“That sounds great,” Claire replied.
It really did, but all Claire could calculate as silence fell between them was that he would only be here for another month and then he’d be gone. It reminded her of how peripatetic their life had been together. She’d hated it, and yet something about sitting opposite him here and now felt so horribly right. He took her hands in his once again and suggested they go for a walk.
------------------------
Back on Park Lane, Jonah clasped her fingers tightly into his to keep her safe as they dodged traffic to cross the busy road. Once they reached the other side, he didn’t let go. If anything, he held on even tighter as they strolled towards Kensington Palace. Claire didn’t resist. She liked being attached to him and welcomed the warmth and naturalness of their connection. With him, she’d always felt like she belonged.
It was 9 p.m. and the soft light was slowly starting to fade. Her shoulders shivered as the temperature dropped and Claire slipped on the crop black cardigan she’d brought with. There was an empty bench outside the wrought-iron gates which guarded the Palace, the same gates which mourners had flocked to, to decorate with flowers and wreaths and messages of condolence after Princess Diana had died. As they sat down Jonah still didn’t free her hand. They stared straight ahead at the gates for a few seconds and then Jonah broke the silence, turning to her.
“I tried contacting you after you left you know,” he said quietly. “I never
wanted
you to go.”
Tears began welling in Claire’s eyes and one dared to tumble over the edge and dribble towards her nose. Jonah wiped it away with the pad of his thumb. She nodded, but didn’t dare to speak. After she’d left, she’d changed her phone number, her e-mail address and even her home address. She’d not wanted to be found. She’d thought she was doing the right thing for everybody.
“What was your wife like?” Claire whispered.
She hadn’t asked in Nobu and she cursed herself for letting that question pop out her mouth now. She didn’t want to know that he’d shacked up with some tall, leggy supermodel. Lord knows, there’d been enough of them around, clamouring to take him off her.
“She was a mistake,” he said, tracing his finger down from Claire’s wet eye and along her cheek towards the back of her neck. It was a gesture so sensitive and tender that she felt her head tilt towards his hand and her eyes close. She’d never in her wildest dreams imagined being with Jonah, ever again. This was almost too much, too soon, too hard to take in. Her life had felt dull for years and, to an extent, she’d been responsible for letting that happen. She hadn’t believed she’d deserved better.
Not after what she did
. And now, from nowhere it had sped into fast forward.
“But she gave you Martha,” Claire reminded him.
“Yes, and for that I am truly grateful.”
Jonah leaned forward and cupped his other hand around Claire’s face. It was safer to close her eyes and not to try to read his expression, or guess his thoughts.
“Open your eyes,” he commanded.
With difficulty she obeyed and found herself staring into his deep, grey pools. What she thought she could read in them unsettled her. It felt like nothing had changed in the intervening years, even though she knew so much had. A lump caught at the back of her throat and she could feel her lower lip trembling. Part of her wanted to run away, scared of being exposed to what was sure to be emotional turmoil. But another part of her was frozen to the spot. He had her face clasped in both his hands and once again she found her eyelids closing as he caressed her cheeks.
“I have to admit something,” he said.
She nodded, eyes still tightly sealed. Here it comes, she thought. He’d given her the good stuff and was now about to deliver bad news, to tell her he was in a new relationship or something. She didn’t want to see him as he said it.
“You know I think you’re beautiful,” he continued. “But, I have to admit, I prefer you without make-up.”
Her eyes snapped open as she giggled.
“I don’t normally wear make-up. This was put on me this morning for some silly screen test Georgia put me up to.”
He raised a questioning eyebrow.
“It was nothing,” she brushed it off.
She wanted to close her eyes again, but his gaze held her magnetically. She wasn’t sure if her thirty-seven year old heart could keep up the cracking pace it was now thumping at and she knew she must look ridiculous. Her lower lip was quivering uncontrollably and her porcelain make-up was no doubt now a streaky mess.
Idiot
, why hadn’t she removed it before coming? She couldn’t stop herself from looking down at his mouth, his luscious, thick, sensual lips. No-one’s lips had ever matched up to his, either before or after. It was as if he could read her mind.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he said.
She clamped her eyes back shut and nodded.
“I can’t watch,” she whispered.
She waited for so long that she considered telling him to hurry up, but then she felt his teeth gently take her lower lip in its grip, as if trying to stop the tremor. When she’d calmed down, he released it, pulled away for a second and she could feel the smile on his lips as he crushed his mouth deliciously into hers.
Twelve hours later the phone rang, stirring Claire rudely from slumber. She’d been looking forward to a lie-in. 09.00.
Ugh.
She’d got back late and slept only fitfully. The evening’s dramas had been playing on a loop in her mind - Jonah’s voice, his touch and the dreamy moment their lips had reconnected after thirteen long years. She brusquely pulled the handset off its charger.
“Hello,” she mumbled.
“You dark horse.” Her mother screeched so loudly into her ear that any chance of Claire dozing off again was instantly undone. “How could you not tell me?”
Oh, no! Her mother must somehow have found out about Jonah. She’d always told her when she was growing up that she had ‘eyes on the back of her head’ and now Claire was actually starting to believe her. Had she been outside the Dorchester, or in Hyde Park, or driving along Park Lane? Or perhaps that wasn’t it at all. Claire clapped a hand over her mouth. Paparazzi
had
been hanging around outside the entrance to Nobu but they hadn’t appeared even remotely interested as she and Jonah had left. It’s not as if Jonah’s star was in the ascendant any more. Who could possibly be interested in him? Or was she being naive?
“Oh no,” Claire groaned. “Don’t tell me I’m in the papers.”
“Papers?” her mother sounded confused. “I don’t know about any papers. But you’ve been on the TV all morning. Every fifteen minutes.”
Every fifteen minutes? Claire sat bolt upright and scanned her room for the remote control.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re making gooseberry fool on
Morning Cuppa
. And oh, darling, what a mess with the fruit and the milk and the whisk……..shame, you poor thing. But I thought you looked lovely if that’s any consolation? And so did your father.”
Ah, there was the remote, on her dressing table. Miriam must have moved it. Claire jumped out of bed to grab it, aiming it at the TV set as she pressed the ‘On’ button. She clicked to Channel 3. Damn. The end credits were rolling
.
She’d missed it!
“Why didn’t you call me earlier?”
Her tone reeked with irritation.
“Well, I imagined you must have known about it. And why on earth you didn’t think to tell
me
is anybody’s guess. I’m always the last person to know about everything. Your sister’s just the same.”
Her sister Jacqui had been living in Hong Kong for the last five years, so it was no surprise her mother knew little going on in her life.
“It was a last minute thing which only happened yesterday. It was a screen
test.
There was a clue in the title. Why are they even broadcasting it?”
“Oh, well,” said her mother, “I can answer that, actually. It wasn’t just you who they showed doing a nutrition slot, there were two other women and one rather dashing man. It’s the viewers who get to decide who
they
want to be the new TV Nutritionist. Apparently they can vote on You Tube.”
“Mum,” said Claire, running downstairs to turn on her computer. “I’ll speak to you later. I’ve got to go.”
-----------------
Fifteen minutes later, Claire clicked ‘Play’ for the tenth time on the video of her which was posted on You Tube. It was painful to watch. No, it was tortuous. The actual segment they’d filmed had lasted about eight minutes, but what they’d put online was a quick-cut, edited version of all her worst bits. ‘Out-takes’ she thought they called it in the business. Tomatoes tumbling and splattering to the floor when she’d tried to remove some from the bowl. The milk she’d heated for the gooseberry fool over-boiling. The food processor exploding when she’d tried to puree the cooked gooseberries. She hadn’t realised how many times she’d said
oops
but she must have said it at least a hundred and, each time that she had, she’d done some idiotic jazz-hand gesticulation to accompany it. It had been a car crash, just like she’d known, but oh, the public humiliation! It hadn’t been for hundreds to
see.
So much for gooseberry fool! The only thing looking foolish was
her
.
She picked up the phone and called Georgia.
“Oh my God, did you know about this?”
Claire hadn’t realised that she was capable of screeching louder than even her mother but it suddenly appeared she’d inherited that gene.
“About what?” Georgia asked.
“Are you at a computer?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Go to You Tube and type in my name together with
Morning Cuppa
.”
The phone went quiet on the other end as Georgia did what she was told, and then Claire could hear the video playing over the phone line.
“Hideous, isn’t it?” Claire screeched when she could hear it had finished.
It went quiet on the other end again.
“Are you still there George?”
“Yes,” her friend replied. “But hang on a sec, just let me check something out.”
Georgia went quiet again. And then, after a couple of minutes, she gasped loudly.
“This is great,” said Georgia, her voice full of excitement.
“Great?”
Claire had always considered her friend to be intelligent but now she was seriously having doubts. How her looking a fool making gooseberry fool was ‘great’ she had no idea.
“What on earth are you talking about?” Claire said.
“Well,” replied Georgia, “I’ve just seen it’s a competition and you’ve had one and a half million votes so far. The next best contender only has five hundred votes. You’re way ahead. In fact, I’d say that you’re pretty much going
viral
.”
“Going
viral
? I don’t want to go viral. I want that video taken off You Tube. I look like an idiot.”
“The public clearly loves you.”
Claire was getting frustrated.
“No they don’t. I’m getting the pity vote. They feel
sorry
for me. Get them to take it off. Please,” she pleaded.
“Calm down,” Georgia laughed. “This is good news, not bad news. You’re going to get the job.”
“I don’t want the job, I want my pride.”
“Ok, I’ll see what I can do,” her friend reassured. “But let’s put that aside just for a couple of minutes and discuss what’s really important. Tell me about Jonah.”
----------------
If a psychologist were to analyse Claire’s habit for mentally ‘putting things in a box’ to deal with later, they would probably give this trait some psychobabble label like
denial
. Being brutally honest with herself, she’d put most of the baggage of her divorce into a box to never open again. Yesterday she’d refused to think about Jonah until after the screen test. And right now she refused to worry about foolish videos going viral. Not properly dealing with things had become her coping mechanism ever since the horror of what
they’d done
nearly fourteen years ago.
In keeping with her philosophy of denial, now was most definitely
not
the time for thinking about any of these matters because now the most important job in hand was to get the house ready. She’d invited Jonah round for dinner and not only did she need to decide what to cook, she needed to make the place more presentable. Not because she believed that Jonah would actually care about the mess, but for her own self-esteem. She wanted to feel proud of whom she was and where she lived and the sealed cardboard boxes scattered around her home like carelessly discarded pieces of Lego, were eyesores. Everything from every single cupboard, from clothes to crockery to toiletries, had been packed away whilst the property had been fumigated and she’d scarcely unpacked a tenth of it yet. Still wearing her pyjamas, she started in the kitchen, attacking the gaffer tape seal to one container with a penknife before slowly, bit by bit, putting plates back on shelves and returning tumblers to the glass display cabinet where they belonged.
Recipes wafted through her head as she robotically sorted through each room replacing objects to their rightful spot. One of her passions used to be experimenting with food but, since Miriam’s arrival, she’d prioritised spending quality time with her daughter over making complicated dishes. It turned out that Miriam didn’t have the most sophisticated of palettes anyway and it had been a case of the simpler the better.
She knew she would have fun creating something a bit fancier for tonight, and yet she didn’t want it to appear as if she was trying too hard either, or to slave over a stove in front of her guest. Whatever she served would ideally be prepared ahead of time. Creamy fish pie……pasta……roast chicken……….slow-cooked lamb in the oven………..barbecue?
For the second year in a row, Britain was in the grip of a rare and uplifting heat-wave. Indeed, according to the pest exterminator, moths had become endemic in the South East as a direct result of last summers’ high temperatures. Forecasts had regularly boasted that it was hotter in London than in Rome, Barcelona and even Mumbai. The weather had been so reliably good that, last year, Claire had invested in a proper gas barbecue, rendering the ridiculous little disposable aluminium ones that she’d previously used redundant. It wasn’t cheap, but it was worth every penny. It was the first summer that she and Miriam had been without Anthony. The pleasure of eating freshly barbecued food in the garden had taken some of the sting out of the pain and given mother and daughter fresh new memories.
With the boxes all unpacked, Claire took a shower before dressing in a pair of high-cut fraying denim shorts with a black vest t-shirt and heading out to the shops. She smiled as she allowed herself to remember the night before. “When can I see you again,” Jonah had asked as they’d walked hand in hand back to the tube station. She’d been anticipating an invite back to his room at the Dorchester but it hadn’t come. And because everything was already happening so fast, part of her was relieved. Instead he’d hugged her so tightly that she sensed he really didn’t want to let her go. When he did finally release her he’d murmured in her hair. “It’s taken me so long to find you again, please don’t make me wait too long.” Without hesitation she’d whispered back, “Tomorrow. Come to mine tomorrow.”
They’d exchanged telephone numbers and as Claire entered the supermarket a text message buzzed through.
I’m meant to be commentating on tennis and all I can think about is you. What time shall I come later? X
Whilst Claire had been on a couple of blind dates since the divorce, nobody had been special enough to be invited to the house. She longed more than anything for Jonah to meet Miriam, but was concerned that it was a bit soon. For some reason she also instinctively felt that Anthony and Jonah’s paths shouldn’t yet cross either. Anthony was returning Miriam at 8 p.m. and half an hour later she would be in bed, fast asleep.
Is 8.45pm too late?
77 Gladstone Road
NW3 1AS
X
She’d only just sent the reply and picked up a shopping basket when Georgia called. Claire answered.
“I’m in the supermarket,” she warned, “and sometimes the phone cuts out when I move deeper inside. If it does I’ll call you back later.”
“No problem,” said Georgia. “What are you making?”
“I thought I’d do a barbecue - marinated meats with salads. What do you reckon?”
“That sounds perfect.”
“So,” she said, eyeing up the burgers. “Has Mary Poppins sorted out the video yet?”
“Um, about that-
Georgia’s apologetic starter made Claire sense trouble.
“No bad news,” she interrupted, moving towards the chicken counter. “Please. I mean, crikey, what if Jonah saw it? I’d be mortified.”