Courting Trouble (20 page)

‘How can a country which stopped an entire blitzkrieging Nazi invasion armed with only a tea cosy and a couple of kippers be regularly brought to a standstill if the wrong leaves fall on the line? As an Aussie, I’ll never understand it.’

The only news from home was that Phyllis’s ferret had escaped and was growling nearly as much as Portia, who was threatening to auction herself off on eBay to the highest bidder with maternal instincts if we didn’t allow Danny into our lives.

When the stationmaster then announced that the train was indeed delayed, for an hour, I slumped down on to the cold, metal bench. I’d just cracked open the emergency block of Cadbury’s Whirl secreted in the side pocket of my handbag when I felt a hot breath in my ear.

‘Why don’t you just buy a cocoa plantation and cut out the middle man?’ It was the melodious voice of Jack Cassidy.

‘God, you’re like some creature from the Black Lagoon which just won’t die.’

‘Nice to see you, too. What are you doing up here . . .? I’ve been on the northern circuit all week. I cannot eat one more pasty. Or hear one more person say “Yer don’t get nowt for nowt these days.” I’ve already rung a car company. A warm, comfortable, chauffeur-driven saloon should be here in five minutes to whisk me back to London in style. Would you like a ride?’

He loaded that phrase with so much sexual innuendo I immediately felt the urge to reach for a post-coital cigarette. I thought about the freezing-cold wait on the desolate platform. I thought about the nice warm car. I thought about enduring Jack’s snide comments and smugness all the way back to London. But at least it would be snug smug. In the end, warmth and comfort won out.

Once we’d settled down into the silver Mercedes, Jack raised the partition which separated us from the driver, then leant back against the plush leather seat and swivelled towards me. ‘So, what’s the latest instalment in the soap opera that is Pandora’s? . . . Has your mother come out as a card-carrying lesbian? Has Countess Flirtalotsky undergone a sex change? And, more importantly, have you decided on our date yet? . . . I await with bated everythings.’

‘Are you any good at ferret-taming?’ I side stepped. ‘Apparently, there’s an escaped ferret gnawing its way through my legal robes as we speak.’

‘Ah, sorry. I’m sad to report that’s not my area of expertise.’

‘What exactly is your area of expertise these days, Cassidy?’ I asked him.

He gave me a wicked grin.

‘Besides that,’ I said. ‘I mean, what have you been doing up here in Birmingham? Banning abortions? Inventing new gun laws so that students can machinegun each other on a regular basis? . . . Sacrificing the odd virgin in a volcano?’

‘Matilda, the modern world is a vicious and vulgar place. The human race is hell bent on hurtling itself into the abyss. All you can do is live your life in a way that makes you look urbane and well dressed on the way . . . That’s my only philosophy. Oh, and never to lick a steak knife . . . Or kiss a girl before removing the lit cigar in your mouth . . . Or an e-cigarette.’ He produced one from his pocket and took a drag. ‘You see? We cigar-addicted, corporate-cowboy clichés do listen occasionally.’

I levelled a curious gaze at him. ‘Okay, where is the real Jack Cassidy? And who is this pod person?’

‘But how are things really?’ he asked, changing the subject.

‘Great. Fine. Fabulous . . . But that’s mainly because I have a nitroglycerin tablet ready to slip under my tongue at a moment’s notice. Which could be
any
moment. As you know, the testicle-shooting granny moved in, lock, stock, shellshocked grandchild and irascible ferret. I’m now getting death threats. My ex-husband is still in no man’s land. I’m paying a solicitor friend who specializes in dead-beat dads to hunt him down for some child maintenance. And my long-lost father, who, apparently, changed his name to become a spy for the Special Forces, and disappeared before I was born, has turned up out of the blue, causing my mother to go into meltdown if I speak to him – while my daughter refuses to speak to me, if I
don’t.
In fact, I’m beginning to think I need combat pay.’

Jack took all this in for a beat, then grinned. ‘There was a time when I’d be alarmed by that monologue, but having known you for so many years now, Matilda, it just seems sort of par for the Devine course . . . But what’s this about a death threat?’ His brow creased in consternation.

‘It came attached to a rock. Through my bedroom window.. . . You look genuinely concerned. Thanks. My mother just laughed it off.’

‘Concerned?’ His defences went back up immediately. He took another puff of his electronic cigarette to compose himself. ‘No. Not at all. Just think of the good points. You can now have a bumper sticker which reads “Don’t tailgate. Car bomb on board” . . . You’ll get through traffic in no time!’

I felt a smile welling up in me. I looked at him, not sure what we were, if we weren’t adversaries. I broke the spell by rummaging in my handbag for a lipstick.

‘Do you remember our first date in Oxford? . . . A student production of
Hamlet
. As the lights went down and the audience hushed in expectation, someone shouted out “Knock knock”!. . .’

I looked at him blankly, lipstick uncased and poised in my hand.

‘I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, Tilly, that the first words of
Hamlet
are . . . “Who’s there?” . . .’

My laughter caused the lipstick to etch a calligraphic stroke across my cheek. ‘And do you remember that poncey, stuck-up Etonian reprimanding us for laughing? He called us fucking chavs. And you said—’

‘“Knock, knock.”’

‘“Who’s there?”’

‘“Fuck.”’

‘“Fuck who?”’

‘“No, fuck
whom
.’”

We were both laughing now. We stared at each other for a moment across the abyss that divided us. And it suddenly didn’t look so wide.

‘God, when I first got to Oxford, those posh people seemed as exotic to me as animals in a zoo. I’d never seen anything like them,’ Jack admitted. ‘I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be one of them or simply live among them taking anthropological notes. But when you arrived a few years later, they didn’t faze you at all. You were always so passionate about the law . . . The first night we had dinner you told me how furious you were about Eve getting the blame for the whole Garden of Eden eviction. You maintained she was framed. You wanted to put the snake on trial for entrapment.’

‘Yes, I remember. But, to be honest, the main reason I’d always wanted to become a lawyer was because I’d grown up watching all my mum’s barrister pals with those little suitcases on wheels, going
clackity clackity clack
over the cobblestones of the Inns of Court. I thought lawyers were always going away on holiday. I had no idea that their little wheelie bags held only masses and masses of the most tedious tomes.’

Jack laughed. ‘Ironically, I went to the Bar to save the world . . . only I soon realized that I didn’t have what it takes.’

I’d expected to be scaling Mount Smug all the way back to London. So it was a shock to find Jack so humble, humorous and low key. ‘That’s not true, Jack. You pretend to have no more substance than the froth on a cappuccino. But there’s so much more to you than that.’

‘Not enough to interest you, though. A man would have to get himself taken hostage or tortured by a military junta before you’d even notice him. But, Tilly, there’s more to life than racing from one Third World death-row prison to another . . . You should at least stop occasionally to smell the goats and hand grenades.’

My palm was resting on the leather console between us. He placed his hand over mine. His warm fingers on my skin sent a chemical chain reaction zinging through my erogenous zones. I could tell by the light in his eyes that he could feel it, too. An alarm bell sounded in my psyche. Uh-oh. I was starting to find Jack Cassidy attractive again. How could this be? I obviously belonged in one of those Oliver Sacks books, because it was becoming increasingly clear that I had some kind of a rare head injury.

‘You’re not like the other women I meet, Tilly. All hard stares, high heels and droopy handshakes. I’ve reached the age at which a man can no longer face one more date with a legal secretary who secretly wants to be an actress.’

He was looking at me in the same way you’d eye a fillet steak after a ten-day fast. He leant towards me to wipe the lipstick smudge from my cheek with his fingertip. I saw his eyes flick almost imperceptibly to my breasts and then down to my legs. I could smell the musky, spicy scent of his skin. He pulled me towards him and bunched my hair into his hands. It made the nerves on the back of my neck tingle. Nothing this thrilling had happened to my nape, ever. I wanted to tell him that this was ridiculous and that I didn’t even like him but felt the words float away. My resistance was like butter, and he was a warm knife, slicing through it.

‘I’ve waited over a decade to kiss you again and I’m not going to let you get away so easily this time.’ He folded the console back up into the seat and leant in to kiss me. He put his mouth on mine. His breath was sweet as caramelized toffee. He pulled me into the whole length of him. I felt a burst of sensation. I kissed him back, all yearning and heat. Lawyers like nothing more than the sound of their own voices, but there was no need for words now. Just ‘yes’. And ‘yes’. And ‘yes, now’.

I don’t know how many miles we kissed for, but I was pretty sure I’d need to put my lips in a cast and my tongue in a splint. Everywhere he touched, my nerves fluttered as though there were moths trapped beneath my skin.

It had been so long since a man had touched me, I was convinced that not even medical science wanted my body. By the outskirts of London, I could stand it no longer. The glass partition separating us from the driver was conveniently fogged, so I said, ‘That’s a mighty impressive suit, Jack, but it would look so much better crumpled up on the floor of this car.’ I began to unbutton my blouse.

Jack’s voice felt as though he were pouring treacle into my ear. ‘Wait.’ He took hold of me by the wrists. ‘Let’s not make the same mistake as last time. I want us to get to know each other better first . . .’

I pulled back to take a proper look at him, amazed by this uncharacteristic declaration.

‘I told you, Tilly. I’m a changed man.’

It was taking an enormous effort not to tear off his trousers with my teeth.

‘You mean it?’

‘Yes. I was too young to truly appreciate you. It was like giving fine wine to a football hooligan. In those days, it was all about quantity, not quality . . . Let’s start with dinner tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at eight. And,’ he twinkled, ‘could you try not to double book this time?’

‘Jeez. You sleep with a man once and, before you know it, he wants to take you to dinner,’ I said, but I was smiling as I manoeuvred myself back into my seat and realigned my clothes. ‘But then why have you been behaving in such a predatory way?’

‘You rise to the bait so beautifully. It’s just too much fun not to tease you,’ he grinned. Jack stroked my arm, and kept on stroking it as we drove on in silence, night filling the car. Rain was pattering on the windowpane and the windscreen wipers swished rhythmically. All I could hear was the strangled vowels of the satnav which sounded as though the driver had Helen Mirren locked in the boot.

The car purred to a halt outside my mother’s modest Camden abode. I alighted with my briefcase. ‘Thanks for the ride.’ A skittish wind pulled at my clothes, as if trying to undress me. ‘Well, the almost-ride.’

Jack looked longingly at my legs and beamed at me. ‘Think practically nothing of it,’ he said.

And then he was gone.

I stood there, astounded for a moment, his touch whispering away on my skin. Maybe the man really had changed? Occasionally, a ratbag could make the transition into human being, I rationalized. Shakespeare’s Henry V, Jean Valjean in
Les Mis
, the prodigal son . . . I raised my face up to the starless night. The liquid, fluent notes of a jazz solo seeped down from my mother’s bedroom window. I had just turned to waft happily up the stairs when a flash of movement in my peripheral vision snagged my attention.

The death threat. It had slipped my mind, but it crashed into my consciousness with a vengeance now. Startled, I gasped and stepped back. A shadowy figure loomed there in the darkness. ‘Who is it? Step out into the light, or I’ll . . .’ I rummaged desperately in my bag for my pepper spray – but emerged with only a tampon. Great. Maybe I could shove it up his nose and give him Toxic Snot Syndrome. Where were my mother’s jellybeans when I needed them?

My nerves were on high alert, a scream on the tip of my tonsils.

But the man who stepped out of the shadows shot me a bashful look.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, kid. I’m just makin’ sure you gals are okay.’

‘I’m thirty-four, Dad.’ Did I just call him ‘Dad’? I wasn’t sure what the hell to call him, as Danny wasn’t even his real name. ‘Shouldn’t you be off spying on some international terrorist of ambiguous nationality or something? I don’t need a bodyguard! I know exactly what I’m doing.’

‘Ah-huh.’ He glanced down at my blouse, which was buttoned unevenly. It started to drizzle again, so I hoofed it up my front steps to stand under the iron portico. He squelched along beside me in the rain, like a large, orphaned dog.

‘The past is only visible to me in painful flashes of memory. It’s mostly just a gloomy cloud of shapes and noises. Apart from your mother. She’s always in vivid Technicolor . . . I want to do everything I can to make it up to you and your mum. I will pick you up from airports, watch Portia in every bad school production of
Annie
, I will dog-sit, shower grout . . .’

I was about to dismiss him out of hand, when he added:

‘. . .
steal incriminating documents from hospitals proving that your client left her bed at exactly the same time her granny was shooting the rapists’ gonads
.’

I reappraised the man who had ruined my mother’s life but had also been our anonymous helper. That was one mystery solved. And he’d bought exactly the right chocolates. ‘We have a ferret, too,’ I finally acquiesced. ‘So you’ll also have to ferret-sit.’