Perfect Timing (4 page)

Becoming successful and earning serious money for the first time in his life hadn't changed Caspar one bit; he was as careless with it now as he'd ever been, only these days he had more to be careless with. Five years ago, as a poverty-stricken student, he would have spent his last tenner in the world on fish and chips and a bottle of Bardolino to cheer up a miserable flatmate. Now it was lunch at The Marigold and a bill that would run into hundreds of pounds. Caspar wasn't bothered; as long as everyone had a good time, he was more than happy to sign the check.

When he looked back over the past decade, Caspar marveled at the way his life had changed. A much-loved only child, he had astonished his un-artistic parents from an early age with his passion for painting. Once over their surprise, they had supported him wholeheartedly. Money they might not have, but belief in their son's talent and their endless encouragement meant more to Caspar than all the financial help in the world. He would get by; he was used to being poor. Besides, poor was what art students were supposed to be. Leaving home, moving to London, and struggling to survive on a grant the size of a peanut was what being a student was all about.

Henrietta Malone had lived at 15 Cornwallis Crescent for forty-eight years. A genteel, four-storey Georgian terraced house in East Kensington, it was the home to which her husband Edmund had brought her as a young bride almost half a century earlier, a house large enough to accommodate any number of offspring and with a well-tended garden to match.

Sadly, Henrietta had been unable to bear children, but by the time she and Edmund discovered this, they had grown to love the house anyway. Only when her beloved Edmund died in his sleep—at the age of seventy-four and after forty-four years of quietly happy marriage—did the house seem too big to carry on living in alone.

Henrietta yearned for company, and not the kind you were apt to find in some depressing old folks' home. Instead, much to the horror of her more strait-laced friends, she pinned an advertisement to the notice board in the entrance hall of Saint Martin's School of Art.

Within a fortnight, she had what she had always wanted: a house that shook with music, clattering footsteps, and laughter; a house full of surrogate children who teased her unmercifully, shocked the neighbors, and called her Hen. Broke but cheerful, they kept the most extraordinary hours and wore even more extraordinary clothes.

Henrietta adored them all but she especially adored Caspar, who had fallen instantly in love with the airy, skylighted studio on the top floor and who had moved in within hours of setting eyes on it. Over the course of the next two years, other students came and went but Caspar stayed firmly put.

Henrietta never failed to be entertained by Caspar—her golden boy, as she secretly thought of him. Not only good-looking but charming too, he was a joy to have around. And he was talented. She was particularly touched, with Christmas approaching, when she discovered by chance that in order to pay his rent on time he was going without food.

In an effort to help out, Henrietta had visited Caspar in his studio, admired a recently completed painting and offered to accept it in lieu of money. But Caspar, politely refusing her offer, had by the skin of his teeth managed to scrape together just enough cash.

Two weeks later on Christmas Eve he had given Henrietta the painting she had liked so much.

Henrietta knew how much of a struggle it was for Caspar to find the rent each month, yet not once did he let her down. He was also unfailingly cheerful and willing to help out around the house if jobs needed doing which were beyond Henrietta's capabilities. She didn't care how untidy he was, how many girlfriends he brought back to his rooms, or how many she had to fib to on the phone when Caspar absentmindedly double-booked himself. He might be feckless, but he made her laugh and she loved him to bits. He truly was the son Henrietta had never had.

Shortly after her seventy-fifth birthday Henrietta suffered a mild heart attack. ‘Oh Hen,' Caspar chided when he had arrived at the hospital that evening armed with masses of yellow tulips, half a dozen Agatha Christies, and a big bottle of her favorite scent, ‘are we going to spoil you rotten when you come home.'

But Henrietta hadn't come home. A second heart attack three days later proved fatal. Caspar and the other tenants attended the funeral and simply assumed they would have to start searching for somewhere else to live.

Nobody was more astounded than Caspar when Henrietta Malone's lawyer informed him that 15 Cornwallis Crescent was now his. Henrietta, it transpired, had had no living relatives. With characteristic panache she had bequeathed hefty sums of money to Dr Barnardos, a donkey sanctuary in Sussex, and the Chelsea Pensioners. Nobody who had known Henrietta had had any idea she was worth so much.

As far as Caspar was concerned, this was the turning point of his life. Within the space of a few months he had acquired—thanks to Henrietta's amazing generosity—a house that was covetable by any standards. He had also graduated with honors from Saint Martin's and been showcased and favorably received in several prestigious Cork Street galleries. There was now a growing waiting list of customers eager to sit for Caspar French, the rising young star of the art world. They wanted their portraits painted while they could still afford him.

The Marigold, in Covent Garden, was all oranges and greens with a tropical air to it and exotic waitresses in Carmen Miranda hats. It was popular with celebrity types, which meant everyone was always looking at everyone else.

This was why Claudia so loved the idea of coming here and being seen with Caspar French. It did her ego the world of good to see people clocking them together, assuming they were a couple. Besides, for all his faults, Caspar was great fun to have lunch with. When he turned on the charm he could make a sack of potatoes feel chic.

As they walked in together and heads began to swivel, Claudia experienced that familiar surge of pride. Caspar, in a pale pink jacket and baggy cream trousers, was looking so effortlessly elegant and Brideshead-ish it quite hid the fact that, in reality, he couldn't give a monkey's what he wore. When he was this blond and tanned—and in such a good mood—he was just about irresistible.

Glad she had worn her most slimming black linen dress, Claudia held in her stomach and slithered gracefully between tables which at other times might have seemed too close together. She felt terrific. Caspar was treating her to a belated birthday lunch, she had successfully fobbed off her attention-seeking mother, and grilled oysters were the dish of the day. What more could any girl want?

‘You've got blue on the sleeve of your jacket.' Reaching across the table to touch the smudge of oil paint she found it was still wet.

‘I was working before we came out.'

‘Hiding, you mean,' said Claudia, ‘in case I dragooned you into helping clear up the mess.'

‘I'm no good at that kind of thing,' Caspar protested. ‘Anyway, it was your party.'

‘It was your friends who played ninepin with beer cans in the drawing room. You should have seen the state of the place this morning.
And
all the flower vases were full of beer—'

‘I thought we were here to celebrate. You aren't allowed to nag me to death,' Caspar argued good-naturedly. ‘Not at these prices.' Turning to the wine waiter he pointed to one of the bottles on the list. ‘A couple of these, I think, to start with.'

‘And this can be cleared.' Claudia pointed to the third place-setting, taking up unnecessary space on the table. ‘We're just two.'

The wine waiter, who knew better, hesitated.

‘Oh, didn't I mention it?' Caspar looked amused. ‘We're three.'

‘Not my mother.' Claudia felt the hairs rise at the back of her neck. She was so outraged she could barely speak. ‘Please,
not
my mother.' She did a double take as a figure behind the wine waiter stepped to one side. Recognizing with mounting horror that distinctive riot of red-gold hair and unable to help herself, Claudia wailed, ‘Oh no, not
you
.'

‘Oh dear, better break it to me gently.' Glancing at Caspar, Poppy started to laugh. ‘Which am I then? The devil or the deep blue sea?'

‘Come on now, you're overreacting,' said Caspar when Poppy had beaten a diplomatic retreat to the loo. ‘Oliver's moving out. We'll have an empty room. I don't see why you're so against her moving in.'

Claudia wasn't entirely sure herself, she just knew that if Oliver had to be replaced by a female she would much prefer a plain one.

‘That girl eavesdropped on a private conversation,' she said crossly. ‘Then she butted in. How pushy can you get?'

‘She saw an opportunity and grabbed it.' Caspar shrugged. ‘Makes sense to me.'

‘You don't need to replace Oliver anyway,' Claudia pleaded. ‘You don't need the money anymore.'

This was true, but tenants weren't only about money. Just as Henrietta had rented out her rooms for the company, so Caspar chose to do it for the simple reason that it made life so much easier for him. If he lived alone, he knew full well he would never be able to fathom out the central heating system. He would leave gas burners on and there would be no one else around to turn them off. He would be forever locking himself out of the house and there would be nobody else there to let him in, just as there would be no one else to wash up, maintain a modicum of order, remind him to pay bills, and remember to buy all those boring but necessary items such as toothpaste, chocolate Hob Nobs, and fresh milk.

‘That's a selfish attitude,' said Caspar. ‘Think of the housing shortage. All the homeless on the streets.'

‘Bull.' Claudia wasn't falling for that. ‘And she isn't homeless. She's a stripper in a pub.'

Caspar raised his eyebrows. Poppy, back from the loo, slid into her seat and wondered if Claudia would ever forgive her.

‘I strip furniture.' She tried to sound apologetic. ‘I work for a chap who runs a stall in Markham Antiques Market. He loaned me out to a friend of his who needed help renovating fixtures in a pub off the Portobello Road. I'm sorry,' she said to Claudia as the waiter refilled their glasses. ‘I don't know why I made it sound the way I did. Sometimes I speak without thinking.'

‘And sometimes you just lie,' Claudia replied stiffly. ‘I asked you what Caspar said when you went up to see him. You told me he said you had a nerve.'

‘Actually that's true.' Caspar was grinning. ‘I did. But I also said she could move in.'

She had been made fun of, Claudia realized. For their own amusement. The fact that she hadn't approved of Poppy Dunbar was more than likely what had prompted Caspar to say yes. And now here they were, ganging up on her already…

‘I'm really not as awful as you think I am.' Poppy was trying to be helpful. ‘We just got off to a dodgy start.'

You're telling me, thought Claudia as Poppy offered up her glass for a clink. So much for her happy birthday lunch.

‘Are you after Caspar?' she asked later, when he had disappeared up to the bar in search of cigarettes.

‘Is that what you thought?' The look Poppy gave her was sympathetic. ‘Not at all, and that's the honest truth. I'm a bit immune to men at the moment, if you must know. Had a traumatic time, not long ago, so I'm steering clear for the time being.'

From the way Poppy spoke Claudia knew she meant it. Reassured, she said, ‘Oh.'

‘Why, are you?'

‘After Caspar, you mean?' Claudia blinked rapidly. ‘Of course not.'

‘Lucky old us then.' Smiling, Poppy acknowledged Caspar's imminent return to the table. ‘From what I gather, he has more than his share of a reputation.'

‘Claudia once told me I was lucky to be male,' said Caspar, sitting back down, ‘because if I were a girl I'd be a tart.'

‘I like the word strumpet,' Poppy said dreamily.

Claudia was addicted to advice columns. Bursting to know, she leaned forward. ‘So what was this trauma?' she said, her imagination working overtime. ‘Was it something awful? What
happened
to make you immune to men?'

Poppy couldn't wait to pack her bags and escape the gloomy confines of her Balham studio. Moving into Caspar French's million-times-nicer house was a dream come true, even if it did have Claudia in it.

Jake Landers, Poppy's boss at the antiques market, offered her the loan of one of his vans.

‘Thanks'—Poppy was touched by his kindness—‘but there's no need. All my stuff fits into suitcases.' At the expression on Jake's face she added lightly, ‘I went minimalist when I left home.'

So minimalist that she no longer possessed so much as a living relative. Not one who would speak to her anyway. The truly ironic thing was, the shock discovery that her father wasn't actually her father hadn't come as that much of a shock at all. Not an awful one at least.

Surprise had swiftly given way to relief. Not being liked by your own father was unnatural and Poppy had always wondered what she'd done to deserve it. Now she knew the truth, she could stop worrying. Not being liked by a man whose wife had made you the laughing stock of Henbury twenty-two years earlier was far more understandable. Only Mervyn Dunbar's determination to maintain outward appearances had kept the marriage going. The affair, once over, was evidently never mentioned again and Poppy, born nine months later and fooling no one, had been formally passed off as his own.

Dozens of people, including the McBrides, had known about it. Poppy continued to be amazed by the fact that she had never learned the truth before now. All in all, she felt it was a shame it had remained a secret for so long.

‘Well, if you need any help,' said Jake, ‘you know you only have to ask.'

Poppy knew. She also knew how lucky she was to have landed a boss as brilliant as Jake. He was quiet, maybe even a bit on the shy side, but he had a dry sense of humor and the patience he exercised with Poppy—who was forever bombarding him with questions about antiques—was phenomenal. At twenty-eight, he lived alone but Poppy knew nothing beyond that. Unlike her, Jake kept his private life pretty much to himself.

Another endearing quality about Jake was the way he genuinely didn't realize how good-looking he was. His own appearance clearly wasn't something with which he ever concerned himself. His dark hair was cut for him in a little shop three doors up from the antiques market, by a barber who might be unfashionable but who was at least fast. Jake's long-lashed dark brown eyes were hidden behind spectacles that looked like something his grandfather might have passed down to him. His body seemed all right—as far as Poppy was able to tell—but his dress sense was frightful. All she could say about Jake's clothes was that they were clean.

Poppy had fantasized once or twice that beneath the Clark Kent exterior was a Superman waiting to burst out, but she knew deep down there wasn't. From time to time Jake would find himself being chatted up on the stall, usually by women a few years older than himself in search of someone to mother. It was so sweet watching him because he obviously didn't have the least idea what to do with them. Eventually, Poppy would take pity on him and intervene, allowing Jake to melt gratefully into the background.

He had never said as much but Poppy assumed he was gay.

‘Thanks.' Poppy reached up to take the steaming mug of tea Jake had brought down from the café on the top floor of the antiques market. She had enjoyed her week stripping in the pub in Portobello but it was nice being back here on the stall.

For a Friday afternoon the market was quiet. In between customers, most of them browsers who preferred to be left alone, Poppy had been reading up on Georgian teapots. Jake, just back from the monthly sale at Lassiter's Auction Rooms in Bermondsey, began unpacking a box of assorted silver photograph frames.

‘Look at that.' Balancing her tea on the flat, glass-fronted jewelry cabinet, Poppy picked out one of the larger frames with its photograph still in place. The sepia-tinted print, dated 1925, was of a stiffly posed family. Mother, father, and assorted children stared unsmilingly up at her. ‘They all look like their father. Minus the moustache.'

‘You could polish up these frames if you like,' offered Jake. He pointed to the hallmark on another frame. ‘Date?'

‘George the something.' Poppy wasn't in the mood for hallmarks. She looked again at the sepia print. A small knot began to tighten in the pit of her stomach.

‘Fifth,' said Jake. ‘George V.' He frowned. ‘You seem a bit… are you all right?'

‘Hmmm?'

‘You don't look quite with it.'

Poppy broke into a grin. In his dark green cardigan full of holes, his blue and white striped shirt, and brown houndstooth check trousers, if anyone was looking not quite with it, it was Jake.

‘Sorry, I was thinking.'

Jake, who had heard about little else for the past week, said, ‘About the move I suppose.'

‘Actually no. I was wondering if I look anything like my father.'

‘Ah.' He had heard about this too, over the course of the last three months. ‘Well, I can't help you there.'

‘I want to find him,' said Poppy, the words coming out in a rush. Quite suddenly it mattered more than anything else in the world. She felt like an alcoholic begging for a drink. ‘I know I probably won't be able to but I have to at least give it a try. I
have
to—'

‘Are you sure?'

Poppy had been um-ing and ah-ing about this for weeks. Jake's only experience in the matter was of an adopted schoolfriend who had managed to trace his natural mother then been traumatized by her refusal to meet him. Some things, Jake felt, were best left unmeddled with.

But Poppy had made up her mind. ‘I must. It might be impossible. But it might not. He could be living just round the corner from me. Imagine if he was and I didn't
know
…'

‘How are you going to do it?'

She nodded in the direction of the phone books stacked up beneath his cluttered desk.

‘There are seventeen A. Fitzpatricks listed in the London area. I'll start by phoning them.'

‘Try and be a bit discreet,' said Jake. He wouldn't put anything past Poppy. She was liable to turn up on their doorsteps armed with a do-it-yourself DNA testing kit.

The few details Poppy had been able to glean about her father had come from Dina, who had in turn learned them from her mother-in-law Margaret McBride. According to this thirdhand information, her mother had met Alex Fitzpatrick at a country club on the outskirts of Bristol. She was working there behind the bar and he had played the trumpet in the resident jazz band.

Alex had moved down from London to take the job, because even if the pay was peanuts, it was better than nothing at all. He might have been poor but jazz was his great love; it was what he lived for.

Laura Dunbar, so legend had it, was finding married life less enthralling than she had been led to expect. Meeting Alex Fitzpatrick, who kept nightclub hours, drank Jack Daniels on the rocks, and laughed at the deeply suburban lifestyles of the members of Ash Hill Country Club, had knocked her for six.

Alex had a gravelly Cockney drawl, a quick wit, and a career in what could just about be called show business. He also made Laura laugh, which mattered more than anything. She fell in love with Alex Fitzpatrick, ignored the fact that he had a wife waiting for him back in London, and threw herself headlong into a recklessly indiscreet affair. It became the talk of the country club. It wasn't long before everyone knew, including Mervyn Dunbar.

But Mervyn, who loved his wife, sensed that if he kicked up a fuss he would only lose her. Electing to sit it out and pray that nature would run its course, he grimly feigned ignorance instead.

Six weeks later, as the summer season was drawing to a close, Alex Fitzpatrick's wife was watering a hanging basket when she fell off a stepladder and broke her leg in three places.

Alex explained to a devastated Laura that he had to go back to London. His contract at Ash Hill was pretty much up anyway, and now his old lady needed him. They'd had a laugh, hadn't they? They'd had a great summer together but now it was time to move on. She had a husband; he had a wife. Of course he'd loved Laura, but this was how things were. No need to get all dramatic over a bit of harmless fun.

Laura was devastated but she had her pride. To be fair to Alex, he had never talked about leaving his wife; she had just hoped he might.

Hiding her true feelings, refusing to cry in front of him, Laura kissed Alex good-bye. When she discovered three weeks later that she was pregnant she knew at once who was the father. She had been far too busy making love with Alex to have any energy left for Mervyn.

Mervyn, who wasn't stupid, was equally aware of whose baby it was. When he'd wanted nature to take its course he hadn't meant in this fashion.

But at least he had his wife back, which was what Mervyn wanted most of all. He also privately suspected that he might not be able to father children of his own as a result of a nasty attack of teenage mumps. Maybe in time, he decided, he would be able to forget who the biological father of this child really was. Maybe he would learn to love it as if it were his own.

Poppy knew all this because her mother had confided as much in her small circle of friends, one of whom had been Margaret McBride. Pride had prevented Laura from ever contacting Alex Fitzpatrick to let him know she was carrying his baby. Instead, she had immersed herself in the business of becoming a born-again good wife.

When Poppy had been born Mervyn had, in turn, tried his hardest to experience true fatherly feelings. The trouble was, they hadn't been there. And he had been unable to summon up any.

But the secret of Poppy's parentage had been kept, from herself if from no one else, and her mother's tragic death had only compounded people's determination to preserve it. To lose one parent was terrible enough, they whispered to each other. Imagine the effect it could have on a vulnerable twelve-year-old to discover that the one you had left wasn't a real parent at all.

If only they'd known, Poppy thought ruefully, how glad I would have been to find out.

But it was time now to go into action. She had waited long enough. Since she'd moved to London, wondering who her real father might be had knocked everything else out of her mind—even Tom. The sooner the noisy Australian from the basement flat stopped yakking to every friend he'd ever had and got off the communal pay phone, the sooner she could make a start.

When he had at last finished, Poppy ran downstairs and bagged the phone, kneeling on the dusty floor with her list of A. Fitzpatricks in one hand and a pile of twenty-pence coins in the other. Her heart pounded against her ribs as she began to dial. Imagine, within seconds she could actually be speaking to her father…

Each time the phone was picked up at the other end, Poppy asked in a businesslike voice to speak to Alex Fitzpatrick. Ten minutes later she was three-quarters of the way through her list, having got through to an assortment of Alans, Alistairs, Alisons, and Andrews… even an Ahmed.

Then she struck lucky.

‘Alex?' said a middle-aged sounding woman. ‘I'm sorry, you've just missed him. May I take a message?'

Poppy gulped. This really could be it.

‘Um… maybe I'll try again later. What time do you expect him home?'

‘Well, nine-ish. He's gone to scouts.' The woman began to sound nervous. ‘Is this about Ben's birthday party last week? Oh dear, you aren't Lucy-Anne's mother are you?'

Another ten minutes and she was finished. Not only a crushing disappointment, Poppy thought mournfully, but a waste of an awful lot of twenty pences.

How stupid to think finding her father would be that simple.

The next morning, bright and early, Poppy arrived on the doorstep of 15 Cornwallis Crescent.

‘Please, it's only ten o'clock,' groaned Claudia, opening the door in her blue and white terry cloth dressing gown.

Poppy looked hurt. ‘Caspar said any time I liked.'

‘Caspar would.' Claudia was gazing askance at the two modest suitcases on the top step. ‘He doesn't even hear doorbells before noon. That can't really be all you've got.'

‘I do what the glossy magazines say to do,' said Poppy. ‘I may not have many clothes, but I always buy the best.'

They both knew this was a big lie. For lunch at The Marigold, Poppy had turned up in cut-off black jeans and a Rocky Horror tee-shirt.

Claudia said gloomily, ‘God, I hope Caspar knows what he's doing.'

‘Oh look, I'm here now.' Poppy picked up her suitcases. ‘And whether you like it or not I'm moving in. We may as well be friends.'

‘Real friends,' Claudia pointed out, ‘don't wake you up at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning.'

‘I'm sorry, I won't do it again.' Carrying her cases through to the kitchen, Poppy heaved the smaller of the two up onto the counter and began unzipping it.

Next moment a multi-colored explosion of tights and tee-shirts hurtled out. It was like one of those trick cans full of snakes.

‘What—' began Claudia.

‘Come on, cheer up and grab a couple of bowls.' Having at last found what she was searching for, Poppy held them up. ‘This one's to celebrate me moving in and this one's your belated birthday present.'

Claudia gazed at the two tubs of rapidly melting Ben & Jerry's. Other people celebrated with champagne, she thought. Poppy Dunbar had to do it with Chunky Monkey ice cream.