letting the warmth of the cinema envelop her. Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a bad evening after all. She needed some good escapism.
Just then, half of the row in front of her started tutting and one by one, stood up slowly. Two latecomers were coming to sit in the seats in front of her. She hated it when that happened.
It was Jake and Sophie.
Annie hunkered down further in her seat. They sat right in front of her, so close that, if she had wanted to, she could have burnt Jake’s neck with a cigarette end.
God, she thought, his neck muscles were like train tracks.
Sophie opened a packet of chocolate and offered one to Jake. He shook his head. Sophie took one and placed her head briefly on his shoulder.
Hussy, thought Annie.
‘I wonder where the others are,’ murmured Jake.
Sophie finished her mouthful. ‘Probably won’t be here for ages. Pity. It would have been fun to sit with Annie.’
Jake looked at Sophie. Annie shrunk back in her seat. She hoped to God the lights dimmed before David returned.
‘Why Annie?’
Sophie shrugged.
‘She’s just … fun. I dunno,’ said Sophie, offering Jake some of her fizzy drink. He declined.
‘Fun in what way?’ he asked.
She shrugged again and sucked on her straw.
‘Nice. Funny.’ She thought about it. ‘Fun.’
Gee thanks, thought Annie. Let’s hope they don’t ask you to write my obituary.
‘This is Annie Markham we’re talking about?’ asked Jake.
Annie fought the temptation to kick his seat.
‘Yes! Annie. Annie Markham – you know, the one you met—’
‘Yes, I know.’
Annie raised her eyebrows, impressed. So he does know who I am.
‘I just don’t think of those words to describe her.’
Annie’s hand flexed into karate chop position. I could kill him from here and be out before the adverts.
It was Sophie’s turn to look wonderingly at Jake.
‘Why not?’ she asked innocently. ‘She’s lovely.’
Annie’s hand relaxed. Ah, sweetheart.
Jake grunted and took off his jacket. Annie held her breath as he threw it over the back of his chair. It touched her knee. Sophie opened her toffee pecan ice-cream.
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ she said, as she prised the plastic spoon out of the lid, ‘but me and Fi always wanted Charles to marry Annie instead of Vicky.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Mmm,’ answered Sophie. She started to look around the cinema.
‘What happened?’
Sophie edged closer to Jake. Jake edged closer back. Annie edged closer to both of them.
‘Well, Charles tried to get off with Annie at a family party once, but she wasn’t interested.’
Annie frowned. Charles? Get off with her? Were they talking about the night when he spilt his drink down her front? And then offered to get it dry cleaned? She’d always wondered why he’d seemed so insistent. Nice technique.
‘When was this?’ asked Jake.
‘Years ago – just before he and Victoria got together, in fact,’ answered Sophie. ‘I was only a child at the time.’
Annie shook her head. Did you hear that? She was only a child! She still is a child. You should be ashamed of yourself.
‘We decided that Susannah Brooke didn’t approve. Have you met Susannah?’
Jake nodded.
‘She’s like a mother to Annie,’ continued Sophie. ‘You know Annie’s mum died when she was young? They were very alike – really close apparently. They say Annie’s never really got over it.’
Annie felt a sharp stab of pain hearing that period of her life dealt with in such a matter-of-fact way. Wasn’t everyone that close and similar to their mother? And did anyone ever get over it? She tuned quickly back into what Sophie was saying.
‘Well, Annie does everything Susannah tells her. Apparently …’
Sophie edged even closer to Jake now, leaving Annie no choice but to move dangerously close to them both to hear what she was saying. She kept her eyes down. She could smell Jake’s aftershave. Probably the only thing about him that hadn’t changed since college.
‘… Apparently Susannah saved Annie’s life by stopping her from running off with a money-grabbing student when she was at col
lege.’
Annie gasped in horror and then smacked her hand over her mouth. Neither Jake nor Sophie noticed the noise. Jake was listening too intently to Sophie to notice anything.
‘Want some ice-cream?’ asked Sophie, holding out her spoon to Jake. ‘It’s toffee pecan. Delicious.’ He shook his head.
‘Can you imagine how much nicer our life would be if Annie was our sister-in-law?’
Jake didn’t answer.
Annie was fit to burst. It took all her self-discipline not to knock their heads together. Is that what everyone thought about her? Is that what really happened? She got so confused when she thought of that time that she sometimes forgot, herself.
No – it wasn’t Susannah who’d persuaded her not to elope, it was Jake who’d given her no choice. He’d run out on her for God’s sake! Without ever letting her explain that she’d made an honest mistake about the baby. He had done everything to prove Susannah right. Sod Susannah – he had proved all parents right. Young girls need to be kept well away from stupid young boys.
It was all Annie could do not to butt in and say her piece. Rocking in her seat helped.
In desperation for something to do, she started to search frantically for David. If he came in before the lights dimmed, she was done for. They’d know she’d have heard everything. She turned to the door and saw David standing there grinning at her. He waved a bucket of popcorn the size of a pedal bin. As he walked towards her, she turned to look at Sophie and Jake. Sophie was brushing some invisible fluff off Jake’s shoulder. Annie felt torn. Half of her wanted to break Sophie’s arm, while the other more lenient, forgiving half wanted to break Jake’s head. It was a tough one. Instead, she turned back to David and grinned maniacally. Any second now, he’d spot Jake. She had to keep him from looking at him. She didn’t take her eyes off David and felt her grin stick to her face. As he reached the end of the row, the lights started to dim. Thank God, she thought, and dropped the grin.
As the adverts started, she lowered herself further into her seat and then kicked Jake’s. He didn’t notice.
* * * * *
Annie wondered why the familiar advertising jingle didn’t start up. Instead an image of a red rose pulsed on the screen to the sound of a heartbeat. And then the words:
Persuading Annie Page 15