Flights of Angels (13 page)

Daniel’s eyebrows rose an inch.

‘Except at the funeral,’ she added, before he had a chance to mention it. ‘I’m told I rather let rip there.’

‘You don’t remember?’

Claudie shook her head. ‘Do you?’

Daniel nodded but didn’t say anything.

‘Oh, dear.’ Claudie had so desperately wanted to forget that day. As it was, it played in her memory like a movie projected onto a river; the individual scenes were all there but the pictures seemed to swim around as though she’d taken drugs. Perhaps she had. She remembered her mother had given her something before they’d left the house, but she’d thought they’d been paracetamol. There was no telling though. Her mother’s handbag usually rattled like an autumn poppy.

Claudie and Daniel walked over to the sleeping boulders under the cliff. It was a strange sight. Piles of black boulders, shiny as Whitby jet, and icy cold to the touch. Claudie trailed her fingers over one and felt herself shiver. Thousands of cold days must be locked away in these stone, she thought.

A lone gull pierced the silence with an agonising cry. Claudie looked up and followed its path across the sky, her eyes settling on the cliffs shielding the beach.

‘How high do you think it was?’ she said, her neck white and exposed as she craned her head back.

Daniel looked up at the cliff. ‘Much higher than that,’ he said, following her train of thought without the need for elaboration.

Claudie dragged her eyes back to the ground and, for a moment, she seemed to be counting the individual grains of sand on the beach.

‘It’s absurd,’ she said at last. ‘I mean, how can you be angry at a mountain?’ Her voice was cold, distant, as if it had been carried away by the gull.

She sat down on one of the boulders and Daniel sat next to her.

‘You never went with him, did you?’ She said it as a statement rather than a question.

‘Only once. But it looked too bloody dangerous to me.’

Claudie managed a little smile.

‘You’re coping really well,’ Daniel said.

Claudie shrugged. She didn’t want to tell him it was all an act really, and that she could behave really badly when she put her mind to it. Like the time Kristen had taken her shopping. That had been a close call. She could still see that packet of pine nuts trapped inside her prison-cell grip.

She’d been on the verge of something terrible that moment. If Kristen hadn’t come back and woken her, there was no telling what she might have done. Her mind had been on the verge of tripping over itself, and all because of a packet of pine nuts.

Luke had never liked pesto sauce.

‘It’s like snail’s bile,’ he said. ‘I’m not eating that stuff.’

‘That’s only the stuff you buy in jars,’ Claudie told him. ‘Come on, now. Get hold of that pan and heat it up.’

Claudie watched as he tipped the pale kernels into the volcanic orange pan, moving them around with a wooden spoon. She loved watching him cook: the way he rolled his sleeves up, enabling her to worship his forearms. She loved the silly way he tied her pinny around his waist, and she loved the way he always managed to burn something. Last time he’d cooked, he’d burnt their plastic spatula so that it now looked like petrified spaghetti.

‘What do I do now?’ Luke asked.

‘Keep turning them until they’re golden.’

‘They’re golden now, aren’t they?’

‘They’re anaemic!’

‘You know I’m no good at this cooking lark.’

‘You’re brilliant,’ she said, leaning forward from her pan of boiling tagliatelle and giving him a kiss.

Pasta boiled, pine nuts golden, Luke stripped the basil plant whilst Claudie dressed the pasta in heaps of pungent cheese, mixing the whole lot together with lashings of garlic infused olive oil.

Five minutes of silent eating ensued.

‘This is once seriously sexy meal,’ Luke said, blue eyes haunted with lunchtime lust.

‘See! I told you you’d like it,’ Claudie smiled back at him. ‘What?’

He held her gaze. Her brown eyes locked with his blue ones.

‘Luke?’

‘Claudie!’ He was out of his chair and had grabbed her before she had time to work out what was happening. His kisses were hotter than chilli pepper, his fingers melting her faster than butter in a microwave.

Looking back, it hadn’t been a good idea. Tagliatelle had got everywhere, and Claudie swore her hair smelt of garlic infused olive oil days later.

‘You okay?’

Claudie shivered. She wasn’t in the kitchen at home with Luke, she was in Staithes on the beach with Daniel, and he was speaking to her.

Claudie nodded. She didn’t want to talk any more. Things were getting a little too close.

She rubbed her hands together. ‘Should have bought gloves,’ she said.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Daniel picked her hands up and cupped them between his.

‘You’re cold,’ he said.

‘You’re warm.’

He smiled and, for a moment, she thought she saw tears in his eyes, but perhaps it was only the bitter bite of the wind.

Sitting in silence, they stared out to sea.

Simon knew that he was being followed. He quickened his pace, dodging the lunchtime workers, and diving into as many shops as he could.

She wasn’t very subtle. She’d make a terrible detective, he thought, wondering where he could go to next, and how he could shake her off his tail. But maybe he shouldn’t even bother. God, he was so nice sometimes. Maybe he should just be bloody nasty and give her a piece of his mind. He contemplated this for a moment, idly picking up a packet of throat pastilles then placing them back amongst the toothpastes.

‘Excuse me!’ a stern voice arrested him. It was the shop assistant. ‘Can I help you,’ she said with the sort of voice that doesn’t sound helpful in the least.

‘Er - no, thank you,’ Simon said apologetically, stumbling out of the door.

He felt like an actor in a low budget thriller as he weaved in and out of the crowds, hoping Mandy wouldn’t be able to keep up with him. What annoyed him more than anything was her attitude. What did she expect from him? After years of turning her down, of going out with other girls, of living with another woman for two years, did she really expect him to suddenly fall in love with her? Unfortunately, Simon believed that the answer was yes. She had no scruples, no shame and, from what Simon had seen of her this morning, no bra on either.

There were some men in the office who would go for her obvious attractions, but Simon wasn’t one of them. He’d never been into the long talons, red lipstick, skirt so short and top so low that they almost met in the middle look.

As he took a sneaky glance over his shoulder, he could see that he was losing her now. Either that or she’d lost interest in trying to follow him. Perhaps it was because he’d mentioned he was meeting someone again, he mused.

‘The same girl, is it?’ Mandy had asked in between mouthfuls of chocolate digestive. She always had a packet of crisps or biscuits on the go, and her desk drawer would have been a haven for mice if there’d been room left in it for them to operate.

Simon had nodded.

‘What’s her name?’ Mandy had immediately asked.

Simon had sighed. ‘Now, it’s all to be kept very quiet.’

She’d nodded, but her nosiness had obviously got the better of her and she’d decided to do a bit of amateur spying. Very amateur, Simon thought bitterly.

But what would it be like, he wondered, if he
were
meeting a girl during his lunch hour? It seemed like an age since Felicity had walked out on him. He hadn’t even so much as chatted anyone else up. The only women he’d talked to for more than five minutes had been his mother and Kristen, and they didn’t count.

As he walked with no real direction in mind, a sudden image of the moonshine woman in the bookshop assaulted him: her creamy complexion and glossy brown hair, her eyes like great gleaming chestnuts. He tried to remember what she’d been wearing, but he couldn’t. But it hadn’t been a thigh hugging skirt or a cleavage pushing top, that was for certain. And she’d looked so incredibly fragile. Simon had never seen anyone who looked so fragile: not anorexically fragile but the kind that’s passed down through the genes. Then there’d been that French accent. Why was that always so sexy?

Above all, there had been a gentleness about her. She’d had a grace, which seemed sadly lacking in most of the women he met.

Just imagine, he thought, his pace slowing down to normal now that Mandy had retreated, just imagine if he was going to meet the moonshine woman. He wondered what her name was, and where he would meet her. Not in a pub, that wouldn’t be her style. But hey! Hadn’t he seen her walk into the pub a few nights ago? Well, she nearly had. He wondered what had stopped her. Perhaps she hadn’t liked the look of the pub, or maybe she hadn’t liked the look of him. Could he have possibly scared her off? He wondered if she lived in Whitby, and, if she did, why he hadn’t seen her before. But maybe she was a tourist? A French tourist shopping for second-hand books and seeing what English pubs were like.

But he wasn’t meeting up with her, was he? He was meant to be shopping for Pumpkin. Hadn’t he promised him a companion?

Simon turned and headed towards the pet shop, wondering if goldfish came in a moonshiny-silver colour, because he was going to buy Pumpkin one hot-babe of a fish.

After getting back from Staithes and virtually eating all the food they’d bought that morning, Claudie and Daniel had settled down in front of the television again. He’d only been there two days but they’d already developed a rather cosy routine together.

It was, Claudie consoled, all about being a family. That’s what they were, wasn’t it? Brother and sister-in-law enjoying some time together. As an only child, she felt exceptionally lucky in having Daniel now; after all, it wasn’t every man who would want to travel so far north to a windy old fishing port to see his sister-in-law.

She looked across at him as he stretched his huge legs out into the middle of the living room. His toes were practically tickling the video player from where he was sitting. The cottage just wasn’t big enough for a man of his size. It had been fine for her when she’d been on her own, and Luke had never complained about the lack of space. He’d been a lighter build than his brother and a few inches shorter, and he had never dwarfed the place in quite the way that Daniel was now.

‘Are you comfy?’ Claudie asked.

‘I’m fine,’ he said.

‘Can I get you anything?’ Claudie asked, feeling stuffed after the amount of food they’d eaten.

‘A can of lager would be great,’ he said. ‘And have you got any crisps?’

Later that evening, when Claudie believed that no more food could possibly be consumed, she said goodnight to Daniel. She let him use the shower before her and got undressed, waiting in her bedroom until the coast was clear.

She wondered what Daniel would make of her Gene Kelly poster, and remembered how Luke had objected to her putting it up.

‘I don’t want to be ogled at coming out of the shower!’ he’d grimaced.

Claudie had merely laughed. ‘Don’t be so vain. He won’t be ogling you!’

‘Well I don’t want him ogling my wife either.’

It was nice that he got a little bit jealous, even if it was over a dead movie star, and he’d let her get away with it on the condition that he could put up his relief map of Britain on the back of the kitchen door.

It was still hanging there.

Turning on the lamp on her dressing table, Claudie sat down to comb her hair. The coastal wind had played havoc with it today. It was only chin length, but it had managed to tie itself into fierce knots, causing her to wince as she attacked them.

She remembered the delicate way Luke had had of brushing her hair, starting with his fingers, massaging her head, then working down towards her neck.

‘You have the most beautiful hair in the world,’ he’d say, breathing it in like perfume. Claudie had never believed him. It was just what husbands said, wasn’t it?

She placed her brush down and almost screamed out loud as she nearly squashed an angel.

‘Lily? What on earth are you doing here?’ Claudie was so surprised that she forgot that Daniel was in the house and might hear her.

‘Ssshussh! Look, I’m not meant to be here at all. I sneaked out and, if I get caught, they’ll probably fire me and I’ll end up in that bloody office filing death warrants again.’

‘You gave me such a shock! I nearly flattened you with my hairbrush!’

‘Occupational hazard, being so small.’

Claudie sighed, her heartbeat returning to something approaching normality. ‘So what are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to see how you were. I feel just awful about you being sent home by your boss like that. We all feel terrible about it. And I think it was my fault.’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘No! I’m always arguing. It’s a terrible fault in me. I’m a dreadful angel.’

‘No you’re not,’ Claudie said, resting her head in her hands and looking at Lily standing in the lamp light like an actress on a stage. ‘You can’t be all that bad for you to risk being fired just to see me.’

Lily looked up at her. ‘You think?’

‘I
know
. And I really appreciate it. I was just beginning to miss you guys.’

‘You were?’

‘Yes. It’s odd but I’ve really got used to having you around.’

‘But we do nothing but cause you trouble.’

‘That’s not true. You’ve all been so kind. I can’t quite imagine a time when I didn’t have you all to look after me. I don’t know how I coped without you all. You make me feel so-’

‘What?’

‘Looked after!’ Claudie said. ‘And it’s not just that. I find myself thinking of all these things that I must tell you. Like, I’ll be flicking through a magazine and see a picture of a beautiful dress and think, I must show Lily this. Or, I’ll hear a joke on TV and be dying to tell Bert the next day. You’re all like a family, but not like any family I’ve ever belonged to. I feel so very proud to be a part of this one,’ Claudie said, smiling down at Lily.

‘Really?’

‘Yes!
Really!
You don’t realise how much joy you bring me. I only wish I could have you all at home with me as well as at work.’