Miranda's Big Mistake (3 page)

It didn't help that Bruce kept shaking his head and telling her she looked terrible. Every time he said it, Chloe longed to blurt out that maybe if he was pregnant and his wife wanted him to have an abortion, he might look terrible too.

But she couldn't.

She didn't dare.

As long as nobody else was aware of the situation, Chloe felt superstitiously, there was a chance it could somehow sort itself out, be magically resolved.

It didn't seem likely, she had to admit. But you never knew, miracles did happen.

The other reason she was reluctant to tell Bruce was…well, her job.

He was her employer, and if Greg did leave her, she was going to need, rather badly, to stay employed.

Chloe couldn't help wondering how a man who disapproved of women spending more than thirty seconds in the loo was likely to react to the idea of time off for OBGYN appointments, visits to the doctor, maybe a whole day off to actually give birth…

No, no, safer all round to keep this kind of news from him, Chloe thought with a shudder.

For the time being, at least.

***

She felt doubly guilty on Friday morning when Bruce came into the shop carrying a box from the patisserie around the corner.

‘You're not eating properly,' he told her, dumping the box on the counter. ‘This dieting business doesn't suit you. Here, I picked us up a couple of coffee éclairs.'

Even a fortnight ago, the prospect of a coffee éclair at nine o'clock in the morning would have made her feel sick. Now, gazing lovingly at them, Chloe realized that she was so ravenous she could eat not only both éclairs but the box as well.

‘That's really kind.'

Does he seriously think I'm looking terrible because I'm on a diet?

‘Got something else for you too.' Digging in his inside pocket, Bruce pulled out a gilt-edged invitation. ‘My mother sent it to us. Some charity bash in Belgravia. Sounds pretty good, but we've made other arrangements for that night—it's our wedding anniversary—so I thought you and Greg could give it a try. Might perk you up a bit.'

‘Lovely.' Dutifully, Chloe studied the invitation. Right now the only thing capable of perking her up would be a husband with a brain transplant.

‘Lots of famous people going.' In case she'd forgotten how to read, Bruce leaned over and pointed to the list of names. ‘Wayne Peterson, the footballer. Caroline Newman, she's the one who does that holiday program. And Daisy Schofield…' He hesitated. The name was familiar but he couldn't place it.

‘Australian model, sings a bit. And she's acted in a couple of films,' said Chloe. Greg had something of a crush on Daisy Schofield, so she was in a position to know.

‘Well, should be fun.' Bruce gave her an encouraging wink. ‘No getting yourself chatted up by Wayne Peterson, mind. He's a good-looking chap.'

Oh yes, highly likely, thought Chloe. The moment Wayne Peterson claps eyes on me, that'll be it, no question.

Bowled over.

Literally, she decided with a rueful smile, if I carry on eating at this rate.

***

Greg waited until Chloe had left for work the next morning before hauling the suitcases out from under the stairs.

Doing it this way might seem unkind, but he didn't mean to be. It would just be far more upsetting for Chloe, he knew, to be there watching him pack.

Easier all round to clear his things out while she was out.

Was that so cruel?

It didn't take him long to fill four suitcases; he wasn't making off with the household appliances, only clothes and a few CDs.

Forty minutes later, Greg took a last tour around the living room. Not the happiest day of his life, but he'd survive.

None of this is my fault, he told himself, imagining Chloe's reaction when she came home at five thirty and found his note. It really
isn't
my fault, though. Chloe knew the rules and she broke them. How can I be to blame when she forced me into this?

He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. It had been a wedding present from his grandmother, but he wouldn't take it with him. He wasn't a bastard, for one thing. This might be the end of the road for himself and Chloe but that didn't mean they had to turn into the kind of couple who fought over the last curtain hook.

Anyway, what use would he have for a clock like that? He was moving in with his old mate Adrian, whose own wife had run off last year with a stockbroker. The last thing he needed was the chiming brass monstrosity his grandmother had ordered through her catalogue.

Much as he loved her, there was no getting away from the fact, Greg decided; it was one seriously tacky clock.

The gilt-edged invitation was propped up next to it on the mantelpiece. With time on his hands, Greg picked it up and idly read through it again. Last night, Chloe had produced the invitation from her bag and said: ‘Why don't we go to this? Look, Daisy Schofield's going to be there. You'd like to meet her, wouldn't you?'

It had been, he guessed, her way of trying to pretend nothing had happened.

‘Chloe, what's the point?' He had been gentle with her, but firm. ‘I've already told you, I'm moving out. If you want to go to the party, you go.'

‘I couldn't.' Chloe's blue eyes had filled with tears. ‘Not on my own.'

That had been it. Greg had shrugged, indicating that this was hardly his fault, and Chloe had flung the invitation to the floor before rushing from the room. Greg had been the one to bend down, retrieve it from beneath the coffee table and put it safely on the mantelpiece.

Daisy Schofield.

God, she was gorgeous.

That
body
…

Oh, what the hell, Greg thought as he slid the invitation into the back pocket of his jeans. It wasn't as if Chloe was going to be using it, was she?

Let's face it, some opportunities are simply too good to miss.

***

It was a cold, bright Sunday. For what seemed like the first time in months, the sky was blue and the sun was out.

Florence was sitting gazing out of her window when she heard Miranda clatter down the stairs.

‘It's me, I'm going shopping.' She poked her head around Florence's door. ‘Anything I can get you?'

‘Absolutely. A bottle of Montrachet, please.'

Miranda's expressive eyebrows slanted at right angles.

‘Sounds like a sneeze. What is it, some kind of cough medicine?'

‘Wine. Better than medicine.' Florence wheeled herself across to where her handbag lay. ‘Here, let me get you the money.'

‘It's all right, I'll pick it up in Tesco. Pay me later.'

Florence waggled a fifty-pound note at her.

‘We aren't talking plonk here, this should just about cover it. And you'll have to go to the wine merchants in Kendal Street.'

‘Blimey. Special occasion?' Privately Miranda thought Florence must be mad. Tesco did some great special offers. If she was in the mood to push the boat out she could get a really nice Australian Chardonnay for £3.99.

‘It's April the tenth. Ray's birthday. We always drank Montrachet on his birthday.' Briskly Florence snapped her purse shut, determined not to sound like a sentimental old fool. ‘I've kind of kept up the ritual. Well, we always said we would. It was Ray's favorite wine. Flashy bugger,' she glanced fondly at his photograph, on the table next to her, ‘he reckoned he was worth it.'

***

When Miranda arrived back with the wine an hour later, she found Florence waiting for her by the door.

‘Why are you wearing a hat?'

‘It's cold outside.' Florence adjusted the tilt of her jaunty red fedora. ‘You've been ages. The cab will be here any minute.' She took the tissue-wrapped bottle as carefully as if it were a newborn baby. ‘Was the fifty enough?'

‘Three pounds change. Where are you going?'

‘Hampstead Heath. Parliament Hill.' Florence grinned at the expression on Miranda's face. ‘The sun's shining. I could do with the fresh air. Anyway, it's where Ray and I first met.'

‘People will stare at you.'

‘Oh well, I'm used to that.'

‘You're going to sit on Parliament Hill drinking a forty-seven-pound bottle of wine?' Miranda said in disbelief. ‘Have you got a corkscrew?'

‘I'm in a wheelchair.' Comfortably, Florence patted her bag. ‘I'm not senile.'

The bag, when she'd patted it, had made a clinking noise. As a minicab pulled up outside, Miranda said cautiously, ‘Two glasses. One for you and one for…?'

If Florence said, ‘Ray,' she would have to stop her. There was such a thing as too weird.

‘You, of course.' Florence opened the door and began to wheel herself through it. ‘Who else d'you think's going to push me up that bloody hill?'

The view over Hampstead was breathtaking. White clouds scudded across a robin's-egg-blue sky and the kite flyers were out in force. Miranda, feeling the cold, dug her woolly orange beret out of her jacket pocket and pulled it on, Benny Hill style, over her tingling ears.

Florence held the glasses on her lap and Miranda wrestled the cork out of the bottle. When the wine was poured, they toasted Ray and clinked glasses. Reverently taking her first sip, Miranda tried hard—and failed utterly—to appreciate the finer points of £47-a-bottle wine.

‘Mm, yum,' she lied.

‘Ha, and I'm the Queen of Spain. Doesn't matter if you don't like it,' Florence said cheerfully, polishing off her first glassful and smacking her lips. ‘I'll manage the rest.'

To steer the subject away from her own shameful ignorance, Miranda huffed on her frozen hands and said, ‘So how did you and Ray meet?'

‘Haven't I told you before? Oh, it's a great story.' Florence held her glass out for a refill. ‘I was up here early one Sunday morning with Bruce. He had a new bike and I wouldn't let him out on the roads. So of course, he set out to prove he could ride the thing—he was eight, you know what they're like at that age—and the next minute he was hurtling out of control down that path there.' She nodded in the direction of the narrow path curving to the left below them. ‘Poor little sod ended up going slap into a tree.'

‘You've never told me this!' Enthralled, Miranda leaned closer, cross-legged on the grass. It wasn't difficult to imagine Bruce as a stubborn eight-year-old. ‘What happened next?'

‘Blood and teeth everywhere. One wrecked bike, one sprained knee. Bruce was screaming blue murder and there was me without so much as a tissue to mop up the blood.'

‘Poor Bruce.'

‘Poor me! I was in a complete flap. Bruce wasn't the only one in tears, I can tell you.'

‘Hang on, I can guess the rest,' Miranda said excitedly. ‘Then—trumpets, trumpets!—over the hill came Ray riding to the rescue on his motorbike'—she had heard all about Ray's devotion to his Norton 500—‘with a first-aid kit slung over one shoulder and a big bag of false teeth on the other.'

Florence chuckled.

‘Not quite. Over the hill came Ray, on foot and hung over, making his way back to Highgate after an all-night party. But he came to the rescue, bless his heart, and he had a clean handkerchief, which was more than I did. He cleaned up Bruce's mouth, managed to stop him screaming and insisted on giving him a piggyback home. He even carried the smashed-up bike,' Florence remembered fondly. ‘It's a wonder he didn't have a heart attack there and then. Well, that was it as far as I was concerned. Love at first sight. There was Ray with his Clark Gable hair—that was when he still had hair, of course—and me trotting along carrying his dinner jacket. Bruce was dripping blood all over his white evening shirt and he wasn't even bothered. He made us both laugh. And he wasn't even doing it to impress me, because as far as he was concerned I was just a young housewife in need of a hand. When we got back to the house he said, “Your husband's going to have his work cut out getting that bike fixed.”'

‘This is
so
romantic,' Miranda sighed. ‘And…?'

‘I said, “He certainly is, seeing as he died three years ago.”'

Miranda wrapped her arms around her knees in delight. ‘Then what?'

‘Well, he just stood there for a minute, grinning at me. Then he said, “In that case, I'd love an aspirin and a cup of tea.”'

‘Oh! Did he mend the bike as well?'

‘I suggested it.' Florence snorted with laughter. ‘He told me he wasn't the fixing kind. When things got broken, he bought new ones.'

‘And did he buy Bruce another bike?'

‘Certainly did, four days later.' Florence waggled her left hand at Miranda. ‘And so I wouldn't feel left out, an engagement ring for me.'

Having disposed of the rest of the bottle, Florence contentedly closed her eyes and said, ‘Okay for five minutes while I have a little snooze?'

Miranda sat back, stretching out her legs and propping herself up on her elbows. In this position she could enjoy the faint warmth of the sun on her face and view the kites performing their colorful acrobatics in the sky.

Squinting in the sunlight, she surveyed the panoramic view spread out before her. There in the distance was St Paul's Cathedral, pointing up into the sky like a silicone-stuffed Hollywood breast. And there was Big Ben. To the east stood Canary Wharf, and the old Caledonian market clock tower. To the west, the chimneys of Battersea power station and the Trellick Tower. Heavens, it made you realize how vast—and how eclectically beautiful—London really was.

But the unaccustomed brightness of the sun soon made her eyes water. To give them a rest, Miranda turned her attention instead to a battered green BMW being driven slowly along the road below her. Idly she followed its progress until it braked and reversed into a parking space. Seconds later the passenger door was flung open and a boy aged around five or six jumped out on to the grass verge.

Miranda watched the driver emerge from the other side, open the car's boot and take out a yellow and white kite. From this angle his face wasn't visible, but at a guess he was around thirty, dark-haired like his son and wearing a white rugby shirt and faded jeans.

Another Sunday father, thought Miranda, bringing his child out for a spot of kite-flying then whisking him off for a burger at McDonald's before depositing him back with his mother at the designated time.

Hampstead Heath was full of them.

The spiralling divorce rate had done the fast-food business no harm at all.

As Florence dozed peacefully beside her, Miranda watched the boy yell out instructions to his dad. Dad was evidently no expert; as they edged their way up the hill, he unraveled the nylon line and made two or three unsuccessful attempts to get the kite airborne.

Miranda smirked as he threw it up again, this time narrowly avoiding decapitation. She heard his son yell out in disgust, ‘You're useless! Come on, let
me
have a go.'

They were closer now, moving towards her. The man said, ‘Charming manners, Eddie, you take after your mother.'

‘She says you've always been a hopeless case. You can't even put a shelf up straight.'

‘Maybe I don't want to. Anyway, your mother's not so clever herself,' he retorted. ‘Ask her how many times she's damaged the car trying to reverse it into the garage.'

Miranda watched the boy impatiently seize control of the kite. Playing one adult off against the other, she thought, feeling sorry for him. Poor little lad, caught in the middle between two warring parents.

It couldn't be much fun.

Except…wasn't there something oddly familiar about the father's voice? A familiarity that for some reason didn't quite fit with the visual image of the man twenty yards in front of her, now struggling to untangle a section of line which had somehow managed to knot itself around both legs?

Miranda sat up, hugging her knees and pushing her beret to the top of her forehead in order to get a better look. She was sure he wasn't a visitor to the salon.

Damn, where have I heard that voice before? she thought with mounting frustration. And why do I keep feeling something isn't right?

The kite, miraculously, made it up into the air. The boy let out a whoop of delight and galloped a few yards further up the grassy slope.

‘You did it, you did it!'

‘Now who's useless?' his father demanded with a triumphant grin.

‘Don't let it crash!'

‘It's okay, I've got the hang of this now. A genius, that's what I am, and you can tell your mother that when we get back.'

The wind was taking control, carrying the kite towards the top of the hill. Following his son, the man moved closer to Miranda. Next to her, Florence snored peacefully in her wheelchair. Glancing across at them, he smiled.

The moment his dark eyes locked with Miranda's, she knew.

Oh no,
it couldn't be
.

But it was.

It was him.

The beggar from the Brompton Road.

Her whole body stiffened in disbelief. Incredibly, he was still grinning at her.

He hasn't recognized me, thought Miranda. He spends his life sitting on his bum watching the world go by. For God's sake, how can
he
not recognize
me
?

Outraged, she shoved a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. The orange beret, already tipped to the back of her head, promptly slid off.

At last, with her spiky blue-and-green-tipped hair revealed, the penny dropped. His broad smile faltered and faded. The kite was momentarily forgotten.

The kite, taking advantage of this lapse in concentration, swallow-dived to the ground.

‘You let it crash!' wailed the boy, racing after it. ‘You're supposed to keep the line tight. Come on, pay attention, make it fly again!'

Florence woke up from her doze with a start. Next to her, using the arm rest of the wheelchair for leverage, Miranda was scrambling to her feet. Florence heard her say in a low voice trembling with fury, ‘You cheat, you bloody despicable liar, how can you
live
with yourself?'

Florence brightened at once. Well, well, this was a turn-up for the books. She'd never heard Miranda have a go at anyone before.

Peering around Miranda's quivering form, Florence eyed with interest the object of her rage. Tall, dark-haired and rather good-looking—if currently a bit shell-shocked—hmm, not bad at all. In excellent shape, too, from what she could see.

One of Miranda's hapless ex-boyfriends, Florence guessed. Presumably one who'd done the dirty on her. Well, no wonder she was upset.

‘Look, I can explain—' he began, but Miranda held up both hands to stop him.

‘Oh, please don't, we already know what a great actor you are.' She spat the words out with contempt. ‘Tell me, is that why you and your wife split up? Did she find out how you were spending your days and kick you out? Does your son know he has a con-artist for a father?' She longed to yell the accusations at the top of her voice but the boy was only yards away. For his sake, Miranda managed to control herself.

The man, looking startled, followed the direction of her gaze. Turning back to Miranda, he said with a placatory half-smile, ‘I promise you, I really can explain. For a start, I'm not married. And Eddie isn't my son, he's—'

‘Daddy, come and
help
me!' howled the boy, now firmly entangled in the kite's line. ‘You're wasting time—Mum said we had to be home by four.'

‘You're damn right you can explain,' Miranda hissed, kicking the brakes off Florence's chair and yanking her in the direction of the path. ‘You can explain why you take my money and eat my prawn sandwiches when you clearly earn more than I do.' She was flinging the words over her shoulder as she jolted the wheelchair over the uneven ground. ‘And you can explain why you drive a BMW,' she bellowed. ‘Because you make me
sick
!'

‘Wait,' he called after her, but further up the hill his son was yelling for him and Miranda was by this time scooting downhill with the wheelchair at a rate of knots.

Relieved to reach the bottom in one piece, Florence said sympathetically, ‘The best-looking ones are always the biggest bastards.'

She patted Miranda's thin arm, sensing it was best not to mention the two rather good Waterford crystal wine glasses they had left at the top of the hill. ‘What happened, he forgot to mention he was married?'

Poor, impulsive Miranda, she deserved better than that. Still, if she wanted to impress a man, she really should learn to cook, Florence privately felt. When you invited someone round for dinner, you couldn't expect them to be too bowled over by a prawn sandwich.