“Sorry.” Ed puffed and tried to look pathetic and helpless in a masterful, in-control way. “I’ll explain everything later.”
“Yes,” Orla said. “You will.” She turned back to continue hounding Trevor.
Ed dumped his briefcase on the ground. There was nothing remotely useful in it, unless you counted yesterday’s copy of the Independent, but he thought it made a good impression and, in a week where the rest of his life was happily falling apart of its own volition, it suddenly was very important to him to make a good impression. He wanted Orla to know that her trust in him was not misplaced and that her judgment of his sublime, but so far concealed professional talents had been totally sound. And it wasn’t just because he was frightened of her, as was everyone else, but now he had good reason to want to impress her. If his aim to get back to Harrison Ford territory was ever going to be achieved, Orla was the one shining light on the horizon who could illuminate the tiny crack in the door he so much needed.
The man from the British Waterways Authority was big, bellowing and bearded. Appropriately named Mr. Rivers, he was standing on the canal bank posturing and wringing his hands with pent-up impatience while Trevor was struggling to fit him with a radio mike. Ed’s heart sank as he realized they were in for a long and painful morning trying to make a video with a man whose previous acting experience was probably restricted to small roles in his local amateur dramatics group. He also looked like the type who would be first in the queue to volunteer for pantomime dame come Cinderella time. Ed was always deeply suspicious of these butch, bristled types who whipped on women’s clothing given the slightest excuse. He let a sigh escape into the fresh morning air. Come back, singing tomatoes—all is forgiven!
“I’d like to go through the Waterways Code part,” Orla said, and Mr. Rivers nodded forcibly in agreement, being pleasant, as they all were, at this stage in the day. Len the cameraman and Mike the sound technician shuffled reluctantly away from the sanctuary of the canal lock gate, where they had been quietly helping two Nike-clad boys to let a battered, but brightly painted narrowboat through, and took up position. Mr. Rivers straightened his tie. Ed hovered because there was nothing really for him to do now that Orla had taken charge and he wasn’t really feeling manly enough to wrest control from her. So he fidgeted about behind everyone and got in the way.
“From the top,” Orla suggested.
Mr. Rivers straightened his tie again.
“And—action!” Orla walked backward along the towpath, following the script on her clipboard and smiling widely in an attempt to make Mr. Rivers feel comfortable and relaxed as he launched into his speech about the joys of water. Mike and Len shuffled along next to Orla with the videocam rolling and the sound boom being buffeted by the wind, avoiding the outcrops of brambles and stinging nettles while simultaneously trying not to step in dog poo. Ed trailed behind her, trying to look usefully decorative.
Mr. Rivers went into David Bellamy overdrive. “Waterways are beautiful things.” Orla smiled widely. Mr. Rivers grimaced tightly back. Ed studied the green slime frothing delicately with what might be chemical waste that formed the Grand Union Canal. “But take care and watch out for hidden danger.” Orla grinned. Mr. Rivers, encouraged, pointed at an imaginary but potentially dangerous thing with a suitably serious expression. “Not all towpaths afford easy, carefree walking.”
Orla smiled sympathetically. Rivers was really getting into his stride now. Ed noticed that the narrowboat had cleared the lock and was chugging serenely toward them. On its side in yellow lettering he saw for the first time the words ESCAPE! CANAL HOLIDAYS FOR YOUNG OFFENDERS. Someone had painted out YOUNG OFFENDERS and graffitied-in, YOBBOS! On the roof of the narrowboat several young men, presumably the aforementioned offenders and certainly yobbos, had gathered. Most of them looked like they had very recently escaped. Ed’s nostrils filled with the scent of trouble. Orla and Mr. Rivers carried on, oblivious.
“Keep noise to a minimum. Be courteous and considerate to all other canal-users,” advised Mr. Rivers earnestly.
At this moment, the young men on top of the narrowboat dropped their trousers and waved their bottoms in the air. “You’re a bunch of fucking arseholes!” they shouted in unison to the tune of the conga. “A bunch of fucking arseholes! Da, da, da, da. Da, da, da, da!” A beer can was jettisoned from the barge, hitting Mr. Rivers squarely on the head and showering him with a sprinkling of froth—not unlike that floating on his canal. Then the bared bottoms sailed on by, captured on film for the authorities by Mike.
“And—cut!” Orla said, showing one of her fingers to the jeering teenagers as they departed and shouting, “Assholes yourself!” after them.
She mopped the dazed and trembling Mr. Rivers down with a pristine white handkerchief and straightened his tie. “Let’s start again from the top. Everyone ready?” Everyone nodded. “And—action.”
“Waterways are places of beauty…” he said with a tremulous voice.
“Cut, cut!” Orla waved her arms. “Let’s skip that bit and pick it up further down. Take it from… ‘Watch out for…’”
Mr. Rivers composed himself and straightened his tie. He bared his teeth, jaw locked, at the camera. “Watch out for concealed mooring pins, ropes or other discarded objects that may lie dangerously across your path.”
Orla smiled and some of the tension sagged out of Mr. Rivers, the pain of being bombed with a beer can receding in the face of Orla’s urgings. His voice grew stronger. “If a person accidentally falls in the water, don’t automatically jump in after them. Lie down and try to reach them with a stick. Or throw them a rope.” Mr. Rivers demonstrated both maneuvers admirably to the back of the stalls. “Crouch down, so that you are not pulled in yourself, and find something inflatable to keep them afloat until help arrives.”
Orla was nodding and smiling.
Mr. Rivers smiled back. “In any emergency situation always stay calm. Think before you act.”
This was going well now. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting, the yobbos had yobbed off. Ed stretched his neck with relief. A heron landed majestically on the far bank. Waterways were, indeed, places of beauty. Orla smiled benignly at Mr. Rivers again—just before she tripped over Ed’s briefcase, which he had abandoned earlier right in the middle of the towpath.
“Orla!” he shouted in warning, scaring the heron away.
But before Ed could reach out to her, she had stumbled forward and cannoned into Mike and Len, knocking both them and their recording equipment into the murky depths of the canal. Orla followed shortly with a loud splash and an earsplitting scream. Mr. Rivers rushed forward to help and she grabbed at his hand, pulling him in after her.
Trevor ran up and down the bank, tearing at his hair and screaming, “They’re all going to drown! They’re all going to drown!”
This was clearly a state of emergency. Ed, fixed rigid, deep in his state of shock, tried to keep calm and think before he acted. He crouched down and looked round him for a stick or a piece of rope. As he saw Orla struggling to the bank of the canal, coughing up green water and with slime plastering her hair to her head, he realized that he had nothing remotely inflatable about his person and that any help that was going to arrive had better be bloody quick.
CHAPTER 38
Neil pulled up outside Jemma’s shop and cut the engine on his motorbike. He’d thought about coming in the nacky old Citroën and decided it would do his image no good whatsoever. It was six o’clock and the traffic had ground to a standstill as the commuters started their nightly battle home, giving Neil a warm glow and a feeling of superiority about the sense of riding a bike in London.
Parking the bike on the vast expanse of pavement outside You Must Remember This…he checked his reflection in the window as he walked toward the door and tugged nervously at his neck scarf. He’d worn his best crash helmet and plain black leathers with red detail stitching that coordinated with the color of his motorbike. These things mattered to women, he knew that.
He’d once had a red Honda FireBlade CBR900 RR with Andes Blue and Winning Red farings with a capacity of 929cc, upside-down front forks, computer-controlled fuel injection and a Variable Intake Exhaust. He had also had a state-of-the-art, safety supreme, green crash helmet with a blue hexagonal pattern on it, a purple-and-pink striped Kevlar overall, yellow gloves with orange knuckle protectors, funky silver-gray boots and a girlfriend who nagged him continuously about looking a mess. The fact that the bike could single-handedly blow anything else on the road into the weeds had not impressed her. Was it an icon of modern motorcycle technology? Yes, it was. Was it faster than a Porsche Boxster? Yes, it was. Was it faster than a speeding bullet? Yes, it was. Did it matter one iota to Samantha? No, it did not. She’d never go on the back of it—or within fifty feet of it—so he sold it, bought a bike that would match his outfit and she’d left anyway. Women! Now he was the biker’s version of Color Me Beautiful. The last thing he wanted was to turn up in seriously mismatched biker gear and give Jemma an excuse to phone the style police. He took his helmet off as he reached the door, just in case she mistook him for a well-turned-out armed robber.
As he entered the sophistication of the shop, Neil smoothed his hair, wishing his helmet didn’t crush it to the point where he looked like a leftover punk rocker. Jemma glanced up when he walked in, and it was a second or two before recognition dawned.
“Come in, Neil,” she said with a bright smile. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes. Have a look around.”
Neil shuffled a bit farther into the distinctly feminine emporium and started to sift aimlessly among the rails while Jemma attended to her customers. It all felt nice and silky, but he didn’t have a clue what was what or why they warranted some of the seriously loaded price tags. Why should something forty years old and covered in Come Dancing sequins be worth more than four hundred quid? But then shopping wasn’t a bloke thing, was it?
He watched Jemma from the corner of his eye. Two tiny Japanese women hugged each other with delight as she handed them two hefty carrier bags and an even heftier bill. The pair tottered out tittering gleefully under the weight of their packages.
“Two happy customers,” Neil observed.
Jemma shrugged. “Regulars. If you can call twice yearly visitors regular. They take bags of the stuff back to Japan. Retro couture goes down a storm over there.”
Neil let the hem of the silk evening gown he was fingering fall. “You’ve got some nice stuff,” he said, realizing there were probably more technical terms.
“Thanks.” They stood for a moment, smiling wordlessly. Jemma closed the till and frowned. “Can’t you make dinner?”
Neil looked behind him. “Yes.”
“Oh.” Jemma twiddled her hair round her finger. “Shall we have a quick coffee in the flat?” she asked. “Or do you want to get changed in the back?” She flicked a glance to a curtained cubicle.
“Into what?”
“Well, you can’t go to dinner dressed like that.”
Neil surveyed the outfit he considered the epitome of biker style. It all matched. He looked back at Jemma. “Can’t I?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
It had never occurred to Neil that someone who spent their days selling retro couture would object to his taste in dress. But then Jemma should perhaps have appreciated that someone who spent their days shouting “Donkey Burgers” and “Cheesy Toenails” to entice five-year-olds to smile probably wouldn’t have any taste. A suit and tie would have been wasted on Year Three. He was a chinos and polo shirt man—and at this moment he wished he’d thought to bring them.
Jemma folded her arms. “You’ve brought a change of clothes along, haven’t you?”
Neil decided to try sheepish and bemused. “No.”
She tutted. “God, Neil, you’re as bad as that dunderheaded brother of yours.” She pointed at his leathers. “They might look very nice and sexy, in a tight kind of way, but those are the sort of clothes you wear when you’re having an early night in.”
Neil looked at himself again. “Are they?” His voice was higher than it should be. He lowered it. “Are they?”
“Or for riding a motorbike,” she added as a dismissive afterthought. “You’re not taking me out looking like a part-time Hell’s Angel. Let’s go through to the back and see what I can do for you!”
Neil allowed himself a quiet smirk.
What she did was find him some men’s retro couture. Or, as he himself would have put it, old clothes. Sometime later, Neil emerged from the cubicle minus his smirk and wearing a velvety, horribly 1940s yucky, pouffy jacket, some sensible trousers from an indeterminate period and some suede brogues two sizes too small. He stood clutching his motorbike helmet like a security blanket.
Jemma smiled contentedly. “That looks better,” she trilled.
Well, he certainly didn’t look like a Hell’s Angel anymore. “Wanker” was the first term that immediately came to mind.
She pointed at his motorbike helmet. “Leave that there.”
Neil reluctantly deposited his pride and joy on Jemma’s glass display counter next to some rather exclusive 1920s beaded Flapper cloche hats.
“Come on, let’s go,” she instructed, grabbing her handbag and heading for the door.
And, feeling rather more like Noël Coward than he would have wished, Neil trailed in her wake to the restaurant across the street.
CHAPTER 39
Orla was coming to dinner. And Marks & Spencer were providing the fare. Ed was ripping bags open as if his life depended on it. He slugged down some wine and checked the clock. She’d be here any minute.
She’d had to come here because Tanya was going to a school disco and he didn’t want to get a baby-sitter for the boys in case it got back to Ali that he couldn’t even manage alone for one week.
Elliott looked up from the table and waved a picture of what appeared to be a short, fat purple man with a mustache. “I’m drawing Miss Jones,” he informed Ed.
His father studied the artwork. “And this was before her sex change?”
“What does that mean?” Elliott asked.
“Nothing,” Ed said, sticking his finger in a carton of red-currant sauce to taste it. St. Michael was also providing lamb noisettes, which were in the oven on their way to burning, and a variety of other pre-prepared delights. “It was a joke.”
“About what?”
“If I have to explain it, then it’s not a joke anymore.”
“Do you like this lady more than you like Miss Jones?”
“Elliott, I do not want to have any more of your ‘erection’-type conversations. Orla is a colleague. Someone I work with. She is coming to discuss business. I want you to be very, very good tonight. In fact, I want you to be more than good, I don’t want you to say anything. Nothing at all.” Ed waved a red-curranty finger. “In fact, if you speak even once when you’re not spoken to, I’ll cut your tongue out and give it to the cat.”
“We haven’t got a cat.”
“Next door’s cat.”
“Which side?”
“Elliott, have I made myself clear?”
“Perfectly.”
The doorbell rang and Ed whipped off Ali’s ancient and thread-bare Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady apron and rushed to open it. Orla stood there smiling shyly and had clearly dressed for the occasion. Ed hadn’t had time to change since he got home because there had been a ten-mile queue at the till in Marks & Sparks. She was wearing a cashmere dress and high-heeled boots and her hair fell loose to her shoulders. Ed brushed his own hair out of his eyes. “Wow!”
“Thank you,” she said, proffering a bottle of wine.
Ed took it from her. “Come in. Come in.”
Elliott was putting the finishing touches to Miss Jones. Red hobnail boots. “Orla, this is Elliott. Our youngest and most troublesome son.”
Orla tried to look winning. “Hi, Elliott.”
Elliott pressed his lips together. “Mmm, mmm.”
> “Elliott. Say hello.”
Elliott picked his nose with his felt pen. “How am I supposed to say hello, when I’m not supposed to speak?”
“Cat. Elliott. Cat,” Ed warned.
“Hello,” his son muttered.
“Orla, can I get you a drink? Wine? Is red okay? Or white?”
Orla nodded. “Red’s fine.”
Ed poured a glass and handed it to her. This was ridiculous—he felt as nervous as a kitten. Perhaps it was because he hadn’t seen Orla in such intimate circumstances before. It was the first time he’d seen her out of work clothes and it was a strange experience. When Orla did casual she did it in a very glamorous way, but she somehow looked softer, gentler, almost nervous herself. It was disconcerting having her here in the kitchen, and yet it had seemed such a good idea at the time.
Orla held the glass to her lips. They were slicked with scarlet lipstick like an overripe cherry, full and pouty. “Cheers,” she said. “To us.”
“Are you in love with my daddy?” Elliott employed his felt pen in a nasal capacity again while scrutinizing their guest.
Orla spat the wine back into her glass with a cough.
“Elliott!”
“My schoolteacher is,” he informed her. “I’ve drawn her.” Elliott held up Miss Jones’s questionable likeness for inspection.
Orla cast her eyes over the image. “I’m sure your daddy’s very flattered.” She fixed Ed with a wry smile.
“It’s time for bed, young man.”
“Oh, not yet,” Elliott pleaded. “I just have to do some more drawing.” He gathered his felt pens to him hastily, smearing the snot from the top of one onto his sweater, and whipped out a clean sheet of paper.
“It’s late,” Ed said. “Bed.”
Thomas peered round the door frame. “Can I go to bed? I want to read.”