Eventually, when there’s no call or text, I give up waiting and go to bed, but I lie there fidgeting and twitchy. It would be too sad to get cardboard Gary Barlow in bed with me for a cuddle, wouldn’t it? I just want to be held, feel strong arms around me. The sad thing is that while I’m lying here restless with longing, I could phone Mason. I know I could. He would come at the drop of a hat. He wouldn’t care that he was just a booty call. My fingers are a hair’s breath away from punching his number in. They toy with my phone. I know that you’ll think badly of me. I think badly of myself and Charlie would kill me stone dead. It’s a good job that I remember that I have pretend sickness as I really don’t want to go down that road.
Chapter Fifty
‘Glad to see you’re better, Brown,’ Mason says when I turn up for work the next day. ‘Miraculous recovery.’
‘Shut it, Mason,’ I retort.
He rolls his eyes. ‘You simply can’t get the staff these days.’
‘What are you doing here? Haven’t you got a Grand Prix to go to or a tennis match or Badminton Horse Trials?’
He laughs. ‘Yes. Want to come with me?’
‘No. Unfortunately, I’ve got to stay here in the Butcher’s Arms and serve chips to the proletariat.’
‘Me too,’ Mason says. ‘Your friend, the one who is actually sick, is still off work. I’m her stand-in.’
I called Charlie this morning and she sounded terrible, so I’ll drop in on her on the way home. I also called Joe, but it went straight to voicemail and I wonder what happened with Daisy last night and whether she’s OK.
‘So what were you up to last night?’ he says.
‘Nothing. It was just a tummy bug or something.’ I try to look innocent or at least not the very picture of guilt. ‘I went to bed early and slept it off.’
He still seems unconvinced. ‘Well, I’m very glad to see you.’
‘Same here,’ I bat back.
Then he sidles up next to me and whispers, ‘I miss you, Brown. It’s boring without you. Come away with me again. It was fun. You can choose where. Rome is good for a weekend. Barcelona too. Or we could do Venice. I know some great boutique hotels.’
I wonder if there’s a ‘Valerie’ in each of those places too.
‘I can’t, Mason. I’m not one of the jet set. You know that my shifts here don’t allow me many weekends off.’ I can’t help but smile. ‘Plus, I’m seeing someone.’
‘Seriously?’ He looks as if you could knock him down with a feather.
‘Deadly.’
‘I knew there was something going on. You’re being unfaithful to me?’
‘Hardly that.’ However, I do think it’s time to come clean.
‘I’m wounded, Brown. Who is this man who’s stolen your heart? Look at your contented little face. You’re like the cat who’s got the cream and it’s nauseating. I need to know who my love rival is?’
My phone rings and my heart jumps when I look at the screen. ‘His name’s Joe. That’s him now. Excuse me.’
Mason looks affronted. ‘You can’t take personal calls in work time, Brown!’
‘Sod off,’ I say and I make my way outside so that Mason can’t hear. I sit on our bench in the sunshine.
‘Hi,’ Joe says. ‘Is this a good time?’
‘Perfect.’ I sound too pleased to hear from him. ‘I’m glad you called. How’s Daisy?’
‘We were at A&E half the night as I thought,’ he said. ‘So we all had a lie-in this morning. Good news though – at least her hand wasn’t broken. Thank goodness. It’s just badly sprained.’
‘Poor Daisy.’
‘She’s moping around like a misery guts and her hand is black and blue, but she’ll be as right as rain in a week or so with some well-aimed painkillers and rest.’
‘That’s good to know.’ Then a beat. ‘The kids came back with you?’
‘Yeah. Daisy wanted to be at home with me.’ He lowers his voice as they are obviously within earshot. ‘I’m sorry to run out on you last night.’
‘Just as it was getting interesting,’ I tease.
He laughs at that. ‘Yeah. Perfect timing.’
‘I can’t stay long,’ I tell him, though I’d happily talk on the phone for hours. ‘I’m about to start work.’
‘When can I see you? I think we have unfinished business.’
Hurrah, more flirting! ‘As soon as you’re free.’
There’s a heavy breath from the other end of the phone. ‘That might prove to be the tricky thing. Finding a night when I’m free and you’re free and the kids are out may not be that easy.’
‘But we can do it if we want to,’ I point out. ‘Some things are worth waiting for.’
‘I’ll call you,’ Joe says. ‘I promise.’
‘I’ll look forward to it.’ I hang up with a smile on my face and in my heart. I breeze through service, chatting to all the customers – even the regulars who I don’t like that much. From the other side of the room, Mason watches me through narrowed eyes and they still stay narrowed even when I blow him a kiss.
Chapter Fifty-One
Charlie is still unwell when I swing by her place after work. She is pale, clammy and hasn’t moved far from her bed all weekend. I feel awful for her.
Though if you have to be ill in bed, Charlie’s bed is the place to be. She has a white, wrought iron bed head threaded through with pink feathered fairy lights and a wispy curtain that hangs down from the ceiling on either side also threaded with white lights. The duvet is pink and white patchwork and she has enough cushions to be able to sell some to Next. She’s listening to Take That on her iPod.
I smooth the hair from her face and ask, ‘Can I get you something? Could you manage a bit of toast? Or some tea?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘That sounds good. I’m actually feeling a bit hungry. The first time since Friday.’ She puts her laptop to one side. ‘I’m on the GB Army forum. Keeping up with my boy.’
‘Is that making you feel better?’
She nods. ‘You’re never alone when you’re with Gary.’ She has the very same cardboard cut-out as I do in the very same corner of her bedroom. We both give him a smile. ‘Paul’s on there too,’ she adds more coyly.
Oh, yes? ‘That’s cool.’
‘He’s called me a couple of times as well. Just to make sure that I’m OK.’
I’m liking the sound of that. See, definitely Nice.
‘So what did I miss at work?’ she asks with a yawn.
Confession time. I prepare myself for a dressing down when I say, ‘I phoned in sick on Saturday so that I could go out with Joe.’
Charlie tuts at me.
‘I know, but I so wanted to go. Don’t tell Mason, promise me.’
‘As if I’m likely to.’
‘He covered both of your shifts.’
She laughs at that. ‘Seriously? It won’t hurt him to get his hands dirty. About time that lazy sod did some work and appreciated what his minions do to keep his business afloat.’
I know we’re supposed to be on the same side, but I hate it when Charlie disses Mason. He’s not as bad as she makes out. Really, he’s not.
‘So what was the date like? Worth lying through your teeth for?’
‘Great.’ I’m in grave danger of going all dreamy even though I’m a woman approaching a certain age. ‘He’s fun and I really like him. It all ended a bit prematurely when his daughter was rushed to A&E with a suspected fracture.’
‘Yikes.’
‘She was OK. Just a sprain in the end, but he spent the rest of the night at the hospital instead of in my warm, cosy bed.’
‘You’ll always come behind the kids in the queue,’ she says. ‘You know that.’
‘Yes. It’s how it should be.’
She makes a harrumphing noise.
‘I think he’s worth it, Charlie. When you get to our age whoever you hook up with comes with history of some sort. That’s something we have to learn to accept. On both sides. Otherwise we w
ill both end up with no one but cardboard cut-out Gary Barlow for company.’ I get up from her bed. ‘I’ll go and make some toast.’
‘There’s bread in the freezer, if the loaf in the bread bin is manky. You’re going to stay around for a bit?’
‘Of course, I will. We can binge-watch some Take That DVDs if you fancy it. Budge yourself up and make room for me on the bed.’
‘I don’t think I’m infectious now.’
As I head for the door, I say, ‘Remember, that’s never a great opening line for a date.’ Then I duck as Charlie throws one of her multitude of cushions at me.
Chapter Fifty-Two
I’m just going to skip the next few weeks because if I tell you about all the long, late-night and a little bit lovey-dovey FaceTime calls with Joe, you might just want to puke. We slowly, steadily get to know each other via the media of technology. But this is modern dating and we have to embrace it. In my mother’s day you had a few dates with the boy next door or one from your class at school and then you married them. There was none of this hooking up with strangers who you happened to like the look of from their profile picture only to find out that they were, at best, socially inept or at worst, a latent serial killer. At least I have met Joe in person and, if we have to work round the constraints of his family, then I’m prepared to do that. It’s infinitely preferable to throwing myself on the mercy of Match.com or eHarmony. No?
We have also managed a few real dates in that time. We snatched breakfast one morning after the school run and before we both had to start our shifts. That’s quite civilised, I think you’ll agree. We tried one more scuba-diving lesson with Joe as my instructor again, but our hands were straying to places that they shouldn’t at the bottom of the swimming pool and my mind wasn’t fully on my demand valve. Good job Bob didn’t try that or I’d have blocked his snorkel. Not a euphemism.
Joe and I haven’t had an opportunity to take our relationship onto a more … ahem … physical plane simply due to the fact that I can’t go to Joe’s house as he doesn’t yet want me to be ‘formally’ introduced to the kids and he can’t stay at my place as he has to be at home for the kids. Yet that’s no bad thing is it? Is it better to wait and enjoy the slow build-up to consummation or to hop into bed with someone you’ve met at a night club – someone who you don’t know a thing about and who couldn’t care less whether you have a good time or not? That said, I wouldn’t be adverse to it happening sooner rather than later. My nipples are permanently on red alert.
Anyway, that’s why you find me today on another outing with the good folk of the Costa del Keynes dive club. We’re out in force today as about a dozen members have come along. I’m still not safe enough to be let out in open water myself and, to be honest, I’m not in the slightest bit bothered. I’m not proving to be a natural diver. I’m not all that keen on getting wet or going into water where I don’t know what else might be in there. A bit of a drawback for a diver, I think you’ll agree. I maybe should have gone for photography instead or taken a course in Thai Massage.
So I’m sitting in the sunshine overlooking Quarry Hill Cove gravel pit in deepest, darkest Birminghamshire or somewhere, on one of those deckchairs you buy in service stations for a tenner, my thoughts as warm as the summer’s day. Joe has completed one dive and is currently on the jetty shrugging off his air tanks and kicking off his fins. I’m very happy just to take in the view. Sigh.
I’m content for the first time in a long time. Sometimes we hurtle through life, don’t we? I’m rushing off to work or racing round the supermarket, doing a dozen other things that I really don’t want to be doing and it’s easy not to stop and simply take a breath. That’s what Joe has done for me, he’s brought an enrichment to my life which is, in turn, creating a feeling of settling deep in my core. No, I’ve not been reading self-help books, but it’s how I feel. Can’t help it.
Then I realise that this is a lot like love feels. That sends a jolt through me. I look at Joe as he chats to the other members of the dive club and feel my heart swell. There was no thunderbolt moment when we met, but over the weeks that I’ve known him there’s increasingly been a quiet knowing and a certainty that he is a good man.
He comes towards me, rubbing a towel over his hair. His wetsuit is unzipped and peeled down to his waist. I shield my eyes against the sun to better look at him.
‘What are you grinning at like a Cheshire cat?’
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Everything.’
‘You’re not bored?’ He flops down on the grass beside me.
‘Far from it. It’s nice to be able to spend time together.’
‘Yeah.’ He runs a finger gently along my arm and makes me shiver with delight.
His phone rings and I pass it to him. On the screensaver, I can see it’s Daisy calling.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he says. ‘What are you up to?’
I zone out so that he can carry on his conversation with his daughter in private. I know that she’s with her mum today and that the plan was for them to go shopping. I get a little pang of envy. Things are going so well with Joe and me, but I feel that he’s still holding me at arm’s length. I think it’s time for me to meet his children properly. So far, we’ve still only exchanged a brief, disinterested hello.
Joe hangs up. ‘Daisy has new shoes. All is well in her world.’
I laugh at that and then think that this is probably as good a time as any to bite the bullet. ‘I’d like to be more involved with your life,’ I say, tentatively. ‘If I met your kids then we could spend more time together and do stuff with them too. They’re part of you and I’d really love to get to know them. Maybe we could all have a day out together.’
Joe frowns. ‘It’s a great idea …’
His tone doesn’t match the words.
‘But?’
‘They’re at a difficult age,’ he says. ‘It’s easier, I’m sure, with younger kids who are more malleable, but teenagers are strange and fragile creatures for all they pretend not to be. They’re both toughing it out, but I know inside that they’re still hurting. What happens if I bring you into our lives and they’re happy to accept you, then in a few months, we break up?’
‘Isn’t that a risk worth taking?’
‘I don’t know, Ruby. I can understand where you’re coming from but, for me, it’s a big step. If you decide you don’t want to be with a family man and put up with all that entails, you can just walk away without looking back. I’m the one who’ll be left picking up the pieces again.’
‘We could take it really slowly,’ I say.
Joe laughs. ‘Look what happened last time we said that.’
‘True, but we both mean it this time. We could go out to dinner with them or to a film. Nothing heavy. See how we get on. I’m really happy with you but, at the same time, I feel as if I’m in one small compartment of your life. We’re having to snatch small moments when we can. If we are going to take this forward, then I’d like to be more than that.’
‘Joe!’ One of the club members shouts him from the jetty. ‘You’re up again.’
He holds up his hands.
‘Go,’ I say. ‘That’s fine. Just tell me you’ll think about it.’
‘OK,’ he agrees.
I squeeze his hand. ‘Thank you.’ He stands and brushes the grass from his wetsuit. ‘Be careful out there.’
Then he bounds down to the jetty and I settle back in my deckchair. The sun’s on my face, the breeze is in my hair, life is good and I can’t help but smile.
Chapter Fifty-Three
I’m on the train with Charlie and we’re heading up to London. The barriers were open at the local station so we didn’t buy a ticket and are hoping that there’s no ticket inspector on the train. I’m working on the theory that the prices are normally so flipping expensive that if I manage a freebie every now and then, it balances it out and brings train travel down to the realm of just over-priced rather than outright extortion. What we’ll do at the other end, I’m not
sure. However, I’m leaving Charlie in charge of our criminal activity.
‘Tell me again,’ I say. ‘We’re doing what?’
She looks up from painting her fingernails. The whole carriage smells of pear drops from the polish and people are tutting in that particularly passive/aggressive British way.
‘We’re going to hang round the hotel that the boys are probably staying in.’
‘Probably?’
‘Someone swears she saw Mark there this morning and so we’re going to check it out.’ She gives me a fixed stare. ‘There’ll be lots of Thatters there.’ The collective name for Take That fans. Sometimes, not surprisingly, known as Mad Thatters. ‘You’ll have to pretend that you really like them.’
‘I do.’
‘But in the way that I really like them, not in the half-hearted oh-I-buy-all-their-CDs way that you like Kylie.’
‘I go to Kylie’s concerts. As many as finances will allow.’
‘Ah, but if it was a choice of eating or buying a ticket for a Kylie concert what would you do?’
‘Eat, obviously.’
Charlie gives me a smug look. ‘I rest my case. You are a merely a fairweather fan. I stuck by Gary even through the wilderness years.’
‘Yes, but I’m sure Gary wouldn’t want you to go hungry for him.’
‘I am very hungry for him,’ she quips and then laughs lasciviously at her own joke, frightening the elderly man sitting next to us. Poor bloke.
‘Don’t they get annoyed by all their fans chasing them around?’
‘We’ve been with them from the start,’ Charlie says. ‘Some of us. Effectively, we’ve bought their houses, their posh cars, their places in the sun. There are bricks in Gary’s walls that I have personally paid for. I think they owe us a little of their time, don’t you?’