Читать книгу Come Away With Me - Sara MacDonald, Sara MacDonald - Страница 13

I took a taxi to my hotel to drop off my case. I ordered coffee and a sandwich I could not eat. I got under a power shower. I let the water pour over me and I blanked my mind of all thought in order to get through the afternoon.

I walked to my first meeting. Danielle had done most of the hard selling and the buyers for the department store seemed keen to have both our designs selling on separate fashion floors. Our clothes were quite different. Danielle’s work was fairly conventional and classic, the exact opposite of her character. She designed for the slightly older woman. The cut and shape of her work was stunning, with each piece having a small quirky difference that marked out her labels.

My work was mostly for the boutique and high street. I designed for the trendy fashion-conscious twenty-year-olds and my clothes were not meant to last more than a season. I did the bags and belts, the shrugs and the sandals. If I had a gift, it was for sensing what trend was coming next.

Coffee kept me going, but the afternoon seemed endless as the buyers poured through my sample books and decided on exactly what and how many different designs they wanted.

It was dark when I emerged into the street; that horrible lonely time when all the lights have sprung on and people are hurrying home. A light rain was falling. I got a taxi to my hotel with the familiar sick remembrance of loss churning in my stomach. It felt as if a huge wave continually hovered over my head, waiting to swamp me. I wondered if the loneliness would ever turn into anything I could endure.

I kicked off my shoes as soon as I got into my room and ran a hot bath. I went to the mini bar and pulled out a small bottle of wine, switched on the six o’clock news as background and took the wine into the bathroom. I closed my eyes and soaked, closed my mind.

The wine acted like a sleeping pill. It was still early, but I climbed gratefully into bed.

Snapshots of Tom filled the dark. They seemed to surround me, come from everywhere. Tom throwing his head back, flicking his hair out of his eyes to a backdrop of sea. Tom running across a rugby field, his legs pumping, clutching the ball. Turning to look at me in the garden in London, eyes half closed in a glance that made my heart turn over. Tom in uniform, leaning against a palm tree, blinking from some hot, unknown country.

Had it been a trick of the light, an illusion on that station as I looked at Ruth’s boy? For a second I had seen Tom so clearly. A younger, childlike Tom. Was it wishful thinking? The sort of boy Tom must have been before I knew him. Was it just a mirage conjured by my tired mind, like an oasis in a desert?

A frightening enervation crept over me like a shroud. Why was I here in Birmingham? What was the point when I didn’t care about anything? I searched for a purpose that would give value to what I was doing and could find none as I lay under the cold hotel duvet.

After a while the telephone started to ring persistently, at intervals. I left it. I let it ring on and after a while it stopped. People passed my bedroom door, laughing, talking and going down to dinner. I lay in an anonymous room, disconnected, floating.

Then I thought of Flo alone in the London house worrying about me. I switched on the bedside light and rang her. I tried to keep my voice light and cheerful. I talked business, talked up my day.

But Flo knew me too well. ‘Oh, Jen, you sound so tired. Come home. It’s all too soon. Just come home.’

Night came behind the curtains. Car lights passed across the windows and over the walls and ceiling, and I watched the moving lights, mesmerised by their changing patterns. The hotel became still, the traffic outside subsided.

If only I could wish myself backwards to treasure every second that I had in that life I had lost. I fell into a strange half-sleep of feverish dreams and woke early in the morning with a raging thirst. I got up dizzily to put the kettle on and then sat drinking tea until I felt better.

I saw a white envelope had been pushed under the door:

Mrs Holland, we note you are not answering your telephone and trust all is well. A Miss Florence Kingsley has rung twice this evening. A Mrs Ruth Hallam also rang more than once and appeared somewhat concerned. She asks that you return her call.

I took my tea back to bed. The boy on the platform remained absolutely clear in my head. I saw his fair hair flopping over his eyes, his profile sweet, snub-nosed, not yet entirely awkward in adolescence. Fawn anorak over navy blazer. Black trousers, blue-and-red school holdall. I saw him dart forward towards Ruth, his face lighting up.

I jumped out of bed and showered, got dressed and took the lift down to the foyer. I ordered a taxi from reception. As I waited I took the crumpled envelope from the pocket of my bag and smoothed out Ruth’s address.

She lived in the suburbs. Eventually the taxi turned into a wide, tree-lined road of large Victorian terraced houses. I made the driver slow down while I looked at the house numbers. When I found Ruth’s house I asked him to park a little further back on the opposite side of the road. The driver impassively picked up his newspaper. I sat and waited. I did not know what I was waiting for.

At five to eight a dark man came down the steps of the house and started up his car. After a few minutes he hooted a couple of times on his horn and the boy, Adam, came flying out with his clothes askew, eating toast. Ruth appeared at the top of the steps and, smiling, waved down at them both, calling something to the boy I could not hear.

A sudden, unfathomable anger with Ruth came flying out of nowhere.

I stared at the boy with toast in his mouth. My eyes were pulled to him like a magnet. My heart hammered painfully. I was not mistaken. He was a small, immature version of Tom. He got into the car and he and the man waved at Ruth, then she went back inside and shut her front door.

He and Ruth have each other, I thought. They have each other.

The car passed my taxi and I saw the boy briefly, talking animatedly, tucking in his shirt and reaching for his seat belt. I stared after them long after they had disappeared.

The taxi driver lowered his paper. ‘Are you intending to stay here all day, miss?’

‘No. Take me back to the hotel, please.’ I clutched my shaking hands and he gave me an odd look, then turned and drove off.

Back at the hotel I picked up my list of appointments. It was hard to focus. I could not drag my mind away from the image of the laughing boy. I had not imagined his likeness to Tom. I wasn’t mad. It was there and blindingly obvious. How old would he be? How old?

I must concentrate on my day or I would go under. I was unsure when I last ate so I rang room service for croissants and coffee. Afterwards I felt better, picked up the phone and rang Flo. I told her I was fine and we talked briefly about the day’s appointments.

My first was at nine forty-five. As the hotel was fairly central to the shopping malls I walked. It was a bright-blue-sky day. The city was busy and still smelt of last night’s rain. I walked with the flow of people jostling and hurrying to work. I enjoyed a feeling of anonymity in a place I did not know.

I walked around a new expensive complex of tiny exclusive clothes shops before I went inside to gauge their approximate customer age and income. I compared their prices. I thought Danielle was probably right. They might be interested in my designs, certainly my belts and bags. I had brought a substantial cross-section of sketches and photographs and samples. I just had to make good, to get the orders for us.

The owner of the first shop was around my age and friendly but astute. Over coffee she looked through our portfolio again and ordered deftly and without hesitation. She knew exactly what would sell and kept away from Danielle’s tailored and more expensive designs. ‘We’re a throwaway society and shops like mine obviously have to compete with the chain stores. I have to judge it finely and select clothes that will appeal to the young professionals who need to go upmarket, but still look cool. My first order will be cautious, just to see how we go, but your belts and bags…I’ll order as many as you can give me. They’ll go like hot cakes.’

I took a large order and moved out again into sunlight. As each of the trendy shops in the new mall wanted to market different fashions I also did well with Danielle’s tailored designs, especially her deceptively casual summer skirts and skimpy silk T-shirts.

I had to meet a buyer for lunch in one of the big Fayad stores and I thought of Ruth. I got a taxi, as I suddenly felt faint and hot. This buyer was not the easiest and Danielle had always dealt with her. She seemed faintly annoyed that I was here and not Danielle. For a second tiredness overtook me and I was tempted to wrong-foot her by telling her why our normal routine had been shot to pieces.

After a lunch I couldn’t eat, we moved round the various fashion departments that marketed our different labels. The buyer went through what had sold well and what had stayed on the rails, and I made notes.

Thankfully, she had another meeting and went off, leaving me with her assistant, who was easier to get on with. I began to feel odd and disembodied but I made myself concentrate for another hour.

She gave me a large order for my belts and bags. We were going to be pushed to deliver on time. I suddenly felt faint and dizzy again. The woman glanced at me anxiously, got me a chair and sent someone to find a glass of water. I apologised profusely and she told me there was a lot of flu about.

I sipped the water and when the dizziness passed I went to the lavatory and looked at myself in the mirror. I saw that my face was flushed and drawn. I felt feverish. I looked a hundred, like a wraith, as if my face belonged to someone else.

Someone ordered me a taxi back to the hotel. I realised my symptoms were physical, not psychosomatic, as I had a raging temperature. I rang and excused myself from the rest of my afternoon appointments. I ordered a bottle of water and some fruit juice, and I was just going to crawl into bed when there was a knock on my door.

‘Thank goodness I’ve traced you.’ Ruth, breathless, rushed in. She stopped and stared at me. ‘You look terrible. Are you ill?’

‘I think I might have flu.’

She felt my forehead. ‘God, you’re burning up. Right, you’re coming straight home with me. I’m not leaving you ill in a strange hotel bedroom. I’ve been trying to contact you, all last night and again early this morning. You’re not to argue. Let’s just collect your things and get you home and into bed.’

I was not going to argue. I felt dreadful. And I wanted to see the boy again.