Читать книгу Don't Go Breaking My Heart: Break Up to Make Up / Always the Best Man - Фиона Харпер - Страница 13

A LORRY hulked past in the outside lane and Adele gripped the steering wheel a little tighter. What was it about being overtaken by one of those monsters that made you sure you were going to veer off the road and end up in a heap of twisted metal?

Nick was fumbling in the rucksack at his feet. She flicked a look over and breathed a sigh of relief. He had one of his gadgets in his hand—probably his iPod—and she’d have a few moments’ peace if he plugged himself in.

Much to her annoyance he started fixing a big sucker with an arm attached to the windscreen.

‘What on earth are you up to now?’

Nick just grinned. ‘Just wait and see. You’ll love it.’

Another truck decided to overtake with millimetres to spare and she fixed her eyes on the motorway lane in front of her. When she had a chance to look again, Nick was huddled over the gadget, pressing buttons in rapid succession. It beeped back at him. He reached over and fixed it into the cradle stuck to the windscreen.

‘Satellite navigation,’ he said proudly.

She rolled her eyes then concentrated on keeping well back from the car in front.

‘I should have guessed that eventually you would get a whole host of gizmos to do your thinking for you, especially now I’m not around.’

‘You’re sitting right next to me. You are around.’

‘You know what I mean. You’re a typical man. God forbid you actually pick up the road atlas.’

‘Adele, you would never let me within ten feet of the road atlas. Admit it, sweetheart, you just don’t like giving up the control.’

‘So not true. I just like having something to do on long journeys.’

And she’d been looking for a distraction, something to take her mind off the man sitting so close to her that all her nerve-endings were sizzling with awareness and she was constantly on edge.

Come on, who liked being replaced by a machine? She glared at the contraption as it sat in its cradle.

‘What happens if that thing gets you hopelessly lost?’

Nick leaned back and stretched his legs out. ‘Impossible. That’s the beauty of it. The information is always at your fingertips. It pinpoints exactly where you are, night and day.’

She stopped glaring and studied the display. Maybe she should give it a go?

‘It never goes wrong?’

Nick shrugged. ‘It’s a machine. It has its moments but, on the whole, it’s as accurate as you would be. Just about perfect.’

Adele sighed. Perfect. How she was learning to hate that word.

She knew all about the pressures of having to be right one hundred per cent of the time, of having everyone expecting you to be perfect. No, not just expecting—relying on you being perfect. It was such a strain to have to juggle everything and never having the luxury of knowing that, if you dropped a ball once in a while, it didn’t matter.

The rattle from the engine warned her that her foot had been heavier on the accelerator than she had intended. Eighty-five? Whoops. She carefully eased off the pedal.

A cut-glass, metallic voice pierced the silence. ‘In nine hundred feet, take the next exit.’

Adele squinted at the display, but the sun was on it and she couldn’t see it properly.

‘That means get over into the other lane, Adele. We’re going to miss the exit if you don’t.’

Easier said than done. Half the traffic on the motorway was trying to leave by that exit and there wasn’t a space to slip into. She tried to find a gap without causing a pile-up, but there were too many cars all packed too closely together.

‘Take the next exit. Take the next exit.’

By the time she had checked her mirrors again and tried to slow down, it was too late. The rust bucket sailed right past the cluttered slip-road.

Nick threw his hands in the air. ‘Great!’

She glared at him. ‘It would have been easier if you’d just let me rely on my own eyes and ears and read the signs! I’m not used to using this stupid—’

The sat nav interrupted her with a persistent binging noise. A huge question mark flashed on its screen. ‘Perform an U-turn as soon as possible,’ it ordered in an infuriatingly calm manner.

‘Be quiet, you bossy woman!’ she yelled back. ‘We’re on a motorway. I thought you were supposed to know that!’

Nick threw his head back and roared with laughter.

Of course, he would find it funny.

The service station was a welcome sight, although not the most glamorous of locations. Adele leapt out of the car and headed for the Ladies’. Once there, she placed her hands on the shelf in front of a wide mirror and leaned forward to let them take her weight.

She breathed out and stared at herself. Her hair was still in its pony-tail and she looked as neat and tidy as always, but as she studied her reflection she could tell she was coming slightly unravelled. It was something about her eyes, a slight downturn of her mouth.

She stared until she thought she would go cross-eyed and then she straightened, pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin.

It was a familiar routine. One she’d learned at school when she needed to present a brave face to the world. She hadn’t had the charm and easy wit of some of her classmates, but what she’d lacked in confidence she’d made up for with observation and hard work.

She’d spent hours studying the popular girls, the way they stood and talked. Even their laughs and hand gestures. Then she’d got up early and practised in the bathroom mirror while everyone else was snoring. Pretty soon she’d had friends and the teachers seemed to notice her more and, by the end of her days at Lumley College, she’d been head girl.

No one need know the geeky girl still lurked under the surface. She was hidden by the right body language, a certain glint in the eyes. It was like slipping on a cloak, an outer skin that nobody bothered to look beneath.

She could normally make the transformation with a single bat of her eyelashes, but today had been especially trying and she needed the reassurance the mirror could give her.

Over the years her alter ego had spent more and more time in the limelight. Nowadays the real Adele only peeked out when safely within the sanctuary of her own home. Maybe one day the shy little girl would get drowned out by this alternate persona altogether and the brisk efficiency, the confidence, would be real.

She smiled. Eventually she’d named the other side of her personality. Super Adele she’d called her. Only instead of a cape and unforgiving Lycra, her costume had more to do with the way she held herself, the smile gauged to be just bright enough without being obviously fake. The precise dimensions had taken years to perfect.

Carefully, she added another layer of mascara and brushed the lipstick across her lips. There. Ready to face the world—on the outside, anyway.

She hoisted her handbag squarely back onto her shoulder and walked over to the door.

Super Adele had seemed such a good idea in the beginning. Everybody loved her. And, for a while, she’d revelled in the attention. Nowadays, the adoration had lost its warm glow.

It’s her they love, not me.

Even Nick. He’d fallen in love with Super Adele.

When they’d first been married, she’d gloried in the way he’d thought she could do anything, be anything, but after a couple of years it had just got tiring. She’d tried to climb down off the pedestal, but Nick wouldn’t let her. He was holding fast to Super Adele and wasn’t going to let her go.

The impulse to sag and let her shoulders droop was almost overwhelming, but she straightened her spine further. The restaurant was just in front of her and she could see Nick sitting at a table waiting for her.

Oh, how she longed to just slump into the moulded plastic seat, lay her head on the table and sob.

Sometimes she hated her alter ego.

Nick let Adele sweep off and made his way to the café. An abundance of bright plastic and the smell of greasy food greeted him. He avoided the ageing sausages and other offerings—they looked as if they had been sitting under the heat lamps for at least a week—and bought two cups of grim-looking coffee instead.

He settled into an off-white seat near the streaky windows that filled one side of the room and waited for Adele to appear.

The restaurant was practically deserted. An elderly couple were working their way through a rubbery-looking fried breakfast with excruciating slowness, a businessman took refuge behind a crisp newspaper and a teenager in a dirty apron was only just pretending to clean the tables.

She soon appeared and sat down, all stiff and starchy, in the seat opposite him. He hated it when she did that. She didn’t need to put on a front with him.

‘Come on, Adele. It’s not the end of the world. It didn’t take us long to find the next exit and work our way back to the right motorway.’

Adele nodded and sipped her coffee. As always, her anger had run out of fuel and she was left feeling drained.

He caught her eye. ‘Have you ever maybe thought that your standards are a little too high? You set yourself punishing goals and are tough on yourself if you don’t achieve them. You don’t have to prove yourself over and over, you know. It was just a wrong turning. Everybody goes the wrong way at one time or another.’

‘I’m not trying to prove anything or impress anyone. I just like things to be done right. I only ask of myself what I expect in others. It would be hypocritical if I didn’t.’

He nodded slightly to himself. Talk about hitting the nail on the head. To live up to Adele’s standards you needed to be able to pole-vault.

‘I think the closer people get to you, the higher the pass mark is.’

‘Don’t be silly. People don’t need to sit an exam to be my friends.’

Oh, no? Then why did he feel as if every word, every movement he made was being weighed and judged?

‘I think you want everyone to do things the way you do.’

She shook her head while she swallowed a sip of coffee.

‘Just because I don’t plan everything a year in advance, it doesn’t mean I’m hopeless,’ he continued. ‘I’m different from you, Adele, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get things done or I don’t care. I do. I’ve never missed a deadline or broken a contract. It might look like I’m winging it to you, but I’m not. We just have different methods for achieving our goals.’

‘I know that.’

He wanted to hold his stomach and laugh out loud until the retired couple gave him dirty looks.

This was pointless. If he couldn’t make her see sense, he might as well settle for improving her mood. He should have got a little gold star for resisting the urge to crack a joke and try and force a smile out of her.

‘Do you want a pain au chocolat? I saw some on the counter.’

She nodded again, a hint of a smile on her face. He jumped up and paid for it quickly. If Adele didn’t get a blood-sugar boost soon, she’d never cheer up.

He tipped his head to one side and took a good look at her. ‘You look wiped out.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

He reached forward and took her hand. She looked tired, all the fight sucked out of her, but she was still incredibly beautiful. Not in a showy way, but there was a strength in her delicate features that gave an indication of her drive and tenacity, an intelligent light behind her eyes that warned him to keep on his toes.

‘I’ll drive the next leg. Are you insured for that?’

Just for a nanosecond, she visibly sagged. ‘It’s me, Nick. Of course I’m insured. For everything—flood, fire, acts of God, spontaneous combustion…Go on, make a joke about that.’

He squeezed her hand. He’d always loved her fingers—long and fine. He’d missed them.

‘You go back to the car and sink into the passenger seat. I’ve got a couple of things to get from the shop.’

He watched her as she walked away. She always stood so straight, so proud.

How he was going to demolish those proud barriers, he didn’t know. But one thing was certain: he wanted his wife back, and he was going to do everything in his power this weekend to remind her how much she wanted him too.

Just as well he had a few tricks up his sleeve to help nudge her in the right direction.

Pretending to be asleep could in fact be very tiring, Adele decided. She twitched open an eyelid and took a sideways look at Nick. Look at him humming to himself and acting as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

Only a few days ago she’d told this man she wanted him out of her life for good. Yes, he’d looked a little angry at the time, but now it didn’t seem as if it bothered him at all.

She relaxed her eyelid and it dropped closed.

She wasn’t a vindictive person, but part of her was really upset that he wasn’t more upset. Deciding to walk away from their marriage had been the hardest decision of her life. She wanted Nick to look at least a little shell-shocked.

A huge sigh juddered from her body.

For a person who had a pathological need to be right, she wasn’t taking much joy in the fact that, once again, her instincts had been spot-on. Nick didn’t take her seriously, didn’t take their marriage seriously. If he had, he wouldn’t be so blasé about the whole thing.

Then again, if he’d cared, he wouldn’t have left in the first place. He might say he loved her, but he didn’t love her enough. The job had meant more to him.

But now he was back, looking all delectable. And he’d kissed her in the kitchen, hadn’t he? Was there a possibility that he’d regretted his decision to abandon her?

When she’d stood at the front of the church with him, and they’d exchanged their vows, she’d thought it was going to last for ever. She’d been swept along by the intense chemistry between them and hadn’t even stopped to question if there had been enough there to sustain a fifty-year relationship. It had just seemed as if all the right ingredients were there and she hadn’t bothered to dig any deeper.

He’d made her believe they were two contrasting halves of the same whole. Sweet and sour. Light and dark. But, in the end, it had turned out that they were just too different. More like oil and water.

The analogy just didn’t hold up. As soon as the sun arrived, night was swallowed up and it was daytime again. They couldn’t co-exist without one destroying the other—and neither could she and Nick.

A voice she was learning to hate cut the silence. ‘In one thousand feet, take the next exit.’

She opened her eyes and sat up. They were leaving the motorway already? Had she really been asleep and missed most of the journey? A crazy flame of relief flickered in her chest.

It was raining, but instead of the craggy hills and pine trees she’d expected to see, there were rolling fields and hedgerows. And the landscape was depressingly flat. It all looked far too English.

‘Why are we coming off the motorway, Nick? Where are we?’

‘Somewhere just outside of Stafford. Pit stop,’ he added by way of explanation.

Despite the empty feeling in her tummy, she felt her taste buds rebel at the thought of more plastic service-station food. ‘I’m not sure I’m really…Why are we leaving the motorway?’

His co-conspirator saved him from answering.

‘Take the next exit and continue left.’

Nick did as he was told for once and soon they were driving through country lanes.

She was too tired to ask. Nick was going to do what he wanted to do, whether she minded or not, so she might as well save her breath.

After about fifteen minutes they turned down a driveway and he brought the car to a halt. They were parked outside a city-dweller’s fantasy cottage: leaded windows, gabled roof, a pretty fence enclosing a half-tamed garden that looked spectacular, even at this time of year.

Nick let out a sharp blast on the horn and Adele winced.

Moments later a man in his thirties came bounding out of the cottage and grinned at Nick as he emerged from the car.

‘Nick! Glad you managed to make it after all. Have you got that washing-machine motor you promised me?’

‘Sure have. It’s in the car, but before I let you have it you have to keep up your end of the bargain—a hearty lunch for two weary travellers.’

The man grinned. ‘Phoebe’s made one of her famous soups. If you’re not careful she’ll make you drink a whole vat of it before she lets you continue on your way. Women, huh?’

Adele opened the door and stretched her journey-stiffened legs.

‘And talking of women, this must be your missus,’ he added. And before Adele could say ‘How do you do’ he’d ignored the hand she offered and pulled her into a bear hug. She sent Nick a pleading look over the man’s shoulder, but all he did was grin back.

‘Adele, this is Andy—we’ve worked on a few projects together.’

Well, that explained the fascination for odd bits of junk and anything mechanical.

Andy finally let her out of his grasp and she gave him a shaky smile.

‘Nice to meet you, Adele. I’ve heard a lot about you. Nick never stops going on about his beautiful, successful wife. I think he’s secretly hoping he can give up messing about on film sets and that you’ll keep him in the style to which he’d like to become accustomed.’

‘Oh.’

Eloquent, Adele. Very impressive. That’s a wonderful way to live up to the picture Nick’s painted of you.

But Andy didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy chatting to Nick as he led them into the cottage. Adele trudged along behind them, forgotten. She let out a large breath and ran her hand through her hair. Thanks to Nick’s build-up, Super Adele was going to have to stay for lunch. And, at this precise moment, her alter ego’s super powers were glaringly absent.

She watched the two men as she followed them inside and into a cosy lounge complete with inglenook fireplace. Andy dressed like Nick: worn jeans and tops with funky logos or slogans on them. He even had that same mischievous glint in his eye. There had to be a special-effects designers’ code or something: must never grow up and must always be obsessed with green goo and rubber latex body parts. A whole organisation of Peter Pans. Now, there was a scary thought.

She heard footsteps in the hall and turned to see a woman enter the room. Nick was instantly off his feet and squeezing the life out of her—much the same kind of greeting that Andy had blessed her with.

‘Phoebe! It’s great to see you again. How’s it going?’

Phoebe laughed and smiled as Nick hugged even tighter and rocked her from side to side until she began to lose her balance. A stabbing feeling in her tummy caught Adele by surprise. It didn’t ease up, not even when Phoebe whacked Nick on the arm and told him to let her go.

Phoebe wrestled herself away from Nick and turned to face her, still beaming.

‘You must be the famous Adele.’

Adele rose from the sofa she was sitting on, her arms and legs suddenly feeling stiff and brittle. She held out a hand. Phoebe raised an eyebrow just a fraction, but shook it anyway.

Words of greeting failed to form an orderly queue in her head. What could she say? These people seemed to know all about her but, until five minutes ago, she’d not even known of their existence. Why? Had she really tuned Nick out every time he’d talked about the fine details of his work? Had she really been that self-absorbed?

‘Hello,’ she said, trying to smile, but feeling like a cardboard cut-out.

Phoebe smiled back. A proper smile. She’d obviously decided to give her guest the benefit of the doubt. Adele felt as if she’d shrunk an inch or two. If only there were a telephone box somewhere around where she could do a twirl and come out as her.

‘Come out to the barn, Nick. I want your input on something I’m building. I’m supposed to be making a crazed tennis-ball machine for an ad I’m working on, but it’s just refusing to be as diabolical as I want it to be.’

‘If you want diabolical, I’m your man,’ Nick answered, already starting towards the door.

Phoebe shook her head.

‘Lunch will be ready in about twenty minutes, you two. Don’t make me come and fetch you, OK?’ She turned to Adele and gave her a wink. ‘Boys and their toys, right? Our two are worse than most, I suspect. Why don’t you come through to the kitchen and we can chat while the men start pulling that machine to bits?’

‘Sure.’

She wanted to be bright and sparkling and charming—Super Adele—but her super powers seemed well and truly buried under a whole heap of other junk. Out of order. Please try again later.

Phoebe seemed really nice. She would go into the kitchen and make small talk and be as pleasant as she knew how to be and ignore the unsettled feeling fluttering in her stomach.

Suddenly, being stuck in the little hatchback with Nick seemed like an attractive prospect. Being here, watching Phoebe potter round the kitchen, was like watching a horror movie. Only this movie had a difference: instead of everything being much, much worse, it was far, far better—what her life should be like, but wasn’t.

It was like having her worst failure served up for her so she could choke on every mouthful.

They had it all: the home, the happy marriage. They had roots. Despite herself, she was insanely jealous.

More than anything, Adele wanted roots.