Secret Sins: A Callie Anson (11 page)

It was anything but cold in La Venezia. Mark was sweating from the heat of the kitchen; even the main part of the restaurant was overly warm, a function of all the bodies packed in round every single table. No one was complaining, though; a good time was being had by all, judging by the noise level.

‘More wine!’ A man, his face already flushed with what he had consumed, waved in Mark’s direction and held up an empty bottle. He was wearing the red paper crown from his cracker, slightly askew. ‘More of the same.’

‘Yes, sir. Another bottle of house red.’

‘Make it two bottles,’ roared the man. ‘Save yourself another trip. The night is young.’

Mark sneaked a look at his watch. Unfortunately the man was right: it was barely gone eight. The night was young, and already he was exhausted.

No wonder he’d opted out of the family business, and gone into the police instead. Police work, even at its most demanding, was a doddle compared to this.

Serena sailed past him, balancing a tray laden with several plates of steaming ravioli—their mother’s speciality, and one of the restaurant’s signature dishes. She caught him looking at his watch and smiled at him over her shoulder. ‘Cheer up, Marco. In a few hours it will all be over.’

‘What are you doing here?’ Callie blurted. Her heart was
pounding
—from surprise, she told herself. She would have reacted that way to anyone appearing out of the dark and startling her like that.

‘I’m taking a walk,’ said Adam Masters, the man she’d been meant to marry. ‘Finishing up a sermon. I needed to clear my head, get some fresh air.’ He leaned over and scratched Bella’s ears. ‘Is he yours? Or are you just dog-sitting for someone?’

‘She,’ Callie corrected him automatically. Bella was wagging her tail in ecstasy—the traitor. ‘She’s mine.’

‘I didn’t know you had a dog.’

Callie bit back a retort. There were a lot of things that Adam didn’t know about her these days, and there was no reason why he should. It was now three months since he’d dumped her; they had both moved on. ‘Her name is Bella,’ she said.

He stamped his feet, one after the other. ‘It’s jolly cold tonight,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in for a hot drink?’

That had been the farthest thing from her mind. She thought quickly about the state of the flat: had she done the washing up? Was the sitting room a mess? ‘All right,’ she said grudgingly.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen your flat.’ Adam’s voice was friendly, conversational. Matter-of-fact. He followed her up the stairs; she was conscious of her fuzzy and somewhat dilapidated pink slippers.

‘It’s nothing as grand as yours,’ she said, remembering the elegant Georgian ground-floor flat where Adam lived. She’d been there exactly once, for a disastrous meal with Adam and Pippa, his new fiancée. ‘But it suits us.’

‘Us?’

‘Me and Bella,’ she said coldly. Once inside the flat, she unclipped Bella’s lead and then shrugged out of her coat.

Fortunately the sitting room was reasonably tidy, though the throw in which she’d been wrapped had been abandoned on the floor. She picked it up, folded it and returned it to the back of the sofa. ‘What would you like, Adam? Coffee? Tea?’

‘You know that I never drink coffee in the evening,’ he said in a teasing sort of voice.

I know nothing about you, she wanted to say. Perhaps I never did. ‘Tea, then.’

‘Tea would be brilliant. Lapsang, if you have it.’

She didn’t have it. Lapsang had always been Adam’s tea of choice; Callie used to enjoy it as well, but since their break-up she hadn’t touched it. If she had her way, she never would again: that tarry, smoky taste would always bring back Adam and their cosy evenings together. ‘No Lapsang. English Breakfast, Lady Grey, or ordinary.’

‘Ordinary will do.’

Thankfully, he didn’t follow her into the kitchen. Without being asked, he flopped down on the sofa and patted the seat beside him. The perfidious Bella jumped up next to him and leaned against him as he stroked her.

Had it really been an accident, his running into her in the dark like that? Callie wondered as she made the tea. If she hadn’t been out there, would he have rung the bell? But why? And where was the lovely Pippa?

She might as well ask; after all, she had nothing to lose. Not any more. ‘Where’s Pippa?’ she asked brightly as she set a mug of tea on the table beside him. ‘Doesn’t she usually come at the weekend?’

Adam shrugged, smiling. ‘Not this weekend. She’s with her mum, making wedding plans. The dress, all that sort of thing.’

In spite of herself, Callie felt her heart constrict. She sank into an armchair and forced herself to look at him,
stretching
her mouth into a semblance of a smile. ‘You’ve set a date, then? Some time in the spring?’ When she and Adam had been engaged, they hadn’t planned to marry until after their first year as curates, probably next autumn. But she would lay money on Pippa getting him to the altar before that.

He shook his head, seeming bemused. ‘Actually, Cal, it’s later this month. Right after Christmas.’

‘Christmas!’

‘There isn’t any good reason to wait any longer than that.’

‘But what about Pippa’s job?’ She was, Callie knew, an infant school teacher.

‘She’s told them that she’ll be leaving at the end of this term.’ Adam reached for his mug of tea. ‘I’m sure she’ll be able to do
some supply teaching in London, at first. And she shouldn’t have any trouble finding a full-time job. Eventually.’

Callie took a sip of her tea; it was scalding hot.

‘Anyway,’ said Adam, as though this were any normal
conversation
, ‘the wedding is on the twenty-eighth. Holy Innocents Day. You’ll come, won’t you, Cal?’

The last of the merrymakers had departed, and so had the hired staff; the doors of La Venezia were locked, with only the family remaining. While Serena and her father laid the tables in the restaurant, refilling salt shakers and putting out Christmas
crackers
, Mark helped his mother in the kitchen, making sure that everything was tidy and in its place. It was, she always said, the only way to run a restaurant: you couldn’t leave at night until the place was ready to open for business on the following day. That was sensible, but it meant long and tiring nights.

Before disposing of the last of the cooked pasta, Grazia Lombardi stopped and looked at her son. ‘Have you eaten anything, Marco?’

Mark thought back. He’d had a sausage roll and chips for lunch, a good many hours ago. Later he’d had a biscuit with a cup of tea. And tonight he’d grabbed a couple of breadsticks at one point. ‘Not much,’ he admitted.

‘Ah, you must eat.’

‘Don’t worry, Mamma.’ It was half-hearted, as Mark realised how hungry he was. He also knew that his words would fall on deaf ears.

She set about her task with the speed and efficiency which enabled her to run the kitchen of a popular restaurant. A frying pan, a bit of chopped pancetta, some cream, an egg: in a few minutes she set a plate of spaghetti carbonera in front of him. ‘
Mangi
,’ she commanded.

He obeyed. It was delicious, he was ravenous, and before long the plate was empty. ‘
Grazie
, Mamma,’ he said meekly.

As he was eating, she’d washed up the frying pan and put everything away. He washed the plate and cutlery while she made a pot of coffee as their reward for a job well done.

No one, thought Mark, made coffee like his mother, not even Serena: it was thick as syrup, flavourful and strong. He’d watched her doing it countless times; he’d asked her to show him how, and had tried to emulate her method. Somehow, though, it never tasted the same. She had a magic touch when it came to coffee. It was nothing like the stuff that came out of a machine, the stuff they served the customers. The customers didn’t know any better; they didn’t know what they were missing.

She poured it into diminutive cups and handed one to Mark. He sniffed it, closing his eyes with pleasure before indulging in one tiny, reviving sip. ‘Mmm, Mamma. Wonderful.’

It was at that moment that she pounced. ‘So, Marco,’ she said. ‘We haven’t seen so much of you lately.’

He knew it was true: before Callie, he’d been much more inclined to drop into the restaurant of an evening—if not to help out, at least to indulge in the pleasures of his mother’s cooking. Caught off guard, he fell back on the usual lame excuse. ‘I’ve been very busy at work, Mamma.’

Grazia Lombardi wasn’t buying it. She looked intently at her son. ‘Marco,’ she said. ‘Tell me the truth.
Veramente, hai una
ragazza
?
Do you have a girlfriend?’

Yolanda Fish had not gone home on Saturday night. She wanted to be there, on hand, if Rachel needed her for anything.

The GP had called in, and had offered Rachel a sedative. Rachel had refused; she didn’t want to take anything that might have an effect on her baby. Yolanda approved of that decision, but she was not without her own bag of tricks. In her years as a midwife, she had developed a home-brewed potion which would ensure a night of sound sleep to an expectant mother without any danger whatever to the baby. It was basically warm milk infused with a few herbs; a quick trip to the corner shop provided her with all the ingredients she had needed, and Rachel had taken it trustfully, without a word of protest.

There was no guest room at the Nortons’ house; it was as if they didn’t expect—or wish—ever to have guests. So Yolanda had dragged sofa cushions into the nursery and fashioned
herself
a makeshift bed in the room adjacent to Rachel’s. It made a surprisingly comfortable resting place and she slept well.

But she was instantly awake when, in the hours before dawn, the telephone rang. It was a cordless phone; she had removed it from Rachel’s bedroom and put it on the floor next to her instead, trying to anticipate and deflect anything which might disturb Rachel’s sleep.

Yolanda reached for the phone, punched the button to accept the call, and put it to her ear. ‘Hello?’

‘Rache?’ The voice was a soft whisper, so quiet that she couldn’t determine the speaker’s sex.

‘No. She’s sleeping. Can I give her a message?’

There was an audible click, followed by a dial tone.

Shrugging, Yolanda put the phone back on the floor and settled back onto her home-made bed. But sleep now eluded her. She turned on a light and checked her watch: it was barely six in the morning.

Thoughtfully she picked up the phone again and rang 1471; the caller’s number had been withheld.

Once again Jane woke early, this time with a huge sense of anticipation. Today her boys were coming home, for the first time in two months.

If it had been any day but Sunday, she would have insisted that she and Brian drive to Oxford to collect them. As it was, the boys were taking one of the frequent coaches which ran between Oxford and London. They would be home in time for lunch.

She’d been to the butchers and had obtained a beautiful joint of beef, always the boys’ favourite. It would be a proper Sunday lunch today, cutting no corners and sparing no expense. Beef and Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes and plenty of veg, and to finish off, a gooey trifle, already made and in the fridge.

Jane didn’t know how she was going to get through the
morning
service, or at least how she would manage to keep her mind on higher things. Advent: anticipation. At least that was apt.

Not surprisingly, Callie hadn’t slept very well.

Adam! How dared he turn up like that, as if there were nothing unusual about it, and then have the bare-faced nerve to invite her to his wedding?

She wished she had been quick-witted enough for a scathing reply. Instead she had swallowed a mouthful of scalding tea, rendering her incapable of any speech at all.

And when she’d finally been able to speak, it had been a
mild-mannered
acquiescence. Pusillanimous! Yes, she would come if she could. Coward! How could she be so weak, so spineless? Why couldn’t she have just told him to drop dead?

Her thoughts had run along these lines for what seemed like hours before she finally fell asleep, and then her dreams had been troubled—as they hadn’t been for weeks—by Adam’s presence in them. Bloody Adam, even invading her dreams like that. She didn’t want to dream about Adam. She didn’t want anything to do with him. She certainly didn’t want to go to his wedding to the perfect Pippa, slim and blonde and beautiful.

And the thing she definitely didn’t want to think about was the way Adam’s proximity had affected her. In spite of herself, she’d felt that old tug of sexual attraction; at the back of her mind she’d wanted him to take her in his arms the way he used to, and put behind them everything that had happened in the meantime. Pippa, especially, but even Marco. Oh, how could her body be so treacherous?

So when she woke, with Bella snuggled against her for mutual warmth, she made a conscious effort to banish him from her mind. ‘What a waste of time,’ she said aloud to Bella. ‘He’s just not worth it, you know. Peter’s always said so.’

Bella showed no inclination to leave the bed, no immediate need to go outside. Gratefully, Callie stroked Bella’s glossy coat, switching mental gears. Before Adam’s unwelcome intrusion, she’d been preoccupied with something else, had been telling Bella about it. ‘I’ll finish telling you about Morag, shall I?’ she suggested.

She’d left off at the point where Angus and Harriet were married and, with baby Alex, living as a happy family.

Angus had a good job. A high tech software company had opened a headquarters just outside Gartenbridge, and with his newly-obtained qualifications in accountancy, he’d had no trouble getting a job with them. He was keen and had real
aptitude
; within several years he had progressed up the ladder to a position near the top in the financial end of the company.

Harriet, meanwhile, had given up the pub. She’d sold it to keen incomers, and with the proceeds she had opened a small bookshop in Gartenbridge. It had been her lifelong dream to run a bookshop; with her enthusiasm and energy she had made a moderate success of it, combining it creatively with motherhood as Alex grew from a happy baby to a well-adjusted girl.

And then Jilly had entered their lives.

They had met her at a dinner party. Dinner parties were a rarity in the somewhat limited social scene of Gartenbridge. This dinner party was an exceptional one, the highlight of the social calendar.

Morag and her husband Donald had been there as well, so her account of it was as an eye-witness.

The host was the Managing Director of the software firm which employed Angus. Although he was a man of mature years, as befitted his exalted position, he was in possession of a trophy wife, a great many years his junior.

And his trophy wife had an old school friend visiting from London.

Jilly Greaves.

Morag had described the evening vividly. Harriet in her red dress: a dress which was not new by any means, but which accentuated her womanly figure and her colouring, bringing out the rich auburn highlights of her hair and complementing her dark eyes. And Jilly, pale as a snow queen in ice blue. Angus had entered with Harriet on his arm, proud to be the husband of such a striking woman. But Jilly had sat beside him at dinner, hanging on his every word, admiring him with her wide blue eyes. By the time the evening was over, Angus was clearly
smitten
. Harriet practically had to drag him away from the party, and Morag could only imagine what had been said between them behind closed doors.

After that, it had all happened very quickly.

Jilly’s visit had lasted a week, long enough for several more encounters—accidental or not—between her and Angus. By the end of the week, Angus had declared his determination to Harriet to divorce her and marry Jilly Greaves.

But Jilly had no intention of relocating to Scotland. London was where she had always lived, where she belonged. Where her family lived: the centre of her universe.

Her father had pulled a few strings, and before long Angus Hamilton had been offered a plum job in the City as Chief Financial Officer of a large and prestigious company.

In the time it took for the divorce to become final, Jilly and her mother had planned a spectacular wedding. It took place at the church in St. John’s Wood, with the reception at Lords Cricket Ground.

Morag was ashamed to admit to Callie that she and Donald had gone to the wedding, had come all the way down from Scotland for it. At the time it had seemed to them that no matter how much they disapproved of the marriage, Angus was their only son and it wouldn’t be right if his family were not represented at such a momentous occasion. Jilly’s family and friends had certainly been out in force. Alex had been an extremely reluctant bridesmaid, in company with Jilly’s two nieces and a vast number of her friends. And in the midst of them, Jilly herself, radiant in a dress which must have cost the earth. Triumphant.

The wedding had happened the past spring. Since then, so much had changed for Morag. The death of her husband, the loss of her dog. The uprooting, at Angus’ insistence, from her home and her resettlement in London.

That, she told Callie with some bitterness, was the greatest irony of all. Angus had been adamant that the move was for her own good. She would be close to them, her only remaining family.

But since she’d been in London, she had seen them no more than a few times. They were busy: Angus’ job was demanding and required long hours, and Jilly had her own family to occupy her. Whenever Morag suggested getting together, they had an excuse at the ready.

They wouldn’t even let her see Alex.

And this week, when she had needed them more than she’d ever needed her family, facing the diagnosis and then the
knowledge that she had a virulent disease which could well kill her, they hadn’t wanted to know.

She had repeatedly tried telephoning their home, getting only their call minder, leaving messages. They hadn’t returned her calls. Then she had taken the extraordinary step of ringing Angus at work.

He had been cold, said Morag. Angry, even. ‘Mother, you must know that I’m a busy man,’ he’d told her. ‘I don’t take personal calls at work.’

‘But I need to talk to you,’ she’d said, trying not to plead. ‘It’s important. I’m not well, Angus. I need your support.’

Astonishingly, he had then told her that it would be best in future if she made an appointment in advance to talk to him. ‘But you’ll have to do it through Jilly,’ he said. ‘She keeps the family diary. If it’s important enough, I’m sure we can fit you in. Give her a ring in a day or two, leave a message, and she’ll get back to you.’

‘No wonder,’ Callie told Bella, ‘the poor woman is in a state.’

Mark, waking early, was furious with himself. His mother had given him the perfect opportunity. She had asked the question, opened the door.

And he had wimped out.

There was no other way of looking at it. Cowardice had overcome him.

‘No,’ he’d said. No girlfriend. ‘I’m just quite busy at work, that’s all.’

Apart from anything else, it was a betrayal of Callie. Like St. Peter denying Jesus three times: ‘I do not know the man.’

But his mother had caught him unawares; he hadn’t had time to prepare a careful reply. It had been so much easier to take the coward’s way out.

How was he going to rectify it now, though? He couldn’t very well admit that he hadn’t given her a truthful answer. That would only make matters worse.

Why couldn’t he have just told her the truth? Why hadn’t he looked his mother in the eye and said, ‘Yes, I have a girlfriend. But calling her that doesn’t do justice to the way I feel about her. I’m pretty sure I’ve found the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. And no, she’s not Italian. But it doesn’t matter to me, and it won’t matter to you, either, once you’ve met her. She’s wonderful—you’ll see.’