Persuading Annie (23 page)

The kettle boiled and Annie poured boiling water into the teapot.

She then carried the tray back through the darkened hall and just as she reached the door, she realised she’d forgotten the milk. She stopped outside the door, trying to decide whether to take the tray in and then go back for it or turn back now. Her brain cells seemed to be damaged. But the sound of Jake’s voice made her suddenly alert.

‘She’s more reliable than any of us put together,’ came his whisper through the door. ‘And totally and utterly in control. Underneath that fragile exterior she’s stronger than all of us. You should have seen her beat that bloke to a pulp. Terrifying.’

She heard the others murmur their assent.

‘What I’m trying to say is, if you want something done properly, ask Annie. And she only lives one flight up. She’s the only one I trust. I know she’s working and Victoria’s at home, but – and no offence Charles – I’d just feel safer if we asked Annie to keep an eye on Sophie.’

‘None taken,’ replied Charles. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

So, thought Annie wearily, leaning her head against the door – and then jabbing it away when pain shot through it. I’m the perfect carer for Jake’s new, young, injured girlfriend. How touching.

She opened the door.

‘Who wants a nice cup of tea?’ she said, wondering why her insides were glowing as much as her forehead.

* * * * *

Annie let Edward lean forward and brush her bruised forehead with his lips. It was an unusual way of getting a taster of things to come.

He sat down on the sofa beside her, his arm outstretched behind her back.

‘What time are you popping down to see Sophie?’ he whispered.

‘About half an hour.’

Edward started to caress her hair gently. Maybe an hour, she thought.

Edward looked at her for so long that she started to worry that someone had turned his power button off.

‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’ she asked eventually.

He sighed and moved away, wiping his hand over his face.

‘To be honest, it’s all changed so much since those bloody management consultants have been there,’ he said. ‘Not getting quite the same enjoyment out of it as I used to.’

Annie would have frowned if it hadn’t hurt like buggery.

‘They have to do their job,’ she said softly.

Edward gave her a kind smile.

‘You’re so good, Annie Markham. The world would be a better place if we all gave each other the benefit of the doubt.’

This time she did frown. ‘What are you saying? Don’t you think they’re doing their job properly?’

Edward shook his head slowly.

‘That’s not the half of it,’ he said softly, almost to himself. Then he slowly stood up. ‘Don’t you worry your … battered little face about it.’

For want of anything better to do, Annie smiled up at him.

‘I wondered …’ he started, ‘if we might go for dinner some time? When you can nod without painkillers, of course.’

Annie’s smile grew. ‘That would be lovely,’ she said softly. ‘I’d like that.’

He gave her a wide grin. ‘I’ll call you when I’m in the office with my diary.’

As he left, Annie wondered if it was old age or the recent blow to her head that stopped any squirm of excitement build up in her stomach.

She closed her eyes.

And was back in the alley, in Jake’s arms.

She stood up slowly and went to get her bag. She was popping down to see Sophie again today. To be honest though, she didn’t know how many more days she could do it. Sophie had spent the last two days talking non-stop about Jake. She didn’t care about the age gap and had always liked Older Men. They were so much more experienced than Young Boys.

Annie had nodded slowly, trying hard to push the image of Jake holding her in the alley out of her mind.

And then, as soon as it had started to get dark outside, which it did earlier and earlier each day, Annie had been so conscious that Jake might come home that she had been tense enough to bring on a now familiar evening headache. When David had turned up instead of Jake, as he invariably did, it had been an effort not to be bad-tempered with him, such was the letdown she felt. This couldn’t go on. Jake and Sophie were clearly an item. She had to get used to it.

She picked up her bag and her door keys before looking round the room. Just as she went to turn the light off, the phone went. It was Susannah.

‘Darling, how are you?’

‘Oh, nothing a good holiday couldn’t help.’

She really wasn’t in the mood right now for a business update.

‘Ah, well, my dear, I might have the perfect solution. Edward is taking a trip to the New York office to update George on his change of tactics since the management consultants have helped out—’

Oh yes? thought Annie. Why hadn’t he mentioned it? Or was that why he had suddenly made a move on her after waiting so long?

‘And I think I may join him out there in a few weeks. I wondered if you’d like to pop out before me. Do you the world of good, a change of scenery.’

Annie mused on the possibility. She didn’t much like New York – too noisy for her tastes. Then she thought of Sophie and Jake. Downstairs. She was owed weeks of holiday from the gallery – and she could even do some important research in SoHo. Yes, time off was due to her.

‘And of course, if you go out there soon,’ continued Susannah, ‘you can update me on all the business developments. Be my little New York spy. You’re the only one I really trust. So you’d be really helping me out.’

‘I’d love to,’ Annie said firmly into the phone. ‘Sounds great.’

‘Wonderful!’ exclaimed Susannah. ‘Victoria and Charles are going too – with the boys. A family holiday.’

‘Wonderful,’ murmured Annie into the phone, her head starting to throb.

17

‘HI ANNIE, D’YOU
fancy a bit of tender loving care this Sunday?’ asked Cass over the phone one evening. Her two weeks’ waiting to hear whether or not her embryos had survived were driving her mad. She had to go out.

‘I’d love it,’ answered Annie. ‘But we were going to go to the Heath and then tea in Hampstead.’

‘We?’

‘Victoria and the boys.’

‘Oh.’

‘Would you like to join us?’

Cass thought about it for a moment. She couldn’t think of anything worse.

‘Yes thanks, that would be lovely.’

* * * * *

Victoria was the centre of attention. Her figure was at its prime – she knew it – and her eyes were sparkling with youth and vitality. Men were casting her approving, animal glances wherever she went.

It was wonderful, but she wasn’t remotely interested. She
was being chatted up by a charming ex-boyfriend whom she knew had never stopped loving her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her flat stomach. Somehow they both knew that tonight – just tonight – they could do what they wanted. And they both wanted the same thing.

‘Shall we stay for one more drink,’ she was asking him now, knowing full well what his answer would be, ‘or shall we go back to my place?’

He gave her a smile that should have come with a government health warning and leant in close enough for her to feel his warm whisky breath on her cheek.

‘Can I play on my Nintendo?’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Bertie’s woken me up. I think he’s done a wee-wee in bed.’

Victoria felt her body being dragged, lifelessly, away from her dream. She opened an eye.

Harry was hopping from foot to foot beside her. The room was pitch black.

‘Mummy, can I play on my Nintendo?’ he repeated. ‘Bertie’s woken me up. I think he’s done a wee-wee in bed. He’s crying. Can I play on my Nintendo?’

Victoria’s eyelid collapsed back down again. She didn’t even have the energy to cry. Please God, she thought to herself. I’ll never eat a whole chocolate cake in one go again as long as I live. Just get this child out of my room.

‘Mummy?’

‘What time is it?’ she asked him, her voice rasping and hoarse.

He looked at her digital alarm clock. Lots of bright red lines.

‘Um,’ he said hopefully.

Victoria dragged her head to face the clock. She groaned loudly.

‘Have you woken me before five in the morning just to ask if you can play on your Nintendo?’

‘Um,’ said Harry hopefully, again. Didn’t sound too unreasonable to him. He’d waited for hours already.

‘Come back when I’m awake.’

‘When?’

‘When you’ve finished college.’

She drifted back to sleep, but her ex-boyfriend had gone. The noise of a four-year-old shifting from foot to foot next to her head was still there.

‘Harry,’ she croaked.

‘Yes,’ replied Harry quickly.

He leant in to her so as to hear her soft whisper better.

‘Be a good boy and leave home.’

Pad pad pad pad next to her head.

‘Mummy?’

‘Ugh?’

‘Can I play on my Nintendo?’

‘Ask your father.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why?’

‘He’s asleep.’

Somewhere, somehow, Victoria found the energy to start crying.

‘
I
was asleep, you wretched child!’

‘But you aren’t now.’

‘And whose fault is that?’

‘Can I play on my Nintendo?’

Victoria motioned him to come nearer and whispered in his ear, still with her eyes shut.

His ear was a centimetre from her mouth. She breathed in his sleepy-child smell.

‘Go to your father and shout
Fore
in his ear. Loudly. He’ll be very proud.’

Harry didn’t move for a moment.

Then pad pad pad pad next to her head.

‘Mummy, can I play on my—’

‘YES!’

The padding went away. Ah bliss! At last. Silence …

Victoria was back at school. All the desks were in a circle, which was unusual. The English teacher cocked her head to one side and stared fixedly at Victoria. Well, one eye did. The other one stared fixedly at the hockey pitch. Victoria never knew whether or not her teacher was looking at her. Slowly but surely Victoria turned her head to look at her schoolmate. Her schoolmate had slowly but surely turned her head to look at her.

‘Victoria,’ commanded her teacher. Victoria’s schoolmate breathed an audible sigh of relief.

‘What does Othello really think of Cassius?’ asked the teacher.

Victoria’s mind went blank. Othello? Cassius? She could almost hear the vaults of her brain echoing shut. Luckily her schoolmate leant close to her and whispered in her ear. To her amazement, the teacher didn’t seem to notice. Victoria listened carefully to what her friend had to say.

‘Mummy, I did a wee-wee in my bed’, she said clearly.

Victoria repeated the words out loud and to her horror, the whole class started laughing at her. She opened her eyes quickly.

Paddity paddity pad by her head.

‘Mummy, I did a wee-wee in my bed,’ came the voice again, full of heart-wrenching remorse.

Without letting her mind catch up with her body, Victoria
heaved herself out of bed, picked up Bertie and carried him into his bedroom. He buried his head in her neck and started crying.

‘It’s OK,’ she whispered. ‘Wee-wees are fine. It’s only when you kick your brother in the neck that Mummy gets testy.’

After she’d stripped his bed and washed Bertie, she realised there was nothing for it. He was wide awake.

Oh God, why wasn’t Annie awake yet? It was all very well Annie helping in the day, but it was the night time that was the bugger. It was pure genuine torture, nothing less. If they ever wanted to get information out of a spy, they should just make him look after two boys under five for a few months. Anyone can be a mother when they’re wide awake. Charles didn’t have a clue how hard it really was. Why wasn’t he awake yet? She’d tutted loudly enough to wake the devil. Why the hell was she awake? It wasn’t even six o’clock yet and she was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, reading a book about a teddy bear’s knickers to her youngest son for the third time. The rest of the world was asleep – she was totally alone. Her eyes felt like they were being dragged down by sandbags, her body seemed to be on a different time clock from her brain. It was like jet lag without the tan.

The book dropped to the floor. Her breathing mingled with Bertie’s. Sensing that her son had grown heavier in her arms, she managed to prise open her eyes. He was asleep. Carefully, she lifted him, ever so gently, into his bed, dreading the moment when he’d have to leave her arms because that was when he usually woke up and started crying. No, he was fast asleep. She allowed herself one brief moment to watch him and marvel at the way he breathed in and then out, before turning away from his bed and tip-toeing out of his room. She could catch another hour in bed before the boys woke properly.

She inched his door open, her eye still on her sleeping son.
She crept, cat-like, out of his room. She shut his door silently and turned round without making a sound.

She came face to face with Harry.

‘Mummy, my Nintendo’s broken. Will you play racing cars with me?’

* * * * *

Later that day Cass and Annie strolled wearily down Hampstead High Street behind Victoria who was pushing the double buggy like she was in a marathon. They had all spent a blustery hour on the Heath.

Cass and Annie would have been happy to have gone to the usual Coffee Cup, but Victoria didn’t like it there.

‘The chairs are uncomfortable, there’s never enough room for the boys and the food is uninspired, Bertie not NOW,’ she had explained.

Cass and Victoria had never really hit it off but they both promised to be on their best behaviour today, for Annie’s sake.

‘I hear all business meetings with the chief exec are going well,’ grinned Cass at Annie as soon as they all sat down at the café table.

‘We-ell,’ answered Annie hesitantly. She looked over at her sister who was telling Bertie that if he whined once more she was going to return him. He was still under guarantee.

‘Edward seems to be worried about the way things are going—’ she attempted.

‘You know what I mean. Mum said there’s so much chemistry in the meetings she needs a bunsen burner and some goggles.’

Annie allowed herself a quiet, glowing smile. She’d forgotten how nice it was to have her ability to attract confirmed.