River Deep (10 page)

‘Am I too late?’ were his opening words.

‘Christ, no,’ Mike had laughed. ‘I’m covering Sal’s session myself, it’s a bloody nightmare. This lot have the brains and talent of a single cell organism between them. It drains you of the will to live,’ he’d said with feeling, and then added as an afterthought, ‘not that it’s not great fun.’

Pete had felt anxious, but was determined not to back out; one of the things Stella had said to him before she’d gone was that maybe he was too steady, too secure; maybe she needed a bit more excitement in a relationship to feel
really
happy. He knew that coaching a few failed students for a couple of weeks wasn’t going to cut the mustard, but at least it was a start.

‘Well, I’m coming,’ he’d told Mike.

‘That’s fantastic, Pete. Don’t you worry about anything, I’ll sort it all this end and I’ll see you soon.’ And he had sorted it all this end, including the room in this house. The sound of Falcon practising his drums started dimly below.

‘It’s time I got up and sorted this lot out,’ Pete said to the spider, who ignored him.

Pete looked from his telescope to his PC and decided to set up his PC first. When Stella had left she hadn’t had a phone number or an actual address for him to contact her by, only her email address,
[email protected]
. She’d promised to mail him as soon as she got there with contact details, and as Pete quickly plugged in cables and rested the monitor on the bed, he felt his heart race a little at the thought of seeing her name in his inbox and that yellow envelope waiting to let him know where she was, how she was.

With trepidation he logged on to the Internet and waited. When the call failed he realised he’d have to phone BT and rearrange all the details on his Internet account. His heart sank. That would take hours, maybe even days, and it would be ages until he could pick Stella’s message up, and she’d think he’d forgotten her, and …

He stopped himself and looked around the room. He’d go into town. There’d have to be some kind of Internet café around. He’d log on there, update his customer profile on BT and pick up Stella’s message. ‘Everything is fine,’ he told himself and the spider. ‘Stella is wearing your ring on her finger. She loves you. She actually said it to you for the first time ever after five years! That’s what makes this different. Even if you can’t pick up her message today, she wouldn’t just ditch you instantly, she wouldn’t just forget you, not after she said that.’

He dressed quickly and, glancing at the day outside, picked up his shades. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he told the spider as he shut the door. The spider didn’t contradict him.

‘So, Aunty M,’ Becca said. Having picked her way through half a carrot and sweet potato salad, she was now enjoying a banana smoothie made with full cream and topped with a large dollop of ice cream.

‘Mmm?’ Maggie sipped her lemon tea and glanced around the café. Its two Internet terminals were in use right now, but she could come here, she supposed, to work up spreadsheets and research her business plan for The Fleur. At least until she could buy her own PC. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat; it didn’t seem to matter what she wore at the moment, the heat was so intense it made her feel like slipping out of her own skin. She closed her eyes for a second and thought of low, cool, grey skies on a winter’s day, but it didn’t seem to help.

‘Are you going to kill yourself if Uncle Christian doesn’t take you back?’ Becca slurped noisily on her straw. ‘I don’t think you should, because for starters he was ugly and looked like a pirate with that stupid goatee thing he had going, and secondly he was always very rude to me. My English teacher is divorced, so I could fix you up if you like. He’s a bit of a minger, but he’s all right, I suppose.’

Maggie gave herself a moment to digest Beccas’s deadpan delivery before replying, ‘No thanks, Becs. Not that I don’t appreciate the offer.’

She pushed her chocolate cookie over the table to Becca who took it happily, clearly believing that anything sold in a health-food cybercafé couldn’t possibly be fattening.

‘Haven’t you ever been in love with someone, so in love with them that you just can’t stop trying until you know you’ve done everything?’ Maggie asked her, thinking not only of herself but of Sarah, at approximately Becca’s age, and her passion for Aidan Carter. Becca, who loved Maggie principally because she didn’t speak to her like she was a kid, nodded dreamily.

‘Justin Timberlake,’ she sighed, rolling her eyes up into her head. ‘Don’t tell anyone, Aunty M, but sometimes I just stare, like really hard, at his poster and send my love to him because I know he can feel it.’

Maggie looked seriously back at her. ‘I won’t tell,’ she said solemnly. ‘That’s how I feel about Christian. I know that a lot of people don’t see in him what I do, but they’re forgetting I lived with him for six years. We just had this thing, a bit like you and Justin, when we didn’t have to even speak to know what the other one was thinking. That means something special, something you don’t just let go of.’ Maggie gestured broadly with her hands. ‘You understand me, don’t you, Becs?’

Becca nodded. ‘Ignore Mum. She’s got a heart of ice,’ she said mildly.

Maggie was about to contradict her when she was interrupted.

‘All right? Maggie, isn’t it?’

Pete had stopped at the table. He’d spotted Maggie from behind his terminal a few seconds ago and had dithered about whether or not to talk to her. Somehow he’d liked the idea of their meeting being a one-off, a sort of ships-that-passed-in-the-night thing, giving each other hope and inspiration, but when he’d finally picked up his emails, his inbox had been empty except for some forms from Mike he had to fill in before Monday. All the tension, excitement and urgency of the morning had dissipated into nowhere. Disappointed he’d carefully typed Stella’s address in and, feeling numbed by her absence, had struggled to find anything to write.

Dear Stella
, he’d written at last.
Hope you got there OK, please let me know. I am fine, have settled in to St A well. Made a load of new friends already. I miss you and love you so much. Please let me know where you are soon.

Have fun!

Px

Pete had looked hard at the exclamation mark. It looked sort of forced, or maybe he was imagining it. In the end he left it where it was. Shaking off any last doubts he clicked on ‘send’, and it was as he glanced up that he saw the woman from last night – Maggie – sitting with a kid. The kid was making her laugh and her face was lit up, her dark eyes flashing. Without all the false lashes and molten mascara, Pete mused, she was actually very pretty. His artistic instinct kicked in, and he unconsciously reinterpreted her face into a mathematical equation of planes and curves, ovals and circles, light and shade. Without even registering the thought, he noted that her face was near symmetrical, with large, faintly exotic, almond-shaped eyes, almost perfectly balanced, with an interesting nose. ‘Well,’ he thought. ‘Might as well try and make some new friends now that I’ve said it.’

‘Pete!’ Maggie smiled up at him and Becca, her cheeks burning a furious red, stared intently into the bottom of her glass. ‘Hi, nice to bump into you again. This is my god-daughter Becca. She’s just been telling me her top ten best ways to get a boyfriend.’ Becca squealed and Maggie guessed she might not have been quite tactful enough with her god-daughter’s sensitive feelings. ‘Only for my benefit though, because I’m such a sad case,’ she added, hoping this would ease Becca’s discomfort. Becca did raise her eyes for a moment to steal a glance at Pete before looking away again, clearly covered in confusion.

‘Can I join you?’ Pete asked, pulling up a chair at Maggie’s nod. ‘I just went to pick up my emails but there wasn’t anything from Stella. It’s been two weeks now. It made me feel a bit, you know …’ He didn’t know why it seemed all right to unburden, without preamble, his emotional stress on this virtual stranger, but he was just sure she’d know how he felt.

‘Oh no,’ Maggie said, thinking for a moment. ‘But you know what? I bet she lost your email address during her journey and she’s been waiting for you to send a message to her so she can reply. I bet that’s it. You said she was a bit ditzy, didn’t you?’ He hadn’t, actually, but she had somehow gathered it from the things he’d said. Maggie smiled broadly at Pete, who brightened instantly.

‘Yeah,’ he said. That might be it.’

The waitress brought over the coffee he’d ordered and Becca, having composed herself, straightened in her chair and flicked her hair off her shoulders.

‘Are you in food then?’ she asked Pete primly. He looked disconcerted.

‘Um, no, I’m … well, I’m starting teaching tomorrow at the uni,’ he told her with a small smile. Becca lost all power of speech and decided not to pursue the conversation any further.

‘
I
am. In food, I mean.’ Maggie seamlessly covered Becca’s paralysis. ‘I run,
ran
, a catering business with Christian, that’s my … you know.’ She hurried on. ‘Fresh Talent we’re called. We only use locally grown organic produce. We started out with weddings and christenings, but then we built up corporate contracts and we’re opening an office in the City really soon. Fresh Talent 2.’ Some of her brightness faded. ‘Of course I’m not actually involved in it any more, at the moment, since well, you know.’

Pete nodded, feeling it was better to say nothing.

‘What do you teach?’ Maggie asked.

‘Oh, well, nothing before. I work in film and TV special effects and model making. I used to make TV models, but I thought while Stella was away I’d make a few changes and this came up. In a couple of weeks I’ve got an interview to work on a film. I’m shitting myself.’ Pete squirmed a little under Becca’s riveted gaze and Maggie wondered if she was transmitting her love to him even now.

‘Well.’ Maggie gathered up her keys and purse, deciding to save Pete from any further embarrassment. ‘I guess we should be going. I have a mountain of paperwork to do and Becca’s got to …’ breathe again, she nearly said, but instead she finished, ‘do homework. I’m sure you’ll hear from Stella again. I mean, the woman agreed to marry you!’

Pete nodded, feeling reassured. ‘Well, I might see you again then,’ he said, wondering if he should attempt a formal arrangement in the spirit of friendship, and then dropping the idea quickly. She’d think he was a desperate weirdo, trying to make friends with a girl he hardly knew.

‘Yeah.’ Maggie paused momentarily. What would he think if she suggested they meet up for a coffee sometime without the panting teenager? She dismissed the thought. Really she hardly knew him, he could be a raving lunatic in real life, and the last thing she wanted was him getting the wrong idea. Although, to be fair, he was so wrapped up in this Stella you could probably twirl batons naked in front of him and he wouldn’t notice. ‘Yeah, maybe, that’d be nice,’ she said instead, as she escorted Becca outside.

‘Oh. My. God,’ Becca said, leaning against the wall of the café and fanning her face with both hands.

Maggie smiled. ‘What about Justin?’ she asked as she pulled Becca off the wall and linked arms with her as they headed home.

‘Forget Justin.’ Becca glanced back at the café. ‘Pete is the dog’s bollocks!’

‘Don’t tell your mother I let you swear,’ Maggie said, shaking her head.

‘I won’t,’ Becca promised. ‘It’s just that I’ve never been properly in love before.’

‘Wow, Mum, look at that intercity go! How fast is it going, do you think?’

Sam held on to the sleeve of his mum’s jacket as the train rattled through the station at speed, and Maggie smiled as she watched Sarah offer up her best guess as an answer.

Sam was an unusual seven-year-old, to say the least, with his somewhat eccentric insistence on wearing his hair in an unruly afro, his smooth mid-brown skin set off by his light grey eyes, and his unwavering passion for musicals. He had Sarah’s eyes, the only bit about him that was obviously her; the rest of him was a carbon copy of his father. He was still at that sweet stage, still into trains and JCVs (and
Cats
, the musical), still thought his mum knew everything and still, on the whole, obeyed her.

The very fact that Becca took exactly the opposite position on all of these points had been causing a fair amount of tension recently. Maybe it was because Marcus, Sam’s dad, had insisted on being in his life and had tried for a long time to be in Sarah’s too, that Sam seemed so unflappable and grounded. Maybe it was because Marcus and Sarah had had a good relationship that had become a great friendship. Sam had never known life without his dad. He spent every Saturday and a large amount of holiday with his father, and sometimes his extended Afro-Caribbean family. He had a very strong sense of the two cultures he came from, and he seemed to feel perfectly at home in his own world, which Maggie knew was quite some achievement on the part of both of his parents.

Becca, on the other hand, only knew life without her father, except for the bits of information she’d picked up or eavesdropped from her mother over the years out of which she had created a shadowy, dreamlike figure. A rich American who would one day come and beg her forgiveness and sweep her off to a better life, Maggie imagined. Maggie felt for Becca. She remembered her similar hopes for the civil servant from Kensington. But at least she’d had a dad to hold on to or to push against. Becca only had Sarah and, right now at least, she clearly didn’t think it was enough.

‘Here, Sam,’ Becca was telling her brother seriously. ‘If you stand in front of this yellow line, the next time the train comes through it will suck you under its wheels and you’ll get squashed to death.’ Sam giggled and Sarah rolled her eyes.

‘Get back from the edge, you two, our train is coming in.’ Sarah looked down the line to where the city-link train was lurching towards the platform. ‘I hope you’re grateful about all this,’ she told Maggie as she helped Sam on to the train. ‘I’m expecting about a hundred years of payback. And cash.’

Maggie smiled, despite the total absence of humour in her friend’s voice.