Someone to Watch Over Me (17 page)

‘No, much more like Damian Lewis, I promise you'll love him.'

When the two of them did eventually meet, it wasn't an auspicious beginning. Damian was anxious about meeting someone so important to Carrie and who had a lot of influence over her. Too much influence, in Damian's view, although he managed to keep the thought to himself. They had arranged to meet at an Italian restaurant off Tottenham Court Road where Jen and Carrie used to eat when they were students and had something to celebrate (and the funds to celebrate with). The two of them had toasted the end of exams, the finding of new flats and the acquiring of jobs at their corner table right by the bar, so as far as Damian was concerned, the place was heavy with history that he had had no part of. Damian had a tendency to sulk when Carrie mentioned any experiences that he hadn't shared with her. He thought that her life should be wiped clean until the moment when he first clapped eyes on her sitting at her desk with that soft mouth and the way she had of tucking her hair behind her ear. Prim, but also so sexy it gave him a hard on.

Jen was late for their meal, which enraged Damian. Unless the person had a bloody good excuse, like being tied up by bank robbers or swept up in a tsunami, he considered tardiness the height of rudeness. When she finally arrived in a plum-coloured coat large enough to house several small children, the first thing she did was to send him out with a peremptory wave of her braceleted arm to pay for the cab that was waiting outside. As the evening progressed, Damian decided that Jen was too fond of the sound of her own voice and Jen decided that Damian was manipulative and controlling and she didn't like the way he sucked up his spaghetti. Molly had never forgotten what Jen had said on the phone the next day. The memory of it still made her smile:

‘He seems nice, really nice,' said her friend with her ‘I'm being sincere' voice, ‘although I'd say, if I'm being truthful, he's less Lewis and more Weasley.'

Carrie went out onto the landing and listened for signs of life outside her mother's bedroom door. Pam had exhausted herself that morning during a relentless two-hour make-over session. She had taken down the white living room curtains, washed, dried, ironed and re-hung them. She had hemmed the edges of a piece of fabric that she found in a cupboard to make a throw for the admittedly rather stained cream sofa. She had stuck squares of opaque sticky plastic over the bottom sections of the sash windows to thwart the curious stares of passers-by. She had cleared the dark wood desk and placed pens and pencils in a couple of brightly coloured jugs. The cushions were plump, the floor had a polished gleam and the room smelt of the rose oil that Pam dabbed on her pulse points and which she had clearly sprinkled about the room with abandon. Privately and uncharitably, Carrie felt that her mother was now of an age when drawing attention to her pulse points was not entirely seemly. She felt a little embarrassed that Pam, who was entering her mid-sixties, was still convinced of her power to fascinate, and still refused to succumb to the elasticated waist and the comfortable shoe.

‘The legs are always the last to go, darling,' she said, crossing her Wolford velvet touch stockinged legs complacently. ‘The legs and the eyes. A woman can go a hell of a long way with legs and eyes.' At present it was clear that the aforementioned legs were horizontal and the eyes closed, because there was no sound from within. Carrie heaved a sigh of relief that her mother would not be around to cast quizzical looks over Damian's shoulder at her. On learning that Damian was coming round that evening, Pam had adopted her annoying ‘I am a wise owl' face.

‘Do you think that is a good idea?' she asked in meaningful tones.

‘He's just coming round for dinner, Mum, that's all.'

‘I know, darling, but I'm just saying, in case you were contemplating it, going back won't bring it back,' she said and she touched Carrie's face gently. If she didn't know her mother better, Carrie would have taken her expression for genuine concern.

Damian had come with flowers, as she had known he would. When they had been together he had bought flowers every Friday on his way back home from work. Having been told by her once, long ago, that she liked white flowers best, he never deviated from this rule. In summer there would be roses, iris and freesias, in winter carnations and orchids. She was, of course, grateful for this dogged application but sometimes she wished that his flower giving could be of the I-saw-these-and-thought-of-you spontaneous sort, rather than a habit. This evening he had brought a pot of cyclamen encased in a cellophane bubble, a flower, if ever there was one, designed to be hot pink, which looked somehow diminished in this snowy version. As she took the flowers and his coat she thought that he looked strained. He had the sort of thin, tight skin that showed his health and mood like a mirror. A couple of late nights revealed around his eyes as the purple of a fading bruise, a cold quickly rendering the space between nose and mouth a rough red.

‘I've told her we're over,' he said almost as soon as he had sat down and she had handed him a glass of wine.

‘Who?' said Carrie, knowing full well, but playing for time.

‘Sarah. The person … the woman I've been seeing …' he said. Carrie knew that he was looking at her as if he expected some response, but she didn't for the moment know what to say.

‘It wasn't fair to her. Not when I'm hoping for you.' He paused. ‘You do know I'm hoping for you. For us. Don't you, Carrie?' He got up then, and put his arms around her and she shrank against him, because there didn't seem to be any other place to go. He took their wine glasses and put them on the mantelpiece and he pulled up her jumper and put his hand under her bra and she felt so sad it took away the other feelings that she might once have felt. But then they were on the sofa and he pulled at the zip on her jeans and she felt his hardness against her and she felt the shape of herself blooming under him and for a while she forgot everything else, even the fact that Pam might walk in at any moment and object to what they were doing on the new throw.

After they had made love, Carrie made tea and Damian looked at the photographs of his son. ‘There are still days I don't believe it,' he said and when Carrie looked at him she saw no blame in his face. Damian may have managed to forgive her but she would never forgive herself. She knew that there was nothing she could ever do that would atone for the way she had lost him.

‘I love this one of him with the fishing net around his head,' said Damian, tracing the contours of his son with a finger. ‘He was so full of life.'

‘Yes,' said Carrie absently. Something in one of the photographs had caught her eye. The one of Charlie in the foreground and the people they had set up camp next to in the background. The woman kneeling on the towel in profile was the woman that Carrie had seen twice in as many days. The same woman and the same boy who had been brass rubbing in Ely cathedral. She felt a prickling sensation across the back of her neck and on the tips of her fingers. What were the chances of that happening? Was this more than a coincidence? Carrie thought again of the way she had turned to look at them, almost despite herself, as though she had been meant to see them.

A knock at the door brought her back to herself and, straightening her clothes and smoothing down her hair, Carrie went to see who it was. Oliver Gladhill was standing on her doorstep clutching a bottle of wine. Perhaps it was the faint flush that still lingered halfway up her neck or the fact her lips surely looked just a tad more swollen than they usually did, but something caused Oliver Gladhill not to press his suit when she said that she would love to invite him in but was too busy.

‘Another time, perhaps,' he said, wondering who the lucky bastard was that had made her look so distracted.

Carrie woke before Damian and lay looking at his face as he slept. Although it felt strange to wake up with him after all this time, his face was still intensely familiar to her and she saw Charlie in the curve of his jaw and in the creases in his eyelids. Whilst Damian had clearly taken her response to his question about their future together as a yes, Carrie still wasn't really sure of her feelings. She wondered if perhaps much of what she was feeling was about her gratitude for his apparent forgiveness. On the other hand, how could she not love him after all they had been together? How could she not love a man with Charlie's eyelids? As if sensing her scrutiny, Damian opened his eyes and smiled at her.

‘What's for breakfast?' he said.

‘Bread in the bin, juice in the fridge, you'll have to get it yourself,' she replied getting out of bed and reaching for her dressing gown. ‘I've got to be at the shop in twenty minutes.'

After a quick shower, she dried her hair and then pinned it up with two diamanté-embellished grips. She put on a navy wool skirt from Reiss, a cream polo neck, thick maroon tights and some soft ankle boots entwined with straps that she had bought in Spain several years ago. Still clutching a piece of toast and Marmite, she kissed Damian goodbye.

‘When will I see you again?' he asked, wiping Marmite from his mouth.

‘I'm not sure … I'm busy for the rest of the week,' she said, which wasn't strictly true, but she felt she needed time to gather herself, to try and work out what she really wanted. Damian heard the doubt in her voice.

‘This is OK? Isn't it, Carrie?'

‘Of course,' she said, stroking his face. ‘I just need a bit of time to get used to it. It's all so sudden. I'll ring you …'

She left the house quickly, before he had a chance to ask her any more questions. Damian got up and went into the front room from where he could watch her unlocking her bike without being seen. He saw her arms go up to re-fasten her hair, the side of her breast in its soft covering, the way she swung her leg backwards like a boy to get on her bike, and he wondered how he could have ever let her go.

There was no sign of Jen at the shop, although she was usually first in. The day before Carrie had taken delivery of some more new stock and she needed to clear some space on the shelves to accommodate it. She put the kettle on and then checked the voicemail messages. There were two messages from the charmless Manchester artist enquiring about sales of his paintings, four messages from customers and one from Jen. She sounded out of breath:

‘Hello Partner! Jen speaking. Just to say, might be just a tad late in this morning … umm overslept … sort of … umm … will bring cake and coffee and abject apologies by eleven … at the very latest …' Carrie could have sworn that she heard a muffled laugh and what could only have been bed springs creaking in protest.

Carrie made herself a cup of sweet chai purchased from Al Amin on Mill Road. She read the message attached to the string on the tea bag.

Those with an open mind will catch the butterflies.

Humph, she thought, I don't want butterflies whirling around between my ears, I've got enough on my mind without that. The image of the woman and her boy on the beach rose up again but she shook the thought away, seized the scissors and began to attack the tape on the first of the boxes. Carrie was delighted with the new stock. There were cushions appliquéd with tulips, multi-coloured bird stickers to put up on blank walls, chandeliers made out of twisted gold metal and turquoise beads, wine goblets with stems like mini ice sculptures of angel wings and a consignment of old damask tablecloths fringed with cotton lace. There was also a whole box of party stuff; cocktail shakers, little plastic ballerinas to hang from the rims of glasses and strings of paper pineapples and tiny lanterns. Carrie decided to make a cocktail party window display and as a centrepiece dressed one of the dummies in a beautiful strapless and fishtailed evening dress in the most wonderful rich claret colour. She was just stepping back to decide whether the dress was best accessorised with a black fake fur shrug or a silver cashmere stole, when there was a tremendous clattering on the window. She turned to see Jen grinning from ear to ear, two large coffees in a tray in one hand and a white beribboned box in the other.

Over frothy coffee and the most delicious butterfly buns topped with lemon cream, Carrie gave Jen the third degree.

‘Did the online lover make the earth move then?' she asked a blushing Jen, who despite being transformed by love, had still managed to get lemon cream all over her face.

‘I'm sorry about this morning, there was just a … a … miscalculation, time wise,' she said, wiping her face with the sleeve of an enormous jumper the same hue and texture as astroturf. It was clear that love hadn't improved her dress sense either.

‘So, this Tom brings you cute little flowers on the breakfast tray, he has a responsible attitude towards potential emergencies and displays great prowess under the duvet. Anything else you have found out?'

‘Yes,' said Jen. ‘Plenty … He likes blackberries, blueberries and raspberries, but strawberries make him sick. He once got part of his ear blown off by a firework. He loves thrillers,
Hancock's Half Hour
and Emmylou Harris. He takes size nine shoes and can only wear socks without seams. He likes walks that go in a circle, not walks where you have to go back the way you came. He collects round stones on beaches and makes spirals of them on the windowsills in his flat … he …'

‘OK, OK, I get it. He is an all-round wonder of epic proportions and you have fallen for him, hook, line and sinker.'

‘Something like that.'

‘He sounds great, not sure about the whirly stones though. What sort of man spends time arranging stones in little patterns?'

‘A creative one,' said Jen, loftily.

During a busy afternoon that saw the back of three tulip cushions, two chandeliers and several other items, Carrie let slip that she had been seeing Damian again. Carrie could tell that the news had made Jen anxious because she had started to pull strands of wool out of the sleeve of her horrible jumper.