“Who is he?” demanded Kate before Cece sat down.
Cece attempted to look indifferent. “He?”
“That’s right.”
Cece sighed, dramatically. “Look,
he
is fun to be around; it has been so long since I’ve had some… fun.”
“Go on,” said Kate.
“I’ll have two of whatever they’re drinkin’, please,” she said to the waiter. “Two doubles will do.”
“C’mon,” I coaxed.
“There is no catch.”
Kate pounced. “Who said there was one?”
“OH! Freaky Jesus, ain’t no big deal.”
“Then share.”
“He’s a foodie.”
Kate snorted. “Hannibal Lector was a foodie.”
Now it was my turn. “How did you meet him?”
“At work.”
Kate asked, face the picture of innocence. “Your work or his work?
“He has been helping me out at Ribbons.”
We stared at Cece while she fidgeted with her immaculate cloud of hair. She had gone blonder still, Marilyn blonde.
“Why didn’t you tell us about him?” I asked.
Kate had another question. “Was he at the relaunch?”
“No, he couldn’t make it.”
Kate’s fingers tapped the table. “He couldn’t
make it
.”
Cece changed tact, turned confessional: “If you
must
know, I was getting email spam;
Date Singles Over 50
. It had
quite
the opposite effect on me. The Jurassic period is over. Robert—Robbie Elliot made me realise this.”
“How young?” Kate badgered.
Cece very definitely changed the subject. “Are we allowed to eat or is this strictly an ambush drinks-interrogation intervention? I’m starvin’.”
“Cece,” Kate and I chorused in unison.
“Twenty, okay?”
We gasped, an impressive theatrical woosh that fluttered napkins.
“Darlins, ain’t planning to marry him. It’s a flirty affair. No golden oldies: new rule. I wanna man with a good heart–and lowest possible cholesterol count on the planet.”
“Do you have anything in common?” asked Kate.
“Well,” Cece paused. “He is very…
athletic
.” She let the word linger and our imaginations do the rest.
Kate screwed up her face while I pressed on. “What does he
do
at Ribbons?”
“He’s been helping me run the place. Ribbons Restaurant Manager was his recent promotion.” We didn’t miss the high-beam of pride in her voice.
Kate looked confused. “Shouldn’t the restaurant manager have a higher profile? We’ve never seen him. At least, I haven’t.”
“That’s cos he is also a student at Edinburgh University. And quite brilliant at both.”
Kate persisted. “I still don’t understand why we haven’t met him.”
“He couldn’t make the Ribbons relaunch because… something came up.”
“Spaceship to Mars?”
“You
will
meet him.”
“Now?”
“He’s at a lecture.”
It was time for me to confess. “I had words with Daisy.”
Cece looked startled. “HUH? What has Daisy got to do with this?”
“We
know
, okay?” said Kate, ordering another round of vodka martinis. “We know.”
Cece nursed her drink and explained, no boom to her voice for once. We had to lean forward to hear. “We had a fight. Robbie didn’t like Jim taking over the relaunch plans. He walked out. We’re working it out–”
She looked apprehensive.
“You can still see him,” said Kate, adopting a tone one would use with paraplegic people offered pioneering epidural treatment–hope. “But never mix business with pleasure.”
Cece’s face fell. “How did I
not
notice it was too much for him? He seemed so confident at work.”
Kate squawked. “Of
course
he’s confident. He’s… like…stepped into the arena of manhood. Raging bull.”
“I’m so hopeless at bein’ single,” sighed Cece. “Such a fool.”
“It doesn’t need to be over,” I said, feeling sorry for her. “Like Kate said, just keep work separate.”
Cece sighed. “Worse, I’m an
old
fool.”
Kate’s parting advice: “Give Daisy the promotion she deserves. The rest will fall into place. For better or worse.”
“Does she hate me?”
Kate handed this one over to me. “Of course not,” I said. “She’s stuck around, hasn’t she?”
Cece brightened and picked up her purse. “I’m heading back to Ribbons.”
I persuaded Kate to have one more drink with me. “You think she’s going to be okay?”
“Cece? She’s definitely going to be okay. We all are.”
We departed with a hug and I headed back to work, thinking about what happens when you let your heart rule your head. I could see Cece’s logic, though: pick a man in his prime and there’s a good chance he will outlive you, not the other way round.
This approach definitely had its appeal although, as Kate was quick to point out that no one, not even twentysomethings, last forever.
The world had gone home. I walked out of the office straight into a night that felt heavier than gold. Back at my apartment, the staircase spiralled into outer space but there was no other way to get to the top. My head felt so heavy it would have been easier to tuck it under my arm for the ascent. I trudged upwards over stone steps worn down from a thousand and some footsteps. I could relate. When I finally reached the top, neighbour Rosalind Thomson was outside her front door fussing over miniature trees, silver watering can in hand.
Working hours, loss of husband and the leisurely schedule of a seventysomething woman didn’t quite connect. Over the last six months, we hadn’t spoken much apart from polite hellos and her asking whether I had heard from Ralph. But, on this occasion, I said: “Do you want to join me for a cup of tea?”
She looked startled as though I’d suggested we go rollerblading. But, if she was thrown at this spontaneous show of new neighbourliness, she recovered swiftly. “We’ll need cake.”
Turning on her elegant heel, she disappeared down her carpeted hallway, returning with Dundee cake from her favourite department store,
Jenners
.
Despite her genuine fondness for Ralph, it was the first time she had been inside his flat and I warned that its white interiors could be as lethal as looking directly at the sun. She was more intrigued, though, by the lack of kettle and the fact that I was making Earl Grey straight from a designer kitchen tap. “I believe I’m behind the times.”
“Never underestimate the comfort of boiling a kettle,” I said, sounding just like my mother.
“Ralph always popped over to mine. I doubt he ever kept milk in his fridge. Or food. He was like a stray cat.”
She glanced around the gleaming surfaces and shiny appliances, noting the sterile surfaces and hanging steel utensils. “An attractive companionable cat.”
I didn’t talk about Harrison but wanted to confess on some level; so I told her about Suzanne’s husband reappearing and our ill-fated detective adventure to Crieff. Ms Rosalind listened, intrigued.
Talking triggered a thought, another fact from Gee when we were younger: “The human body renews itself every seven years,” she said. “Skin and blood are regenerated.” No bedtime Little Red Riding Hood reading for us. Gee would pore over medical magazines. “The skeleton is replaced every couple of years.”
In light of this, it means there is nothing left of the original me. Ted will be different, too. He had returned, a renewed and restored person with nothing left of his original self. Even his backbone had a new identity. Suzanne could take him back but he wasn’t the man he once was. Then again, his biological regeneration of red blood cells and intercostal muscle wasn’t her focus; it was all about the heart.
The conversation flowed. “Seven years is a time to be gone,” said Ms Thomson diplomatically. She listened sympathetically as I talked about tracking down Ted’s lover and how it had gone horribly wrong when we confronted Suzanne with the truth.
“Suzanne is
furious
; refuses to see us. It’s such a mess. All she ever wanted was for her husband to come home.
“Sometimes we need to make our own mistakes and not learn from others. We have to wade through mistakes right up to our chin. I should know; I made five.”
“Mistakes?”
“Husbands,” she clarified.
I whistled. “That’s a lot of wedding cake.”
She laughed, mischievous snort. “I
knew
there was a reason I went back for more.” Her melodic voice was straight off a song sheet. “I’m an expert at choosing cake,” she added, popping a piece in her mouth, “but hopeless when it comes to men.”
Perhaps sensing I was holding back, she added, “You must come to me if you ever need help even if it is just to borrow Winston to take you to work.”
Winston, as it turned out, was her driver who had been faithfully ferrying her around town for 34 years. It was a welcome change in conversation and I also found out that it was his 65th birthday soon and she had no idea what to get him. “He drinks whisky when he’s not driving and watches westerns. I’m afraid I don’t know much more that that; the strong silent type.
“He’ll make you sit in the back, though; even refuses to let me ride up front. He’s a confirmed bachelor,” she added, as if this might explain his insistence on seating protocol.
I confessed about the therapeutic late-night driving addiction I had succumbed to and she offered another sympathetic nod.
Rosalind Thomson turned out to be an excellent late-night tea companion. She talked about her short successful soprano career, which resulted in performances at venues across the UK from Usher Hall to the Wigmore one but it was short-lived success because she retired when she married for the first time.
“You stopped singing?”
“Eventually, yes. I’d hoped to have a family but it never happened–not even with five husbands! In truth I’d left it a
little
late by the time I had married three, four and five.”
I sipped my tea and thought how complicated it was to love one man. Five men took it to another level.
“I loved them all,” she continued. “
Still
love them. If there was a way to mix and match each one, I think I would have found the perfect man.”
“Or Frankenstein,” I cautioned.
She chuckled throatily, hitting the low notes. “Never a truer word spoken.”
Too soon our tea break was over and Rosalind Thomson pressed a powdery cheek against mine as we said our goodbyes.
“Glenfarclas,” I shouted after her a moment before she closed the door.
She turned, puzzled.
“Single malt. For Winston.”
Chapter Forty
Phone Calls from the Edge
No word from Suzanne. McCarthy resurfaced, though. He came to the office and waited downstairs in reception, strong and immovable; still looking like a man who could blow down a house in one puff.
“We need to talk,” he said, not bothering with hello.
We sat opposite each other in the canteen, no drinks for props. Strong sunlight streamed over tables, taking the sting off the air conditioning, but I still struggled to regulate my temperature. Bushfire heat travelled over me and within minutes I was close to burning out.
“You okay?”
I nodded and waited for him to continue.
“Did you ever find your husband’s phone?” he asked, hooking his hands behind his head.
I strung the words together carefully. “No. Did you?”
He shook his head, taking in the view. “We’re working on the theory that an officer
could
have recovered it and incorrectly bagged it. Or it was deliberately moved from the crime scene.” He continued smoothly. “We did get hold of his phone records, though.”
I detected a weight to the words.
You want to get to the point
, I thought,
because I’m holding my breath.
“He called
you
at the time of the crash.”
I gaped at him. “
Me
?”
“The telephone conversation was timed at one minute and 19 seconds.”
“I didn’t… he couldn’t…” I looked over McCarthy’s head at the jagged architectural skyline and finally sucked in a breath.
“Was he on the phone to you while he crashed the car?”
Seconds passed. McCarthy scrutinised me; calculating collateral damage. Was I going to blow apart and take the building down or remain mute? Would we both get out of here in one piece?
I wasn’t stalling, simply attempting to string together the sequence of events in my head: Jim’s gig; Harrison called me; home from gig; bed; the phone call from the hospital.
I struggled with the timeline. “Harrison
did
call me.”
McCarthy sat forward, interested. “And?”
“He left a message.”
“What time?”
“About 11pm, I guess.”
“What was the message?”
“He was going to stay in the on-call room.”
“On-call room?”
“At the hospital. It’s a… like… a room with a bed in it.”
“He wasn’t coming home?”
“He was supposed to work a 48-hour week but some weeks it was up to 80 hours. Sleeping isn’t, wasn’t… well, exactly prioritised.”
“He stayed away often?”
“Often enough and didn’t always get a bed between shifts either. Sometimes the sofa in the hospital library.”
On a fence post.
“The phone records show he called you again at around 2.30am.”
I turned numb.
“What is it?” McCarthy leaned forward, further, sniffer dog.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t
know
?”
“I d-don’t remember.”
I felt physically ill and needed to drop to the floor or stick my head in ice. McCarthy stood up. “Have a think.”
I zombied back to the office and managed to avoid conversation with the team. God knows what I looked like. Harrison called me. And I was blackout drunk.
Suzanne’s accusations come back to haunt me:
you drink too much; always drinking.
Even surgeons it seems can have a split second lack of concentration when it matters most. Meanwhile I had lost our last words to wine–alcohol has the power to preserve and the strength to obliterate: our last conversation. It is my father’s voice I hear when he is teaching me to drive:
keep your eyes on the road, hands on the wheel.