Hush Hush (10 page)

‘We’ll stick them in
the back of the car.’ His voice sounded thick, and he sprang
out of the lift the minute the doors opened. If she hadn’t seen
at first hand how growly and forceful he was, Angela would almost
have thought him shy.

His four-wheel drive was in the
process of being ticketed.
‘
Errand
of mercy,’ he told the grizzled traffic warden, and smiled a
smile that would’ve stopped invading Barbarians in their
tracks. Angela was trapped by chance in its ray of blazing
tenderness. How could such a macho face smile like that
‒
like a mother looking into a crib?

‘Not my problem, mate,’
snapped the unappeased male traffic warden, tearing the ticket off
his pad.
‘
I don’t
care if your girlfriend was having triplets under the dashboard.’

Using some internal re-set
button, Conor’s face reverted to pre-growl mode. As he drove
away, he balled the ticket and shoved it in the ashtray.

‘Where are we going?’
ventured Angela.
‘
I’ve
only got an hour for lunch.’

‘I’m in a rush, too.
Thought we’d picnic al fresco in a little park I know not far
from Oxford Street. An oasis of calm amid the madding crowds.’

‘Won’t traffic be a
killer?’

‘Not with a madman at the
wheel.’ He grinned sardonically, crumpling his brown face into
all sorts of interesting planes.
‘
Not
to worry. I intend to show that I’m a perfectly safe driver.
The sort who escorts hedgehogs across the road.’

He reached his destination
quickly, and without incident. He even managed to park legally.

‘Told you there’d be
no problem,’ he smiled triumphantly. It was yet another smile
from his wide repertoire.
‘
I’ve
got some sarnies and a rug to spread on a bench. I made cheese and
ham separately, in case you’re a veggie.’

‘You’ve gone to a lot
of trouble,’ said Angela, surprised and touched.

But then she realised that was
the wrong thing to say. The back of his neck flared red as he stomped
away towards a pair of wrought-iron gates, swinging a carrier bag,
the car rug slung over one shoulder like a clan tartan.

‘Sorry!’ she panted,
scampering after him.
‘
I
wasn’t accusing you of
‒
going to a lot of trouble. I mean, not in a chasing me up sort of
way. You know what I mean?’

She looked around, stopped in her
tracks by the miniature prettiness of the park. On all four sides,
ugly buildings glowered over plane trees shrivelled by noxious fumes.
But within the magic circle of drooping branches lay springy grass
and tangle-free bushes, stacked and polished like museum-piece
tumbleweeds.

Conor spread the rug on a bench
between two etiolated silver birches, delved into the carrier and
thrust two packets at her, wrapped in greaseproof paper.
‘
Ham’s
the one on the right. Eat.’

While she nibbled a cheese
sandwich, he unscrewed the top of a flask and poured her a cup of
hot, black coffee.

‘Forgot milk,’ he
grunted.
‘
Do you
mind?’

‘I prefer it black,’
she lied, taking the cup. No one had ever taken her on a picnic in
the heart of London before, and she wasn’t going to split
hairs.

The drone of inner-city traffic
barely penetrated the greenery, heavy with dewy dampness. Sparrows
hopped hopefully out of the underbrush, and she began throwing
crumbs.
‘
I’m
enjoying this!’ she enthused, turning to him with a smile.
‘
It
was a lovely idea. Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’
For once, he too looked almost relaxed, his legs stretched in front
of him. He tackled a ham sandwich with wolfish delicacy, then thought
better of it and laid it carefully back in the greaseproof paper.
‘
I
come here to think,’ he revealed.
‘
Few
people bother coming in because they think it’ll be full of
druggies and dossers. It’s one of London’s many well-kept
secrets.’

Angela nodded dreamily, nibbling
a crust.

‘How’s the first week
in the new job going?’

‘Not too bad,’ she
laughed.
‘
A few ups
and downs along the way, but no one’s given me my marching
orders yet.’

He hadn’t seen her laugh
before. It sent an electric spark to those blue eyes, magnified by
her glasses.

Angela looked down at the crumbs
round her shoes.
‘
I
wish I was wearing my lenses,’ she muttered,
‘
but
they’re not always up to a full day’s work on a
Mac screen
.’

‘I like your glasses. They
suit you.’

‘Pull the other one!’

‘All right, God’s
honest truth
‒
I
don’t notice them one way or the other. Kate wore reading
glasses as thick as Coke bottles.’ He stopped and pounced on
the rest of his sandwich.

‘Why
‒
you know
‒
did you
track me down, Conor?’

She’d never said his name
before. Its aftershock lingered on her tongue.

He launched into a response with
pre-prepared overtones.
‘
Because
I’d like to get to know you. Meeting you on the plane struck a
chord with me. You’re a plain speaker, like myself. If we
didn’t get on, neither of us would bother pretending otherwise.
Right?’

‘I suppose.’

He coughed into a brown fist.
‘
Maybe I’m
being previous, though. After all, you’ve just lost your
husband.’

‘My mum says you can’t
expect opportunities in life to crop up at convenient times. Or, in
my case, after a decently elapsed time of mourning.’

‘Is that what we’ve
got ourselves here? An opportunity?’

Now it was Angela’s turn to
blush. It spread like rose wildfire across her alabaster complexion.
Again, most attractive, Conor thought.

‘I don’t know what
we’ve got ourselves. Except
‒
I wouldn’t be much cop as a surrogate mother.’

His eyebrows shot up into his
matching hairline.
‘
Oh,
I see. You think I’m after a babysitter for when I’m
working abroad? Not on my agenda, Mrs Carbery. My son and I have
managed perfectly well for two years, without me duping some
impressionable woman into glorified housekeeping duties. I can and do
employ a functionary in that capacity.’

‘All right, keep your hair
on! I wasn’t impugning your squeaky-clean character. I was just
letting you know that a woman isn’t automatically
au fait
with the domestic scene because she is a woman.’

‘I do know that. I was
married to Kate.’

‘I mean, Robert thought
women were born with an ironing gene.’

Conor glanced down at his shirt.
‘
Ironing’s a
doddle for today’s reconstructed man. Another sarnie?’

Angela was chafing to hear more
about Kate. But she’d already strayed into dangerous territory,
offering that disloyal titbit about Robert. She wasn’t prepared
to get a handle on Kate by trading indiscretions. Anyway, caution
ruled with prudence. A man whose wife had seen fit to leave him had
to be approached with open-eyed cynicism.

They sat in thoughtful silence
for some time. He poured himself a coffee without wiping the mug
first
‒
endearing himself to Angela. She didn’t like fussy germbusters.

‘Jesus, is that the time!’
After a couple of sips, he suddenly threw the coffee onto the grass
and leapt up. He seemed to twitch in all directions, folding up the
rug, stuffing leftovers into the carrier bag.
‘
Sorry,
but we’ve gotta go like the clappers. I’ve a meeting back
at company HQ in five mins, on the other side of London.’ He
paused belatedly.
‘
Having
too stimulating a time to notice it ticking by.’

Angela said nothing. Compliments
made her shy. Especially from someone as scratchy and complicated as
Conor McGinlay. Why had he bothered chasing her up? One undiscussed
possibility loomed large. Sex. Maybe he wasn’t getting it, and
thought a recently widowed woman must be desperate. Well, he’d
be right if he assumed that. She did miss sex, like vinegar on chips.
But sex with her husband.

As for Conor McGinlay, she
couldn’t imagine him going without by choice.

If he was on the prowl, it must
be down to the fact that he spent long spells trapped in remote
locations with other blunt, stocky civil engineers. But there were
plenty of female civil engineers these days.

Her negative thoughts accompanied
her back to his car.

‘Hop in,’ he said
urgently.
‘
Now I’m
afraid I may drive like a madman.’

A few minutes later, he screeched
to a halt in front of traffic lights.
‘
This
is where we part company, I’m afraid. Angela?’ He rested
a fan of fingers on her skirted knee.
‘
Can
I ask for your phone number again? Write it down on the back of
this.’

He unballed the parking ticket
and scrabbled about for a biro in the glove compartment. His urgency
gave her no time for coy reflection. She scribbled down her number.

‘Thank
you, I’ll ring soon,’ he said, with such fervent humility
that, as he sped away and left her on the pavement, it took her a few
seconds to register her situation. He’d dropped her off near
Regent’s Park Tube station.

Angela peered into the station’s dark maw,
jostled by impatient travellers at the top of the entrance steps. She
gazed wistfully at Conor McGinlay’s receding tail-lights. And
she’d left the freesias in the back of the car.
‘
Excuse
me!’ huffed an angry woman, clattering Angela with shopping
bags.
‘
Of all the
places to stand!’

Angela shifted guiltily. She’d
been blocking the stairs, just like a meandering tourist. She looked
around for a taxi. But it would cost a fortune in lunch-hour traffic
from here to Victoria. And she only had a tenner.

The heat of anger penetrated the
frozen top layer of terror. It was Conor McGinlay’s fault
‒
dragging her across London and then dumping her, leaving her barely
enough time to get back within her lunch-hour, even if she did take
the Tube.

And facts were facts. She’d
have to take the Tube.

She moved, trance-like, down the
steps, Persephone descending to the underworld, leaving behind light
and air (such as they were in London).

She wasn’t going near the
automated ticket machine, which claimed, in theory, to change
twenty-pound notes. Instead, she joined the fractious queue at the
window. She bought, without incident, a single to Victoria, and
turned to do battle with an automated turnstile.

She hated these ruddy things.
Once, commuting years ago, she’d been almost through the
turnstile when a bloke stood on her coat belt and yanked her back,
trapping her in no man’s land while a shrill beeping noise made
it clear she now had to ‘seek assistance’. Easier said
than done, down here in Satan’s grotto.

She was sweating. This was bigger
stuff than dodging the three-headed dog on the shores of the river
Styx before you haggled with the ferryman.

At the foot of the escalator, she
scanned a wall-map, working out her route: one stop on the Bakerloo
Line to Oxford Circus, then straight down to Victoria on the Victoria
line. It couldn’t have been easier, even for a Tube-phobic like
her.

The platform was filling up. The
tunnel mouths at either end emitted faint rumbles. Travellers peered
expectantly down the platform, as if waiting for something to roar
out of a tunnel and claim a virgin sacrifice. Angela concentrated on
Conor’s probable reaction to this silly hang-up of hers. He’d
be gobsmacked at first
‒
then impatient, and finally, derisive. Wouldn’t he? After all,
she hadn’t dared tell her own mother, or Rachel.

A train roared into the station,
nearly tearing off her earlobes. She’d forgotten that visceral
roar, loud with the hunger and ruthlessness of life in the urban
rat-maze.

She prayed she’d be
standing in front of a door when the train stopped. She was unlucky.
The door she’d been banking on slid along the platform and a
grim crowd set off in pursuit. Angela followed half-heartedly.

Then she got a lucky break. A man
disembarking tangled with an over-eager punter pushing his way on,
and a Tube tantrum broke out. Angela wriggled unnoticed between them
and
grabbed a pole to cling on to.

Only one stop till I change, she
told herself, as the train slid off. I’ll have to do it all
again in a minute.

After an uneventful minute, the
train lurched to a stop in no-man’s land between stations. Time
lengthened ominously. People in seats shifted wearily. A man in tight
jeans opened his legs out even further and gave his balls a good
airing. Angela tutted with silent disapproval, glad that Robert had
never been that sort. She couldn’t imagine Conor exhibiting his
bits like a hothouse plum either. Though really, she reasoned
guiltily, it was a sign of an unhealthy mind to even ponder Conor’s
endowments.

Tight-Jeans caught her eye and
winked.

Angela blushed furiously.

The Tannoy system crackled. A
voice wavered through static like Neil Armstrong faintly asking
Houston if they copied.
‘…
defective signal
…
inconvenience, should be moving in
…
minutes
…
thank
you.’

Nobody bothered to seek an
interpreter.

Angela’s head buzzed. Stale
air gusted through an open window, wafting in a bouquet of diesel and
garlic with a topnote of Brylcreem. From nowhere, a sea of whiteness
rose up to engulf her.

‘Oh my God!’ were the
last words she heard before she crumpled to the floor, face down on a
pair of laceups. Amazing, really, that there’d been enough room
to faint into.