Читать книгу Playing for Keeps: A fun, flirty romantic comedy perfect for summer reading - Rosa Temple - Страница 16

Chapter 7

I didn’t know if I should panic at this point. I was looking into the eyes of the woman I’d suspected of trying to curse me or my shop because she was a witch or, failing that, an inexperienced stalker.

‘If you came for the interviews, I’m afraid you’re a little late,’ I said, knowing full well she wasn’t at the back of my new shop for that reason.

She stepped a little closer as if she was expecting to be asked into the office. Her skin was clear and smooth but not as tan as when I’d first seen her walk past the shop. She was in white again. She wore a wide-skirted summer dress, a man’s navy sweater over the top. I wondered where she could have come from. It seemed strange that her clothes were out of season, almost as if she’d turned up in London in the summer and stayed longer than she’d intended, only having packed for a summer vacation.

As we stood there, just staring at each other, her mobile phone began to ring from the straw shoulder bag she was carrying.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘No one ever calls.’

She was British from what I could make of her accent, maybe from the south west despite the obvious foreign look to her clothes and accessories, which were more exotic. More hippy chic than anything else. I watched her long hair fall across her face as she plunged into her bag to turn off the phone. She seemed agitated.

‘There,’ she said before looking up at me red-faced. ‘I… I hope you don’t mind the intrusion but I was passing by… yet again… and when I saw you wave off that girl with the red hair and go back in I decided to take the plunge.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, taking a step back and folding my arms. ‘But have we met?’

‘No. Never. B… but I know who you are. Magenta, right? Magenta Bright?’ She put out a small hand for me to shake. I took her hand, which was limp in mine, and which she withdrew fairly rapidly. ‘Stella. Stella Knowles. You’re going to think this a little odd but we have a mutual friend.’

‘Do you want to come in and take a seat.’

She exhaled, in relief it would seem. Had she expected me to boot her out right there and then? Not when she mentioned the mutual friend. I was intrigued. As she took a seat in the interview chair and crossed her legs, which were still pretty suntanned compared to her face, I contemplated staying by the door… you never knew. Instead I took a seat in my interviewer’s chair, leaned my arms across the table and smiled at Stella, who seemed too embarrassed to look up at me.

‘So, who is this mystery mutual friend? Do they owe us money? Do we like them?’

She finally raised her eyes and smiled. ‘We loved them. Well, I still do and you did… once.’

I sat back in dread. This was the girlfriend of one of my exes. Was she coming here for notes? Had he dumped her and she wanted to see if I knew how to win him back?

‘Well…’ I gave a nervous snort of a laugh. ‘I haven’t been in love that many times.’ I was racking my brain but I had a feeling I knew who she was going to dredge up.

Here was a girl who had come from abroad, tanned skin and summer clothes. A dead giveaway now that I thought about it. I held my breath.

‘Hugo,’ she said just before I said the name for her. ‘He’s a great friend of mine. He doesn’t know I’m here.’

‘What? In the country?’

‘He knows I’m over from Brazil but he has no idea I tracked you down.’

‘I don’t mean to be rude, but why on earth have you tracked me down? Hugo and I are old news. Our relationship ended a long time ago. In fact you could call it the relationship that never really was. I met him as a teenager.’

‘I know.’

‘Then you know it lasted all of a week and then he got on a plane and left my life for good. Well, for ten years anyway, and then came back again for a short fling. A very, very short fling.’

‘Magenta, it was more than a fling. He told me all about it. How he tried to make it up to you, wanted you so desperately he gave up practically everything he owned in Brazil to be with you.’

‘He said that?’

She nodded and looked down at her fidgeting hands. ‘He also told me that when he thought you were back in love with him and that everything was going to be okay, you bailed.’

‘He used those words? I bailed?’

‘N… no. Hugo didn’t say bailed. Look, I’m kind of nervous. I don’t know how to say this and I don’t know, now, why I came when…’

I stood up, becoming uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be reminded of my near miss. Of how I almost let Anthony go because Hugo had done such a great job of convincing me he and I should never have parted and that it was the greatest mistake of his life. I walked to the wall and leaned on it for support. The tiny office window above me was open and I reminded myself to close it after Stella left. I wanted her to leave. I didn’t want to talk about Hugo. Not now. Not after all this time.

Stella tentatively rose to her feet. Great, I thought, she’s leaving and taking with her whatever reason it was that made her come here in the first place. Did Hugo send her?

‘I’ve gone about this all wrong,’ Stella said, wringing her hands. She stooped to pick up her bag, hooking it over her shoulder but stopping to make eye contact with me.

‘Hugo doesn’t know I’m here. If he did, he’d kill me.’

‘Why would he kill his girlfriend?’ Maybe I’d had a lucky escape after all.

‘I’m not his girlfriend.’

‘You said you were in love with him.’

‘I didn’t. I said I loved him. As far as Hugo is concerned I love him as a friend. We’re the best of friends in fact.’

‘Stella, I don’t mean to pry but you look like a woman in love.’

‘Do I?’ She bowed her head. ‘Not that Hugo would ever notice. And I’ve never told him. It would be a complete waste of time. He hasn’t loved anyone, or allowed himself to, not since you. No one could hold a candle to you, Magenta. Not in his eyes. No one.’

I swallowed hard. I began to tidy away imaginary things on the otherwise tidy table, straightening the interview chairs, tucking them under the table so tight the front wheels were almost off the floor and would surely tumble backwards.

‘I had to come,’ Stella went on. ‘Hugo is back in the UK. For good this time. Or so he says. He’s up in Cumbria at the family farm, staying with his dad for a few weeks longer before…’

‘Before what?’

‘Well, he’s coming to London. There’s a part of London that’s dear to him and that he’s been missing a lot lately.’

‘You mean he’ll be living here now? Permanently?’

My mind cast itself back to the months following my and Hugo’s absolute and final breakup. Hugo didn’t take no for an answer at first. He continued to try to change my mind and take him back. But I’d told him, over and over, I couldn’t go back to him. I was in love with Anthony. He finally let me go.

Stella cleared her throat and began tracing a finger over the grain in the wood of the table separating us.

‘He’ll be here permanently,’ she said. ‘But maybe temporarily too.’

‘Well, that makes no sense.’ I gave a weak laugh.

Stella looked me in the eye again.

‘Hugo is sick, Magenta. Very, very sick. He would never have contacted you himself. He wouldn’t want pity or anything like that. He promised himself he’d try to forget you but I know he never really did. He went out with a few women, once or twice, you know? But I think it was only ever physical. He never told me he’d fallen in love.’

‘Not even with you?’

‘No one since you, Magenta. I know. Like I say. We’re the best of friends. It’s how he sees me and I accept that. But… but I wouldn’t consider myself a friend if I didn’t come and tell you about his health now. He’s going through a bad time and it’ll only get worse.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, but I can’t…’

‘Please, Magenta. Go and see him. When he comes back to London. Just once. That’s all I ask. I know how much it would mean to him.’

It was my turn to look down at the lines running through the wooden table. My immediate reaction was, yes, of course I’ll go and see Hugo. How could I know he was sick, living in London and never once go and see him? But in the split second that followed and before I could ask Stella for his address, I thought of Anthony. He wouldn’t be happy about it. I know there was a lot of jealousy there as far as Hugo was concerned, and I think the feelings of jealousy and hate were mutual between them. That’s why I’d never told Anthony Hugo had been in London at the very start of my relationship with him. As far as he was concerned, Hugo was out of my life, out of the country and back in the place he’d called home for nearly ten years. Brazil.

‘You know, I really think we should let sleeping dogs lie, Stella,’ I said. ‘What could I do for Hugo that a good hospital couldn’t? I’ve got the addresses of some good hospitals over here. I could—’

She shook her head and sighed. ‘That side of things is already taken care of.’

‘I’m glad,’ I said. ‘Look, I appreciate you’re trying to do a good turn for a friend and everything but it’s just not a good time for me and it’s not a place I should go. Not now. You know I’m seeing someone, right? It’s been, what, over three years since I saw Hugo and I’ve been with my boyfriend for as long.’

‘You mean Anthony?’

‘Yes, I mean Anthony. Jesus, if you know so much about my life then you’ll know it took almost for ever to get over Hugo that first time around. I did a lot of soul-searching before agreeing to meet up after ten years. I have… I had a lot of feelings for Hugo when we got back together. But it wasn’t going to work. He didn’t have my heart, Stella.’ I put my head down again. ‘I only wish you had his and he had yours, then we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?’

‘Oh, I’ll be there for Hugo, no question about that. But I had to come here. I had to at least try to make you see he needs you right now.’ She held her palms up to me. ‘But I should go. Like I say, this wasn’t his idea, it was mine, and now I know I should never have come. It was crazy. This whole thing is crazy. Just forget I was here. Would you?’

I nodded. ‘And please, before you go, please understand why I’m refusing.’

‘I do.’ Stella backed away to the door and opened it softly, stepping out while still looking into my eyes. ‘Look, before I go… please just hear me out.’ She put up a hand and then dipped into her straw bag, pulling out a well-used notebook with a pen clipped to the inside sleeve. Flicking through, she turned to some coloured pages at the very back that all seemed to have notes and scribbles on. She tore the corner off the red notepaper and started writing.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘It’s my name and number. You know? If you change your mind.’

I looked at her as if to say, please don’t do this, and she read that, very plainly, through my eyes.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Forget it. I understand.’

She looked around the room one last time and then over her shoulder. Nervously she tried to return the pen and notebook and the torn-off piece of paper to her straw bag. ‘He’s very proud about what you’ve accomplished. Good luck, Magenta. With everything.’

Without a look back, she was gone. She left a wave of incense and lavender behind her and also the little piece of paper on which she’d written her number. Somehow we’d both missed seeing it flutter to the floor when she was fussing over her bag, nervous and looking very much on the verge of tears, or maybe angry with herself for coming here in the first place. I stooped to pick up the number. I held it over the wastepaper bin for a few seconds but something made me stop. Think. I decided to hold on to it just for a while and then I’d shred it at work for safety reasons. You know, confidentiality and all that.

My conversation with Stella was definitely the strangest I had that day. Even stranger than the one with the homeless woman who had found her way to the back office while Riley’s back was turned and asked me and Anya if we wanted to score some weed. Anya had contemplated the offer but when I said we were busy seeing candidates for a job, she sat down in the interview chair and refused to budge until we agreed to see her audition piece for Les Miserables.

‘It really isn’t that kind of job,’ I’d told her. She’d finally left saying we were biased and did we want a copy of the Big Issue instead of the weed.

When I stood outside the shop, locking up, I couldn’t help thinking of Hugo and the way Stella spoke about him. I thought about how tragic it was that Hugo still loved me and here was a woman who would seek out his ex just to make him happy while he was on his sickbed. As I headed for home I pondered the woman who had walked past the shop on so many occasions. Since seeing her the first time and since our conversation it was clear Stella must have walked by at random times just so she could meet me. I knew for a fact that Hugo wouldn’t have known about the shop, so how could she? Then again, anyone googling Magenta Bright would have seen the new store location and eventually found me there. But why not just come into the office? I was usually always there. Having said that, there might have been times when she walked by the office but failed to get up the nerve to come in. Without a big window at ground level I might have missed seeing her go by a thousand times.

To have made so much of an effort and to have built up the courage it took to go against what Hugo had said, which was not to tell me he was in London and extremely ill, made me wonder if there was more to this visit than she was letting on.

Why was Stella so jumpy and nervous? At times she’d looked as if she wanted to cry. Maybe she was tearful because of how sick Hugo really was. In which case, shouldn’t I just give in and go and see him, bring him grapes? Surely seeing him in his time of need was the most decent thing I could do.

I rounded the corner into our mews. The house would be empty because Anthony was still in Italy. I put the key in the lock and contemplated visiting Hugo without Anthony having to be any the wiser but quickly thought otherwise when I saw how my and Anthony’s coats hung so closely together on the rail just inside the front door. The sleeve of his blue rain jacket looked to be holding hands with the sleeve of my red M&S mac.

I thought of Anthony as I flopped onto the sofa in the living room and kicked off my shoes. It had been a long day, I’d achieved a lot in a short space of time, and going to see Hugo would only be a setback. A complication our relationship could do without. I leaned my head back and looked up at the ceiling. Something wasn’t adding up about Stella’s visit. I just hadn’t worked out what.