Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets - Cathy Kelly - Страница 16

Hannah had been having a wonderful day until she met the postman when she was on her way back to her front door that evening. He didn’t say anything rude or jokingly ask her if she’d joined a convent in her stark grey jacket, long matching skirt, and white shirt, which he’d said one day he met her as she was coming back from a job interview. No, he simply shoved a bunch of letters into the letterbox of the open front door, and the rest of the evening was kaput. Hannah bent to pick them up and realized that two were for her, one in Harry’s writing.

His familiar sloping scrawl was instantly recognizable. He never could do joined up writing, they used to joke. Well ha, bloody, ha! she snarled now. It wasn’t cute or even amusing. It was plain stupid. Imagine a thirty-six-year-old man who couldn’t write properly. She dumped the rest of the letters on the hall table for the other residents and rushed in, shaking her hair to get rid of the light drizzle that had appeared from nowhere. Up till then, it had been a great day.

Her first day working in Dwyer, Dwyer & James estate agent’s and she’d arrived early. Parking the car in a space opposite the branch, she sat there for a few moments and began to breathe deeply. She filled her lungs with air, held it and then exhaled slowly. It was a wonderful way of preparing yourself for the day, she found. Somebody tapped on her window and Hannah leapt in her seat. The window was misted up so she instinctively rubbed it to see who was looking in. A strange woman was smiling in at her. Harmless looking, Hannah felt, noticing the good raincoat, pleasant middle-aged face and pearl necklace above a pink pussy-cat bow blouse, but still strange. She rolled down the window.

‘Yes?’

‘You must be Hannah. I’m Gillian from Dwyer, Dwyer & James. I spotted you from the newsagent’s and thought you were wondering if you should park there or not. But you can.’

‘That’s kind of you,’ Hannah answered politely, getting out of the car and thinking that not a lot must happen in Dun Laoghaire if people spent their time peering out of the newsagent’s window looking out for the new employees.

‘You looked lost in thought…’ said the woman helpfully.

‘Just wondering where to park,’ Hannah lied blithely. She wasn’t about to tell this person that she never lost a moment’s sleep about parking and was sitting there because she was nervous about this new job and needed time to put on her cool, calm façade. Letting people know about your personal life was only asking for trouble, she’d decided. How could she operate as the cool and collected Ms Campbell if the staff knew how she had to calm herself down with yoga breathing? She couldn’t, that was the simple answer.

Two hours later, Hannah knew that Gillian had been on reception for years and worked part-time for the senior Mr Dwyer, a kindly faced man who could be seen through his glass-fronted office reading a huge batch of morning papers and getting Gillian to say he wasn’t in to phone callers.

‘The reception is so busy that I’d prefer to do just one job, looking after Mr Dwyer,’ Gillian whispered, as if Mr Dwyer required a lot of looking after.

Hannah also knew that the ladies’ toilet had an extractor fan problem (recounted in a whisper by Gillian), that the young Steve Shaw would try and chat her up as soon as he saw her even though he was only back from his honeymoon, and that Donna Nelson, the firm’s newest senior agent, was a single mother, ‘although she seems like a nice enough girl,’ Gillian sniffed, as if single motherdom and niceness were mutually exclusive. Hannah said nothing.

Gillian herself had back problems: ‘My chiropractor says I shouldn’t work, but what would I do with myself at home?’ she tittered. Hannah forbore to suggest, ‘Contribute to a gossip column?’ She was married to Leonard, had one son, a deeply unsuitable daughter-in-law, and a budgie named Clementine, who was a boy.

Hannah, who was supposed to be learning the intricacies of the firm’s reception with Gillian as her guide, would have preferred to hear more about dealing with clients and which agents dealt with which areas, and less about how clever Clementine was and what he could do with his mirror. It was soon clear that Gillian, having given so much of herself, was now looking for payback from Hannah in the form of her life story.

Hannah hadn’t divulged one bit of personal information all morning, despite Gillian’s avalanche of intimate chat. Neither had Hannah mentioned that her job was actually going to be that of office manager but that she’d been asked to start on reception as a way of learning more about the firm. One of her first jobs as office manager would be to train the new receptionist starting the following week. Judging by how Gillian appeared to enjoy her lofty position as Mr Dwyer’s assistant, she wouldn’t be pleased to find Hannah was actually her senior in the company structure. She’d find out soon enough.

‘Are you married?’ Gillian asked, pale eyes twinkling in her rosy face, discreet pearl earrings catching the light. She was a monster, Hannah decided. A monster who traded in stories of human misery and who needed Hannah’s story to add to her collection of scalps.

‘Or engaged…?’

Hannah hadn’t grown up in a remote western town where disapproving gossip was the lifeblood of half the residents for nothing.

‘Neither,’ she said bluntly. Then she gazed coolly at Gillian, holding the other woman’s eyes for at least thirty seconds until Gillian looked away uncomfortably.

She’d got the message, Hannah decided.

‘I’ll make us some tea,’ Hannah said warmly. It was vital not to upset Gillian, after all. Just to let her see that Hannah would not be revealing any delicate personal details for the office bulletin board.

It was nearly lunchtime before David James, who had interviewed Hannah in the firm’s city-centre office for the job, arrived. ‘He’s been busy with the Dawson Street office but he still drops in here from time to time,’ Gillian revealed, searching for her frosted pink lipstick when Mr James’s Jag pulled up outside the door.

He doesn’t drop in often enough, Hannah felt, looking around the rather run-down premises which was a total contrast to the stylish Dawson Street branch. There, the minimalist look ruled with architect-designed furniture, modern prints on the walls and an air of discreet wealth simmered gently in the background.

The Dun Laoghaire branch of Dwyer, Dwyer & James looked like somebody’s idea of an elegant office circa 1970. The walls were coffee-coloured, the seats for clients were the sort of low squashy things fashionable when Charlie’s Angels were famous the first time, and big brown felt screens divided up the private bits of the office from the public bits. The address was prestigious but the office was a shambles.

In between Gillian’s monologues, Hannah had been wondering whether she’d made a huge and hideous mistake in giving up her nice job for this place. Dwyer, Dwyer & James were a big, powerful firm and she’d felt it was a step upwards to work for them as office manager. But this branch was like the office that time forgot.

David James, tall, strongly built and with the sort of commanding presence that reduced the place to silence, walked in, shook hands with Hannah, said he hoped she was settling in and asked to see her in the back office. He threw a raincoat on to the back of a chair and pulled off his suit jacket to reveal muscular shoulders straining under a French blue shirt. He was quite handsome really, she realized. She hadn’t noticed it at her interview; she’d been too nervous. But there was something attractive about that broad, strong-boned face and the sleek salt-and-pepper hair. He was probably in his early forties, although the lines around his narrow eyes made him appear slightly older. Immaculate in his expensive clothes, he somehow looked as if he’d be just as at home wielding an axe to chop wood in the wilderness as wielding a Mont Blanc pen in a swish office. He certainly had the colour of someone who liked outdoor pursuits. Not a man to mess with.

‘Have you spoken to my partner, Andrew Dwyer, yet?’ he asked, settling himself into a big chair, not looking at her as his eyes raked over the papers on the desk that required his attention.

‘No. Gillian has been filling me in,’ Hannah said.

A flash of brief understanding passed between them, David’s dark eyes glinting.

‘Ah, Gillian, yes,’ he murmured. ‘It’s not really suitable for Gillian to be doing two jobs. That’s why I’ve hired you. I’m sure you’re wondering what you’ve done, coming from the Triumph Hotel to this place.’

That’s exactly what Hannah had been thinking but she was too clever to show it. She kept her face carefully blank.

‘This was our first premises and it’s ten years since I left,’ he said.

Hannah was surprised. Listening to Gillian, you’d have thought Mr James had been gone from Dun Laoghaire for a mere six months.

‘My nephew Michael set up the Howth office eight years ago and he was due to come back here to take over but personal reasons prevented him doing it. I didn’t have the time to sort this place out. Things have gone downhill here recently since the other Mr Dwyer died. There’ll be a lot of changes and I thought we needed a good manager for the place. I need someone who can get on with the existing staff and be able to work with any new ones. That’s why I hired you. I know you’re a hard worker and I like your style, Hannah.

‘We never had an office manager before. Gillian ran the office when it was a small concern, but we’ve barely been ticking over for a long time. We need a proper office manager, someone who can keep us running smoothly, getting auction brochures printed, etc. From the point of view of security, we need someone who is always aware of where the agents are. When you have people on their own showing houses, you have to be security conscious. I want the female agents to be contacted every hour to make sure they’re safe. I’m very confident that you can do it.’

‘Thanks,’ she said briskly.

‘Now, if Donna Nelson’s back, perhaps you could send her in. I need to have a talk with her.’

Hannah was glad she was working directly with David James. Direct and blunt, he clearly didn’t waste any time on chatting. He was just the sort of person Hannah enjoyed working for. With someone like him, there’d be no need for extraneous conversations about the state of the weather or how strong the office coffee was.

Gillian was dying to know how she’d got on.

‘Isn’t Mr James a pet,’ she sighed. ‘His marriage broke up and he’s never really got over it. I mean, he went out with a few women, but nothing worked out. I think he’s lonely, don’t you sense it too?’

What Hannah sensed was that Gillian would have given poor hubbie Leonard and the talented Clementine the push if she could have comforted Mr James in a very unplatonic way.

By close of business, she’d met all the firm’s agents and had liked Donna Nelson best of all. A rather chic woman with a dark bob, navy suit and an efficient air, she was obviously very wary of Gillian and had greeted Hannah with a guarded smile that said, She’s been telling you all about me, hasn’t she?

Hannah responded with her warmest smile and said pleasantly: ‘Perhaps we could have a chat during the week and you can tell me how you’d like your calls handled.’

‘That would be great,’ Donna said, looking pleased. Probably sick and tired of Gillian’s sharp manner with clients, she was relieved to find someone who knew how to answer a phone without cutting the nose off someone.

Business didn’t appear to be brisk, but Gillian’s put-on phone voice, as frosty as her lipstick, wouldn’t have enticed cold callers to put their homes for sale through Dwyers.

One caller looking for Donna received a particularly sharp remark: ‘If she has time, she’ll get back to you.’

‘Personal call,’ Gillian said disapprovingly, hanging up.

Hannah said nothing again but vowed that when she had sole charge of the office, things would be vastly different. No receptionist she’d train would ever be so rude on the phone.

David James had chatted to her briefly before he left the office that afternoon, balancing his big frame awkwardly on the edge of her desk.

‘How are you getting on?’ he asked.

Beside her, Hannah could feel Gillian sitting up straight in her office chair, hoping to be noticed.

‘Fine. I think I’ll have the hang of it in a few days, although it’s easy enough to lose calls on this switchboard. The one in the Triumph was more modern and more efficient,’ she said frankly.

This time, she could sense Gillian bridling with shock that a new employee had dared say such a thing to the boss, but David James merely nodded.

‘We’ll talk about it,’ he said. ‘Goodbye.’

‘You’re the forward madam, I’ll say that for you,’ sniffed Gillian when he was gone.

‘You said exactly the same thing about the switchboard earlier,’ Hannah reminded her gently. ‘I was merely telling him.’

‘Mr James doesn’t want to be bothered with things like that,’ hissed Gillian.

Hannah said nothing.

She’d felt pleased as she drove home that evening, pleased that she had made the right choice in moving jobs and confident that she’d do well there. Bloody Harry and his ill-timed letter had ruined that sense of pleasure.

She went into her flat, threw her coat on the hanger and opened the letter.

Dear Hannah,

How’s it going, babe? Hope you’ve taken over the entire hotel business in Dublin by now. Knowing you, you have.

I’m still trekking around South America. Just spent a few weeks in BA (that’s Buenos Aires to you, babes).

‘Babes!’ she snarled, grinding her teeth fiercely. How bloody dare he call her ‘babes’?

I’ve been travelling with some guys and we’re planning another month here before we go to Chile…

She read lines and lines of chatter about odd-jobbing as a tourist guide and how he’d got a few shifts in an English-language newspaper the previous month. It was all surface stuff; nothing personal, no hint as to why he was writing to her for the first time in a year. It wasn’t as if she’d wanted a letter. Not now, anyway. In the first month after he’d left, she’d have killed someone for any news of Harry. Just a postcard or a phone call to say he missed her and wished he hadn’t left. If he’d phoned to beg her to visit him, she’d have downed tools and hopped on the first plane to Rio de Janeiro. It was immaterial that she’d thrown him out of the flat when he first announced that he was leaving her to travel abroad, immaterial that she’d roared at him for being a spineless coward who was terrified of commitment and that she never wanted to see or hear from him again. Ever. Because she missed him so much.

And for the first time in her life, Hannah had discovered that when you adored someone and missed them so badly you woke up in the middle of the night screaming out their name, you still wanted them back, no matter what they’d done or said.

Without even reading the final page, Hannah folded the letter carefully and stuck it in a drawer in the kitchen. She didn’t want to think about Harry. She didn’t want to remember what he even looked like…

Eleven years ago, he’d been attractive in a studenty way. Dark hair that reached his collar and curled madly when it got wet; bluey grey eyes that turned down at the corners and made him look constantly forlorn, and that wide, mobile mouth that could smile so mischievously. He always wore big jackets and baggy trousers that looked two sizes too big for him. But then, that was part of the charm of Harry Spender: his little boy qualities made women want to mother him.

Hannah had mothered him for ten long years, from the moment they’d met in McDonald’s and he’d spilt his milkshake all over the uniform she wore as a beauty counter assistant in Brown Thomas.

‘OhmiGod, I’m so sorry, please let me help you clean it off,’ he’d said, his face a picture of innocent remorse as they both stared at the remains of a strawberry shake dripping steadily off Hannah and on to the floor.

And she’d gone with him in the direction of the toilets, not even nervous about going off with a strange man, even when he came into the ladies’ with her and insisted on using loo paper to soak the shake off.

She should have refused him when he asked her out for a drink that evening. But then, Hannah was her mother’s daughter and, at the age of twenty-seven, she was still young enough to be impressed by someone who actually wrote for the Evening Press.

At home in Connemara, the Campbell family had only ever read two newspapers: the local paper the Western People and the Sunday Press. She’d grown up with it, had watched her mother put the previous week’s paper at the bottom of the chickens’ coop when they were hatched under the kitchen table; had laid it on the floor so that the men coming home from working on the farm wouldn’t muddy the floor with their filthy boots. To go out with someone who worked for the same group, well!

Of course, when she finally met Harry, court reporter extraordinaire, Hannah’s mother hadn’t been that impressed by him despite his job. But it was too late then. Hannah loved him and could already see herself walking down the aisle with him, radiant in white something or other, smiling for the official photo which would appear in that Sunday’s paper. Together for richer for poorer, for better for worse. Hannah loved that idea, the notion of stability, security.

Marriage hadn’t been on Harry’s mind. ‘I’m a free spirit, Hannah, you’ve always known that: I thought that’s what you liked about me,’ he’d said as she stared at him slack-jawed the day he told her about South America.

‘Yes, but up till now your version of being a free spirit meant going to music festivals, buying Jimi Hendrix albums and not paying the phone bill until they threaten to cut us off!’ she shrieked, when she finally found her voice.

Harry shrugged. ‘I’m not getting any younger,’ he said. He was the same age as Hannah. ‘I don’t want to waste my life. This trip is just what I’ve been looking for. I’ve been stagnating, Hannah. We both have.’

That was when she picked up his leather jacket and threw it out the front door. ‘Leave!’ she yelled. ‘Leave now, before you waste any more of your precious life. I’m so sorry I was a waste of time and contributed to your stagnation.’

She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. He’d left there and then, and slipped back in to pack up his stuff the following day when she wasn’t at home. Rage and fury had possessed Hannah as soon as he was gone, and she’d immediately moved out of the flat they’d shared into another smaller, nicer place, using their deposit money to buy a new bed and sofa. There was no way she was sleeping on the bed she’d shared with that bastard. If he wanted his share of the money back, he could sue her. He already owed her ten years of her life, not to mention all the cash she’d loaned him over the years because he frittered his salary away.

For a year, nothing. And now, out of the blue, came a letter. On the first day of her new job, Hannah sat for a moment at her kitchen table, staring into space. Then she wrenched open the drawer and read the rest of the letter.

Two paragraphs from the end, Harry got to the point: ‘I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m writing, Hannah. But you can’t cut someone out of your life when you’ve spent ten years with them.’ Oh yes you can, she hissed at the letter.

I’m coming home in a few months and I’d love to see you. I’ve kept in touch with what you’re up to, thanks to Mitch. He gave me your new address.

Damn Mitch, cursed Hannah. One of Harry’s old colleagues, she’d told him where she was living when they’d bumped into each other in the supermarket a few months ago.

I’d love to see you, Hannah, although I’m not sure if you’d want to see me. I’d understand it, but I hope you don’t still feel bitter.

Bitter! Bitter wasn’t the word. Toxic with rage fitted the bill much better, Hannah fumed.

I think about you a lot and feel that we went through so much we’ve got unfinished business between us. If you’re keen, you can e-mail me. Bye, Harry.

His e-mail address was at the bottom but Hannah barely looked at it. She felt dizzy with temper, absolutely straight-up furious. How could he? Just when she was sorting her life out, how dare he try and weasel his way back in. See him again? She’d rather remove her own appendix without an anaesthetic.

The offices of KrisisKids were silent and empty at eight fifteen on Monday morning when Emma let herself into her office and surveyed it with pleasure. Small, really only a cubby-hole, it was plain, simple, and she loved it. The walls were the same restful lemon as the rest of the office, the furniture was blonde wood and the plants that grew luxuriantly on top of her four filing cabinets flourished in the natural light from the huge picture window. Giant posters covered the walls telling visitors to WATCH THE CHILDREN – YOU MIGHT BE THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN HELP, and giving their phoneline number. Emma had taken over running the phoneline a year ago and had worked hard to develop it from a service which ran during office hours into one which was open round the clock. Staffing a phoneline for such hours was hugely expensive and problematic. But Emma now had a vast rota of qualified counsellors and, although there were times when gremlins got into the system and four people phoned in sick at the same time, it was a big success. Thanks to the phoneline, KrisisKids now received a large state grant and, thanks to a lot of media coverage, the contributions from the public were increasing.

Seeing the phoneline become a success was very rewarding, but Emma often felt it was tragic that there was a need for such a service in the first place. The grainy black-and-white photo of a crying boy on the poster was a set-up. As far as Emma knew, the boy was a happy child model whom the advertising agency had picked because he was small for his age. But the image was powerful nevertheless. His sad eyes seemed to follow Emma around the office, reminding her of how badly people could treat children.

It was ironic, she always thought: she, who was childless, worked in an industry where children were the primary focus.

Emma’s desk was just as pristine as she’d left it a week previously: not one piece of paper marred the gleaming wood, her photo of Pete sat at a perfect right angle to her computer monitor, and the painted wooden box she kept her paper clips in was in its usual position beside the phone. Only her overflowing in-tray was evidence that she’d been on holiday. Files, letters and bits of crinkly photocopy paper sat in a perilous heap, towering over the edges of the plastic tray.

‘Lovely holiday?’ enquired Colin Mulhall, appearing out of nowhere and perching on the edge of Emma’s desk, eyes gleaming inquisitively.

The publicity department second-in-command and office gossip, twenty-something Colin was ruthless in his pursuit of personal details. Emma often felt that MI5 had missed out by not signing Colin up for something. He mightn’t have been able to speak Russian or Iraqi or even basic English, come to that, but his intelligence-gathering skills were second to none. He couldn’t type a press release without hitting the computer spell check at least four times to see if he’d spelled everything right, but if you wanted to know why the new girl in accounts kept coming in with red eyes every morning, Colin was the only man for the job. Except that Emma never wanted to know the gossip. It wasn’t her scene. Being brought up by a mother who lived and breathed gossip had instilled in Emma a loathing for dishing dirt about other people. If the girl in accounts had eight lovers, a drug habit and a fetish for wearing fishnet stockings and no knickers, Emma didn’t want to know about it.

‘Fair enough,’ said Finn Harrison, the charity’s press officer and Colin’s boss, who loved a bit of gossip himself but respected Emma’s decision not to get involved.

‘I don’t know why she’s working for a charity when she’s not the least bit charitable and hasn’t the slightest interest in normal people. She obviously thinks she’s above hearing about our humdrum lives,’ Colin said darkly about Emma. He resented her managerial position. She was his superior and it rankled. He, Colin, should have been third in command to Edward Richards, not the prim Emma Sheridan. ‘Miss Smug with her perfect husband and perfect figure. I bet she has some dark secret. She’s probably having it off with the boss. Her door is always closed. Forward planning meetings, my backside.’ Under the circumstances, Colin and Emma were not best pals. Emma avoided the photocopier when Colin was laboriously copying out his badly typed press releases. But, because as third in command to the MD Emma had access to lots of juicy, top-secret information, Colin was always trying to engage her in friendly conversation.

This couldn’t be it, Emma thought suspiciously. Colin had a tale to tell.

‘You’ll never guess,’ Colin said now, preening ever so slightly in his ridiculous bow-tie (his trademark, he called it) and jaunty yellow shirt that did nothing for his sallow complexion.

‘You’re right, I probably won’t,’ Emma replied.

Colin’s eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Edward is bringing in an outside PR firm to help with the phoneline. He doesn’t think we’re getting enough good press.’

‘That’s crazy, it’s been working wonderfully,’ Emma shot out. ‘I can’t believe he’s thinking of that without consulting me.’ Suddenly aware that she’d said too much, she clammed up. ‘I better get some work done, Colin,’ she said brightly. ‘Get rid of those holiday cobwebs.’

‘Egypt, was it?’ Colin enquired, knowing he was being dismissed but not wanting to leave yet. ‘Did Pete enjoy it?’

Emma couldn’t resist. She widened her eyes dramatically. ‘Pete didn’t go, Colin,’ she said. ‘See you later.’

Leaving an astonished Colin to interpret that bit of disinformation, Emma sorted through her post. At least having a bit of drama at work took her mind off the crises in her personal life.