‘Don’t tell me what you did,’ said Darrell. ‘I feel naïve enough as it is. I mean, I’ve never even seen cocaine, let alone driven a sports car under its influence.’
She slipped Cosmo off her breast, and rested him on her shoulder. He let out a surprisingly loud burp.
‘Train him to do the whole alphabet,’ said Marcus with a grin, ‘and you may never have to work again.’
He waited for Darrell to settle Cosmo in his seat again, and got back in the car. But he didn’t immediately start it up. Instead he sat, staring straight ahead. Darrell tried to follow his line of sight, but all she could see was broken wooden crates piled up against a grubby wall, and what appeared to be a spilt sack of carrots. Maybe there’s donkey round here, she thought. Or a hutch of rabbits, being bred for use in cosmetic testing.
She became aware that Marcus was now staring at her.
‘Sorry, did you say something?’ she said. ‘I was away with the rabbits.’
‘I asked: are you happy?’
‘Oh, dear.’ Darrell felt her throat constrict again. ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. I mean I really didn’t hear it the first time, but now I’ll pretend I didn’t.’
I’m babbling, she thought. But that’s better than answering.
‘Darrell—’
‘No!’ She slapped her hands over her ears. ‘Drive! Now!’
It was the first time she could recall seeing Marcus look angry.
‘Why the hell won’t you talk to me?’ He swivelled in his seat to face her. ‘I thought we were friends!’
‘You don’t have any friends!’ Darrell yelled. ‘Serial shagging makes friendship impossible! Haven’t you worked that out by now?’
That smarted, she thought. Look at his face. That really hurt him. You ungrateful cow, she scolded herself. He planned today’s trip for you. He’s been nothing but kind and funny and generous, and you may as well have just slapped him in the gob with a mackerel.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Marcus, I didn’t mean it.’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ said Darrell. ‘I was just scrambling to avoid the subject of my marriage. I’m sorry.’ She reached over and touched his arm. ‘Forgive me.’
‘Am I a bad man?’ he said with a frown.
‘Of course not.’
‘I think I am.’ He shifted in his seat so that he was facing forward again. His frown was now more puzzled than angry. ‘I think I must be …’
Darrell felt a mounting panic. ‘You’re one of the nicest, dearest men I know,’ she said urgently. ‘I’ve had more fun with you in the past two days than I’ve had in the last year.’
Now, that’s an admission, she thought. That’s an admission I’ve barely dared make to myself. What ominous crack in the ground have I opened up now?
Marcus stared at her. ‘You wouldn’t have me, though, would you?’ he said. ‘Even if you were free. Don’t worry,’ he added. ‘I don’t need an answer.’
He reached down to turn the key. Darrell caught his arm.
‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘I don’t want the day to end up like this. I want us to stay friends.’
‘I have no friends, remember?’ he said.
Pulled tight with heat and nerves, Darrell’s patience suddenly went flying, like a released rubber band, complete with pinging sound.
‘I didn’t mean that and you know it!’ she said. ‘You put me on the spot and I was desperate. I am your friend. Get over it!’
Marcus sat back and narrowed his eyes.
‘I don’t recall you ever being this shrewish,’ he said. ‘I remember you being sweet and lovely and extraordinarily accommodating.’
‘Yes, well.’ Darrell flushed. ‘That approach didn’t work out terribly well for me, did it? Not that I’ve managed any better since.’
Marcus regarded her in silence for a moment, then drummed a short tattoo on the steering wheel with his fingers.
‘I need a break from driving,’ he said. ‘More pressingly, I need a beer. Let’s stop in the next town and try our luck.’
The next town proved only marginally more prepossessing than the last. But there was a small enoteca — more like a holiday camp general store, thought Darrell, with plastic chairs, crisps and ice-cream with your grappa — and Marcus seated her and Cosmo and went up to place their order.
He came back with a Peroni and a tall glass of sparkling water for Darrell, which, to Marcus’ amusement, she emptied in less than thirty seconds.
‘Now’s the moment to teach your son to burp the alphabet,’ he said to her. ‘I’m happy to take him under my wing for the more advanced skill of setting alight one’s farts.’
Cosmo was asleep, propped in the crook of Darrell’s arm. Glancing down, Darrell noted his dark skin and hair, so like Anselo’s, and felt the twang of guilt. I’m being disloyal, she thought, at least in spirit. I’m wondering what it would be like if Marcus were Cosmo’s father, if he and I were married instead. Would it be easier? More relaxed, more fun? Would I feel safer?
‘Do you want to talk?’ said Marcus gently.
My face always gives me away, thought Darrell. I’d be pathetic at poker — I’d end up leaving the saloon dressed in nothing but a barrel.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet. I need to work up to it.’
‘I’ll nurse this beer then,’ said Marcus. ‘Nothing worse than reaching your driving limit before you’re ready to hit the road.’
‘Good to know you’re being responsible,’ said Darrell with a smile.
‘It’s because you’re here,’ said Marcus. ‘You always made me acutely aware of when I was being a selfish arse. Not that I necessarily amended my behaviour,’ he added. ‘But I was aware of it, nonetheless.’
Darrell felt her face grow warm. I am so needy, she thought, it’s appalling. A smile, an affectionate word and I’m putty. But I can’t respond. I simply can’t, it’s far too risky. So I’ll resort to my usual strategy of deflection and avoidance.
‘Why did you get fired?’ she said. ‘Did you sleep with the producer’s wife?’
Marcus gave her an offended look. ‘You really believe I’m that shallow and obvious?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, all right, I am. But that’s not why I got fired.’
Cosmo made a small noise, and Darrell checked that he was still sleeping. He was. He always is, she thought. Lucky Cosmo. Not a worry in the world. Not yet, anyway.
‘I lost a starlet,’ Marcus was saying.
‘You … lost someone?’
‘Her name was Ruby Kapoor, and she was nineteen. My employer had seen her in a B-grade Bollywood film and been smitten enough to pay for her to come over. She came with strict orders from her family that her innocence, in which they firmly believed, was to remain untarnished. That job,’ said Marcus, ‘was given to me.’
‘Um …’ said Darrell.
‘Yes, I know,’ said Marcus. ‘He did it as punishment. Hoped six weeks of escorting the untouchable Ruby — actually, she was a Brahmin, but you know what I mean — would give me such a bad case of blue balls, I’d be out of action for the foreseeable.’
‘Envious of your stellar ability to pull birds?’
‘No, he was just an arse. I didn’t care.’ Marcus shrugged. ‘I’d already shagged his wife.’
Darrell bit her lip. ‘And how did you lose Ruby?’
‘She slipped out a back window at Spago,’ he said. ‘Like a dusky-skinned Houdini. And went on a spree that put Lindsay Lohan to shame. It even put me to shame. I spent the whole night hopping in and out of cabs, running from one scene of devastation to another. I haven’t been in such a lather since, well, since I shagged the producer’s wife. She made me take her on his desk,’ he added, ‘while he was at the Korean nail bar getting his cuticles buffed. She also made me put his Oscar to a use that wasn’t entirely ornamental.’
‘You have no shame,’ said Darrell. ‘Back to Ruby. I assume you never found her?’
‘I did,’
he said. ‘And it should have all been fine. She was an unknown, so no paparazzi had her on their radar. If she hadn’t hit the wrong button on her phone, no one would have been the wiser.’
‘She accidentally texted home?’
‘Worse,’ said Marcus. ‘She sent them a short video. I’ve seen strikingly similar ones on BanginHotTeens.com.’
‘No! You perve!’
‘They’re not actually teenagers,’ said Marcus. ‘They put their hair up in very tight ponytails for a reason.’
He pulled back his own hair, tightening the skin on his face such that he resembled a hammerhead shark.
‘I bet the producer enjoyed firing you,’ said Darrell.
‘Relished it.’ Marcus took a swig of his beer. ‘My parting words were that he should go and sniff his Oscar. I hope he didn’t think it was the English version of “take your job and shove it”. I truly, deeply hope he picked that little golden bastard off his mantelpiece and took a good, long whiff.’
‘He had a mantelpiece in his office?’
‘He was an arse,’ said Marcus. ‘Which is why I shouldn’t be so bothered by it all. But yet,’ he added glumly, ‘I am.’
‘Why? You’re eminently employable, I would have thought,’ said Darrell.
‘Oh, come on! I was a glorified office boy!’ said Marcus. ‘I have no training, no qualifications, and I suspect I have burned off all my potentially useful contacts by being badly behaved around them or their loved ones. I could get a job stacking freezers at Asda. Possibly.’
‘What about publishing?’ Darrell said. ‘When we were seeing each other, you were buying rights to a foreign novel for your producer. Did you shag her, by the way? The French teen erotica queen?’
‘Berenice?’ Marcus met Darrell’s eye, but he was clearly uncomfortable. ‘I did, I’m afraid. I’m sorry.’
‘What is the most women you’ve had on the go at one time?’
‘This is hardly helping to rebuild my shattered self-esteem!’
‘It’s not shattered,’ said Darrell. ‘You’re like a squash ball. A Mack truck could run over you and you’d bounce back intact.’
Marcus looked as though he intended to protest, but settled instead for finishing his beer.
‘Can we talk about you now?’ he said. ‘I find the subject of me as depressing and pointless as the long-range forecast for the Outer Hebrides.’
‘Oh, God.’ Darrell breathed out. ‘I don’t know what to say. I’ve hardly let myself think about it, let alone talk about it.’
‘Do you want another glass of water?’ said Marcus. ‘Or a beer?’
Darrell shook her head.
‘May I have another one?’
‘I’m not your mother.’ Darrell’s nerves were making her irritable.
‘No.’ Marcus stood and looked down at her. ‘Patently, you are not.’
When he returned, beer in hand, he didn’t hesitate. ‘Is he mistreating you?’
‘No!’ Darrell let out a breath. ‘We just … we don’t talk to each other anymore.’
‘Did you before?’ said Marcus. ‘He never struck me as Mr Voluble.’
‘We did,’ said Darrell. ‘But somehow, we’ve stopped.’
‘And you don’t know the cause?’
Darrell hesitated. ‘I don’t think it’s down to one incident. I think it’s been a series of progressions,’ she said, ‘or regressions, if you like. It started when I got pregnant and I ran away. I thought we’d got over that — we did get married, after all — but we can’t have. Because when Cosmo was born, it got worse. And now—’
‘Have you tried talking to each other?’ said Marcus.
Darrell gave a short laugh. ‘Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Part of me wants to, so badly. But the other part of me resists. I suspect that’s because I know I won’t much like what I’ll hear. As a mother, I’ve been — well, clingy is as good a word as any, and I’ve been a proportionately less attached wife.’
‘Babies are important,’ said Marcus, and before Darrell could add in a defence for husbands, he pressed on. ‘I find it hard to believe that you ran away when you got pregnant. You’ve never struck me as a bolter.’
‘I ran away when Tom died, too,’ said Darrell. ‘I ran to London because I couldn’t face living in the burned-out bloody shell of what we’d had together.’
‘That’s perfectly understandable,’ said Marcus. ‘Grieving people need to rebuild their lives.’
‘Did I, though?’ said Darrell. ‘Or did I just escape straight into the first set of welcoming arms, which happened to be yours? And from yours into the next set? I’m not sure I ever truly dealt with being on my own, or with … my loss.’
‘Perhaps that’s why I’ve never got close to anyone,’ said Marcus. ‘I’ve never wanted to risk feeling the pain of losing them. Or even the fear that I might lose them.’
He reached out a hand and gently stroked Cosmo’s small, warm arm.
‘And when they’re as vulnerable and precious as this,’ he said, ‘the fear must be immense.’
‘That’s it,’ said Darrell in a rush. ‘I ran because I was terrified Cosmo would die, just like Tom did. So terrified, I couldn’t even think.’
Her breathing was coming in shallow bursts, and her heart was racing. She held up her free hand, and saw it was damp and trembling.
‘God,’ she said with a shaky laugh. ‘Even now. I can’t stop it …’
‘Angel.’
Marcus set down his bottle on the table, and shifted his chair next to hers. He placed one arm around her shoulder and gently squeezed.
‘You’re all right. Your baby’s here, perfectly all right. Everything’s as it should be.’
He dropped a kiss onto her hair, and then sat back. His expression told Darrell that he was girding himself to say something, and she found the act of breathing normally had suddenly become extraordinarily hard.
Is it more fear? she wondered. Anticipation? I feel as though I’ve come up against another invisible line and this time it is dramatic. I’m standing on it, trying to keep my balance, because a step one way could mean the end of everything, and I don’t know which way is which.
‘I’m ready to do something worthwhile, something decent with my life,’ he said. ‘Yes, I realise that most people make that call long before they reach my advanced years, but then we all know I’m a selfish, shallow moron, don’t we?’
Darrell wanted to remind him that he wasn’t yet forty, but her ability to speak had apparently gone the way of her breathing.
‘I want to return to England,’ he went on, ‘and train for some kind of recognised qualification, even, quite frankly, if it’s a piece of paper that proves I know how to make a competent flat white. I want a house of my own, with a garden — don’t know why the garden, but it seems important.’ He paused. ‘And I’d like you and Cosmo to share it with me.’
‘I’m married,’ was all Darrell could manage.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I don’t ask this lightly.’
‘Why me?’ said Darrell. ‘You could have anyone.’
‘There’s no one else I can picture growing old with,’ said Marcus. ‘That seems important, too.’
Darrell had to look away. All her faculties shut down in sheer panic. She dropped her face to the top of Cosmo’s head and breathed him in.
I have no idea what to do, she thought.
‘I shouldn’t have been so unfair on you as to ask,’ said Marcus. ‘But it’s done now.’
‘I can’t give you an answer.’ Darrell’s voice was muffled by her baby’s downy hair. ‘I simply can’t.’
‘Then I’ll wait, patiently, I promise,’ said Marcus, ‘until you do have an answer for me. And if it’s no, I’ll accept that, and I’ll bow out for good.’
He stood and laid a hand briefly on her shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you both home before dark.’
Home, thought Darrell, as she followed him out, Cosmo in her arms. Where Anselo, my husband, is h
eading also. I wonder how he will be … how we will be? Will he give me a clue as to how I should feel about this? Or is it a decision I need to make all on my own and, on my own, take the consequences?
21
Charlotte reminded herself for the umpteenth time that being told to have the day off was not tantamount to a dismissal. It only feels like that, she thought, because of the way he talked to me. His tone wasn’t cold, exactly, but it certainly wasn’t friendly. Anyone who’d overheard would never have guessed that, only two days before, he had sat in front of me, head in his hands, and openly confessed his fears and self-doubt — his increasingly uneasy sense that in the arena of his life, he was no longer the emperor, but the bloodied gladiator lying in the dust waiting for the inevitable two thumbs down.
Perhaps if he hadn’t opened up to me, thought Charlotte, he would not have felt as betrayed by my consorting with Ned. Betrayed is a strong word, but that’s how I believe he saw it. And I’m not sure he can forgive me.
When we were in the study together, Charlotte recalled, I felt as if every confession of his threw a small grappling hook into my being, and every minute winched us closer together.
At least, that’s what I’d felt, she thought. But in the now unlikely event that he had sensed something between us, too, it was destroyed the instant he saw me with Ned.
Charlotte knew her face had not revealed one jot of the desolation overlaid with panic that burgeoned inside her when Patrick instructed — it was not a request — that she take the day off. His rationale was that Clare and Michelle were back from Milan, and it was time, in his opinion, for the children to spend at least one whole day with their respective parents. Charlotte did not know whether Clare and Michelle shared this opinion, but from Patrick’s tone she inferred that their views, whatever they might be, were irrelevant. Patrick had decided today would be a family day, and that was that.
Perhaps there’s nothing more to it than that, thought Charlotte. I know Patrick was concerned about Clare’s apparent neglect of Tom, because he told me. Or, if not neglect — Tom was being cared for, after all — then a separation from her son that seemed as complete as her connection to him had been previously. If Clare’s relationship with Tom had been yin, it was now yang. Patrick could not explain this, he confessed to Charlotte, but it disturbed him profoundly. What disturbed him more was that he felt powerless to change it.
The Misplaced Affections of Charlotte Fforbes Page 19