Persuading Annie (13 page)

‘Oh I doubt she’d want to do that,’ said Jake quietly.

Everyone looked at him.

‘I mean … I’m sure she’s far too busy to want to spend time with her father’s employees,’ he finished quickly. ‘More dessert anyone?’

‘She’ll have cancelled the sitter by now,’ said Victoria. ‘She wasn’t feeling up to going out tonight. Anyway if there’s one thing that Annie likes to do it’s fuss over children, especially when they’re sick.’

‘Well, we’re very grateful, anyway,’ said Charles quickly.

There was a lull in the conversation. Victoria’s tone made everyone a little unsure as to what the right thing to say was. Everyone except Charles.

‘Ah yes, Annie’s a brick. Now
there’s
someone who’d make a good mother,’ he said without thinking.

Victoria glared at him, as the others all looked at their plates.

‘Shall we remove to the other room for coffee?’ asked Jake quietly.

* * * * *

The next morning was a Saturday and Annie slept in. Charles had arranged to play golf with Jake and had left the flat at seven.

Four hours later, Annie allowed herself the unusual luxury of a leisurely breakfast after slinging on an old vest T-shirt that was too small and pyjama bottoms that were too big and scooping her mass of hair on top of her head. She decided rebelliously that this morning she wasn’t going to shower until her body actually started to smell noxious. For the first time in living memory, Victoria was groomed before her.

Annie was exhausted. She’d been up until 3 am the night before, waiting for the sound of Victoria and Charles’s key in the lock. It was only after she heard it that she realised it wasn’t going to help her get to sleep. She’d eventually fallen into an exhausted slumber after dawn.

‘You missed a fabulous evening,’ yawned Victoria, pouring yogurt over her drained oats. ‘Except for the food, of course. I’d have thought that with-it troubleshooters would be up on their allergies. All I could eat was mushrooms and aubergine. But Jake Mead is gorgeous. I think Fi’s finally met her perfect husband.’

Annie’s throat contracted and she put down her toast.

‘Turns out he studied at your university when you were there,’ continued Victoria, munching loudly. ‘Did you ever meet him?’

Annie shook her head so fractionally that only her eyebrows moved.

‘No, I suppose it’s a big enough place,’ said Victoria, her eyes glazing over.

The front door intercom buzzed in the kitchen. Victoria walked over to it lazily.

‘Hello?’

‘IT’S ME,’ yelled Charles from downstairs, his voice reverberating round the flat.

‘You don’t need to shout, darling,’ said Victoria for the hundredth time. ‘That’s why we got the intercom.’

‘RIGHT YOU ARE,’ shouted Charles. ‘I’M WITH JAKE. WE DECIDED TO GO TO THE CLUB FOR A SPOT OF LUNCH AND A GAME OF TENNIS. NEED TO PICK UP MY KIT, JAKE THOUGHT HE’D POP UP AND SAY HELLO—’

Victoria buzzed them up, delighted.

‘Poor Fi,’ she said over her shoulder to a horrified Annie. ‘A sports widow before she’s even married the man.’ She ran to check her face in the mirror.

Annie’s limbs deadened. Her palms dampened. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. She hadn’t got a scrap of make-up on. Her hair was unwashed. Toxic fumes were escaping from certain regions of her body. And her sweat glands had gone into fourth. She wasn’t ready for this.

She must get out of the kitchen. Yes, that was it, go to the toilet. Her body was stuck static, yet her insides had spurted into action, racing round and round, bumping into each other, collapsing into uncontrollable hysteria and starting again. A complete Norman Wisdom experience was going on in her stomach. She tried to speak but no sound came out.

She heard the front door open.

She sped out of the room.

* * * * *

Ten full minutes later, Annie heard the door slam shut. Thank God. She padded back into the kitchen, humming ‘It’s Raining Men’ fiercely to herself. She walked straight past the kitchen table and over to the breakfast bar where the kettle was. She certainly deserved another coffee after that shock to her system. As she clicked on the kettle, she became aware that someone was in the room with her. She froze.

Someone coughed.

She raised her eyes and looked in the reflection of the window in front of her. Someone had stood up behind her. Annie held her breath and ever so slowly, turned round to face the stranger trapped in the corner of the room behind the kitchen table.

At first she didn’t even realise it was Jake.

A tall, broad man, with short, cropped hair and clear, dark eyes stared at her with a mixture of hostility and fear. She frowned. Was it him? The skin was soft, but there was an unfamiliar shadow round the chin. The cheekbones were pronounced, but they seemed to fit this man’s face better than Jake’s had. The legs were long, but certainly not skinny. And there was no boyish charm.

It wasn’t Jake. Which meant only one thing. She was about to be hacked to death by a complete stranger in her own kitchen.

Phew. For a minute there, she’d thought it was Jake.

The man shifted uncomfortably. And with a horrified squirm, Annie realised that he looked as if he was trying to pluck up the courage to ask for his ball back please.

It was Jake.

Then he spoke.

‘You must be Annie Markham.’

You must be Annie Markham?
The bastard was pretending that they’d never met! In her own kitchen!

Conjuring up sensational powers of self-control, Annie let him live. She then gave him a tight, short smile that didn’t even reach her nose, let alone her eyes.

‘Must I?’ she clipped so dryly that the air seemed to evaporate around them.

They stared at each other, seeing nothing and everything.

‘Aha! So you two have met!’ exclaimed Victoria from the doorway. ‘Fabulous! Jake, this is Annie, my baby sister and
saviour
. Annie, this is Jake, Daddy’s troubleshooter and the entire family’s saviour. He’s about to thrash Charles at tennis. Ah well, boys will be boys—’

‘Oh yes,’ said Annie, her eyes never leaving Jake’s. ‘Boys will definitely be boys.’

She and Jake stared menacingly at each other, involved in an unconscious battle not to be the one to blink first.

For added confidence, Annie decided now was a good moment to place her hands with lazy confidence on her waist. With shock she realised it was flesh on flesh. Oh good God, she was in her too-big pyjama bottoms. They would be happily drifting down her tummy by now. Her life had surpassed itself in degradation. Maintaining furious eye contact, she started inching her hips forward so as to feel how far down her pyjama bottoms had got to. Jesus. She was perilously close to showing Jake what was strictly restricted viewing. Well, restricted to him, anyway.

She tried frantically to decide the pros and cons of pulling up her pyjama bottoms in front of him. Cons: it would show loss of face. Pros: she would be wearing trousers.

Nope. She couldn’t decide.

Was that gurgling noise her brain?

‘Well, they say a good game of tennis is fantastic for de-stressing,’ Jake was smiling at Victoria, taking his eyes briefly off Annie. ‘Though, the state my playing’s got to, I should think it’ll be rather a stressful afternoon.’

Victoria beamed back at his self-deprecation. So sexy in a big man.

Annie grimaced, while using the moment to hitch up her pyjama bottoms.

For a much-needed shot of confidence, she decided now was the ideal stage in the proceedings to cross her arms pointedly – with a hint of accusation that only she and Jake would understand. Thank Christ. Her vest was still on. Ten years old and in dire need of a wash, but still on.

‘If you
really
want to de-stress,’ she said softly, ‘why don’t you just turn your back on everything and run?’

Jake turned back to Annie and tilted his head to one side thoughtfully.

Aha! The old Tilting The Head Thoughtfully trick …

Annie tilted her head too. Extra thoughtfully.

Deuce.

She sensed her pyjama bottoms slipping down again and stopped breathing.

Victoria smiled uncertainly at them both.

‘Yes. Well,’ she said.

Jake turned to Victoria and flashed her a wide grin. Annie almost recognised the boy inside the man.

‘And I’m afraid I must run out on you now,’ he said tightly. ‘Much as it pains me to do so.’

And he turned his back and walked out.

Standing motionless in the middle of her kitchen, arms
crossed, head tilted thoughtfully, Annie realised two things: one, Jake Mead had grown into a pratt. And two, it was possible for hair to sweat.

She turned slowly to the kettle.

As soon as she heard the door slam she started breathing again.

‘Isn’t he just
divine
?’ grinned Victoria. ‘I must phone the girls.’

In the silence, Annie leant on the breakfast bar staring blindly at the kettle. She’d like very much to make herself a coffee, but she couldn’t remember how to.

Jesus Christ, she’d seen him. Been in the same room as him. Made eye contact with him. Spoken to him. Understood him. Wanted to kill him.

Maybe next time he wouldn’t be able to smell her from the street.

Each time will be easier, she told herself, steadying her breathing. Each time will be easier.

Well, it certainly couldn’t get any worse.

‘Sophie and Fi are popping round!’ cried out Victoria. ‘We’re going to take the boys to watch Charles and Jake play tennis.’

Oh God, thought Annie. It just got worse.

* * * * *

Annie declined Victoria’s eventual invitation to spend the afternoon ogling Jake as he beat Charles at tennis. Instead, she spent her afternoon helping out at the charity shop in Hampstead High Street. Four hours of sorting the Nicole Farhi cast-offs from the Gap ones almost took her mind off the morning encounter.

But not quite. As staff and customers buzzed around
her, she couldn’t stop herself from fuming at the new Jake.

‘
You must be Annie Markham?
’

Bastard! Before meeting him, she had idly wondered if they’d mention their past or if they’d both pretend it hadn’t happened – but to be so distant, so cold, so estranged. And to beat her at it. In her own kitchen. She was fuming.

And she’d been in her sodding pyjamas …

As she trudged back to the flat, she tried to judge Jake’s new looks objectively.

Boy, he’d got ugly.

Not exactly in his features – they were still the same and in all fairness, the close-crop hair showed off his eyes and cheekbones to every advantage. But there was a hardness in his face now that was cold and mean. And he’d got so broad in his old age. Bulky almost. It was intimidating.

Heartened slightly by this objective study, Annie decided it was far more healthy for her to pity Jake than to hate him.

Later that evening she changed her mind.

‘Jake did remember you,’ Victoria told her over dinner. ‘Not very complimentary about you though. Said you look twenty years older, wouldn’t have recognised you.’

Victoria was oblivious to the fact that Annie didn’t have enough breath in her body to answer her.

As Charles and Victoria argued over whether it was Sophie or Fi their new friend was destined for, Annie sat silent.

Neither Sophie nor Fi was going to ‘get’ Jake Mead, she concluded to herself as the conversation went on around her.

Because she was going to kill him first.

* * * * *

‘And how did you actually
feel
?’

Dr Blake was beginning to lose patience. Reticence was one thing, but plain stubbornness was a bloody pain.

Jake frowned.

‘Well?’ asked Dr Blake again.

Tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me …

Jake shifted again, making ugly noises in the leather seat.

‘I don’t know what to say,’ he spoke almost inaudibly.

‘Say the truth. Just say how you feel.’

Jake shrugged. ‘Disappointed. Like it’s all a big anticlimax.’

Dr Blake sighed inwardly. Oh
poo
.

‘How did you feel when you saw Annie Markham?’

Another shrug.

‘Like I was looking at a stranger.’

Three successive images flashed subliminally into his mind – far too fast for him to understand, let alone put into words: a kiss of freckles on the back of the neck, tendrils of auburn hair escaping a hair-band, an alabaster stomach curving gently towards him.

He sighed dramatically. How did he
feel
?

He closed his eyes and pictured the scene: Annie’s angry eyes boring into him so that he couldn’t move. And such bitterness in her voice that he almost didn’t recognise her.

‘She’s just a stranger.’

He grimaced at the memory of what he’d said to her. ‘You must be Annie Markham?’ Where the hell had
that
come from? Why did he always say things that actually didn’t make any sense whenever he got nervous?

‘No anger?’

‘Oh yes, anger, but no … chemistry.’

‘Were you … expecting chemistry?’

‘I don’t know what I was expecting.’

Dr Blake nodded serenely. Ooh, she loved denial. It paid for all of Sigmund’s cat food and so many beach holidays that she never needed a sunbed. Was it worth telling him? Oh yes.

‘You do know there’s a word for what you’re going through, don’t you?’

‘What’s that?’

‘Begins with D and ends in a river in Egypt.’

Jake frowned.

‘D-Suez?’

She sighed heavily. ‘That’s a canal, Jake, and thank you so much for proving my point.’

Jake frowned intently at his therapist. He never understood a thing she said.

Dr Blake wondered briefly at how such an intelligent man could be so dim. ‘How do you feel now?’

His voice lowered by an octave.

‘Depressed,’ he said finally. ‘I’ve spent seven years burying myself in my career and for what?’

Dr Blake nodded and let him go on. Clients could mock it, but she knew silence was the psychologist’s most effective tool. That and a firm handshake.

‘That bitch ruined my faith in women – in people. She pretends to be this wonderful person, but she’s actually a manipulative liar.’