Secret Smile (33 page)

What now? I couldn't wander around
Brackley looking for him. Maybe I should call the number and — well, and what?
Talk to Brendan again? I couldn't do that; just the thought of it made me
tremble. I poured myself a large glass of red wine and then turned on my
laptop. Two minutes, a couple of search engines and I was looking at the name
Crabtrees, a cafe in Brackley. I toasted my perseverance with a gulp of red
wine that tasted rather vinegary. I looked at my watch: 7.35.

Now that I knew it was a cafe, I did risk
calling the number. It rang and rang and just when I was about to put the phone
down, someone answered.

'Yes?'

'Is this Crabtrees?'

'Yes. It's the payphone. You want
someone?'

'Oh — well, can you tell me the opening
hours?'

'What?'

'The opening hours of the cafe.'

'I dunno exactly; I've never been in here
before. It's new and I thought I'd give it a go — eight till late, that's what
it says on the board outside.'

'OK, thanks.'

'It's not a pub, though.'

'No.'

'You can't get drinks — it's all
cappuccino and latte and those herbal teas that taste like straw.'

'Thanks.'

'And vegetarian meals. Organic this, that
and the other.'

'You've been very helpful

'Alfalfa. I always thought it was cows
that ate alfalfa.'

I didn't stop to think. I poured the wine
down the sink, picked up my denim jacket and left. No underground goes to
Brackley, so I drove there, through the balmy evening. The sky was golden and
even the dingy streets were softened in its glow.

Crabtrees was in the upmarket bit, between
a shop that sold candles and wind chimes and a shop that sold bread 'made just
as the Romans used to make it'. I drove past it and then found a place to park
a few minutes' walk away just in case Brendan was around.

I walked slowly past the cafe, with the
collar of my jacket turned up, feeling excruciatingly visible — an absurd and
ham-fisted parody of a private eye. I imagined Brendan sitting by the window
and seeing me shuffle by. I cast a few rapid glances through the glass, but
didn't see him. Then I turned around and walked past once more. The cafe was
practically empty and he didn't seem to be in there.

I went inside. It was brightly lit and
smelled of coffee, vanilla, pastry, herbs. I ordered a pear juice (with a hint
of ginger) and a flapjack and took them into a corner. What would I do if he
walked in now? I should have brought a large newspaper to hide behind. I could
cut a hole in it and stare out, or something. Even a book to bend over would be
better than sitting here exposed. But it was warm and clean and aromatic, and
for a moment I allowed myself to relax. I was tired to my bones, tired in the
kind of way that sleep can't cure. I put my head in my hands and gazed through
the lattice of my fingers at the street outside. People walked past, men and
women with purposeful strides. No sign of Brendan.

After half an hour of nibbling at the
flapjack and sipping at the juice, I paid up and asked the young woman behind
the counter what time they closed.

'Nine,' she said. She had silky blonde
hair twisted on to the top of her head, a scattering of clear freckles over the
bridge of her nose and a lovely candid smile. She glanced at the watch on her
delicate wrist: 'Just seven more minutes, I'm glad to say.'

'And what time do you open in the
morning?'

'Eight o'clock.'

'Thanks.'

I knew it was ridiculous, but I was back
at eight, with a newspaper. I ordered a milky coffee and a brioche and took up
my seat again, wedged behind the coat stand so that if Brendan did come in he
wouldn't see me. There were two middle-aged women behind the counter this time,
and a man in the kitchen, behind the swing doors.

I stayed an hour and a half, and had two
more coffees, and then, shaky with caffeine and fatigue, went outside and sat
in my van for a bit. I called Bill and said I wouldn't be at work for a couple
of days, and then I left a message on Don's machine apologizing for not turning
up to finish the job, but promising I'd be back soon. I didn't say when,
because I didn't know when and I didn't want to think about the hopelessness of
my task. London was a huge, swarming place in which you could hide and never be
found. Brendan may have been passing by and would never return to the cafe
again, and I was hiding in a corner, camped out behind a newspaper, waiting
with a dry mouth and a pounding heart for something that wouldn't happen. Or he
could be just across the road, at an upstairs window, looking down. Maybe he
was coming along the street now and if I didn't hurry I'd miss him. Maybe this
was what going mad was like, crouching in a cafe, hiding in my van, pacing the
streets in an area of London miles from home.

I went to the candle and wind-chime shop
and took my time choosing and buying a glass bowl and some floating candles in
the shape of water lilies, all the time peering out at the street. I went to
the baker's and bought a wheel of brown sourdough bread that cost so much that
at first I thought the decimal point was in the wrong place. I walked very
slowly up the street and down again. I went into a bookshop and bought a book
of walks in and around London. I poked about in a hardware shop until the
glares of the man behind the counter drove me out. I bought a pad of ruled
notepaper and a pen at a stationer's, and some toffees to suck during my vigil.
I returned to Crabtrees once more, which was filling up now.

As well as a couple of waiters, who looked
like students, the young woman from last night was back. She was flustered with
the lunchtime rush, but she nodded at me in recognition when I ordered white
bean soup and a glass of sparkling water. I sat in my obscure corner and leafed
through the book of walks. I ate very slowly, and when I'd finished got myself
a cup of tea. When the door opened I would bend down, as if tying my shoelace,
then peer round the bottom of the table to see who was coming in. At just after
two, I started trudging up and down the streets again, aimless and footsore and
wretched with the impossibility of my task. I told myself I'd give it until
closing time and then call it a day.

At half past four, the young woman looked
mildly surprised to see me again. I had a pot of tea and a slice of lemon
drizzle cake.

At seven, I came back for vegetable
lasagne and a green salad, but I just pushed it round my plate and left. I got
the van and parked it near the cafe and huddled in the dying light, waiting for
it to be closing time. I sat for a while, doing nothing, just staring out at
the shapes of the buildings against the sky. I felt very far from home.
Forlorn. On the spur of the moment, I rang Don again and when he answered,
before I could change my mind, said:

'That drink you mentioned, did you mean
it?'

'Yes,' he said without hesitation. 'When?
Now?'

'Not now. Tomorrow?'

'Great.'

He sounded genuinely pleased and the glow
of that stayed with me after I'd said goodbye, a little bit of sunlight in the
gloom.

I must have dozed off because I woke with
a start and found the light had faded and the crowds on the street had thinned,
although there was still a pool of people outside the pub up the road. It was
just before nine, and I was stiff and sore and thirsty. I turned the key in the
ignition, switched on the headlights, put the gear into reverse, released the
handbrake, glanced in the rear mirror, and froze.

If I could see him in the mirror, could he
see me? No, surely not. I was only a strip of face, two eyes. I turned off the
ignition and the headlights and slid down low in the seat. In a few seconds, he
was walking past the van. He was just a couple of feet away from me. I held my
breath in the dark. He stopped at the door of Crabtrees, where the young woman
was turning the 'Open' sign to 'Closed'. When she saw Brendan, her face lit up
and she lifted a hand in greeting before opening the door to him. I sat up a
bit straighter in the seat and watched as he took her in his arms and she
leaned into him and he kissed her on her eyes and then her lips.

She was very beautiful, Brendan's new
girlfriend. And very young — not more than twenty-one or — two. She was
besotted. I watched her as she pushed her hands into his thick hair and pulled
his face towards her again. I closed my eyes and groaned out loud. Whatever Don
had said, whatever my common sense told me, I couldn't leave it — not now I'd
seen the freckles on her nose and her shining eyes.

The woman collected her coat and shut the
door. She waved goodbye at someone still inside and then she and Brendan walked
arm in arm down the road, back the way he'd come. I waited until they were
nearly out of sight, then got out of the van and followed them, praying he
wouldn't turn round and see me skulking in the distance. They stopped outside a
door between a bicycle shop and an all-night grocery and broke apart while the
girl fumbled in her pocket for the key. Her flat, then, I thought. That made
sense. Brendan was the cuckoo in other people's nests. She pushed the door open
and they disappeared inside.

The door swung shut and a few moments
later a light in an upstairs window came on. For a second, I saw Brendan
standing, illuminated. He closed the curtains.

CHAPTER 36

It wasn't exactly an orthodox first date:
poking around in an abandoned church in Hackney that a few years ago had been
turned into a reclamation centre. But maybe it was better this way — there's
something awkwardly self-conscious about sitting face-to-face over a pub table,
sipping cheap wine, asking polite questions, testing the waters. Instead, Don
was at one end of the church, where the altar used to be, bending over an iron
bath with sturdy legs, and I was down the aisle looking at stone gargoyles.
There was no one else around, except the man who'd let us in, and he was in his
office in the side chapel. Everything was bathed in coloured, dusty light, and
when we spoke to each other our voices echoed.

'Why have I never been in this place
before?' he called out to me, gesturing around him at the stone slabs, the vast
wooden cabinets, the porcelain sinks leaning against the walls, the boxes full
of brass handles and brass padlocks.

'Because you're not a builder.'

'I want everything here. Look at these
garden benches. Or this bird bath.'

I grinned across at him, feeling suddenly
dizzy with unfamiliar happiness; tremulous with relief.

'You don't have a garden,' I said.

'True. Do you have a garden?'

'No.'

'Oh well. Tell me what I should get,
then.'

'What about a pew.'

'A pew?'

'It would go perfectly in your room. Look
here.' He walked down the aisle and stood beside me. But he didn't look at the
old wooden pew with carved arms. He looked at me. I felt myself blushing. He
put his hands on my shoulders. 'Has anyone ever told you you're gorgeous?'

'Never in a church,' I said. My voice
caught in my throat.

And then he kissed me. We leaned against a
wood-burning stove that cost £690 and I put my hands under his jacket and his
shirt and felt his warm skin beneath my palms, the curve of his ribs. Then we
sat down on the pew, and when I looked at him he was smiling at me.

We had our drink after that, sitting in a
pub garden in the warm evening, holding hands under the table, and then we went
and had an Indian meal together. I didn't speak about Brendan all evening, not
once. I was sick and weary of him worming his way into every thought, present
even when he was far away, whispering softly and obscenely in my skull. So I
pushed him away. I pushed Troy and Laura away too. I only let them back in my
head after I dropped Don off at his flat and drove home. Though it wasn't
really home any more — it was the place I lived, with the 'Sold' board outside
and an air of neglect settling over its rooms.

The ghosts came back, but that night I
didn't feel quite so wretched because I was doing something, at last. I had a
task, a purpose, a goal. I had a man who thought I was gorgeous: that always
helps to blunt the edge of loneliness.

I was at Crabtrees at eight the next
morning, but she wasn't there. Instead, one of the men I'd seen two days
previously was behind the counter, serving up double espressos, hot chocolates,
camomile teas. I perched on a tall stool, ordered a coffee and a cinnamon bun,
and then asked if the young woman who'd served me before was coming in soon
because I might have left a scarf behind, and maybe she'd picked it up.

'Naomi? No.'

'When will she be in next?'

'I dunno. She only comes in a couple of
days a week as a general rule. She's a medical student in real life. She didn't
say anything about a scarf, though. Do you want me to have a look out back?'