When You Walked Back Into My Life (7 page)

‘Where has Prue been hiding you?’ he asked. ‘You weren’t in the basement when I was doing the kitchen, were you?’

‘No, I was living in Brighton at the time.’

‘Why did you move back? Not sure I’d swap life by the sea for a basement in Ladbroke Grove.’

He was very direct with his questioning, but she didn’t mind. It was better than just making small talk about who they knew and what they did.

‘I had a breakdown,’ she said, the alcohol making quick work of her normal reticence. ‘And Prue took me in.’

Jake raised his eyebrows. ‘OK … and now I ask you why and you say it’s none of my business.’

She laughed. ‘It’s not a secret. The man in my life walked out on me and I didn’t handle it very well.’ She saw him nodding.

‘But I’m fine now,’ she added. ‘It was three years ago.’

‘I’ve not really done the relationship thing,’ he said, draining the last of his Margarita and checking her glass. ‘You sort of have to give it time and attention I reckon, and setting up my business has taken all of that so far.’

Flora hesitated. She didn’t want him to think she was concerned about whether he wanted a relationship now or not, because she wasn’t. Her reply was neutral: ‘I know how many hours Prue puts in. I can imagine it’s not easy.’

‘Another?’ he asked.

‘Thanks.’ She drained her glass too.

The second cocktail seemed to go down even faster than the first. No tortilla chips with this one. She knew, vaguely, that she should eat, but things were going well. He was flirting, she was flirting back. It wasn’t so hard; she hadn’t forgotten.

God knows what time it was when Jake got up and dragged her to her feet. ‘Come on. Let’s go back to mine. I only live two streets away.’

‘So do I … well, four or five streets anyway.’

‘Mine’s closer then. Closer’s better.’ He guided her through the room, which had thinned out considerably since they’d arrived.

Jake’s flat was on the first floor of one of the large terraced houses off Westbourne Park Road. The ceilings were high, the sash windows in the open-plan living room/kitchen making a bay which looked over the street. The space was uncluttered, sparse, as if Jake spent very little time there. The kitchen cupboards were a warm oak – as promised – the furniture low and modern, the old floorboards stripped. Flora was feeling even more heady than she had in the bar. The night air had seemed to double the effect of the cocktails to dangerous levels. But when Jake produced a bottle of champagne from the fridge she didn’t argue.

They both sat on the black leather sofa.

‘What made you choose kitchens … to design I mean?’ she asked, for something to say. The change of venue, the fact they were now alone, seemed to have created an awkward constraint between them.

‘I’m a cabinetmaker by trade, and when I was putting in kitchen cupboards I noticed how lost most people are when it comes to organising their kitchens so they function properly.’ He shrugged. ‘They basically haven’t a clue. So I thought, hmm, bit of an opportunity here.’

‘But how did you know how a kitchen functions?’ Flora was trying hard to keep track of what he was saying. The champagne was cold and refreshing, and she found herself doing what she seldom did: living in the moment.

Jake laughed. ‘Well, I didn’t, but it wasn’t rocket science. And then I got busy, too busy to do it all myself, so I started Hobley and Star with my mate Gus.’

They talked on for a while, the conversation getting more and more disjointed as the bottle level dropped. She had no idea what they were talking about, the world had become a pleasant, hazy, floating place.

‘When we met at the party, I thought you were too trendy for me,’ she said, leaning back against the low back of the sofa as she met his eye. ‘I find those clothes slightly intimidating.’

Jake grinned as he glanced down at his dark shirt and
skinny black jeans, waggling the long points of his lace-up shoes. ‘That’s the idea.’

‘To be intimidating?’

‘Yeah. It puts a sort of handy buffer between you and the client.’ He paused. ‘Look, I’m an ordinary guy. I made cabinets. I never took my jeans off … but they came from the Blue Harbour sale back then. Now I have to relate to rich people who hang out with – or are – celebrities and the super-cool. They care about dumb things like status and appearance. So I do too. I play the game.’

Flora smiled. ‘But you like the clothes too.’

‘Yeah, I suppose I’ve come to like them … quite a lot, I’m afraid,’ he admitted with a shy grin.

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ she said. And as she spoke he reached for her, laying his hand against her cheek in a gentle caress.

‘Is it OK if I kiss you?’ he asked.

*

The light from the uncurtained window woke her. Jake’s clock read five past seven. For a moment she stared at it, blinking. Then she stared at Jake, who lay beside her, his face childlike in sleep, his light curls crushed into the pillow. She remembered the sex almost with surprise. Surprise that it had happened at all, and surprise that she had enjoyed it, drunk as she was. Jake had made it fun, lighthearted,
just two people getting together for mutual pleasure. But for Flora it was much more than that. Not because she thought herself in love with him, but because he was the first person she’d had sex with, the first person she’d kissed, or even touched in that way since Fin.

She pushed the duvet back and began to slide carefully out of bed, not wanting to disturb Jake. She would be late for work if she didn’t hurry. Her uniform was in Dorothea’s flat, but she couldn’t go to work looking this wrecked. She went through to the bathroom and tried to make the shower work. But the state-of-the-art controls were beyond her in her dazed state, and she gave up, just sluicing her face with some water and borrowing Jake’s comb to tidy her hair.

‘You weren’t going to leg it without saying goodbye again, were you?’ Jake stood leaning on the bathroom doorway in his boxers, rubbing his eyes.

‘I was, actually.’

‘Very bad manners,’ he said. ‘Won’t you even have some coffee before you go?’

Flora shook her head. ‘I have to be on duty at eight, and I’ve got to run home and change first.’

Jake shrugged. ‘Couldn’t you pull a sicky and come back to bed?’

Flora shook her head. That was the trouble with private nursing, the sense of obligation you developed for your
patient. If she didn’t show, the people who would suffer most would be the night nurse, who had to hang around until a replacement was found – and Dorothea.

For a moment they stood and looked at each other in silence.

‘Thanks … thanks for last night,’ Flora said. ‘I had fun.’

‘Yeah, me too.’ He moved aside to let her go.

*

As soon as Mary saw her, she raised her eyebrows, giving an amused smile.

‘Rough night, eh?’

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Perhaps not to most. But I’m from a family of professional drunks, me. Curse of the Irish. I’d recognise that jazzy look about the eyes at forty paces.’

Flora sat down heavily on the wooden chair in the kitchen.

‘Coffee?’ Mary moved to the kettle. ‘Water’s just boiled.’

Flora nodded gratefully.

‘Don’t forget it’s the stomach x-ray today. Rene rang last night to say she’ll be here to pick you up at nine-thirty.’

Flora’s eyes flew wide open. ‘Oh, no! Not today … please, please don’t let it be today. I’d totally forgotten.’

Mary laughed as she handed Flora her steaming mug of instant coffee. ‘Must say, I don’t envy you the outing.’

Flora looked at her watch in a panic. ‘I’d better get her
dressed or we won’t be ready in time. Did she have a good night?’

‘Yes, pretty normal. I thought I heard her cry out at one point, but when I went in she was fast asleep. She seems quite bright this morning.’

‘Does she know about the x-ray?’

Mary nodded. ‘Not sure she took it in, but I told her.’ She went into the hall to get her backpack. ‘Sure you’ll be OK? You look pretty rough. I could stay and help with getting her ready if you like.’

‘Thanks, Mary. That’s a really kind offer, but I’ll be fine once the coffee kicks in. You get off.’

*

The morning was hell for Flora as she struggled with her pounding head and incipient nausea, still reeling from the previous night. Sex with a man on a first date, when she wasn’t sure she even fancied him that much? She had shocked herself.

She went through the routine of the bed-bath mechanically, rubbing the warm flannel around the old lady’s body, quickly drying her before she got cold. But she remembered the moment when Jake had laid his hand against her cheek. She knew she had hesitated for a fraction of a second before leaning into his caress. Then she’d made the decision to go with it, with him. And yes, she had felt a drunken desire,
which grew as she gradually let herself go, as she gave in to his enthusiastic lovemaking. But she knew she was not in love with him.

Might love grow? she asked herself, doubtful. But the spectre of Fin, never far from the surface, chose that moment to rise up and offer a rude comparison. The head-over-heels obsession they had had for each other made her feelings for Jake Hobley pale into insignificance. But does it always have to be like that? she wondered, as she bent to tie the laces on her patient’s beige shoes, suddenly disheartened by the likelihood of ever finding such strength of feeling for another man.

*

Rene drove up to the entrance of Charing Cross Hospital in her battered Volvo and stopped in the drop-off parking bay.

‘Could you not get too close to the pavement?’ Flora asked, knowing from past experience that it was easier to lift Dorothea into her chair from the road. ‘Just here would be great.’

‘I’ll park somewhere and find you. First floor, isn’t it?’ An obsessive stickler for rules and regulations, Rene’s gaze darted fretfully about, on the lookout for officials.

Flora did her best to hurry, but it wasn’t easy getting Dorothea out of the front seat and into the wheelchair.

‘Put your hand up here.’ She swung the old lady’s legs,
encased in the navy polyester slacks, out onto the road, placing her hand on the top of the door as she hauled her up. ‘Hang on tight.’ She eased Dorothea round until she could sit back into the chair. The old lady had been completely silent on the journey to the hospital, just staring out of the window at the passing traffic. Now she looked up at Flora, her face a mask of bewilderment and anxiety.

‘It’s OK, we’ve done it.’ Flora gave her a reassuring smile as she tucked the rug securely around her patient’s knees.

The x-ray department was packed. Flora asked how long it might be until they were seen, but the unsmiling receptionist, clearly used to this question, merely shrugged. ‘We’re running late,’ she intoned, pointing to the blackboard on the wall on which was scrawled in chalk,
Current waiting time, approx one hour
.

Flora pushed the chair to the end of a row of seats and put on the brake.

‘Might be a long wait,’ she told Dorothea.

‘I … don’t mind. I find waiting rooms entertaining.’

‘You do?’

Dorothea’s eyes flickered with a smile. ‘I don’t get out much these days.’

Flora grinned back. ‘True. Well, Rene will be here soon. Do you want anything to drink? I’ve brought some water.’ But the old lady waved her hand to indicate she didn’t.

Flora drank some water herself. She wasn’t feeling any better, she was just functioning on autopilot, looking forward to the moment when she could lie horizontal again, and sleep. Blurred thoughts of Jake strung through her brain, making her feel alternately uneasy and liberated; her body felt almost bruised. But perhaps, whatever happened next between them, Jake’s touch might have begun to expunge the memory of Fin’s.

The x-ray, when it finally happened, was over in minutes; undressing Dorothea and dressing her again seemed to take hours and was exhausting. Rene fussed around her friend, making everything more stressful for Flora, and probably for Dorothea too, but it was finally done, and Flora wheeled the chair out towards the exit with relief. Rene moved ahead to open the door to the lifts.

‘Flora … Flora, wait.’ The voice came from behind her and a tall figure leaped to her side.

21 September

Flora stopped, clinging onto the chair handles as she realised who it was. She saw Rene waiting, holding the door open, but she couldn’t move.

Fin was grinning from ear to ear. ‘God, is this a stroke of luck or what! I’ve been dying to see you again after the supermarket, but I didn’t know where you were.’

‘You’re here for an x-ray?’ She asked, realising how stupid her question was. Why else would someone like Fin be hanging around a hospital x-ray department?

He nodded. ‘I’m still getting pain when I walk, and they thought it might be some gruesome condition where the hip begins to crumble because the blood’s been cut off … altogether too much information.’

‘Avascular necrosis?’

Fin looked impressed. ‘That’s the one.’

‘And is it?’

‘They haven’t told me yet.’

Rene was watching her impatiently.

‘Listen, I’ve got to go,’ Flora said, beginning to move the wheelchair forward.

Fin glanced over at Rene and gave her a charming smile before turning his attention back to Flora. ‘Hey, don’t rush off again without telling me how I can get hold of you. Please.’

‘If you can manage the doors,’ Rene was calling, ‘I’ll go ahead and get the car round to the front.’

‘Thanks, I’m just coming.’ Flora was flustered, her heart jumping in her chest. ‘I’m at Prue’s,’ she muttered to Fin as she walked.

He frowned. ‘You’re living with your sister?’

‘In the basement flat,’ she said.

‘OK …’ He followed her, propping the door open as she moved towards the lift. ‘Could you give me your number though? I’m not sure I still have hers.’

She waited by the lift, hardly daring to meet his eye. She knew she looked a wreck, and all she could think of was Jake’s hands all over her naked body. The lift was taking a bloody age. Fin hovered, his eyes searing into her. Can he
tell what I’ve been doing? she wondered. Not that he had any right to judge.