Falling in Love Again (16 page)

‘After all these years?’

He didn’t answer but wriggled uncomfortably, giving another glance at the door.

‘Are you expecting someone, Paul?’

‘No. Well, not exactly.’ He sighed. She knew it! Here came the excuses! ‘Look Karen, I know what you’re thinking but you’ve got to trust me this time. I’ve had a tough time too. Really tough. And someone told me . . . someone told me I wouldn’t get through it unless you forgive me. That’s why I’m here. To ask your forgiveness.’

Please!

‘It’s not that simple, Paul. I can’t just say it’s OK, like that. What you did caused years of pain although to be honest, I’m sometimes grateful to you. It’s given me a life I wouldn’t have had. I’m a sort of life coach now.’

He frowned. ‘My mother said you sold advertising space.’

‘That too. You do what you can in my situation.’ She stood up. ‘So if there’s nothing else, I’ll be off.’

He made as though he was going to grab her sleeve. ‘I just want to see you. On Saturdays. Not every Saturday because I can’t. But every three weeks or so. Is that all right?’

‘See me? Why? And why every three weeks? Oh I’ve got it. You’ve got someone else, haven’t you?’

He laughed hoarsely. ‘It’s not like that.’

‘Then what is it like?’

His eyes held hers as though willing her to realise he was telling the truth. ‘I can’t say. Not yet. But I will. Just give me time.’

‘Why should I?’

He nodded. ’You’re right. Why should you? I told her it was a crazy idea . . .’

‘Told who?’

‘No one. Well she is someone but not the way you’re thinking. I’m not having a thing with her or anything like that. She’s a sort of friend. Someone who said that if I was going to move on, I needed to say sorry.’

‘Well you’ve done that.’

‘But it’s not enough . . . ’

She was getting up now. ‘I have to go. And please. Don’t try to contact me.’

She pushed her way in between the tables, desperate to get out. Almost running with her cardigan over  her arm, trailing on the ground.

‘Sorry,’ she said to one young girl whose arm she accidentally pushed against. The girl turned round as though to say something.

‘Hayley?’

‘Karen?’

And then she saw him. The older man at the other side of the table whose hand, she realised with a shock, was withdrawing quickly from her daughter-in-law’s right.

‘Hello,’ she blurted. And then rushed out into the street.

21

ED

He dressed carefully in a deliberately casual way. Streaked denims; an untucked Jermyn Street pink and cream striped shirt because real men felt confident in any colour; no tie; an expensive distressed leather jacket; cream trainers and his Rolex.

‘Never let the other side think you’re intimidated by them,’ Dad had taught him. Dressing like this would prove the point.

‘These people are sharks,’ his solicitor had warned during the prelim meeting to discuss strategies. ‘I know you like to talk, Ed, but on this occasion, you’re going to have to shut up. Let me head this one.’

Robert had handled his affairs since his father had stepped down as senior partner at about the same time as Ed’s old man had dropped down suddenly from a heart attack. 

To his annoyance, Robert turned up in a grey pinstripe and in a taxi. He glanced at Ed’s bike which he was chaining to the railings. ‘Still not driving?’

Sod off, Ed wanted to say. Dad must have told him. Robert was one of the few people that the old man had confided in about most things, according to Nancy.

Robert placed a hand on Ed’s shoulder; a gesture which made him feel even pricklier. ‘Now just to reiterate . . .’

‘I know. I know. These men are sharks. But so was Dad. If those papers they sent are genuine, he entered into some secret agreement which they say we’ve got to honour now that some deadline is up. I owe them thousands of pounds, according to them, which I haven’t got, according to you. And I’ve got to keep my mouth shut while you sort out this mess that the old man got me into.’

Good God! Was that a glimmer of a smile around Robert’s mouth? Don’t say the man was developing a sense of humour?

‘Right. In we go.’

There wasn’t even a reception desk, Ed noticed, as he took in the dark, grimy, seedy waiting room. Who were these people and why had Dad not told him about it? After his death, Ed found folder after folder of neat notes explaining exactly what had to be done and how. But there had been nothing about this.

‘Ah. Ed. Glad you could make it.’

A tall, lanky youth with a floppy fringe appeared, in a dark grey suit (nice cut, actually) in a way that suggested he didn’t normally wear suits. Christ he’d opened that door stealthily. Like a cat. And how dare he call him Ed, like that?

‘I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,’ said Ed slowly, ignoring Robert’s warning look. ‘The name’s Edward. Smith, as you already know. And you are?’

‘Giles.’ His voice had a slight Scottish lilt. ‘That’s with an ‘i’ in the middle, not a ‘y’. I don’t like it when people spell it wrong. That’s right. Just Giles . . . No need for you to know my surname. OK?’

After that, Ed was as good as his word. ‘Forget all that balls about not trusting a lawyer,’ his Dad had said. ‘They’re not all crooks. Find a good one and then trust him. Same applies to doctors.’

So he let Robert take charge of the meeting which was just as well because, to be honest, it was pretty much above him (this Giles might be young but he knew his stuff). Even though Dad had groomed him for years on what to do, when and how to bail out, and so on, he was still learning the ropes. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Robert, and also Nancy who was a smart cookie, he might have lost most of Dad’s money a long time ago when the credit crunch first started to bite.

But somehow, partly through luck, he’d managed not only to keep things going but also to make a small profit. And even better, in his book, he hadn’t had to make any of the redundancies that many other companies had been forced to do.

That reminded him. He needed to send some flowers to the dim receptionist who’d had her baby last week; that pretty auburn temp had prompted him just that morning. Please God,  could maternity leave last forever?

‘Thousands of pounds . . .’

‘It was in the contract . . .’

‘Breach of promise . . .’

Ed tried to concentrate but numbers had never been his strong point. Not unless they were chest sizes from the girl’s school next door.

‘Right.’

Robert was getting up, his face tight. Ed had seen that before. It was just a mask to disguise his glee at having got one over.

‘We’ll be in touch.’

The lanky youth nodded curtly. ‘Like I said, Ed. Three weeks is what we’ll give you. No more. And we’re being generous. Very generous. The old man wouldn’t have given us that if the boot had been on the other foot.’

Robert stiffened, shooting a
‘Don’t say anything’
look at Ed. How dare he refer to his father as ‘the old man’. ‘Thank you for your time.’

‘What do you mean, ‘Thank you for your time,’ snapped Ed on the way out. ‘That little upstart needed someone to teach him some respect.’

His solicitor’s mouth tightened again. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re in a strong enough position to teach him that.’

‘I don’t understand.’ A flash of alarm went through Ed. He’d have expected Robert to have slapped him on the back by now and tell him there was nothing to worry about.

‘Have you got any enemies, Ed?’

The question took him by surprise. ‘Enemies? There are more than a few old girlfriends who aren’t very happy with me but I wouldn’t call them enemies. Why?’

Robert was visibly twitching now. Odd. He was the kind of man who never moved a foot unless he thought about it first. And only then if it had an affidavit slapped on it. ‘Because I’ve got a funny feeling about that set up. I reckon they’re a front. Someone’s out to get you, Ed. I can’t be sure of that. But I’m not usually wrong.’

Later that night, Ed poured Nancy a large glass of wine from her own drinks cupboard – which should by rights have been his if he’d been the acquisitive type. After all, it had belonged to his father’s grandfather from the days when he’d been a rubber planter in Borneo. Nancy always said that it – along with everything else – would go to him one day because she never intended marrying again. But frankly, he wasn’t that bothered. She was young, he often told her. If she wanted to get married and blow his inheritance, that was fine by him, provided she was happy.

Now, as he watched his stepmother (amazing that she was only eight years older than he was!) curl up on the sofa with her bare feet peeping out from under her Zara jeans, he idly wondered if she had started dating again. There was a certain sheen about her, although that might simply be outrage at what he’d just told her.

‘These people can’t just try to take over the company like that!’ Her eyes flashed and, not for the first time, Ed could see why his father had been so intoxicated. ‘Your father would never have put himself in that position. It doesn’t make sense.’

It hadn’t to Ed either even when Robert had explained it later back in the office. ‘Why would Dad have signed something that handed over twenty per cent of the shares in return for nothing? And why wait until now for them to demand it.’

Nancy ran her finger round the rim of her glass and sucked it. ‘And have you thought about Robert’s question really carefully? The one about whether you have any enemies, Ed? Someone who might be behind this?’

‘Maybe. You get up a lot of people’s noses in this job.’

Nancy’s coffee-coloured chiffon top was beginning to ride up her chest as she lay back on the sofa, making him feel mildly uncomfortable.

‘Look, Nance, I’d better go. The Kid is meant to be revising for some module retakes which means he’ll be out until 3am and I’ll have to wait up.’

‘Sure.’

Nancy kissed him briefly on both cheeks and her smell rocked him; made him feel like going right out there and finding someone who would hold him; hug him. Make him feel it was all right.

‘You know Ed, you’re doing a great job with Jamie. I didn’t know if you would, to be honest. But when I called round the other day, he actually spoke in full sentences.’

Ed groaned. ‘He doesn’t to me. Or to anyone else. It’s ‘yes’ grunts and ‘no’ grunts except when he’s on the mobile when he talks all the time. And don’t even get me onto Facebook. Someone lent me a teen slang book to make sense of it all. Did you know that ‘Labatyd’ is short for ‘life’s a bitch and then you die’. They say it when they’re fed up. And he keeps saying the F word. I’ve tried to make a joke by telling him not to Foxtrot Oscar but he says I’m sad.’

Nancy laughed delightedly. ‘You’ll make a great dad one day, Ed.’

He felt an unexpected pang at the thought. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’

‘Seriously.’ She moved forward and took both his hands in hers. ‘You’re a dream boyfriend, Ed. Kind, handsome, funny – and with a ticking biological clock. Most women would leap at you.’

Ed picked up his jacket. ‘Thanks.’

Nancy began to laugh. ‘You’ve gone all pink, Ed. You didn’t actually think I was making a pass at you, did you?’

‘Course not.’ He was at the door in seconds. ‘I’ll let you know what happens. Bye.’

Blimey. That was weird! Really weird! For a minute, he had thought Nancy was coming onto him but now he could see she was just being step-motherly. What would she think of him? Honestly, sometimes he would give anything to belong to a normal family.

‘Gone to Klub. C U later.’

What did they teach them at those crammers nowadays? Couldn’t The Kid even spell ‘club’ properly? And what was he doing out at 1.15am anyway when he had school the next day? Last night, it had been ‘a friend’s birthday party’ even though the boy had definitely had a birthday last month as well. The same friend who’d been ‘driving for ages’ even though he was only seventeen. How scary was that?

Ed paced up and down the hall, wondering what to do. He’d texted back as soon as he’d found Jamie’s message on his mobile when he’d got back but needless to say the little sod wasn’t replying. He’d probably claim his battery had ‘run out’.

‘Keep communication open,’ was what Karen had advised at the last meeting. Funny. He’d spent most of his turn asking the others for advice on bringing up a teenager. And although he was still cut up about Tatiana – of course he was! – he was almost grateful to the little so and so for taking his mind off it.

‘I feel the same,’ said Lizzie who came up with some good stuff sometimes, despite being blonde. ‘If I didn’t have the kids to distract me, I’d go to pieces over Tom going.’

Ah here he was now, judging from all the noise. Bloody hell, he’d brought back a couple of girls with him too!

‘Wosup, Big Bruv!’

The Kid came stumbling in through the door in the same t-shirt he’d been wearing all week, an Indian bead necklace and a pair of jeans that had long lost contact with his hips and were now travelling downwards. Despite this he looked incredibly young with a virtually flawless complexion that was lightly tanned from his recent holiday with his mother before she’d gone into the Priory.

But it was the people he was with who caught Ed’s attention. Two very beautiful, extremely pale girls, one on each arm, who could almost be twins with their identical orange and green streaked hair and black cat-like, heavily Kohl-ed eyes not to mention their chalky white foundation which looked as though it had been airbrushed on. Bloody hell!

Jamie grinned at him and the light from the wall lamp caught the bottom lip ring making it wink at him along with the large white Polo shaped earrings he’d acquired in the last week. ‘He-LLO,
humour
.’ He said it with an emphasis on the humour bit, suggesting Ed didn’t have any. ‘You don’t mind, do you, Big Bruv?’

‘He said you’d understand,’ chirruped the one on his left. ’Kept going on about how open-minded you are and all that!’

Jamie planted a kiss on the back of the first girl’s neck. ‘Sorry, babe. Did that hurt? It’s these braces they make me wear – they make great love bite marks!’

Ed found himself rooted to the spot, unable to say anything.

‘Come on, Big Bruv. Don’t act so shocked! It’s not as though they’re complete strangers, are they? Though I agree, it WAS a coincidence meeting them at the club. Don’t you think it’s nang?’

Nang? If he remembered correctly from the teen book, that meant cool. But this wasn’t nang. This wasn’t cool at all. How could Jamie? How could THEY?

One of the girls shook her hair – it had been black when he’d last seen it – and slid towards him. He tried to talk but nothing would come out.

‘Hi, Ed, zarling,’ purred Tatiana, holding out her cheek for him to kiss it. ‘Just as well we ver zare. Your leetle bruther was trying to get een on a fake id. Just as well ve know ze club owner.’ She kissed his cheek. ‘Now tell me. How have you bin doing?’