E for England (16 page)

He stepped forward and folded her into his arms. She didn't resist but she didn't respond the way he would have liked either, with passion. She nestled her cheek into his shoulder and allowed him to hold her close. The way friends do.

Annie closed her eyes and imagined he was embracing her for a different reason. A sympathy hug was nice and she needed one right at the moment, but a hug from Hugh fired all sorts of reactions in her body that would shock him if he knew. She wanted to turn her head and kiss him on those delicious lips but he'd be horrified. He was only offering an apology and comfort, not a night of passion on her living room floor. Dream on, Annie, you're such an idiot.

A giggle escaped, making her shoulders shake. Hugh held her away.

‘What?' A smile danced in his eyes.

‘Nothing.' She risked a quick kiss on his cheek, feeling a graze of stubble on her lips. ‘You're a good hugger, Doctor. Thank you.'

The smile spread to his mouth. ‘It's part of my bedside manner. I came top of my class in hugging.'

Annie detached herself reluctantly and collected the empty mugs and the cake plate.

‘I'd better go if I'm going to try baking tonight.' He'd obviously had enough of her and her depressing issues.

Annie's phone rang midmorning at work on Monday. She reached absently for the receiver still studying the spreadsheet on the screen before her.

‘Annie Fisher.'

‘Annie? It's Kevin.'

She froze, unable to speak, unable to think.

‘Are you there? Annie?'

‘Yes.' She swallowed quickly. Words came rushing into her mouth with the force of a tidal wave. ‘What do you want? Where the hell are you? Why haven't you called me?'

‘I've been away.'

‘I know that!' she spat. ‘We got the postcards. Pity we didn't get any money for the last six months.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You bastard.' She ground the words out between clenched teeth.

‘Things have been hard for me lately, Annie.'

‘Oh really? Try raising two children on my pay alone. Try finding somewhere to live. We got kicked out of the house, Kevin. Did you know? Did it occur to you I couldn't keep it on alone? Did anything occur to you? Like our children?'

She slammed down the phone.

‘Are you all right? Was that…' Julia, at the next desk, hesitated, her kindly face wrinkled in a concerned grimace.

‘My bloody husband.' Annie stared at her trembling hands and clenched the fingers into fists.

‘What did he want?' Julia got up and came across to Annie, ready to offer advice. Fifty something and motherly, always ready to take on board others' troubles, she'd been supportive when Kevin left and had actually hunted up Leonie and her apartment with an in-house email cry for assistance, something Annie would never have done herself.

Leonie thought she was a busybody with no life of her own.

‘I don't know and I don't care.' Annie stood up and headed for the Ladies to avoid the sympathy. She didn't want that right now, she was too furious.

Julia followed, hands flapping. ‘But Annie, he might want to make amends. He might want to see the children. You really should talk to him.'

‘I don't want to.'

‘You have to.'

Annie spun around glaring at the anxious woman. ‘Why?'

‘For your children. He's their father.'

Leonie was right. This wasn't anyone's business but her own.

‘He gave up any rights to his children when he stopped paying child support and when he disappeared out of their lives.' She pushed open the door to the Ladies and let it close in Julia's face. For good measure she locked herself in a cubicle.

How dare he call her now and say things had been hard! What did he want? Sympathy? Tough! She'd run out of that months ago. And why call her at work when he could have called her mobile? Hoping she wouldn't be able to make a scene? Again, tough!

Annie sat until her breathing returned to normal and the urge to scream subsided. She washed her hands and splashed cool water on her cheeks and neck, patting them dry with paper towels. She squared her shoulders and returned to her desk.

Julia was on the phone but gave her a questioning look as she sat down, mouthing, ‘Are you okay?'

Annie nodded and focused on the spreadsheet on the screen.

At lunchtime Julia wanted to accompany her to the café at the bottom of their building and talk. Pry. Annie wanted to buy a sandwich and sit in the nearby park, alone. For the first time she missed Leonie with her straightforward no-nonsense, cut the crap attitude. Things were black and white in Leonie's world. Kevin would be black as sin, Annie and the children white and pure as angels. Leonie would give her opinion of the situation unclouded by emotion. Leonie would back her up. The way Kevin had treated his family, in her eyes, was an unforgivable act of bastardry.

Julia didn't think so. Julia was in favour of giving him a chance to explain, ask him what he wanted. Let him see his children. Julia was older and more experienced in life. She'd been married and divorced and was now widowed by her second husband, a much older man. She hadn't been treated badly, though, by either husband. The divorce had been amicable when her children were older, the second marriage happy.

Annie stared at her uneaten sandwich. Kevin would call her again. She had to be prepared. She had to know what to say to him.

She walked slowly back to the office and sat at her desk, picking at the sandwich and finishing the coffee she'd bought but hadn't drunk. He'd left a message on her voicemail, his phone number and ‘Please call.' She scribbled it down on a piece of scrap paper and shoved it in her purse.

Julia's well meaning enquiry after she returned from lunch was met with a set face and a shake of the head.

Annie didn't phone that night and she didn't phone the next day. She tried very hard to forget he'd phoned at all. But she couldn't, of course. Every time she looked at Floss she saw Kevin. Same gingery tinged curls, same shaped face, same eyes, same smile.

And Mattie, missing his father, asking about Hugh and when they could play football again, even though they'd played for the second time on Sunday and she'd explained that the cousins wouldn't be free every weekend. What to do? She needed suggestions from an unbiased source.

She rang Hugh on Wednesday morning in her tea break after a night and day of wondering if it was pushing a fledgling friendship too far. But he did know the background and he knew her situation, plus he wasn't emotionally invested in the outcome.

‘I know this is out of the blue and it's probably the last thing you want to do but I really need some advice,' she said after they'd both ascertained they were well, thanks and he had time to talk. ‘Could you possibly come up tonight for a chat? I've got chocolate cake.' She added that as a bribe in case he needed a tug in her direction.

‘Oh.' He didn't sound reluctant; he sounded surprised but pleased, and he didn't probe, which was good because she didn't want to go into details on the phone with ears flapping all around. She never understood how people could have the most intimate conversations on mobile phones in public. Gigantic egos, she suspected, assuming everyone was interested in their lives and proud to share. Or just totally oblivious, which equalled the same thing: a gigantic ego.

‘I'm sorry I can't tonight. James and I are going out with some friends.'

‘Oh okay. No problem.' Did she sound as disappointed as she was? Who were the friends? The girlfriends from last week? James would have lots of them. But he hadn't specified James' friends, just said friends.

‘Would tomorrow be all right? I can come up around eight thirty. Presumably you don't want the children around?'

‘No, I don't. Tomorrow's fine but only if it's convenient. I don't want to intrude on your social life.'

‘Tomorrow's fine. Sorry, Annie, I'd better go I'm being paged.'

‘All right. Thanks Hugh.'

‘See you tomorrow.'

Hugh knocked on Annie's door wondering what on earth she wanted to discuss. Advice, she'd said. About what? It couldn't be about the children. The last time he'd offered advice she'd been snappy and protective, and despite her apology he wouldn't venture there again. Something to do with their health perhaps? No, she'd go to their own doctor, she wouldn't impose on him.

Financial advice? She knew far more about money than he did, she was part way through an MBA with an Economics degree behind her. Maybe that was it. She wanted to restart the MBA and wanted reassurance she was doing the right thing. She was and he'd have no qualms about telling her so.

Annie opened the door with a smile behind which lurked worry. ‘Thanks for coming.' Her eyes had dark shadows under them, indicating lack of sleep and a mind far from calm. His instinctive reaction was to pull her into his arms for another friendly hug but before he could act she'd turned away to lead him inside.

‘What's the problem?' He sat in his usual place on the couch. She sat opposite, fingers twining in and out of each other like snakes. This wasn't about whether she should restart her MBA, this was something else, something far more serious.

A lump formed in his belly. Was it her own health? Was she ill? Did she have something serious? Like breast cancer? He reached forward and grasped her hands, stilling them, enclosing them in his, hoping he could send some of his own strength to her through the touch.

‘Kevin rang me,' she said.

For a moment the name didn't register.

‘My husband,' she added when he didn't respond.

‘What did he want?' He released her fingers and sat back, at once relieved she wasn't ill and apprehensive about what this would mean.

‘I don't know. I hung up on him I was so furious.' She met his startled expression with guileless eyes and he snorted as a spurt of laughter bubbled up from nowhere.

‘Sorry. I didn't expect you to say that.'

‘What?'

‘Any of it. I had no idea, I thought maybe you were ill or something. Did he call back?'

‘Yes but I was out of the office so he left a message asking me to phone him.' She leaned forward. ‘That's why I want your advice. Should I call him or not?'

‘Gosh, Annie. I don't know. Do you want to?'

‘That's what I don't know. Julia at work says I should talk to him because he's the father of the kids and I should think about how it affects them. If Leonie was here she'd say no, he's lost any rights he ever had.'

‘But that's their opinion, not yours. Ultimately it's how you feel, not how anyone else thinks you should.'

‘What do you think?'

Hugh rubbed his lips together. He'd prefer it if the guy disappeared off the face of the earth. He wanted to spend more time with Annie and even with her children, getting to know them, earning her trust and that of her sad little boy. Was it right to keep a son from his father?

‘I think a boy needs his father. Children need their father.'

Annie stared into his eyes for a long moment. ‘What happened to yours, Hugh?'

‘I barely remember him. He died in a car accident when I was six.'

‘Yet you miss him.'

He nodded. ‘I daydreamed about what it would be like to have a proper father and then Mum married again and it was a nightmare.'

‘Not all stepparents are wicked witches,' she said softly.

‘I know. But mine was.' He nearly told her the whole agonising story. The words trembled on his tongue but he swallowed them because she wanted his help tonight; not to be burdened with his pain.

‘So you think I should call.'

He nodded. ‘See what he wants.'

She stood up and went to her purse, removed a scrap of paper and picked up the phone. ‘Will you wait while I talk to him? Please?'

He rose. ‘I'll make tea. And you promised chocolate cake.'

A faint smile hovered on her lips light as a butterfly. ‘It's in the cake tin on the bench.'

He filled the jug with water. She dialled the number.

‘It's Annie. What do you want?'

Her side of the conversation sounded like someone receiving orders for a cold war spying operation, terse and unresponsive.

‘When?'

Silence.

‘No.'

Silence.

‘Twelve thirty in the foyer. I won't wait.'

She hung up.

‘Meeting him?' he asked.

She joined him in the kitchen. ‘Lunchtime tomorrow at work. I don't want him coming here.'

‘He'll want to see the kids, though.'

‘Probably.' She leaned against the bench and sighed, rubbed her hands over her face and groaned.

‘What will you say?' Hugh took two plates from the cupboard and carefully transferred two slices of rich dark chocolate cake from the tin. He handed her one. She stuck her index finger in the icing and licked it off.

Hugh averted his eyes quickly from pouting chocolatey lips. This was definitely not the time for lust. The trouble was she just couldn't help being sexy, even now when she was worried and confused. ‘How do you like your tea?'

‘Milk, thanks.'

He poured the tea and moved with her to the living room.

‘I think you're right. Mattie needs his father. I just hope Kevin doesn't let him down again.'

‘You'll have to tell him that. Make it really clear how upset and confused Mattie is.'

‘I want to make it clear how much money he owes in child support and how bloody furious I am.'

‘He's probably gathered the fury bit already unless he's completely thick.'

‘He's not stupid. He's…' She stopped, restarted. ‘He said things had been hard for him lately.'

‘In what way?'

‘No idea. I told him how hard it had been for me. And hung up.'