The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene (43 page)

   ‘You won’t be late tonight?’ she said, yawning and sitting up and sipping the drink.

   ‘I won’t.’

   He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. She liked that; a girl could never have too many kisses. She adored the idea of lying in bed naked, being kissed by hunky men, coming to her and paying their respects before they went off into the wild world, just as Harry did in New York, hunters setting out in search of prey, the modern twin targets of money and power.

   She didn’t appreciate being left alone all day, but the act of departure, the tender kiss and flirtatious words that usually accompanied it; that was all to be enjoyed to the max. A girl didn’t always need out-and-out sex to become excited, not always, something that men found difficult to understand, though she might admit, if only to herself, she was now missing Harry a fair bit, and his demanding habits. 

   ‘Bye Gringo,’ she said, coyly. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’

   ‘That’s just it, Glen. Is there anything you wouldn’t do?’

   ‘Cheeky boy!’

The remainder of the week flew by, the two of them enjoying the house in secret, somehow keeping their strange cohabitation quiet, sharing his huge bed, though never once as lovers. In what seemed to Gringo no time at all, they were loading up the car for the last time, heading for the airport, uncharacteristically in silence, as they hurtled down the motorway toward Heathrow. She had insisted they set off much earlier than necessary for she knew her father would arrive early too, pacing up and down anxiously waiting for his favourite daughter to reappear. The last thing she wanted was an embarrassing meeting that would take some explaining. Gringo pulled the car to a standstill and turned off the engine.

   ‘So,’ he said, ‘when will I see you again?’

   ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, nervously he thought. ‘Give it a few days. I’ll give you a ring.’

   Gringo bobbed his head. He leant over to kiss her on the cheek but even that, in this public place, was strictly forbidden, as she eased away from him.

   ‘No Gringo, not here,’ she said, glancing nervously around as if she had a premonition her father was about to roll up in the car right next to them; and how awkward would that be? She jumped out and began unloading her gear. Gringo made to get out too.

   ‘No!’ she said. ‘You stay in the car. I’ll do it,’ and she bundled the bags onto a luggage trolley, mouthed a
Bye and thanks for everything,
and in the next moment he watched her rolling the clattering trolley away without a backward glance. She’d vacated his life, as easy as that.

   He sighed and started the car and surged away, driving the whole journey home in silence, far quicker than he should have done, lucky that he wasn’t stopped, thoughts of her and her secret stay at his house, swirling through his mind all the way home.

Glenda spotted the large BMW cruising toward the Arrivals Terminal long before those inside saw her. He’d brought the sisters along, and quite frankly she could have done without that. Trisha the older of the two, a year younger than Glen, was first to spot her standing there, forlornly Trish thought, her baggage piled up untidily on the trolley.

   ‘There’s Glen, look! Hanging about like a little girl lost!’

   ‘What the hell’s she doing there?’ said her father. ‘The flight’s not due in for another hour?’

   ‘She looks pissed off,’ said Mary, the youngest.

   Pop Martin pulled the car to a standstill and jumped out and ran across to his daughter. The sisters remained in the car and watched their dad’s fifty-something semi-arthritic run, and couldn’t resist a snigger. Glen fell eagerly into his strong arms.

   ‘Hiya, dad.’

   ‘Hi darling. Are you all right? How is my favourite daughter?’ he whispered.

   He always tried hard not to favour Glen, but there were times when it was impossible not to. The other two were always so bitchy, something that Glen rarely stooped to, and they’d been a complete pain in the neck on the drive to Heathrow.

   ‘I’m so glad to be home, dad.’

   ‘We’re glad to have you home, but what are you doing here at this time?’

   ‘There was an earlier flight with seats vacant, and you know me, I always like to be at airports early; they brought us forward and offered us the seats.’

   Her father accepted that without a thought, he wasn’t a frequent traveller and rarely on long haul, and anyway, Glenda would never have lied about such a thing. He had no idea how these things worked, and why should he doubt the honesty of his favoured child? He turned about and yelled to the others: ‘Well? Aren’t you going to get out and come over and greet your older sister?’

   Trisha and Mary tut-tutted and sauntered over, grinning like Cheshire cats, eager if nothing else to hear the gossip from America, and New York, and most particularly of Harry Wildenstein, whose photograph they had all drooled over long before Glen had ever met him.

   Though none of the three sisters would have admitted it, they each desperately wanted to be the first to marry, to be swept down the aisle by some handsome and rugged beau, to possess a home of their own, to have a strong man to look after their every need, and the sisters were very needy, to have children they could flaunt before the others, and if Glen brought home firm news of a fixed wedding date, they could both be in trouble. 

   ‘So,’ said Trish, eager to get to the crux of the issue. ‘How was Harry? Do we hear wedding bells?’

   Glen knew the reasoning behind the question well enough.

   ‘No wedding bells, Trisha, not yet.’

   Mary took Glen’s hand and showed it to the other two.

   ‘Not even a rock on the finger? How sad,’ she slurred.

   ‘If he was such a dead loss I’m surprised you didn’t come home earlier,’ said Trisha. ‘Paul has been moping around with his tongue hanging out like some castrated labradoodle. You could always take comfort there, sis. We don’t want him, do we Mary?’

   ‘Yuck, no thanks!’ said the youngest one, right on cue.

   ‘Why don’t you two try minding your own business for once,’ said Glen, just about keeping the spite from her voice, and the guilt from her body language at the crazy suggestion of possibly coming home early.

   ‘Bet he was real stud in bed,’ said Mary, mischievously.

   Harry was good in bed, it was true, damned good in fact, when he was sober and in a good mood, which was about one day in five, though Glen would not share that intelligence with anyone on earth, except perhaps Gringo Greene, and only then if she’d drunk a full bottle of wine. He remained the one person she was able to discuss her deepest secrets with, though she would make him swear his silence before she uttered a word.

   ‘Shut up!’ yelled father, not wishing to hear such things. ‘Glen doesn’t go round jumping into bed with every man she meets!’

   The sisters shared a knowing look and Trish said under her breath, ‘Yeah, right.’

   ‘Come along, girls!’ said father. ‘Pick up the bags. For goodness sake let’s get home.’

   The sisters grabbed a small bag each, and dad manhandled the heavy case back to the Beemer.

   ‘God almighty, what’s in here?’ he said, glaring down at the case.

   ‘Perhaps she’s done him in, perhaps she’s brought him back to England to pickle in vinegar and set him up in her bedroom as a reminder of her American sojourn, like some kind of black magic doll,’ said Mary, ever the crazily imaginative one. 

   ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid!’ said father, who almost never swore, but sometimes...

   ‘You are crass!’ butted in Trisha, but for once Glen found Mary’s comment quite funny, and let out a telltale little giggle. What if she had killed him? Sometimes he almost deserved it. What if she had cut up his body and crammed it into her case? It wasn’t impossible. These things happen all the time, you read about it in the newspapers, see it on the TV news, and the truth was, she did once seek out a kitchen knife for protection one night when he came home late, drunk and ultra violent, and what frightened Glen most of all, was that she knew that she was quite capable of plunging that butcher’s blade deep into his American heart, if it ever came to it, and why shouldn’t she, if her own safety was in danger? Why shouldn’t she? Who wouldn’t? Do they have the death penalty in New York… for women… who kill in self defence? Killing someone is not as outrageous as you might think, or as difficult.

   ‘Get in the car,’ said father, ‘Glen in the front.’

   The sisters clicked their tongues and sulked themselves into the back seat.

   ‘Why should
she
always sit in the front?’ moaned Mary.

   ‘Because Glen is the eldest and she’s just come home,’ said father, and in the way he said it, he made it known there was to be no more discussion on the matter. It had always been that way,
Glen is the eldest
, a phrase that had been uttered a gazillion times in the previous twenty years, a phrase the younger sisters detested, a phrase that even Glen found uncomfortable at times, though not on this occasion.

   She adored the fact her father made her feel so special, even if it was at the expense of her siblings. Few men, in her experience, had ever been able to accomplish that. Oh true, men were always buying her presents and making her promises, but more often than not, they came with strings attached. The hint of an expensive wristwatch perhaps; so long as you come on holiday for two weeks. No thanks pal. Glenda Martin could never and would never be bought with trifles and trinkets. Fact was, she could happily marry and live with an unemployed road sweeper, if ever she fell head over heels in love with such an imaginary man, and she didn’t think her sisters could do that for a moment, indeed they would laugh derisorily at such a preposterous idea, yet in her eyes, it was their loss. They had only been on the road for half an hour when Mary said: ‘We’ll have to stop, dad, I need a pee.’

   ‘Me too,’ added Trish in a hurry.

   ‘Oh Christ!’ said dad. ‘Why didn’t you go at the airport?’

   ‘Didn’t want to go then,’ said Mary, like a spoilt child.

   ‘Been on the wines, have we?’ asked Glen, unable to keep out of the niggling competition.

   ‘No we have not!’ said Trisha. ‘Mind your own bloody business.’

   ‘Not much!’ said father. ‘They’ve been in the wine bar all day; I warned them this would happen, and there are no services on this stretch, you’ll just have to wait.’

   ‘We’ll have to get off the motorway, dad, or I’m going to piss me knickers,’ said Mary.

   ‘Yep, I can sympathise with that,’ said Trish. ‘Things are getting desperate back here.’

   ‘Oh, for goodness sake! What’s wrong with you children?’

  
Children,
thought Glen. The girls were all in their twenties and yet sometimes it was true, they were still like squabbling kids, just as bad now as they were when teenagers and toddlers. Glen couldn’t help but contrast this car journey with the gleeful one she had shared last week with the Greene family, motoring happily home through the Shropshire hills.

   ‘Think you better take the next exit, dad,’ said Glen, often the peacemaker, as she shared a knowing glance with her father, a look between the intelligent, sensible souls in the front of the vehicle, a loving look the other girls might not recognise. Father jerked the car off the motorway and soon found an all-nighter BP garage on the outskirts of some mundane town.

   ‘There!’ Mary said. ‘Stop there!’ peering between the heads in the front seats.

   ‘I don’t think they have public toilets,’ said father.

   ‘They must have a bog!’ screamed Trisha.

   Against his better judgement father pulled onto the deserted forecourt. The girls flew from the car before it had stopped moving, heading for the brightly lit garage. There was no one else about and inside a lone fat guy sat on a stool at the till. He was young and playing some kind of handheld computer game, and looked as if he might fall asleep at any moment. The girls hurried to the counter and smiled their best come on smile. He looked up, missing most of it. What did these scary looking women want? They hadn’t bought any petrol. He thought they looked like a pair of witches, all black hair and dark eye shadow, but not bad looking tarts for all that. He’d give them one, at a push, he fancifully thought. Yeah, why not, perhaps the pair of them at the same time.

   ‘Hello,’ said Trish, adopting her husky voice that she thought killingly attractive to men. ‘Where is the Ladies?’

   The guy looked at her and then at the younger one with the longer hair who was dancing up and down on the spot.

   ‘Sorry, we don’t have public toilets.’

   ‘You must have a Ladies!’ screamed Mary, ‘I’m bursting!’

   ‘Look,’ said Trisha, fixing her black eyes on the dim-witted one behind the counter, all trace of huskiness now abandoned. ‘Either you show us the Ladies loo, or we piss on the floor.’

   ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ the guy said, panicking and getting up from the stool.

   ‘Please, please, can we use the loo?’ said Mary, sticking with the diplomatic approach, unable to stand still for a second.