E for England (6 page)

‘No thanks. I really should be going. I only dropped in to see if Annie had found her keys.'

Leonie stood up. ‘And here I was thinking you'd come to see me.'

‘I did,' Hugh blurted. ‘Both of you.' Oh Christ! Annie didn't do this to him, deliberately tie him in knots. Annie was sweet and kind and friendly, not predatory and dangerous.

Leonie headed for the kitchen, laughing. Hugh took his beer inside, intent on making his escape.

‘What are you doing this evening?' She yanked the fridge open and retrieved the gin bottle.

‘I thought I might go to The Basement and hear that Brazilian band. They sounded good.'

‘You could, or you could come to another place with me and see a really top jazz trio.' She finished fiddling with her drink and screwed the top back on the gin.

Hugh hesitated. He'd enjoy the music, no doubt about it but what would Leonie assume if he accepted?

‘A group of us are going,' she said. ‘We've booked a table for dinner so we can easily squeeze in one more. I'll call and fix it.' Phone already in hand she looked at him expectantly.

A group? She was a gregarious, experienced woman with plenty of friends. He would be just one more friend, as with Annie. He wouldn't lead her on and pretend there was anything more here than there was. Refusing would be churlish and pointless. He nodded. ‘Great. I'd love to. Thank you.'

She made the call, did a quick text and announced, ‘Done. I'm being picked up at seven so you can come with me.'

‘Will that be all right with your friends?'

‘Of course. We can meet in the foyer at about five to seven.'

‘All right.' Hugh put his empty beer bottle on the bench. ‘I should go.'

‘Don't rush off. Annie will be home soon.' Leonie leaned one hip against the bench and studied him over the rim of her glass. ‘You can meet the kidlets.'

‘Oh. I'm sure they're very nice but I'm not all that wild about children.'

She leaned forward and whispered loudly, ‘Me neither. Although Mattie and Floss are pretty cute.'

‘Floss?'

‘Florence. She's four. I certainly don't want any of my own.' She pulled her face into an
exaggerated expression of horror. ‘It's nonstop.'

‘Why did you say Annie could stay?'

‘How could I not? She was desperate. An email came round at work. She literally had nowhere to go and here was I with two empty rooms.'

‘Very kind of you.'

‘I'm not a charity. I needed a housemate. Annie pays her share.' Leonie wandered across and flopped onto the sofa. ‘We get along pretty well. She's a great cook.' She waved an arm at the empty chairs. ‘Sit.'

‘No, I won't thanks, Leonie. I have a little bit more paperwork to do if I'm going out tonight.' He'd catch Annie another time. ‘Don't get up. I'll see myself out. See you soon.'

‘Okay. See you tonight.' She flapped a hand in farewell.

Hugh pulled the door closed behind him with a sigh of relief. The lift responded quickly and moments later he stepped out into the foyer face to face with Annie accompanied by her children. The boy, about six or seven, took after her with dark hair and the same oval face, the small girl had a tumble of ginger gold curls and big blue eyes. Annie, weighed down by a bulging cloth bag of books over her shoulder, looked grim.

‘Hello.'

The children barely gave him a glance, more intent on pushing past to be first in the lift.

She smiled but it was a fed up, frazzled one. ‘Hi.'

Annie hitched the bag books more securely onto her shoulder, slammed down the rush of pleasure at seeing him and grabbed Floss before she darted into the lift to be whisked away all by herself.

‘Wait, Flossie.'

Hugh visiting upstairs? Who? No prizes for getting that answer right. They'd met last night and Leonie wouldn't need much time to make her move on E for England. And what a way for him to meet the kids, when they were grumpy, tired and had spent most of the afternoon fighting.

Flossie stopped and turned to stare at Hugh. Mattie said, ‘But we'll miss the lift.'

‘Doesn't matter. This is our neighbour, Hugh. Mattie and Floss.'

Hugh held out his hand first to Mattie then Flossie. ‘Hello. I'm very pleased to meet you.'

Mattie managed a mumbled ‘Hello' accompanied by a scowl guaranteed to turn the milk sour. Flossie amazed Annie by shaking Hugh's hand and with a big beautiful smile said, ‘We've been to the liberry.'

‘I know. Leonie told me.' He responded with that beautiful smile of his own. The one that made a flustered mother's knees wobble. The lift doors closed.

Annie said, ‘Have you been up to see Leonie?'

‘Yes. But I really wanted to check you'd found your keys.'

Mattie glanced at her with a confused frown. ‘My Mum has her keys.' Now he chose to tune into the adult conversation, having ignored most of what she'd said all afternoon! Annie gritted her teeth.

‘That's right.' She held them up and tried to tell Hugh with her expression, backed up by mental telepathy, not to say any more. ‘See?'

He should understand there were some things children didn't need to know. Especially after the disruption these two had had in their lives recently. Settled and secure was what they
needed to feel and what she was desperately trying to provide. Knowing their mother had been locked out while they were asleep, alone, was not conducive to achieving that state.

‘Good.' Hugh nodded, meeting her eye. He understood. Of course he did.

Mattie didn't. ‘Why did you think my Mum had lost her keys?'

‘I made a mistake. It was someone else.'

Annie tore her attention from Hugh's smiling mouth. He had a full lower lip. So sexy. Especially when he smiled. Mattie said in a tone she recognised only too well as belligerent, ‘But that's stupid.'

‘Don't be rude,' she snapped. ‘Don't worry about it, Mattie. Press the button, please.'

Flossie darted forward and pressed it first.

‘That's not fair. Mum asked
me,'
Mattie yelled and swung a wildly aimed blow which fortunately missed his sister and everyone in the vicinity.

Floss squealed and hid behind Annie, dislodging the book bag which swung down, all sharp, hard corners and connected with Annie's shin.

‘Stop it! You can press the button for the floor.' She grabbed Mattie by the arm and held him away from Floss. Fortunately the doors opened and she could bundle them inside before blows were exchanged. The book bag crashed into the doorframe as she dragged it behind her.

Mattie pounced on the button and pressed it before Flossie who was on tiptoes trying to beat him to it, could reach high enough. He shoved her out of the way and she squealed.

‘That's enough!' yelled Annie. She gave up trying to control the book bag and let it drop to the floor spilling books in a colourful sprawl. She said to the combatants, ‘You stand in that corner and you stand in that one.'

‘Goodbye,' Hugh said.

Annie sent him a distracted smile and a despairing shrug. ‘Bye. Come up later if you like. The war will have stopped by nine.'

The doors began closing but he said quickly into the gap, ‘Can't, sorry. I'm going out.'

The expression on his face said far more than his words and it wasn't disappointment at having to refuse her invitation; it was vast acres of relief.

Annie firmed her mouth into a line so hard her lips hurt. Tears pressed against her lids. Not tears at Hugh's choice, nothing to do with him. Much more to do with the two terrors sharing the lift with her. They'd done nothing but grumble and argue and fight the whole afternoon. Mattie was tired from waking up in the night and made sure everyone knew about it and suffered with him. Flossie didn't want to go to the library and wanted to stay home with Leonie but Annie didn't like to impose. She couldn't assume Leonie would mind the children just because she wasn't going out herself.

Flossie bent down and began trying to stuff the books back into the bag.

‘I'll do it,' said Annie.

‘I can carry this one.' Flossie tucked a book under her arm.

‘Thank you.'

The doors opened. Mattie pushed his way out followed by Flossie with her book, leaving Annie with the bag and simmering annoyance. This was where she really missed Kevin. At least he shared the bad times and gave her time out occasionally. He'd step in and take over as referee and disciplinarian whereas now she was on her own. Completely. No way was she
involving Leonie in her domestic problems.

Inside, she went straight to the bedrooms and off-loaded. A pile of picture books for the children, two fat romances for her. If she wasn't getting any for real at least she could indulge vicariously in someone else's love-life. Mattie picked up one of his choices and went to the living room.

‘I'm hungry. Can we have crumpets and honey?' asked Flossie.

‘It's a bit late now, dinner will be soon.'

‘But I'm hungry now,' came the predictable whine.

‘You can have some banana or apple.'

‘Okay.' Accompanied by a disgusted huff and puff.

Annie went to the kitchen.

Leonie was on the balcony reading a magazine in the last of the afternoon sun.

‘Hi,' she called.

‘Hello.'

An empty beer bottle sat on the bench. Hugh? Had to be. Annie dumped it in the recycling and began cutting and coring an apple. She sat Flossie at the table with her bowl, took another to Mattie then joined Leonie.

‘Ugh.' She sank onto a chair and closed her eyes, breathing in the peace, the quiet warmth. A little flock of multicoloured parrots chattered in the treetops below them.

‘What's up?'

‘Kids. They did nothing but fight the whole afternoon. Anyone would think I was raising a couple of gladiators.'

‘Have some gin.' Leonie appeared to have had her share already. ‘You look like you need it.'

‘Believe me I do but I won't, thanks. I have to feed the monsters soon. Are you home for dinner?'

‘No, Hugh and I are going to the Vanguard. We're meeting Carla and Jade and that crowd.' Leonie's friends from a previous workplace. Annie knew them but wasn't part of the group. She wasn't part of any group since the divorce, and moving halfway across Sydney made keeping up local friendships difficult. She'd lost track of her single friends when she married and now the couples had mysteriously disappeared too. The harbour was like a barrier keeping north from south.

‘Hugh from downstairs?' No wonder he wasn't interested in a dull evening with the single mother of junior tyrants. She stared across the water to the distant shore. A passenger liner was making stately progress towards the sea. How good would that be? Sailing away to a new life. Living on board with meals prepared, laundry taken care of, children entertained. No work.

‘Yes. He's cute. I don't think he knows many people in Sydney yet.'

‘No.' No doubt Leonie would fix that for him. Annie exhaled a deep slow breath.

‘You should come too. Ask Brenda next door to babysit. She never goes out.'

‘I can't ask her an hour before I want to go out.' Leonie had no idea. Spontaneity was a concept buried deep under layers of accumulated silt. It would take years to extract and by the time she did regain a semblance of carefree she'd be too old and tired to do anything about it. ‘And the kids don't know Brenda at all. I barely do.' A stern-faced woman with an equally dour
looking male flatmate with a German accent. They had yet to decide what the relationship next door actually was.

‘Does that matter? All she has to do is put them to bed and watch TV which I bet she does at home anyway.'

Annie shook her head. ‘No, it's fine. Thanks all the same. There's sure to be a movie on TV I can watch.'

Leonie shrugged and drained her glass. She looked at her watch. ‘Nearly six. Time for a nice long soak and a beautification.' She stood up and stretched. Tall, slim and taut in places Annie had long given up on. Annie closed her eyes again but the sun had gone behind the buildings on the point and a wind had sprung up, coming in off the sea, bringing with it a salty flavour on the cooler air.

‘What's for dinner, Mummy?' Flossie at the doorway to the balcony.

‘Chicken and chips and salad,' Annie said with eyes closed.

‘Goody. When?'

‘Soon.'

‘How soon?'

‘Very soon.'

‘Now soon?'

‘Soon soon.'

Warm arms slid around her neck and soft lips pressed on her cheek. Flossie's curls tickled her nose. She slid an arm around her daughter and pulled the little body onto her lap for a cuddle.

Flossie turned so her nose touched Annie's and both of them were cross-eyed. ‘I love you, Mummy.'

‘I love you, too.' And that made every temper tantrum, every sibling battle and every hair pulling, frustrating, exhausting maternal moment worthwhile.

Hugh sat jammed at a long wooden table next to Leonie with a bouncing, hyper brunette with facial piercings on his other side called Jade. He wasn't entirely clear of the connection all these people had to Leonie. Some of them had worked with her in a previous job, others seemed to be related to people in the band. He gave up trying to figure it out. They all welcomed him with friendly smiles, shoved chairs along to make room and talked nonstop.

The venue, a large converted shop space in an older inner Western Sydney suburb, was packed. Waitstaff struggled to take and deliver orders, fighting their way around crowded tables in non-existent passageways between chairs. A tiny stage was set with drums, amps, keyboard and a double bass lying on its side.

‘They only serve pasta.' Jade slid a menu in front of him.

‘Fine.' Hugh looked at the short list of dishes and decided. He passed the menu to Leonie.