Susie is just about to leave when she remembers that Joyce still hasn’t told her who her father was. ‘You were saying,’ she says, ‘my father—?’
‘Yes. Sorry. It’s quite odd – I’d seen you in films and things, but I couldn’t be sure, not till you walked into the room today and I saw you for real. I told you he was an actor. He made it big, bigger than I thought, but the weakness I’d sensed in him was there all right. Maybe you even met him? His name was Jimmy Scirocco.’
Jimmy Scirocco.
Jimmy Scirocco!
Susie’s head feels as though it’s bursting. It has been a morning of such intense emotion and so many revelations, and now this – her father was the actor, Jimmy Scirocco.
Her mind flashes back to the article in the magazine. How ironic that her name has already been so publicly linked with his. Jimmy has been dead for ten years, overtaken by an excess of high living and a blind refusal (or perhaps a complete inability) to reform – but what a parcel of personal history to be handed!
Susie makes her way back to the bookshop where she left Mannie. It explains so much about her – where her acting came from, for sure, but also the more mercurial aspects of her personality, and perhaps her tendency to depression as well. It’s a genetic bundle that includes genuine flair and a whole package of vulnerabilities – and they have been handed to her own children as well.
Mannie, vivacious and persuasive, is brilliant at her job, but her energy can turn all too easily into hyperactivity and her enthusiasm into excess emotion. And Jonathan, her talented young son, unwaged and apparently unwanted – it’s no wonder he’s on the verge of depression. She’ll have to keep a careful eye on his drinking, she realises with shock.
What was it Mannie said, the night she told them all about her adoption?
‘You’re absolutely wrong, Jonno. Don’t you see? This changes everything.’
Mannie’s email inbox is brim full. Organised though she is, she’d always rather be talking to someone than staring into the unwelcoming screen of a computer. However, she’s committed to sitting here for the next hour or so and it’s a good opportunity to deal with her correspondence. She sips her Americano and launches herself vigorously into the task.
At the counter, a sturdily-built man with a receding hairline puts his mug on a tray, pays his bill and looks around.
Booking inquiry: a large dinner.
Complaint: room service tardy and inadequate.
Meeting 1: time confirmed.
Meeting 2: cancelled. Damn, damn, damn for the last one – a potential client she has been gently trawling for a while and is desperate to land. A slippery fish, it seems. Mannie clicks on the email and ponders what bait she can use on her hook.
‘Is anyone sitting here?’
The voice, breaking in on her concentration, seems as familiar to her as if she has known it all her life. She looks up.
Jesus. It’s him.
‘Hi!’ Mannie feels the blood rising to her face in treacherous betrayal. She bends forward so that her hair falls in a curtain across her face while she recovers and moves her laptop quickly to make room for him. ‘No. Sit down. How extraordinary.’
‘Oh, hello again. I didn’t realise it was you. How lucky.’ Brian Henderson takes his coffee off the tray and sets it down carefully on the table. ‘The coffees they serve in these places are always so huge, aren’t they?’
She nods. ‘Gross.’
Lucky? He said it was lucky! She can’t pretend that she hasn’t thought about him, but she has tried, in the period since she encountered him in London, to convince herself that the inexplicable feelings she experienced were some weird aberration. She has conquered them.
Or so she thought, until this moment of seeing him again, when she knows, beyond doubt, that she has never put him aside and that she will never be able to remove him from her thoughts. He forms an essential part of her. She
adores
this man.
She wrestles with the impulse to seize his hand so that she can stroke his skin and feel his fingers curl round hers. Something tells her this is odd behaviour, but she’s utterly helpless in the grip of emotion. She desires him, but not in the way she desires Callum. She tries to define the sensation that fills her. It’s something absolutely necessary, like breathing. The urgency of her need to be part of him overwhelms her absolutely.
He’s invaded my soul.
She watches his Adam’s apple move as he speaks. His neck is no longer young. Small folds of skin hang above his collar. She can’t honestly describe them as attractive, but at the same time something deep within her is compelling her to bend her face towards them, smooth out the wrinkles with her kisses, feel the roughness of the stubble of hair that grows there against her lips. Lunacy.
She shakes her head to clear the feelings and says, as steadily as she can, ‘This is a surprise – seeing you in Edinburgh, I mean.’
He sips his coffee, flinches at the heat, puts it back on its saucer and she notes that he drinks it black and as hot as possible, just as she does. She notices, with something akin to irritation, the gold band on his ring finger.
Married.
Of course he is, damn it.
‘I’m in Edinburgh quite frequently. We have a number of clients here.’
‘But your office is in Stirling? Isn’t that a little unusual? Not being in the capital, I mean.’
‘Stirling is better situated than you might think. We have clients in Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow.’ The smile becomes mischievous and his next words make Mannie laugh. ‘And believe it or not, our Glasgow clients would rather come to Stirling to see us than to Edinburgh.’ The old rivalry between the two big cities is notorious. ‘And I happen to live there, so it’s a great base. Our head office is in London, of course.’
‘Of course.’ She’s curious. ‘Are you meeting someone?’
‘I could ask you the same thing. Actually, my mother called on my services.’ He glances at his watch briskly. Mannie, unconsciously, does the same thing, her slim hand mirroring the gesture. ‘She’s going to call me when her meeting’s over.’
He lays his mobile on the table. Irrationally, she instantly hates its presence there because its ringing will drag him away from her. She tenses in anticipation.
‘Working?’ He nods at the laptop, then leans back and crosses his legs. He is nonchalant and relaxed – the polar opposite of the way Mannie is feeling.
‘Yes. No. Well, yes, but nothing that won’t keep. I can do it later.’ She closes the lid.
‘I haven’t got back to you about that conference.’
‘No hurry.’
Yes there is. I want to see more of you – a lot more.
‘I’ve been away on business.’
‘Are you away a lot?’
‘Sadly, yes. London, of course, all the time, but the Middle East and America too. We have clients there.’
‘Sounds glamourous.’
He grimaces. ‘Travel always sounds glamorous, but living in a hotel room is far from – oh, sorry!’ He laughs, realising.
‘Don’t worry. I know. Hotel rooms are bleak unless you’re there for pleasure.’ God, shut up, Mannie. ‘We try our best to make them comfortable of course.’
Time races. Her coffee grows cold. She pushes it aside. Coffee doesn’t matter, only talking to Brian matters, only being with him.
He’s been abroad, he tells her. He has meetings in Edinburgh today, will be back in London tomorrow. He dislikes London, prefers the country. Likes long walks, if only he can find the time.
Just like me.
But time is always at a premium, with a business to run. He’s ambitious, always has been.
Just like me.
A shaft of sunlight, edging round the frame of the huge windows, settles onto his face, picking out fine details. The laughter lines spreading from the corners of his eyes. Their colour – hazel.
Just like mine.
The soft folds of flesh under his chin. What was he like when he was my age? Cal’s age? Good-looking, for sure. His face has lost the definition of youth, but he still has charisma. How else can she account for her feelings?
Her head is swimming. All thoughts of work have long since vanished.
‘Mannie?’
‘Sorry?’ Christ, he’s been chatting away and she hasn’t even been listening. What must he think of her? ‘I missed that. What did you say?’
‘Your brother. Did he apply for that graphic designer job?’
‘I think so. Yes.’
‘Well, good luck to him. I hope he gets it.’
‘Thank you.’ Mannie is floating in the deep, powerful current of desire. It’s as if he’s a part of her, that she can’t be complete without him. She wants, more than anything in the universe, to curl up within his comfortable embrace, be restored to a kind of entirety she hasn’t known she lacked.
But I love Callum
, she thinks, bemused.
The mobile on the table vibrates, then rings. Brian picks it up. ‘Hello, Mother? Yes. Yes, fine, I’ll be there in five minutes. Sorry—’ to Mannie, ‘— duty calls.’ He flashes her a smile.
Jesus, I want to drown in that smile.
‘Of course.’ Her flesh is tingling, as if it has been awakened by some unfamiliar force. It’s a fabulous feeling, deeply luxurious. The thought of him walking away is unbearable. ‘Will you call? About the conference, I mean?’
‘Of course.’ Again the hand is extended, a gesture far more formal than Mannie desires, but she takes it anyway.
This is what I need. This touch.
‘Mannie? You all right?’
‘Oh, hi, Mum.’
‘You look rather flushed. Are you feeling all right?’
Mannie puts her hands up to her cheeks. They burn under her fingertips. ‘It’s a bit airless in here. I’m fine.’ She waves at the chair Brian has just vacated. ‘So. Tell me. How’d it go?’
She tries to listen. She is interested – truly – but her mother’s words hold no meaning. All she can think of is Brian, and when she can see him again.
‘Difficult day?’ Jen asks that evening.
Mannie kicks off her shoes and sinks into her chair, groaning. ‘Unimaginable. Everything’s such hard work at the moment. Getting a contract from anyone’s like squeezing breath from a corpse.’
Jen hands her a glass of wine. ‘Poor duck. Is Callum coming round?’
‘No. He suggested it, but I’m too bushed.’
She doesn’t want to tell the truth, which is that she can’t face Cal, not now, not till she gets her head sorted out. For the first time since her encounter with Brian, Cal’s face becomes vivid in her mind. She can see his clever, amused eyes and his expressive lips. She can hear his voice in her head, teasing her into a sharp, funny exchange. Cal has learned how to handle her restlessness, how to challenge her physically and emotionally. She finds him endlessly stimulating.
But now there’s Brian.
She’s drawn to Brian Henderson like a small shard of metal in the vicinity of a powerful magnet – she can’t resist his pull. At the thought of Brian’s smile, his compelling eyes, his aura of brisk efficiency, she becomes aware again of something deep and raw inside. She longs to discuss the encounter with Jen, but something stops her.
Jen is saying, ‘Myra’s getting a dress with a red top.’
Mannie stares at her. She couldn’t connect with the words.
‘Her wedding dress, Mannie,’ Jen explains patiently. ‘She’s found one with a scarlet bodice, she says. She thinks it’s wonderful.’
‘Christ.’
‘I know.’
‘Red?’ Mannie tries to clarify. The vision of the plump and slightly florid-faced Myra in a wedding dress with a red bodice is alarming.
‘Can we talk her out of the idea, do you think?’
‘We have to try. Has she set a date?’
‘September.’ Jen’s face drops a little as she contemplates this. ‘You’ll be going with Callum, I guess.’
Even in her current state of emotional turmoil, Mannie understands what the comment means. Jen is unattached. She will have to attend the wedding alone. Mannie has been in this position herself and she knows that going to weddings as a single woman is difficult. There’s a deep sense of loneliness because everyone else is matched up in blissful coupledom. Either that or the bride places you helpfully with one of the groom’s single mates – unattached because he has serious body odour, or can only talk about football, or is a complete geek – and what starts out as a mildly depressing day descends into grim martyrdom. It becomes impossible to wait to see the last dance – but as a close friend of the bride, you have to. She extends a sympathetic hand towards Jen. ‘Bet you’ve got a great guy by then.’
Jen shrugs. ‘Not sure I can handle a relationship right now anyway.’
Mannie isn’t certain she can handle a relationship either. Despite everything she is trying to do to stop it, the recent vision she has begun to nurture of a life that delightfully includes Callum has started to fracture round the edges. In the space of a mere day, she’s no longer excited by the thought – in fact, she finds it confusing. She loves Callum, but thinks only of Brian. She opens her mouth to tell Jen about the encounter, then closes it again, because what can she say? How can she describe something so irrational?
‘Anyway, I’ve made a decision,’ Jen says.
‘Yeah? What?’
Mannie is expecting her to say, ‘I’m going to join an internet dating agency,’ but instead she comes out with, ‘I’m going to buy a flat for myself. I’m going to grow up, finally!’
Mannie’s jaw drops open and she gapes at Jen. Buy a flat? With Myra getting married and Jen buying her own flat, Mannie will be on her own, a thought that appalls her. Much as she has enjoyed her many relationships, she is comfortable in the company of her girlfriends. They understand her. They share her interests. They clean up after themselves and don’t leave things all over the floor to be magically tidied away.
‘Wow,’ she says, her voice feeble. Her support system is crumbling – just, she thinks, as she might need it most.
Jen pulls out a copy of the weekly property list and points to some flats she has circled. ‘Will you come and see them with me? I’d ask Myra, but she’s all wedding plans right now. I know you’re busy, but could you spare an hour or two on Sunday? I’d be ever so grateful.’
‘Sure. Love to,’ Mannie lies. Myra holds the lease of the flat. She thinks it runs out in the summer. What is she going to do? Already she has noticed that Myra is spending less time in their company, presumably now that she has a ring on her finger she has granted her man some premarital rights. And – has she been aware of it? – she realises that Jen has also been less in evidence. Where has she been? Maybe spending more time with her parents. Her father has recently been ill, she’s a dutiful daughter.