Читать книгу Freya North 3-Book Collection: Secrets, Chances, Rumours - Freya North - Страница 30

As soon as the seatbelt sign went off, Joe unbuckled, reclined his seat, closed his eyes and willed sleep. But this was not possible, partly because the level of organization required for his impromptu return to France had left him wired, partly because his fellow travellers in row 12 were two elderly ladies yaketting away fifteen to the dozen. He might not be able to sleep but he could certainly make it look as if he was and avoid a flight's worth of pleasantries. Countering the steady motion of the plane, his mind whirred like a small tornado, plucking elements of the preceding days and swirling them in an eddy with his plans for the next few days. Tess and Nathalie and his mother chased each other round and round his mind's eye, while the Transporter Bridge and the bridge in KL and the new bridge he was returning to, vied for his attention; the khaki water of the Tees running into the clearer navy of the Sungai Klang, both running dry on reaching the lush valley landscape of his bridge in progress. Oh, for God's sake, couldn't he just think of one thing at a time? More to the point, couldn't he just empty his mind completely? He tried to cue in to the sounds of the plane, the pressurized cabin, the chirruping chit-chat in row 12, the drifts of people's conversations in the neighbouring rows, the clatter of the trolleys being prepared for their pedantic passage up and down the aisle. He found he could not. His mind was preoccupied and in his mind's eye, the spiral of women had slowed down and it was thoughts of Tess that solicited him first.

Taken on its own, Tess's rant about the other women – even the fictitious Kate – could have been quite flattering, really. Certainly, it fed Joe's ego but more than that there was something quite nourishing about the strength of Tess's feelings towards him, about which he had hitherto been unsure. He thought about this as the plane settled into its altitude. He recalled her ire, the way her eyes darkened with glinting indignation and her jealousy carved itself in the twist between her eyebrows, the purse of her lips. The contortions of her face relating directly to the intensity of her feelings for him. He thought of her brandishing the KL photo with furious triumph, ignorant of the prosaic truth behind the picture. How he could have laughed; how he could do so right now. She'd been so sure, she had kept it until the perfect moment – her trump card with which she could indict Joe, have him fall to his knees, have him entreat her. Plead, even. Kate was then, I don't love her, she means nothing – it's you I want, Tess.

Actually, he had never had a girl called Kate. He didn't even know a Kate. Silly old Tess, in such a tizz. The creeping redness around her throat, the change in her voice, her fiery face. She'd actually stamped. The hand not holding the photo had been in a fist. But she hadn't been rendered ugly and he hadn't felt repelled at the time. Even now he was still struck how all that infuriated him about her colluded with all that he liked and together, they welded an attraction for a woman who was complex, colourful, real.

Now Nathalie – she wasn't remotely complex, her underwear was colourful and his time with her existed outside reality. There was an element of playing at a laissez-faire situation between broad-minded consenting adults. No chit-chat, no pea-squashing, no seconds of custard or endless cups of tea. No gentle teasing, not much laughter. Time spent with Nathalie was about constructing a reality where life was refreshingly uncomplicated, nothing to argue about, little to discuss, no need for extraneous chat – just a fantastic glut of sex which made them feel so good about themselves. What attracted Joe to Tess was what also irritated him about her – the gamut of emotions brought about by the slightest thing. Now he thought of Nathalie, attractive, available, aloof – no demands, just sexual abandon on tap. Nathalie made him feel all man; Tess made him feel fantastically frustrated.

Up at 36,000 feet, with the sensation of putting life at ground level on hold, Joe could think about it all whereas driving to the airport had been another matter. He had been rushing. He had been fuming. He'd spat out loud in the car, you stupid little cow, Tess, you stupid girl. But now, thinking of Nathalie, Joe had to wonder why the hell she'd laboured the point of his bloody BlackBerry being between her frigging sheets. She'd altered the dynamic, unbalanced their equilibrium, and potentially screwed up their zipless fucking. Her sudden possessiveness; his loss.

Women, thought Joe at 36,000 feet, an hour into his journey, bloody bloody women. He opened his eyes to see the air hostesses and their drinks service. Were they any less complicated? Their highly trained smiles and tolerance, their skilled deportment, trolleying up and down the aisles in high heels making light of the trials of turbulence. What were they like on terra firma, he wondered? At home, did they fly off the handle at their partners allowing imagined demeanours to become real? Did they wave innocent photos, exclaiming S.F! S.F! Who the fuck is Sarah Fanshaw? Did their partners have to say, shh, silly, I don't know a Sarah Fanshaw but that photo was taken in San Francisco? Did they phone their lover's home number and, on hearing a female voice, decide to spin out details of his phone – my bed? How about the elderly ladies sitting next to him – would they invent some golden girlfriend expressly for the purpose of sabotaging their son's independence and happiness?

Women – they're never the same. Joe had always loved this about them and, for that reason alone, had indulged himself in more than one at a time. Now, on the plane to France he thought no two are alike – but they're all too bloody similar, whatever their age or nationality.

He gave the charming hostess a what-the-hell smile and ordered himself a Scotch and soda. He took a sip; the taste was immediately reassuring and it settled his gut quickly. As he sipped, he tried to conclude the situation still rampaging in his head. The Nathalie phone call would have been enough in itself for Tess, and for him, without the added complication of Kate. If it had been only the Nathalie phone call, it was very likely that he would have taken Tess in his arms and said, she means nothing to me – it's you I want. But Nathalie alone was not the problem. The woman who complicated everything wasn't Nathalie, nor was it Tess and of course it couldn't be Kate. It was his mother.

Spoiling things again, he thought. She's bloody spoiling things again.

Then he thought, the stealing back to the Resolution is a relatively new thing of hers, but how stupid of me to think I could hide her away. And he wondered if he'd been unfair on Tess – who'd told him about her family when he'd asked though he'd fobbed her off when she'd asked him. They're not around, he'd said of them, and he knew he'd made it sound like they were dead. Up at Swallows, he could deal with his mother because the surroundings were neutral and help was at hand. Why hadn't he told Tess that his senile mother lived down the road and up the cliff and she might appear at the kitchen window every once in a while and could Tess possibly take a bunch of flowers if he was away for more than a two-week stretch? Swallows: the best care, close to home, that money could provide. He'd asked himself, on many occasions, whether he was paying more to feel less guilty. Then he'd chide himself – why feel guilty when the harm was done to him? Are the senile absolved of blame in the way they are released of memory and sense of self? Joe was still unable to balance his anger at his mother with his pity for the dreadful affliction befalling her. The unresolved emotion was apt to churn inside him at the slightest prompt. And that's what had happened when Tess brought her up.

Joe felt restless, confined, cramped in his mind and his body. He needed fresh air, the space to unwind, the privacy to shout, to shadow-box, to chuck a rock or swear excessively. The plane was certainly not helping but another Scotch would. He twisted around in his aisle seat; the neat, navy-clad bottom of the air hostess was just a little too far away now for him to order another drink.

‘They don't hang about, do they?’ said one of the elderly ladies sharing his row.

‘They have the whole plane to do, Milly,’ said the other, ‘and now the drinks aren't for free, they have to do all the money too.’

Joe smiled vaguely without facing them full on.

‘I'll say you wanted some peanuts with your Scotch,’ said Milly.

‘I'll say he wanted a double,’ said the other.

‘I can offer you a Murray Mint,’ said Milly and her fingers faffed with a packet and Joe felt it would be rude to say no even though he knew that accepting a mint would invite conversation.

‘Business?’ said Milly.

‘Pleasure?’ said the other.

‘A little of both,’ Joe nodded and suddenly he thought, sod England and Saltburn and all who are there – Nathalie doesn't know the details but she knows she has amends to make and she'll know the perfect way to do that. Finally, Joe had a solution: brain rest in France from the head-fuck at home.

‘A French lady friend, is it?’

‘She comes with the job,’ Joe said, not caring if the women detected his tongue in cheek because he was consumed by an image of Nathalie coming – her gasps and groans, the way her body would tauten, the way she stretched and arched herself worthy of any porn film.

Milly bristled at his rather vulgar turn of phrase.

‘Gracious,’ the other murmured, ‘it's not just the pension and the paid holidays – they think of everything these days.’

Joe looked at her and he liked her wry smile so he chinked plastic cups, though his was empty.

‘Is she French, then, your lady friend – your chérie?’ she asked, nudging Milly when she spoke the single word of French.

From nowhere, Joe wanted to ask them, do you have sons? He wanted to ask, do you have a good relationship with them – now? Did you – when they were little? Do they have lady friends, your boys? He wanted to ask, how old are you? Are you well? He wanted to say, my mother is nearly seventy-five – only seventy-five – but she has dementia and I pay for her to stay less than a mile from where I live because she made my life a misery then and I won't let her make a misery of it now. He wanted to say, I don't mean to punish her – I just want my life to myself.

‘I work in France, on and off,’ he said instead, ‘and there's an on–off woman there too. It's been easy and enjoyable and has suited me just fine. But now there's a girl back home – and it's complicated everything.’

‘Whoever said life should be simple?’ said Milly.

But the other lady said, ‘Funny how you call the one in France a woman and the one back home a girl.’

And Joe thought, it is odd that I should do that – not least because the girl at home is older than the woman in France, and a mother herself.

‘I'd say it's make-your-mind-up time,’ said Milly. ‘It can't be fair on anyone to be carrying on like this. Not least yourself.’

Joe was about to clarify the situation – but then he thought, why? What's to clarify anyway? Nathalie – and all the other Nathalies I provide myself with – they are what I know, what I've chosen; they have suited me perfectly over the years. Why break the habit of a lifetime? Never in a million years could it work out with Tess. Anyway, she'll probably be gone by the time I'm next home. Gone – for good.

‘Can I buy you ladies a drink?’ Joe asked, seeing the trolley returning.

Tess spent two days wandering about slightly stooped, often clutching her stomach as if she had some gastric bug. She felt ragged. She felt wrung out – as if the pain of losing Joe before she had even had him was being fed through a mangle together with the gut-wrenched dread of being potentially homeless and jobless. When she was in the house, she'd trail her hand wherever she went; touching the walls gently as if they were animate, clasping the banister as if it was a helping hand, pressing her cheek against the closed door of Joe's study as if to detect a heartbeat, her fingertips trailing the undulations of the dado as if reading for positive messages in Braille. When she went out, it was for short trips only – requisite fresh air for dog and child. She felt depleted of the energy required to walk far, to tackle the hill back home. She ate toast and Marmite without tasting it. She didn't drink enough water and had headaches because of it. She couldn't sleep at night and felt half-hazed by the afternoon. She didn't think of Seb at all, let alone wonder if he was back from wherever he'd been. She didn't think to call Tamsin. The only person she could think of was Joe and she couldn't very well call him though she begged the phone to ring and be him.

The day he left, when Em slept after lunch, Tess shut Wolf in the kitchen and went to Joe's bedroom. There, she lay on his bed and inhaled into one pillow while placing another one lengthways along her back. With eyes closed and her dreaming head on, she could almost conjure the sensation of another body. She let tears blot into his sheets and she whispered out loud to the room, as if her words might somehow travel through the ether to him. Sorry, she said. She said, please come back. She said, please let me stay. I do not want to go, she said, and I so want you to come back.

With so much time spent in the house in voluntary exile, Tess developed imaginary conversations with Joe, honing gesture and expression in front of any reflective surface she passed, rehearsing as if she might have the opportunity to perform them. She would cast her eyes down before looking up at him and she practised diverse apologies and manifold ways to express them. Perhaps touch his arm for emphasis. Have him feel touched. Not to save her skin – though the thought of leaving the Resolution was so abhorrent that she refused to touch upon it again – rather, she wanted to say sorry because it was simply warranted. She knew she hadn't just picked up the wrong end of the stick – she'd made an impetuous grab and had clung on tight, refusing to loosen her grip despite the stick she'd swooped on being riddled and rotten. She'd made a reality of Joe's past and present that were so far removed from the truth they now precluded any future for her with him. He'd done nothing wrong: not kissing her on the Transporter Bridge was no crime. He was doing nothing wrong – having a French fuck was not illegal. To be estranged from his mother was a shame, but no sin.

Kuala Lumpur. Kay effing Ell. What an utter fool she'd made of herself and what a shambles she'd made for herself. So there was no Kate. No Kate at all. It was now glaringly logical that a batty old woman could fabricate a nonexistent person, whether wilfully or otherwise. What an utter waste of worrying. But if there was no Kate, now there was no Tess, no Tess at all either – and she was entitled to worry about that. How could she make amends – and was it possible? Hadn't he told her to go? But wasn't it a crime to let wholesome daydreams go to waste? Wasn't there some Richard Bach adage that proclaimed we're not given dreams without the power to fulfil them? She scanned Joe's bookshelves. No Richard Bach. She wasn't surprised.

Tess found herself by the phone often; staring at it, looking at all those numbers there for the dialling, listening thoughtfully to the dialling tone as if hoping to detect a secret message. She cursed herself for cutting up her SIM card – how she'd love to compose a text message to Joe that, despite the brevity and abbreviations of the medium, would say so much.

Pls 4giv, me so sorry, me silly, me vv embrssd – truth is i think i love u. Txxx

But no doubt her contract was suspended now because the direct debit would not have gone through. She thought about pay-as-you-go, or going to an Internet café and sending an email, even if it necessitated the cost of a trip to Middlesbrough. However, she had no email address for him – but that was OK because she couldn't bear the thought of Joe accessing his BlackBerry from that Frenchwoman's bed. She could write snail-mail – but where would she send it? And what exactly would she say? What was it that she really wanted to say? Of course she wanted to say sorry because she was very sorry – but the apology she wanted to give wasn't entirely altruistic. She wanted to elicit a particular response. If she could deliver the best sorry in the world, then Joe might be moved to say, don't go, Tess, don't leave. I'm coming back Tess, put the supper on. Stay.

She felt impotent and it made her feel small and unattractive. And then, perversely, she'd make herself feel even smaller, even less attractive, by thinking about Nathalie; taunting herself that at this very moment, Joe was probably with her. Bugger the crisis on the bridge. They were in his bed having fun. His BlackBerry on vibrate, placed on her stomach, on her thighs, up between them. Laughing and kissing and being intimate and sexy. Look at her amazing figure, at her stylish apartment. She knows all about Kuala Lumpur – she's been there. Well-travelled, high-heeled, sophisticated woman that she is. See how elegantly she dresses for some amazing job. Watch her undressing so seductively in front of entranced Joe. Why would he want Tess when he can be in France and have No Strings Nathalie?

The fabricated images sickened Tess more than the reality of her current situation. However, by forcing her mind to dwell on imaginings, she was able to postpone figuring out what on earth she was going to do. Not just about Joe – about everything. There'd be no pay-as-you-go phone. No train to an Internet café in Middlesbrough. There was no money for such things, there was only a small amount left now, earmarked for Em of course.