Barefoot in the Dark (6 page)

She didn’t know what to say to him when he sat back down again. She felt suddenly, unaccountably, debilitatingly self-conscious again. She should talk. About him. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Tell me about your football team.’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said, smiling in a perfectly relaxed and happy way. ‘I’d kind of like to have you awake for the evening. How about you tell me all about you instead?’

Oh, God. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, you. I was just thinking. I might write a feature about you.’

‘Me?’

He stirred in his seat. ‘Oh, and Heartbeat, of course. Nice human interest story. They like those at the
Echo
. And very good publicity for you, of course.’

This was better. Back on track. ‘Oh. Yes. Yes, I suppose it would be, wouldn’t it?’

‘Indisputably.’ He laced his fingers together and propped his chin on them. ‘So, go on then. Shoot.’

‘Oh dear. That’s the only trouble. I’m not sure there’s much to tell.’

He shook his head. ‘There’s always lots to tell. How d’you come to be there for instance? Doing what you do?’

‘That’s easy enough. I used to help out in the shop. We have a nearly-new shop, and I used to work there a couple of days a week when the children were smaller. But then, well, you know, with the divorce and everything, I had to get a proper job again and Madeleine asked me if I’d like to work for them full-time. Her husband had died and she’d taken on the running of the whole charity, and she needed someone to take on her old role.’

‘The fundraising.’

‘Exactly. And, well, I said yes.’ She shrugged. ‘Not much of a story there.’

‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘I think that’s a nice story. But what about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Hopes? Dreams? What d’you do when you’re not busy extorting money out of people?’

‘Oh, dear. Now there really isn’t anything to tell. Not right now, at any rate. I don’t know. I guess I have the same dreams as everyone else. To get through all the bad bits and move on to the good bits. God. I don’t know. What do I do? I go to work. There never seems to be much time for anything else. I run. I read books. I watch TV… er… I make cushions.’ She winced. ‘Jesus, but that sounds grim, doesn’t it? I wish I could tell you something else, but I can’t. I don’t do anything creative, like you do. I go to work, I come home from work, I do stuff with my kids. I go out running. I make cushions. There.’

She sat back in her chair while the waiter brought her dessert. Jack studied her. ‘Cushions? ’

‘Oh, I live life on the edge, me. Yes. Cushions. It’s not quite as dreary as it sounds. I make them out of leather, suede, that sort of thing. I have a bit of a fetish for skin, you see. God, that sounds worse! But, you know, out of all the old jackets and coats and stuff we get in at the shop. We get heaps of them. Even the odd fur. I don’t use the fur, of course.’ She leaned forward again. ‘Well, not officially. I do. But just for me. Don’t tell anyone that, will you? I have a big heap on my bed.
So
not PC. I don’t – I mean, I don’t approve, or anything. But we get these old furs, and they’re only going to be binned, and they’re so… well, anyway. Yes, I make cushions. I just got the idea, and made a couple to sell in the shop – I’ve got my mum’s old industrial sewing machine – and, well, they went like a bomb. And then I made some for the office, because Maddie liked them, and nowadays I can hardly keep up with the orders. They must be in vogue or something, because everyone seems to want them.’

‘There we are then. A one-woman cottage industry. That’s pretty creative.’

‘You think?’ said Hope, who had never really thought about it. ‘Well, I suppose. If you say so. Actually, Maddie thinks I should tout them round Liberty’s or somewhere. See if I can’t get some big deal going. But I haven’t gotten around to it. It’s just therapy, really. Something to do.’ She pushed her teaspoon into the top of her crème brûlée, and it broke with a snap. ‘God, does that make me sound sad, or what?’

‘Not at all.’ A smile played at the corner of his mouth. She lowered her eyes because his were becoming too distracting.

‘I’m prattling now. Ask me about Heartbeat. Much more interesting.’

But he didn’t.

He just sat there and smiled and watched her while she ate a mouthful of pudding. And another. And another. Still he looked at her, twiddling his glass stem and smiling. She lowered the teaspoon again. ‘What?’

His eyes were trained on hers. ‘Can I try some?’

‘Some of this?’

He nodded. ‘You seem to be enjoying it. Is it good?’

‘Yes. Yes, it is. Here… ’ She proffered the dish and the spoon.

He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You do it for me.’

So she loaded the spoon with a glistening mouthful and slid it gently between his waiting lips. She licked the spoon herself then, though she hadn’t meant to.

‘Thank you,’ he mouthed. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off her.

Holding his gaze, Hope knew something else had happened. That the man she was looking at had broached her defences. Somewhere along the line, by some glorious oversight, she had taken her eye off the ball.

Chapter 7

The taxi was somewhere between the castle and the University entrance when Jack made his mind up. Decided that what he would most like to do in all the world was to lunge at Hope Shepherd across the back seat and snog her until her teeth rattled. The thought, together with its profound inappropriateness at that moment, began to fuddle his cognitive processes. Hope was still talking thirteen to the dozen. This time about whether he thought it a good or a bad thing that the Welsh Assembly had decided to make museums free, which had followed on from what she’d been talking about while they’d been waiting for the taxi, which was how difficult it was to get any sort of government funding for little charities like hers, which followed on from what she’d been talking about while they waited for the waiter to bring his credit card back, which was, he only dimly remembered, something about how they hadn’t managed to get a lottery grant. Or something. He’d lost track. For someone so shy – and her diffidence at the start of the evening had surprised him – she had an opinion about
everything
. An informed opinion, to boot. That hypothetical feature article (such a devilishly clever idea) would have to become actual now. She’d half written the bloody thing for him already. He smiled to himself. He was sitting slightly angled towards her, and could see the full length of her left leg, right down to the couple of inches of black leather boot at the bottom. It made him feel horny as hell. He imagined her left leg without its trouser. He imagined her left arm (which was lying inert in her lap, while her right one batted the air in time with the points she was making), peeled free of its jumper and lying encouragingly across his own thigh. He imagined (well, what the hell) what she would look like if she were sitting in the taxi with nothing on whatsoever, how the contours of her tummy – a smallish swell beneath her breasts – would rise and fall every time she drew breath. How her dark – no, black hair…

‘Don’t you?’

Jack rounded himself up and fixed his eyes on her face. She lifted her left arm and coiled a liquorice lace of loose hair behind her ear.

Didn’t he what? Shit. He’d have to wing it. ‘I’m not sure.’

She turned a little herself now, the better, he assumed, to engage him in the crux of her argument. The hand came down again and sat on the seating between them, the polished nails mere centimetres from his thigh. He pondered on the possibility of moving his leg. ‘That’s exactly it, isn’t it?’ she was saying. ‘I mean, on the
one
hand –’

‘Which part of Cefn Melin was it you wanted, lovely?’ The cab driver jutted his head to fix his eyes into the rectangle of rear-view mirror. Hope leaned forward a little to meet them. Jack could smell her perfume every time she moved.

‘It’s the top end. Up by the park. If you head up through Roath and then on to Llanishen I’ll tell you the way after that. You really didn’t have to do this,’ she added, training her dark eyes on Jack once again. ‘Going all this way out of your way. I could easily have got a separate cab.’ Then she smiled at him coyly, as if she was pleased nevertheless.

‘It’s not that far,’ he said. ‘Only a couple of miles.’ How much could he read into that smile? Was he reading her right, period? She’d certainly revved up in the last hour or so. Did she fancy him, too? Her lips were glossy in the gloom. She must have put something on them when she went to the Ladies. Would a kiss be appropriate currency with which to end the evening? A peck of some kind? A brush of his lips against her cheek? Something nearer her mouth? Onher mouth? The buzzing of every part of him south of his waistband was matched only in its intensity by the furious campaign instructions his neurones were firing at him. Would there ever be a time again when situations like this just happened? It seemed to Jack that sex (if and when he ever got some) was just one big round of manoeuvrings these days. It didn’t used to be like that, did it? You just got the hots for a girl and went for it, didn’t you? But his fond recollections of his teenage libido had been unpicked, every last one of them, since his divorce. His easy flirtatiousness with the opposite sex while he’d been married had evaporated as surely as a puddle in the sun. It was all decisions now. Imports. Consequences. Angles. He would so like to kiss her. Would so like to kiss her while taking a well-aimed palm and smoothing it over the woolly mound in her jumper that he knew outlined her right breast. And then move on to the left… Was there any way he could wangle it so that he could send the taxi away?

But her mother would be there, he remembered belatedly. Her mother was babysitting, that’s what she’d said. Though didn’t she say her mother had driven her down? In which case, wouldn’t she be driving home at some point? Why hadn’t he brought his car? He’d drunk comparatively little. If he’d brought his car there would have been so many possibilities.
Carpe Diem
. But now he was stuck with the bloody cab. He tried to imagine himself standing outside Hope’s house and kissing her while the taxi driver sat and waited for him. He couldn’t. But he clearly couldn’t kiss her inthe taxi. It would seem tacky. It would betacky. God, but he wanted to take her to bed.

Llanishen came and went. More directions were exchanged.

‘Oh, I am soexcited,’ said Hope suddenly, lifting her arm up again and relocating it halfway along his forearm. A different part of his anatomy rose momentarily in agreement. But then he felt the mild pressure of her squeezing his arm through his jacket. Squeezing forearms was not, to Jack’s mind, a ticket to ride. ‘I just can’t tell you. This means so much to me… what with, well, you know, everything… and I just know we’re going to raise loads of cash. And it’s so kindof everyone–’ She stopped speaking for a moment to squeeze his arm again, before patting it. As if he were an amiable terrier. ‘It’s so kind of
you,
Jack. God, to think I almost didn’t ring in about my trainer! Serendipity, don’t you think?’

True serendipity, thought Jack, would be the happy coincidence of her deciding she’d like to take him to bed too. Among her secret fur cushions – now, there was a picture. Her boudoir. And preferably tonight. With her mother and children spirited away somewhere. ‘It’s a pleasure,’ he said, holding her gaze long enough so that she wouldn’t fail to register quite how much of a pleasure. An anticipatory one, admittedly. But then he always travelled hopefully.

She kept looking at him, her hand still on his forearm, then whipped it away suddenly and lowered her eyes. This was good. This was progress. Perhaps he hadread things right. She looked thoughtful. Shy even. Maybe he should consolidate and make some sort of move.

‘It was a lovely dinner,’ she said hurriedly, beating him to it. ‘And you must please, please let me give you something towards the taxi.’ She starting fiddling with the clasp on the little bag in her lap. Aha! An opportunity. He reached out and placed his hand over hers. Her skin was warm, almost hot. And very, very soft. Following her lead, he now squeezed her hand gently, wondering, as her other hand hovered between them, if she might plonk it on top of his own now, in some sort of famous-five-pact ritual thing. Which would be fine. Just fine. He had another hand available. Pre-pubescent foreplay was OK by him. But she didn’t. She just sat.

‘I will not,’ he said sternly, to consolidate. ‘And no arguments.’

‘But –’

He shook his head. ‘No buts.’

‘But –’

‘Where here, love?’

Hope stopped butting and gave the driver more directions. Was it the light, or had she coloured a little? They were in her road now, it seemed, and approaching her house. ‘But nothing,’ said Jack smoothly. ‘Like I said, it’s been a pleasure.’ He looked intently at her, smiling. It would bea pleasure. Decided, Jack let go of her hand as the taxi pulled up, and leapt out while she re-fastened her bag. She looked bemused to find him standing to attention by the door as she climbed out.

Flustered, in fact. ‘There was really no need –’

Should he go for it?
Should
he?

‘So,’ he said instead. ‘Here we are, then.’

‘Here we are indeed.’ She pushed a bit of hair around again. ‘Thank you so much for this evening. I’d ask you in but I suppose you’ll want to be getting back.’ She gestured towards the taxi. The driver inside was fiddling with a knob on his radio set.

‘I guess I will,’ he said. And in one fluid movement he clasped her shoulder with one hand, shut the car door with the other, leaned forward, pursed his lips, changed his mind, opened them, and made satisfying contact with her mouth. She’d proffered her cheek, of course, but he was wise to that one. Their lips met and parted in an untidy muddle, which was more than she’d expected and the best he could hope for. She looked mildly shocked.

‘It’s been lovely, Hope,’ he said, drawing back and reluctantly letting go of her. She was blinking at him now. He smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. He didn’t want her thinking he was some sort of letch. She grinned coyly at him, so he smiled the smile wider. ‘I hope we can do it again soon.’

As Jack got back into the taxi he’d already mentally ditched the word ‘again’ from this statement. A sporting analogy seemed rather fitting. God, just do it. To just do it at allwould be nice.

She waved as they drove off. Damn, he felt horny. Damn, but he wished he’d brought the car.