Someone Like You (27 page)

sneered Danny, who was being ultra-cool because he had pals in the house to impress. He’d then stomped off into his room, slamming the door so hard that the entire cottage shook. Loud music began emanating from the room and Mel had burst into tears.

‘I hate him,’ she sobbed. Leonie hugged her, wondering how she was ever going to find time to doll herself up for her blind date. Penny, who hated rows, was curled up miserably in her basket beside the dresser, her dark retriever eyes two great pools of distress. Catching her mistress’s eye, she whimpered softly. Leonie blew a kiss to the dog over Mel’s head. Penny had that miserable, unwalked look about her.

‘Now come on,’ she said to her daughter. ‘We’ll race to the shops and buy something else for the girls, OK?’

Mel sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. Despite wearing one of her very adult American costumes - a teeny pink long-sleeved jumper and baggy, faded denims - Mel looked younger than her fourteen years when she was upset. ‘OK,’ she said grudgingly.

Just then, the doorbell rang loudly.

‘They’re here,’ Mel wailed, breaking into fresh sobs.

A chatter of excited female voices could be heard and then Abby, the peacemaker, stuck her head round the kitchen door cheerily: ‘Liz and Susie say they want chips tonight, Mel. Is it all right if we go to the chipper, Mum?’

Abby asked. ‘We’ll only be fifteen minutes, twenty max.’

‘You can, but don’t be long. I want you all here before I go out,’ warned Leonie, relieved that the threatened tantrum had been bypassed.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Mel, with a dazzling smile, her good humour restored. ‘Can I borrow some money?’ she wheedled.

‘Take some change from my purse,’ Leonie said. ‘But don’t touch the twenty-pound note.’

‘I promise I won’t,’ Mel said. She danced out of the room and a chorus of, ‘He’s gorgeous!’ could be heard.

‘Is he one of Danny’s friends?’ asked a breathless voice that Leonie identified as Liz. One of Danny’s pals - the Ricky Martin lookalike, she guessed - had obviously briefly stuck his head out of the bedroom door to see what all the noise was about.

‘Yeah, I’ll introduce you to him when we get back,’

Mel replied, as if she hadn’t been threatening murder and destruction to her brother and his pals just seconds before.

The front door slammed and the loud music went up a notch in Danny’s room.

Peace more or less restored, Leonie sighed and wondered if she could risk a speedy bath. When Mel came back she’d be bound to wonder why her mother was getting all dolled up for a mere dinner with two female friends. Mel only bothered with serious beautifying for the male of the species and would be suspicious at longer than normal time spent getting ready for a girls’ night out. Fifteen minutes was enough for a soak, Leonie thought longingly. But Penny had other ideas. Now that there was nobody shouting, she emerged from her basket and stretched languorously in front of Leonie, arching her golden back and then shaking herself, blonde dog hair flying everywhere.

It was obvious she was ready for a walk, and equally obvious that none of the children - all of whom adored Penny and bickered over whom she loved most - had no intention in hell of bringing her out. Leonie relented and said that one magic word: Walkies? She knew that Penny pretended not to comprehend sentences like, ‘Get off the couch!’ or ‘You’re a bad dog for eating the remains of the chicken dinner.’ But Penny instantly understood the word ‘Walkies’.

Danny reckoned she could even spell it, because saying things like, ‘Did anyone take the dog for a W.A.L.K.?’

made her yelp delightedly.

‘Come on, Penny,’ Leonie said, bending down to give her most adoring friend a cuddle, ‘let’s go.’

She pulled her old anorak from the peg inside the back door, took Penny’s lead from the pocket and went out into the October evening. It was nearly six fifteen and it was still light, but a very wintry breeze rushed up the valley, rattling the leaves on the beech trees along the road.

Thrilled to be out, Penny bounced along, pulling Leonie with her as she danced into puddles and joyously scattered piles of leaves. They hurried along the cottages on the road, the wind whistling through Leonie’s anorak. They crossed over the main road and turned left into a winding country lane which went away from the suburban streets of Greystones.

The lane was perfect for walking Penny when it was too dark for their field walk. In the summer, Leonie thought nothing of trekking along the fields, with Penny off the lead, bounding enthusiastically to the edge of the ditches that circled the field and into the trees which bordered it.

But when it was growing dark, she preferred the Janeway where at least you had somewhere to run to if you met a dark menacing figure. She never let Mel and Abby walk Penny in the field: it was too isolated and you never knew who you’d meet.

Tonight, she and Penny walked quickly along the lane, Penny snuffling piles of leaves where the local dogs had left their mark. At every interestingly smelly point, she simply had to pee, looking apologetically at Leonie as she did so, a ‘sorry, but this has to be done’ look on her smiling face. Usually, Leonie didn’t mind what Penny did or how long it took her. But tonight, she was a bit tight for time.

‘Come on, Honey Bunny,’ she said reprovingly, ‘you can’t pee at every spot. Mummy is in a hurry to go home.

We’ll have a long walk tomorrow, I promise.’

‘Hello.’

Leonie nearly jumped out of her skin. She hadn’t noticed the man coming out of the big black gates accompanied by two collies straining at their leashes. Mortified at being caught talking baby-talk to her dog, she mumbled, ‘Hello,’

in reply and hurried on.

How embarrassing. He didn’t look as if he’d call his dogs honey bunnies or even let them on the bed for cuddles at night. A gruff, big bear of a man who’d bought the old house in the woods that used to belong to the doctor, he probably kept his poor dogs outside in freezing kennels.

Leonie marched on. She couldn’t very well turn back yet or she might catch up with him and then he’d think she wasn’t much of dog owner, giving Penny such a short walk.

It was half six but she kept going with Penny straining delightedly at the lead in front of her. After another ten minutes, Leonie realized she’d never get to have a shower at this rate, never mind a bath, so she turned for home, walking as fast as she could.

When she opened the kitchen door, a blast of warm air greeted her and the pungent aroma of fat, greasy chips from Luigi’s made her realize she was ravenous. The girls were sitting around the kitchen table, all eating daintily.

Recently, Mel had been picking delicately at her food, eating in an exaggerated fashion like a supermodel determined to make a lettuce leaf last ten minutes. But at least she did eat, Leonie thought. Abby, on the other hand, didn’t appear to be eating at all. She was pouring orange juice for everybody, listening while Liz told a convoluted story about her impossible French homework and how the teacher ought to be shot.

‘Hi, Mrs Delaney,’ chorused Liz and Susie, the French story drying up immediately.

‘Hello, girls,’ Leonie said, repressing the impulse to steal a chip. ‘You’re not eating, Abby?’ she asked.

‘I’ve had mine,’ Abby said quickly. ‘I was starving.’

‘OK, girls, I’ll leave you to it.’

Fifteen minutes later, Leonie was driving down the road, hoping she didn’t look a complete fright. Bob would be expecting some glamorous type rattling with jewellery and confidence, no doubt. And he was getting a dishevelled Earth Mother who probably smelled of chips, perspiration and eau de veterinary surgery, thanks to nothing but a speedy scrub in the bathroom with a flannel. The last squirt of Opium in the bottle had definitely not been enough.

The China Lamp in Shankhill had opened a few months ago but, looking at the redbrick building which seemed strangely familiar, Leonie realized she remembered it aeons ago when it had been the Punjab Kingdom. She’d been there when she was still married to Ray. Aeons indeed.

She parked outside and got out of the car, willing herself not to look in the mirror to primp. The remains of her early-morning make-up would have to do. She was a normal, modern woman who was going on a blind date.

Lots of people did it; there was no need to be nervous, really.

Once inside, her courage vanished and she nearly bolted out the door. How did you ask for a man you’d never met before? March up to a waiter and purr: ‘Can you tell me, where’s the single bloke in the tweed jacket and jeans? I’m his date for the night. The name’s Desiree.’ She felt herself go weak with embarrassment at the thought. This was a ludicrous thing to be doing. She should be at home watching the telly, chatting to Mel and Abby’s friends, finishing up the remaining few chips and washing up after Danny’s next commando raid on the fridge, not here, waiting to see a strange man

‘Leonie?’

She blinked and focused on the man in front of her. He was indeed wearing a tweed jacket and jeans, along with a very nicely ironed pale blue shirt. She looked up. He was tall, too. Very tall. And he hadn’t been joking about the going bald bit, either. His sparse hair was confined to a fast-disappearing tonsure. But he had a kind face, thin and tired perhaps, but still kind. Not Psycho material, thankfully.

‘Bob?’ she said with a strained smile.

‘That’s me!’ He kissed her awkwardly on the cheek. ‘So nobody knows we’re meeting for the first time,’ he said cautiously. ‘I thought it’d be a bit obvious if we shook hands, you know, classic signs of a couple who’ve never met before. Let’s sit down.’

He darted over to a table in a corner and held a chair out for Leonie, as if he was very keen to get her seated.

She didn’t think they stood out like a personal ad sore thumb. Neither of them had a red rose clamped between their teeth or a copy of Time Out under their arm.

She sat obediently and the waiter arrived with menus, the same waiter she remembered from the Punjab Kingdom days, Leonie thought in surprise. When he was gone, she looked at Bob and tried to remember what you said on first dates.

‘So,’ she said brightly. ‘Nice to meet you. Finally.’ She knew she was smiling again, a big fake grin.

‘You too,’ Bob said, a similar smile painted on his face.

‘Er, will we look at the menus first?’

‘Yes!’ Leonie responded. Anything to avoid having to start the conversation. She pretended to look at the set menu details and surreptitiously tried to study her date.

He looked fifty-something instead of forty-something; maybe it was all that teaching. His hair was greying and his face was quite lined. Then again, she couldn’t talk.

Every morning when she studied herself in the mirror, her face looked a little more like a road map of Paris, complete with peripheriques in red.

Bob had nice dark blue eyes, friendly but a bit anxious.

She could easily imagine him at the top of a classroom, gravely trying to educate young minds into the arcane mysteries of … what?

‘What do you teach?’ she asked, delighted to have hit upon a line of conversation.

Bob’s eyes lit up. ‘Maths and physics.’

Leonie’s smile faltered. If he’d said biology or history, she’d have a hope of making sensible conversation. But physics and maths … A vision of Sister Thomas Aquinas came to her, standing at the blackboard and waiting for a clueless fifteen-year-old Leonie to recite Theorem 2.3. Sister Thomas Aquinas had had a long wait, if Leonie remembered correctly.

‘Gosh,’ she said helplessly, ‘I’m not exactly the most mathematically minded person in the world ‘

‘It’s OK,’ he interrupted her. ‘Most people aren’t. Particularly the kids I’m teaching right now.’ He grimaced.

‘Anyway, let’s not talk about my job. It’s so boring compared to yours. My ex always says I could enter the Olympics in the Most Boring category when I get started about my job. Tell me about yours instead.’

Leonie filed away the bitter mention of his ex (girlfriend or wife?) for further analysis and went into a spiel about her job and how one minute you were holding some sweet little animal and the next, you were squealing with pain from a bite from the cuddly successor to Jaws. Laughing about it broke the ice and Bob was soon telling her about his beloved terrier, Brandy, a charmer with a fondness for fig rolls and licking the remains of Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur out of glasses.

‘He sounds lovely,’ Leonie said. If Bob had a dog, then things were looking up. She could never go out with someone who didn’t adore animals.

‘Of course, he’s not with me any more,’ Bob added with a sigh. ‘He lives with my ex and her husband. She has more space and it’s only fair. I’m out all day, you see. She’s there with the baby.’

‘Oh.’

The waiter never knew how close he came to being kissed for arriving precisely then.

‘We’re ready to order,’ Leonie said brightly.

‘I’m not sure what I want,’ dithered Bob.

The waiter began to move away.

‘NO!’ Leonie said loudly. ‘It’ll only take a moment to decide.’ At least ordering would get them off the subject of ex-partners.

But there was to be no joy on that score. Bob wasn’t to be deterred. Obviously labouring under the opinion that any new inamorata had to know all about the previous ones, he considered it his duty to tell Leonie as much as he possibly could about Colette. By the time the crispy duck had arrived, Leonie knew more about Colette than she did about Bob. Colette was also a teacher but had taken a career break to have her first baby. She lived in Meath, was doing an aromatherapy course in her spare time and had been extremely gifted at the violin, if only she’d kept it up.

‘You’ve got to move on, though, haven’t you?’ Leonie announced firmly when she’d had enough of both Colette and the duck. ‘That’s why we’re here, Bob. To move on.’

She gave him an earnest look, the one she saved for telling children in the surgery that pets were a responsibility and had to be looked after, not just cuddled once and dumped back in an unclean cage.

‘Yes,’ Bob said passionately, as if he spent endless hours thinking about the concept of getting on with your life.