Christmas for One: No Greater Love (11 page)

‘She didn’t knock your socks off?’ Meg offered.

Edd turned to face her, remembering her words at the top of the Empire State Building. ‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘She never did.’

Meg looked at the fine straight line of his nose and mouth and placed her palm over the back of his hand, which still rested on her thigh. She wondered what he saw as he stared at her, feeling the wave of warmth rise within her from their point of contact. She wanted him to see her as a sexy, available partner and not how she often felt on the inside, a knackered working single mum who was trying very hard to have it all.

She pulled the sequined cushion from the side of the sofa and held it into her chest.

‘I’m not very confident, Edd. I’m a bit bruised,’ she whispered.

‘I think we all are in one way or another.’ He looked at the floor. Easier to have this conversation with his eyes averted.

‘Do you think I’m sexy?’ she whispered. ‘I just wondered.’ Instantly she regretted the question; her nerves caused her to ramble. ‘You don’t have to answer. I only ask because sometimes I’m so focused on being a mum and getting things done for Plum’s that I don’t know what I’ve become. I don’t know if anyone will ever find me attractive. I have the chest of a fourteen-year-old boy. I wish I had boobs…’ Meg felt her cheeks flush at the admission.

Edd spluttered on his coffee, laughing and choking simultaneously. ‘That’s funny! And for your information, I was once a fourteen-year-old boy and my chest wasn’t anything like that. If it had been, I’d never have left the house.’ Edd looked at her shyly. The bolshie, flirty man from the Greenwich Avenue Deli had disappeared behind his coffee cup. ‘And in answer to your question – of course.’

‘Of course what?’

‘You are very sexy. I love the way you look, and your little cockney voice. Any man that cheated on you would want his head examined.’

They both laughed. She stared at him as her eyes misted slightly. ‘I’ve never thought being a cockney was a sexy thing.’

‘Well it is, trust me.’ Edd placed his coffee cup on the floor and removed hers from her grasp. He threw the cushions to the ground and took her hand in his, pulling her into an upright position.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, with one eye on the clock.

‘We are going back to bed and we are going to make things a whole lot weirder.’

He kissed her hard on the mouth. Meg knotted her hands behind his neck as they moved towards the bedroom, trying desperately to ignore the nerves that fizzed in her stomach. She hoped she was going to be all Edd wanted and more.

Meg looped by the Inn on 11th on her way to work. Having showered, retouched her make-up and changed into her black wool minidress, over-the-knee black boots and thick woolly tights, she felt ready to face the day. She had a spring in her step and a grin on her face.

She’d ignored Elene’s subtle line of questioning – ‘Is that you coming in or going out, Meg?’ – her eyes bright with interest. And she’d resisted the temptation to respond with,
‘Oh, coming in, actually. I got so sloshed last night that I slept in a strange man’s bed and then slept with him this morning. We had a lovely time, went to fifth base, which was great and apparently further than Jennifer Molowski let anyone go, even on Prom night.’
Instead, she managed to deflect the question with a burst of unnatural laughter and by babbling about the cold weather and plans for Christmas before smiling sweetly and returning her key to the disinterested Salvatore. He hung it on the rack where it had spent the night.

Meg was pleased to see that Plum Patisserie on Bleecker Street was a hive of activity. Nancy, Mr Redlitch’s daughter, had left a message asking Meg to come up and see her. As she trod the stairs to the apartments above, she felt even more like an intruder than she had the day before. She slowly approached Mr Redlitch’s front door, which she found ajar, knocked on it and entered. Trying not to stare at the spot where his body had lain only twenty-four hours earlier, she stepped around the space, taking in the detail of his apartment.

A pair of ruby-red velvet slippers with the backs trodden down sat neatly aligned by the wall. In the sitting room, thick-lensed spectacles perched on top of a haphazard pile of newspapers and magazines. The papers rested on a stool by the side of an olive green couch, which had a couple of lace antimacassars. A wood-veneer side table was crammed with medicine bottles, blister packs of pills in various colours and pots of ointment. The sight of these personal items that were now ownerless caused a lump to rise in Meg’s throat. She thought how sad it was that, following a death, things of use and value were quickly relegated to thrift-shop fodder.

The heavy, dusty curtains had been pulled back and the windows opened to let in the daylight and the cold December air. A framed black and white photograph sat on a dresser. It was of a young couple beaming into the shutter from a sunny dockside, she was wearing net petticoats, he was in a shoestring tie and Brylcreem. She studied the picture, focusing on the young man’s hand clamped around the tiny belted waist of his girl. She tried not to think about the hand it had become, lying limply on the sticky linoleum in the cold dark room, unnoticed for a fortnight.

Nancy was a heavy-set woman in a neon floral blouse; Meg counted seven rings on her tanned fingers. She had settled herself in the corner of her father’s sitting room and was sniffing into a soggy square of kitchen roll while her big-haired friend made tea, noisily, in the cramped kitchen. She seemed glad to have someone to talk to, even if that someone was a stranger like Meg. Despite her obvious grief, she was gracious and kind, saying immediately that of course the contractors could have access to her dad’s apartment later in the day.

‘I’m so grateful you raised the alarm with the superintendent, dear. Thank you.’

Meg blushed, still embarrassed at having been so underhand about it.

‘And I wanted to ask you something.’ Nancy paused.

‘You can ask me anything.’ Megan was sincere.

‘When you saw him, did… did he look peaceful?’ Nancy asked hopefully between fractured breaths.

Meg pictured the swarm of flies and the horrific, sickly-sweet smell, which, despite the bleach and industrial clean-up, still lingered in the fabric of the apartment. She smiled at Nancy, sensing she would not be able to cope with any of the detail. Her mind flew to that silent white room in St Thomas’ hospital, London four years before, when she’d held the hand of her fiancé, trying to understand that he had gone from her. Grazing his knuckles with her lips, she had squeezed Bill’s hand, hoping beyond hope for a response as her fingers lay against his cooled skin. It would have helped such a lot to have known that his last minutes had been calm and pain-free. But his cuts, bruises and bloody wounds told a very different story.

Meg smiled at Nancy. ‘Yes he did. I thought he looked very peaceful.’ She watched as Nancy’s shoulders sagged and her sob formed.

‘Thank you,’ she mouthed, patting Meg’s arm. ‘Thank you so much.’

There was a silent interval. ‘Can I ask you something?’ Meg eventually whispered.

‘Of course, sweetie.’ Nancy leant forward.

‘I was wondering, what was your dad’s name?’

‘It was Gabriel.’ Nancy heaved, finding it distressing to use the past tense. ‘He was a Christmas baby; it would have been his birthday next week.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘My grandma used to tell me that she thought she’d been blessed with an angel. An angel at Christmas, what else were they gonna call him?’ She smiled.

‘Gabriel,’ Meg repeated.

Downstairs, Meg sat at one of the tables in the café, poring over the stock order for the Christmas period. She glanced up to see the man she had been waiting for on the pavement outside. Quickly, she set aside the paperwork and raced out into the street.

‘Hey, Victor.’

‘Hey.’ He nodded, barely acknowledging her, fiddling with the keys on his belt loop.

Meg knotted her fingers behind her back. ‘How are you feeling today? It must have been horrible for you yesterday, finding Mr Redlitch like that. I thought you were amazing. I just wanted to say that.’

Victor shrugged. ‘I always just try to do the right thing.’

Meg nodded in acknowledgement.
Yes, and I duped you and I am sorry, really sorry.
‘I was chatting to Nancy earlier, Mr Redlitch’s daughter. She’s busy getting things sorted upstairs, but she seems okay. Her friend is with her.’ It felt odd discussing this intimate situation with a man she didn’t know, about a woman who was a stranger.

‘Is that Nancy who
isn’t
your mother?’ he asked, looking past her towards the upstairs apartment.

Meg felt her blush spread up her neck. ‘I’m sorry I lied to you. I really am. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess none of us could have imagined how it would end up.’

Victor shrugged. ‘No matter.’ He tapped his torch against his palm and switched it on and off.

Always good to test your battery
, Meg thought wryly.

‘Turned out right in the end.’

‘Yes, poor Mr Redlitch.’ She vowed to come up with a better way of referring to him.
Gabriel…

‘I suppose you don’t even support Chelsea?’ Victor asked, his eyes downcast.

Meg sighed and shook her head. ‘No, West Ham. But I did mosh to “Ace of Spades” at a school disco – that was the truth and it was good fun!’

Victor twisted his mouth into a small smile.

Meg looked up the street, searching for a way to bring the conversation to a close, just as Edd rounded the corner and came into view. Her heart flipped and her stomach turned over at the sight of him. No words left her lips; she simply turned away from Victor with her eyes fixed on the man walking towards her.

Oh my God…

Meg had been thankful that Edd had had to be somewhere else first thing, knowing she could not have concentrated or hidden her grin earlier on. It would have been horribly insensitive, talking to the tearful Nancy with a coquettish giggle. She beamed at him, noting he had swapped his denim shirt for a white cotton one but was still in his regulation jeans and Timberland boots. She couldn’t help but picture the body underneath, the memory of which made her smile even more broadly. As he got closer, she noted his stern expression and her stomach turned again for an entirely different reason. Was he regretting the last twenty-four hours or having second thoughts about getting involved with a knackered single mum with the chest of a fourteen-year-old boy? She swallowed as he sped up, coming to a stop inches from her on the pavement.

‘When do you leave for England?’ he asked without preamble. His face earnest, voice steady.

Meg swallowed. ‘Thursday. Tomorrow!’

Victor ambled into the apartment block, feeling even more invisible than usual.

Edd was breathing quickly as he shook his head. ‘I don’t know what’s happening, but… I can’t stop thinking about you. If I close my eyes I can see you in my head. People have been talking to me all morning, but I can’t concentrate, I can only think about you.’

‘Sames,’ she whispered.

He grinned. ‘Is that your summary of the situation? I lay my heart and soul bare and I get “sames”?’

Meg nodded. A bubble of happiness stoppered the words in her throat.

Edd wasn’t done. ‘I didn’t want to leave you this morning and I couldn’t wait to get back to you now. I can’t believe we only have a day and a bit. That can’t be it. We need to make a plan. We will make a plan.’

‘What does our plan look like?’

Edd exhaled. ‘Truthfully? I don’t know. Maybe you stay here or I come there or we emigrate to the Bahamas and go sit on a beach for a couple of years, living on a boat. I don’t know! I’m not thinking straight, but there will be a solution, we just have to find it.’

Meg smiled and spoke slowly. ‘A boat in the Bahamas sounds good, especially today.’ She cupped her hands to try and ward off the chill. ‘Do they have baseball in the Bahamas? Just that I know you could never live anywhere that didn’t.’

‘Funny you should ask that – yes they do!’

‘Well I never.’ She laughed. ‘Sounds like you’ve thought this through.’ She stared at her toes. ‘I have to go back, Edd. You know that, don’t you?’ She thought of Lucas and her heart lurched. She missed him. The guilt of separation was never very far from the surface.

He nodded. ‘I do. And you know I have to meet my deadlines here.’

Meg looked up at him. ‘I don’t want to leave Lucas any longer than I have to, but I do feel the same. I haven’t felt this way since—’

‘Since your fiancé?’

Meg shook her head. ‘No.’ She took a deep breath and considered her next words carefully. ‘Since never, actually. Bill was like something new and shiny and unbelievable in my very dull world, but I never felt like this. I never have.’ She looked at the cold, grey pavement. ‘That feels like a terrible thing to say. He’s dead and it feels disloyal and he’s Lucas’s dad, but…’ She searched her mind for the right phrase.
I feel like the sun has come up! I feel like everything is going to be okay!

‘But what?’ Edd reached up and caught the side of her face in his palm. He ran the pad of his thumb over the outline of her jaw as if committing the shape to memory.

Meg turned to look him straight in the eye. ‘But it’s the truth.’

Edd bent low and kissed her mouth. Meg raised her hands and placed them on his muscular back, happy to be in such close proximity to him once again.

‘Ah! Oh God! Sorry! I just wondered… err…’ Juno coughed and spluttered behind them.

Meg pulled away and, despite the scarlet blush on her pulsing cheeks, tried to appear businesslike. ‘Everything okay, Juno?’

‘Yes! Yes! Everything is great. Wow!’ Juno smiled, broadly, waving her pen in the air. ‘I wanted to go through the display sheet with you, make sure I know how you want everything laid out on the main counter, but it can wait if you’re busy…’ She held her notepad to her chest and swayed on the spot, smiling.

‘Right.’ Meg didn’t know where to put herself.

‘Too cute!’ Juno muttered as she skipped past them into the shop, which was now bustling with activity, one big step closer to opening.