2009 - We Are All Made of Glue (17 page)

He’d only taken the backpack when he went away, so the extra stuff in the carrier bags must have been presents. There was even a present for me from the Sinclairs—an enormous box of Belgian chocolates, a bit similar to the one that I’d sent up for them, but bigger and more expensive.

“How was your Christmas?” I asked.

“Fine.”

There was something scarily grown-up about the way that Ben had handled the separation between me and Rip; it filled me with admiration and awe. He never played us off against one another—he was fiercely loyal to both of us. But I was burning with spiteful not-grown-up curiosity to find out what had happened at Holtham at Christmas.

“So what made you come back early?” I said it very casually.

“Oh, I just got fed up.”

I might have believed him and just left it at that, but I remembered the phone call, his trembling voice at two minutes to midnight. That was more than just fed up.

“And Stella? Was she there?”

“Yeah. But then she left. I think she went to stay with her boyfriend.”

I’d sent a present for her, a hand-made silk shawl in different shades of rose—she would look lovely in it—it was her colour. I was hoping she’d ring, but all I’d got was a text message.
Thanx mum great prezzy happy xmas c u soon xxx
.

§

Although I’d left him a message before Christmas, it wasn’t until the morning of New Year’s Eve that Mark Diabello phoned me back. I remembered I’d been trying to get to the bottom of Mrs Shapiro’s turned-off water, and I was sure that either he or Nick Wolfe were responsible.

“Mrs Sinclair. What can I help you with? Did you see your aunty over Christmas?”

So, okay, I hadn’t been quite truthful either.

“Look, Mr Diabello, I just want to know what’s going on. You offer Mrs Shapiro half a million for her house. Then you up it to a million, just like that. Then your partner offers her two million.”

There was only a second of hesitation.

“With a unique property like this, Mrs Sinclair, it’s difficult to arrive at an accurate evaluation, because there’s nothing out there on the market to compare it with. At the end of the day, the market value is—how can I put it?—whatever the highest bidder will pay. That’s why I suggest we float it on the market and see what offers come in. Does that make sense?”

Actually, it sounded pretty plausible.

“Then he goes round in the middle of the night and turns the stopcock off.”

“Nick did that?”

“I’m sure it was him. He’d been round there the same morning, plying Mrs Shapiro with sherry.”

A pause.

“I don’t think you should jump to any conclusions, Mrs Sinclair. Do you mind if I call you Georgina?”

Did I mind? Didn’t I mind? I couldn’t hear myself think above the chatter of my hormones.

“I’ll have a word with him if you like. Sometimes he…he does get a bit carried away. He falls for a property, and he forgets that it belongs to somebody else.” He hesitated. His voice changed. “You know, this may surprise you, Georgina, but being an estate agent is a labour of love. You go into this game because you’re passionate about property. The elegant terraces, the cosy cottages, the grand mansions, and the stylish apartments—each property is a life to be lived—a dream come true for someone. Our job is to match the dream to the property.”

“So now you deal in dreams?” I was trying to sound hard-headed, but as he spoke, I was thinking, there’s something exciting about black treacle—it’s subtler, more complex than bland sugary golden syrup.

“We try to make dreams come true, Mrs Sinclair.” There was a breath like a sigh on the other end of the phone. “But you spend most of your time flogging ex-council maisonettes to people who dreamed of something better, and converted buy-to-lets to amateur landlords who want to make a quick buck. Your passion goes cold; you just keep doing it for the money. Then once in a while something really special comes along, something you can lose your heart to. And your brains. Like Canaan House.”

Like I said, I’m not a woman who automatically thinks of sex when she talks to a man, but Mr Wolfe seemed to have started a trend, and I found myself wondering what it would be like with Mr Diabello. And, mmm, I have to say, it was quite a lot nicer. But—I shushed my boy-racer hormones—he
was
still an estate agent, and probably a crook.

“It’s not a property—it’s a home. It’s not for sale,” I snapped.

It wasn’t until he’d put the phone down that I realised the disjuncture in what the two of them had been saying. Mark Diabello had been talking about selling the house at its market value, whatever that was. But Nick Wolfe had wanted to buy it.

“What are you doing on New Year’s Eve, Mum?”

Ben came and sat down on the arm of my chair, interrupting my thoughts.

“I don’t know—I hadn’t thought about it. It’s tonight, isn’t it?”

If Christmas is a time when families get together, New Year’s Eve is a time for celebrating friendship—and most of my friends were up in Leeds.

“I haven’t made any plans, Ben. We could cook something special, crack a bottle of wine, watch the celebrations on TV. What would you like to do?”

He shuffled about on the arm of the chair.

“I was wondering about going out with some mates from school…”

“Yes, do that. I’ll…” My heart leapt. I thought fast. “…I’ll go and see Mrs Shapiro.”

“…but I’ll stop in if you want. If you’re going to be on your own.”

“No, no. Go for it. That’s great.”

I didn’t want him to guess that my heart was crowing. He had friends—he was part of a crowd—my poor broken-in-half boy—he’d spend New Year’s Eve getting drunk and throwing up in the gutter, not sitting at home in front of the TV with his mum.

“Mrs Shapiro and me—we’ll down a bottle of sherry and sing raucous songs. It’ll be a ball.”

Actually, I was thinking, I’d be happy to have a break from Mrs Shapiro and her smelly entourage, and spend the evening in on my own.

Then at about six o’clock the phone rang. My heart sank. I was sure it would be Mrs Shapiro. But it was Penny from
Adhesives
.

“Hiya, Georgie—have you got any plans for tonight?” she boomed. “I’m having a bit of a bash round at my place. Some of the work gang’ll be there. Just bring a bottle, and your dancing shoes.”

She told me the address, just off Seven Sisters Road. I hadn’t realised she lived quite close by. I wondered briefly what to wear, then I remembered the green silk dress. I had intended to get it dry-cleaned, but what the hell.

The Adhesives party

I
could hear the music as I turned the corner into the street. Penny greeted me at the door with a hug, helped me out of my coat and took the bottle of Rioja out of my hand. She was petite and curvaceous, in her mid-forties I would guess, wearing a short black skirt covered with swirls of sequins and a low-cut red top that plunged right down to her bra. Her short curly hair was dramatically bleached and fluffed up on top of her head, making her look like a buxom elf.

“Thanks for inviting me, Penny. It’s great to meet you at last.”

I kissed her on each round warm cheek and followed her through into a room where the lights were turned off and a PA in the corner was pumping out such a volume that I had to put my hands up to my ears. The room was packed with people all swaying and shuffling and the air was thick with several types of smoke.

“They’re all in there.” Penny was swaying her hips as she talked. “Nathan’s brought his dad.”

She gave me a little shove. I lurched forwards. I hadn’t really been feeling in a party mood, but suddenly the atmosphere caught me, and shuffling in time to the beat I worked my way through the press of bodies into the room.

“This is Sheila.” Penny introduced me to a girl of about Stella’s age, wearing a little strip of red satin—the minimum amount of material that you could call a dress—and smooching with a young black guy, about six feet tall, slim and gorgeous. He was holding a wine glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other. There was a lot of hip-thrusting going on. Penny pushed past them and led me deeper into the room.

“Over there, that tall guy. That’s Emery, one of the freelancers on
Prefabrication
. I told you about his little operation?” she whispered.

“No, er, what…?” I wondered what she’d told them about me.

“Here, meet Paul.”

“Paul, this is Georgie. You know, from
Adhesives
.”

Paul was slightly built with a shy stoop and a yin-yang tattoo on his forearm.

He nodded in my direction and carried on dancing, mesmerised by the tiny dark girl spinning her torso in front of him. When I turned round again Sheila had disappeared, and the slim gorgeous guy was thrusting towards me. I felt my knees droop and my pelvis liquefy but somehow the rhythm got hold of my feet, and I found my hips doing unfamiliar gyrations. He moved in closer.

“Hi, beauty. I’m Penny’s cousin,” he shouted above the boom of the music. “Darryl Samson. I’m a doctor.”

Having a doctor like that would be enough to keep anybody in bed, I thought. A bit different to seedy Dr Polkinson at the Kippax surgery.

“I’m surprised any of your patients bother to get better.”

His laugh was deep and juicy.

“I’m Georgie. I’m a…writer.”

“No kiddin!”

I could feel his hips—and not just his hips—pressing up close against me. Then Penny appeared at my side, grabbed me by the hand and pulled me away.

“Come on—you need a drink.” She threw Darryl a warning look, and he spread his palms with an apologetic smile.

“Take care with that one. He’s my sister’s brother-in-law. Don’t believe anything he tells you.”

“Is he a doctor?”

“Ha!” She threw her head back. “I’ve had a few complaints. He told Lucy he was a gynaecologist. And she believed him.”

When I looked back, he was moving across the floor with the same languid insolence as Wonder Boy, thrusting himself in between Paul and the girl with the spinning torso, and in no time they were grooving together, pelvis to pelvis. I stood in the drinks room clutching my glass of red wine and feeling mildly annoyed with Penny, when suddenly she dived into the crowd and pulled someone else towards me. “Georgie, here’s someone you gotta meet.”

I stared. This was incredible. Horn-rimmed glasses. Deep blue eyes. Dark hair swept back from brainy forehead. Yes, definitely hunkily intelligent—all he needed was a white coat. And maybe a few inches. Okay, he was a bit short—but did that matter? Was I so shallow that I couldn’t fancy a man half an inch shorter than me? I was pondering on this when the small intelligent hunk stretched out his hand.

“Hi. I’m Nathan.”

“I’m Georgie.” I felt myself blush. “Good to meet you at last.”

“The Chattahoochee rose.”

“What?”

“Georgia. You know, on the Chattahoochee River.”

“Oh. Geography’s not my strong point,” I mumbled. Already I’d revealed myself as an ignoramus. I noticed he was wearing a midnight-blue silk shirt that matched his eyes, and that the dark designer stubble that shadowed his chin and jaw was attractively flecked with silver.

“Awesome dress.”

“Thank you. It came from…” There was a small vomit stain on one sleeve, but probably he hadn’t noticed.

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Georgia.” That low, confiding voice, with maybe just a touch of the mid-Atlantic about the vowels. I realised that our only topic of conversation over the years had been glue. Should I mention my thoughts about polymerisation?

“Me, too. I was thinking about what you said…” I remembered his New Year’s joke. Glue and a screw. No, that wasn’t the right way to begin. “I mean, after all these years. You know, talking about adhesives over the phone. I thought you must be…” No, that wasn’t right, either. I blushed.

“Mr Bond?”

“Something like that.”

Then an elderly man I hadn’t noticed before, thin and wiry, with a bushy white beard and a glass of red wine in his hand, moved in beside me.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your young lady, Nathan?”

I thought I saw a quick glimmer of annoyance flash through Nathan’s eyes, but he just said, “Tati, this is my colleague Georgia. Georgia, meet my father.”

“Georgia! Aha! State or republic?”

“Er…” Was this another geography quiz? I hadn’t done geography since I was fourteen. At Garforth Comp in those days you had to choose between history and geography. I felt myself turning pink under Nathan’s curious gaze.

I was saved by the chimes of Big Ben. The lights came on. Corks popped and everyone held their glasses out. Nathan grabbed a bottle and topped us both up. I took a great gulp that went straight to my head. Putting his glass aside, the old man crossed his hands, took my left hand in his right one with a surprisingly firm grasp, and reached the other hand out to Nathan. Then he took a deep breath and started to sing.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
…The room went still…
and never brought to mind
…His voice reverberated unexpectedly deep and mellow. What happened next was a bit like polymerisation—suddenly the individual people-molecules milling about in the room grabbed hands and formed a long covalent chain. Soon we were all holding crossed hands and swaying, everybody kissing everybody. I even got a quick snog with Darryl. That was nice. Then Sheila pulled him away and the old man pushed in and covered my face with his bristles. He started kissing me vigorously, a whiskery, spicy kiss—vindaloo. I struggled, but his grip was tight. Nathan came to my rescue.

“Happy New Year, Georgia,” he murmured, as though it was our special secret. For a moment, he held me in his arms. Our lips met. The room started to spin. But the old man squeezed in between us, coming in for another round, so I pulled myself away, grabbed my coat from the pile in the other room, and was out in the street in a flash.

It was incredibly cold. I started to run. The streets were full of revellers, and the sky was full of stars.

§

The house, when I got home, was quiet, dark, and warm. I didn’t put the lights on. I flung off my coat and shoes, lay down on the bed, and almost immediately fell asleep. I woke up two hours later feeling cold, with a disgusting taste in my mouth. It was a mixture of rough wine and vindaloo. But it set me thinking how long it was since I’d been kissed. Actually, it had done me good. I should get out more often.