Hush Hush (13 page)

She realised she was gazing at it
when Shane touched her elbow and pointed to a chair.
‘
That’s
your seat, Mrs Carbery.’

‘Call me Angela.’

She unfolded her napkin, peering
at its fringed edges as if it held clues to buried treasure. Sounds
filled the kitchen. Conor uncorking and pouring wine. Shane rattling
the oven door. Everything except the easy flow of conversation.

The chilli looked and smelt
delicious. Angela smiled up at Shane as he placed a black earthenware
pot on top of her pale blue plate.
‘
I’m
looking forward to this! I’m not totally vegetarian, but I draw
the line at white meat, breast of chicken, that sort of thing.’
She remembered the rejected in-flight meal from Morocco.
‘
Even
then, I’m a fussy eater.’

‘Dad likes veal,’
mumbled Shane.

‘Er ‒ only now and
then, when it’s served at wedding receptions and the like,’
grunted Conor, slapping two plates of pasta down on the table.
‘
You
can trust Shane to ensure that all my warts get the full glare of
publicity.’

‘Never mind his warts,’
said Shane.
‘
You
should see his bikini-line rash.’

Angela expected Conor to explode,
but he didn’t turn a hair.

She took an eager mouthful of
chilli ‒ and nearly exploded herself.

God, it was laced with gunpowder
‒ all detonating on the roof of her hapless mouth! Eyes and
nose streaming, Angela plunged into her wine glass.

‘You OK?’ frowned
Conor, cocking an eyebrow at Shane as he spoke.
‘
Chilli’s
not too full of chillies, I hope?’

‘Blimey!’ Angela
extracted herself, gasping, from her glass, and ran to the sink.
There was no time for the niceties of introducing a glass under the
tap. She stuck her head under the tap and gaped like a blind
fledgling in search of worms. She gulped, dribbled, and finally
groaned into her napkin, produced at her side by Conor.

‘I might’ve
accidentally made it a teensy bit hot,’ said Shane contritely.
Conor missed Shane’s evil smirk as he turned back to the table.
But Angela didn’t.

‘What’s for afters ‒
bombe surprise?
’

‘Lemon sorbet,’ said
Conor, in a soothing tone that was new to her.
‘
A
nice mouth coolant. Here, leave the hot stuff and tuck into some
pasta. Shane will dispose of your tex-mex ‒ without involving
next-door’s cat,’ he added warningly.
‘
The
last thing the neighbourhood needs is an exploding cat.’ He
sighed at Angela. ’Shane sent a West Highland terrier into
orbit last month with a strategically placed biryani in the outside
wheelie bin.’

‘That’ll teach the
varmints to forage!’ said Shane triumphantly.

Angela sat down gingerly at the
table.
‘
But I’m
not a varmint,’ she grumbled directly at her tormentor.
‘
I’m
a blameless member of a higher species.’

‘Honest, it was an
accident, Mrs Carbery!’

‘Call me Angela,’
repeated Angela heroically, touching her burning inner mouth with her
tongue. She wouldn’t give up just yet. One more practical joke,
though, like a firecracker leaping out of her lemon sorbet, and she’d
wring his scrawny neck.

She was surprised that he was
such a horror. Conor had all the makings of a firm disciplinarian.
But then, he was away a lot. The kid must run riot. Spare the rod and
all that. Hang on, Angela chided herself, taking a careful mouthful
of pasta. She’d been a victim of Sadie’s strong-arm
parenting. Sadie was a big fan of corporal punishment for the
under-twelves. Angela had grown used to offering the back of her legs
for a good smacking before Sadie’s hand even descended.

No, thumping the physically
weaker was not the answer.

‘You’ve got spaghetti
sauce on your front,’ said Shane helpfully.

Angela looked down and blushed.
She’d chosen her blue dress for the visit. She’d bought
it in Morocco, a soft shift dress in swirling sea and peacock blue,
set off with a pale blue bolero cardigan. The only advantage of her
lack of curves was that she looked good in angular, tube-like dresses
that flattered her fashionably boyish slimness. But there was nothing
fashionable about the threadworms of orangey pasta stuck to her
front. She dabbed sadly.

Conor said in a tone of
desperation,
‘
Tell
Angela about that project you’re doing at school, Shane. The
rain forest one.’

Shane threw his father one of
those dagger-drawn looks that only pass between child and parent.
‘
It’s dead
boring, there’s nothing to tell,’ he snapped.

‘Let us be the judges!’
roared Conor suddenly, making Angela jump as well.

Shane turned to her reluctantly.
‘
Like, we each have
to represent a different aspect of the rain forest, so I’m
doing parrots and bird life and stuff. Then we stick it on this big
mural thing and the idea is, it’s put in the foyer of the local
library, so people can see what a rain forest is like.’

‘And which bird is your
favourite?’ asked Angela, clutching at a straw of potential
conversation.

‘None really. Matty Hyde,
like, got to do monkeys and stuff. Female monkeys have periods.’

‘Wearing your contact
lenses these days?’ Conor asked Angela firmly.

‘Yes, they’re
enjoying a new lease of life.’ She batted her lashes
experimentally, only to find that Conor’s jade eyes were
looking deeply into her own.

‘Sorry your husband’s
dead,’ said Shane at her elbow.

‘Shane!’

‘No, no, that’s OK,’
twittered Angela.
‘
Um,
thanks for your condolences.’

‘We were doing marriage in
RE,’ began Shane.

‘RE?’ interrupted
Conor.
‘
I thought it
was called sociology or general studies now, with a bit of sex
education thrown in.’

‘It’s still RE at my
school,’ said Shane pompously.

‘Ach, well.’ Conor
raised a coppery eyebrow at Angela.
‘
Apparently,
there are still some advantages in sending your kid to an RC
comprehensive.’

‘We were doing marriage,’
repeated Shane doggedly.
‘
And
Sister Imelda was saying that you’re still married to someone
even if they die.’

Angela sucked in her teeth.
‘
That’s kind
of true, I suppose. I still wear my ring.’

‘Like, circumstances beyond
your control forced you apart,’ rumbled Shane.
‘
You’d
still be married to Mr Carbery if he hadn’t snuffed it.’

‘That’s enough RE,
thank you, Shane,’ thundered Conor.
‘
Dish
up dessert and put a sock in it.’

Three spoons scraped blue bowls
in tense silence. Angela began to feel wibbly. The whole situation
was unreal. Eating lunch in a designer pad with a barely-known man
and his nakedly hostile son. And the kid was right in his own
unsubtle, hands-off-my-dad-you-golddigging-harridan way. She was
still married to Robert. Betrayal was unthinkable.

To her horror, her eyes filled
up.

‘Just going to powder my
nose,’ she announced, looking into her bowl as she rose.

‘Upstairs, first on the
right,’ grunted Conor, who’d apparently also chucked in
the towel and let his son win.

She scuttled towards the stairs,
followed by Shane’s loud whisper,
‘
She’s
gone to have a snoop!’

‘Load the bleeding
dishwasher,’ came the non-whispered reply.

In the tastefully appointed
bathroom, Angela sat down on the champagne-coloured toilet lid and
cried into several yards of quilted toilet paper, before stuffing the
reams into her cardigan pocket, causing an unsightly bulge in her
streamlined blueness. Her slimline shoulder-bag ‒ sans
tap-dancing frogs and equipped with essentials ‒ was
downstairs.

At last she rose, examining her
puffy eyes in the mirror. Given her pale complexion, she had those
slightly piggy-pink eyelids that went bright red at the first hint of
a tear duct cranking into gear. She splashed her face with cold water
and descended the staircase with what dignity she could muster.

She snatched her bag off the
phone table, preparing to sneak out. It was better to end things this
way.

‘Angela!’ She turned
to see Conor lounging on the cream sofa.
‘
I’ve
poured you a coffee. The brat is cleaning the kitchen with a
toothbrush, and then I’m hiring him out to clean the chimneys
at Battersea Power station. There’s a lot to be said for
exploitative child labour.’

Angela smiled wanly, and stepped
into the lush sitting-room.

‘Shut the door ‒
please,’ begged Conor with gruff humility.

She obeyed. Avoiding a close look
at the framed photos covering polished surfaces, she sat down on the
edge of the sofa. Conor passed her a cup of coffee and offered an
Amoretti biscuit. She shook her head palely.

He kicked off his olive-green
loafers to reveal holey socks and stretched out with a sigh.

Angela concentrated on his big
toe escaping from a sock. There was something poignant in the sight.

‘Angela?’ He’d
said her name like a whispered incantation.

She glanced up in alarm and found
him leaning towards her, big brown palms cupped under his chin.
Solemn green eyes lasered into her own.

‘What can I say? Except
that he is fairly human under the outer layer of monster.’

‘Oh. You mean Shane? He was
fine.’

‘It’s a tricky one.
Do I get to know a woman properly and then introduce her to him? Or
is that overplaying the issue, making a meal out of the whole single
father thing, instead of letting things find their natural level?’

‘I don’t know, Conor.
I’m no expert in the field.’ How many women did he make a
habit of introducing? No wonder Shane was wary and hostile ‒
not to mention downright mischievous at being given the Nero-like
power to deliver the thumbs-up or down.

‘Angela ‒ don’t
look like that.’

‘Like what?’ she
snapped, sipping coffee to cover her confusion.

She looked on, mesmerised, as he
took the cup from her hands, sturdy knuckles brushing her own. Then
he took her hands, enveloping her in a tent of warmth.

‘Please relax,’ he
half-grunted, half-implored.

She raised narrowed eyes, and was
too late to deflect the descent of his mouth on hers. It rippled
hotly against her quivering fieldmouse of a mouth. A chaste yet
lustful kiss, burning intent mingled with brotherly respect. A kiss
waiting for her response before it decided which way to jump. But oh,
it was delicious. Too delicious.

Closing her eyes involuntarily,
she pressed back.

He moved closer. She swayed back
onto over-stuffed cushions and he fell next to her, his dislodged
lips now clasping barnacle-like to the hollow of her neck. But the
pressure was like a butterfly grazing. Little flurries of kisses
swooped up her neck and nudged her jawline. His weight lay across
her, but finely judged, careful not to crush. Her right shoulder
began to feel pins and needles, pressed into the cushion, but she was
afraid to break the spell and scare him off. She realised, with
surprise, that it wouldn’t take much to shatter his confidence.
He wasn’t an assertive seducer at all.

The
sitting-room door flew open.
‘
I’ve
tidied up,’ announced Shane icily.
‘
All
right if I go round to Matty’s?’

‘So you found out nothing!’ accused
Rachel, shifting on the splintered wicker chair.

‘I found out the son hates
me.’

‘All fourteen-year-old boys
are rampant misogynists. Conor won’t let that put him off and
neither should you.’

‘I glimpsed the mother in a
photo on the window-sill but couldn’t get a proper butcher’s.
I did clock that she’s stunning.’

‘So? What are you, the
Elephant Man’s kid sister?’

‘Easy for you to talk,
Rache. You also happen to be stunning.’

‘Oh fiddlesticks, Angela.
He wants you, doesn’t he? He tracked you down, rang you up,
Might’ve even kissed you and ravished you senseless if the
child of the damned hadn’t interrupted proceedings. And you’d
have enjoyed it.’

Angela sipped tea warily. She’d
given Rachel and Sadie a very potted history of events, by-passing
Conor’s successful kissing attempt, hinting only at its
suggestion in his attentive manner and careful manoeuvring of
cushions.

‘So when are you seeing him
again?’ probed Rachel.

‘The twelfth of never, I
reckon.’

‘Oh come on, Ange. But if
you’re going to play silly beggars, allow me to break the news
about my new man.’

‘Rache!’ Angela
thwacked down her cup with a mixture of relief and genuine
excitement.
‘
You old
dark horse, you! Will this one be another interlude or something more
permanent?’

‘Early
days,’ replied Rachel smoothly.
‘
You
know me. The interlude’s usually more attractive than settling
down for the main programme.’

Shane banged the front door loudly, signalling
that he was back from Matty Hyde’s, and prepared for a
showdown.

Conor was leafing through
technical specs on the kitchen table.

‘Walked her to the station,
did you?’ Shane got the ball rolling.

‘Who? Oh, my lunch-guest.
The extremely nice woman you poisoned, insulted and drove upstairs to
weep in the bathroom.’ Conor shuffled papers.
‘
Yes,
she’s gone. And no, we didn’t take things further than a
kiss on the sofa. Another one bites the dust.’

Shane hovered. Conor’s
alternative to sound and fury was often scarier. He oozed with
disappointment in his son. And Shane, competitive by nature, hated to
be labelled a disappointment.
‘
You
seeing her again?’ he muttered.