The Lost Guide to Life and Love (9 page)

He rematerialised about two minutes later, with a dinky little bag containing brush, comb, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, face cloth, and razor. How many guests must arrive here as ill prepared as I was? I dashed to the Ladies, cleaned my teeth, brushed my hair, helped myself to some of their richly scented hand creams and cologne and felt a little better. Back in the reception area, the coffee was waiting for me. I sat back in the leather armchair thinking that I might as well enjoy all of this.

Then Clayton was standing in front of me, smiling down. ‘Time to eat,’ he said, ‘and to drink something a bit more interesting than that.’

‘What about the people you were meeting?’

‘Gone,’ he said dismissively. I didn’t ask more. But I wondered who they were, why he would be meeting them all the way up here. I wondered if it was the sort of thing that Jake would want to know about.

We sat in the big bay window of the dining room, with a view across lawns down to the river. The menu was full of delicious things. I dithered over Thai-scented salmon salad with lemon potatoes, or maybe quails’ eggs and capers, pigeon and celeriac, pumpkin gnocchi or sea trout…I would have liked to ask for a copy to show to Bill. Clayton hardly seemed interested. ‘Just bring me some grilled chicken with lots of vegetables,’ he said to the waiter, but then spent ages poring over the wine list.

‘I know, Miss Foodie, who cares about every mouthful,’ he said in a laughing, mocking tone, ‘but food is just fuel to me. Yeah, I can see what the club dietician means about not too many pies and pizzas and all that, but food is just there to keep you going. But wine…well, wine is something else. Do you know,’ he asked as he finally made his choice, ‘I was seventeen before I first tasted wine? I thought it was for poofs and posers. Then Denny Sharpe, the
manager at my first club—he was a bit of a wine buff—he gave me a glass of Château Laf ite. “Just shut up and drink that slowly,” he said, and I was like, wow, why didn’t anyone ever tell me about this before?! I was hooked. It is just
so-o
good.’

‘Clever Denny.’

‘Yeah, he was. Not just about the wine. I was a bit of a smart-arse street kid, I guess, thought I knew it all. I knew nothing. Absolutely rock-all. But Denny was good. He was good with all us young lads. Tried to keep us in order—I say tried, because we were a wild bunch all right. He and his missus took us out to places like this, proper places, you know what I mean, taught us our table manners and stuff. He even had us doing exams.’

I looked at him, enquiringly.

‘Bunked off school too much to do exams, didn’t I? Too busy playing football. Reckoned I didn’t need exams. But the club—well, Denny really—said there was an awful lot of life once our football days were over, so they got this tutor guy in. And me and a couple of others got some exams. I’ve got English, maths, PE and geography,’ he said proudly. ‘I’d have done some more but then I moved into the Premiership and it was all different then. And I was nineteen by then, so they reckoned I was all grown up, couldn’t tell me what to do.’

‘Must have been hard studying after you left school.’

‘No, it was all right really. Sort of interesting. There was just four or five of us and the teacher was pretty good. Didn’t treat us like kids. Couldn’t really. Even then we were earning shed-loads more than he was. But it was pretty cool. Never done anything like that before. My mum didn’t do books. Too busy trying to survive. She was only a kid herself when she had me.’

I was trying to remember what I knew about Clayton
Silver. A tough childhood, on a council estate where gangs and guns were commonplace. He was always being held up as an example of how sport could make a difference, provide a way out for a lad with talent and determination.

‘No dad?’

‘He skipped off when I was still in nappies. Turned up again when I signed for the Premiership and said he wanted to make up for lost time. Yeah, right. Just wanted a slice of my money, more like. Told him where to go.’

For a moment his lively face looked bleak, far away. So I told him about my father and the drunk driver.

‘So we’re both half-orphans then,’ he said. ‘Not easy, eh? But I had lots of dads. Different one every few months. Mum would get lonely. Not surprising, she was only young. Then some bloke would move in, start throwing his weight around and then there’d be a row and in the morning he’d be gone too. There was a lot like that. Losers, most of them, absolute losers. Except for Travis. Travis was all right.’

‘What made Travis special?’

‘Well, for a start he stuck around longer than most. He could cope with my mum’s moods and tempers—which took some coping with, trust me. She had a mean temper on her. And he used to take me to the park, so we could both get out of her way. He’d kick a ball about with me. He was sound. It was Travis who took me to the Lions Boys’ club. Knew the guy who ran it. Told him I had talent. That was my big break, all thanks to Travis. He used to come and watch me, cheer for me. I told everyone he was my dad. Wished he was.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, in the end even he had enough of my mum. I looked for him, you know, when I signed for my first club. I wanted him to know. I wanted him to be proud of me. But I couldn’t find him. Then a few years later I heard
he’d died, been killed, knifed. Got into an argument with the wrong guy. ‘

He took a fierce forkful of the vegetables piled high on his plate.

‘What’s your mum doing now?’

‘Selling overpriced clothes in a little shop in Spain. She went out there a few years ago with some guy she met on holiday. Actually, he seems all right. Don’t see much of him. But he makes Mum happy. Him and the sun. She’s really nice when she’s happy, you know? If it had worked out with my dad, she might have been happy all the time and been a different person. Who knows? Anyway, I bought her this shop and a villa, so if it all goes pear-shaped—which it usually does with my mum—then she’s got somewhere to live and a job to keep her occupied. But this guy seems to have lasted longer than most. He’s a lot older than her but they do a lot of travelling together and a lot of partying. She’s having fun and deserves that. Like I say, she was only a kid herself when she was left with me. Can’t have been easy.

‘Was it the same for your mum?’ he asked. ‘Was there always a new dad in the morning?’

I shook my head. ‘The complete opposite. She didn’t want anyone else. All she cared about was me and work. Too much so, sometimes. I wished she had let another man into her life. It might have taken the pressure off…’ I went back to my meal—wonderful juicy scallops with lemon and ginger and the finest angel-hair spaghetti I’d ever tasted. My childhood hadn’t always been easy, but hearing about Clayton’s I had no right to complain.

‘Which just goes to show,’ Clayton went on, ‘that in the end you’re on your own and you’ve just got to look out for number one, because no one else is going to do it for you.’

There was a moment’s silence as we both backed off from the conversation that had quickly got so heavy.

But soon Clayton was relaxed again. He leant back in his seat, took a sip of wine and grinned at me over the glass.

‘You look nice, Miss Freshface,’ he said, ‘All clean and outdoorsy.’

‘Well, I feel a mess,’ I said, and told him about the goodie-bag of brush and comb, which made him laugh.

‘I guess they’re well used to providing such things for unexpected female visitors,’ he said.

There was a sudden frisson in the air, a little ripple of something that suddenly made me feel not so safe. What had I got myself into—getting into a helicopter with a complete stranger, about whom I knew so little? If I had to make a run for it, I was done for. No money. No credit cards. I’d have to hitch back to High Hartstone Edge. It would take me some time. Especially as I wasn’t even sure exactly where I was. As I began to panic, some spaghetti unrolled from my fork and fell messily onto my chin. Clayton leant over and gently wiped it away with his napkin. He held the napkin close to my face for a little while longer than necessary. ‘What big eyes you’ve got,’ he said, gazing into them. ‘Beautiful big eyes,’ he said slowly, dreamily, seductively…

Then he suddenly crowed with delight.

‘And you blush! Oh Miss Freshface, you blushed.’ This had him chuckling to himself. ‘You know, I spend a lot of time with a lot of lovely ladies. Seriously hot ladies. They have all the clothes, the hair, the look, you know. But not once have I seen one of them blush. But you, girl, are the brightest, prettiest pink. I can’t really believe you’re a city girl. Really, you’re a little country miss at heart, like that girl in the book, Tess, that’s it—Tess of the D’Urbervilles.’

Oh God, why did I blush so easily? Now he probably had me down as a little girlie completely overcome by the big famous footballer. As if.

So to change the subject, I told him about my great-great-grandmother and how my family was from round here. He looked almost wistful for a moment and said it must be nice to have roots somewhere, to belong.

‘Oh, I’m as much a stranger as you are, but it’s interesting seeing where some of the family comes from, tracing any connections. And yes, I think it already feels special somehow.’

The waiter cleared our plates away and offered desserts. Clayton shook his head but said, ‘The lady will have one.’

‘No, it’s all right. I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Have a pudding. I bet you’d like to really.’

‘Well, yes,’ I grinned. He’d clearly read my mind. ‘Go with the flow,’ I’d said, hadn’t I? ‘I suppose I would.’ So I ordered the lemon tart, so deliciously sharp and lemony that it almost made my eyes water. Clayton watched me eat it, rather as though he were an indulgent uncle. As I took the final forkful, he smiled, ‘It’s good to see a lady enjoying her food.’

Which, of course, immediately made me feel huge and greedy. I bet the women he normally took out for lunch did nothing more than nibble a lettuce leaf with no dressing. Maybe an olive if they were going really mad. I went pinker.

‘Aren’t you shooting today?’ I asked hurriedly before he could comment on it again. ‘I thought that was the point of coming up here.’

‘Nah, it’s pretty boring really. You stand where you’re told, wait for some guys to shoo all the birds in front of you and you go bang! bang! and that’s it. And it’s all rules and etiquette and, “If you don’t mind, sir,” and a gamekeeper with a seriously bad attitude. I wanted to go off and shoot in another direction. I could see plenty of birds there, but he just says, “I’m sorry, sir, we’re not shooting those drives today.” Well why not, eh? And you should see
the clothes. He was wearing a suit right out of a picture book, like that boy in the film about the trains, you know, the one with wotsername in.’

‘Jenny Agutter?
The Railway Children
?’

‘Yeah that’s the one. All tweedy with trousers to the knee and bright red socks. What a prat.’

By now Clayton was well into his stride. I could just imagine how he stood out on an expensive shoot, even amongst new-money millionaire businessmen and a bunch of footballers.

‘I asked him how many birds we’d shot and he said, “About thirty brace, sir.” Thirty brace? What’s that mean? It means sixty, yeah. So why couldn’t he just say sixty?’

As I laughed he glanced at his very expensive watch and sighed. ‘Well, Miss Tilly, we’d better go. I have to be there when they come back and then we’re back in training tomorrow.’

I sipped my last drop of wine as he paid the bill. For a nanosecond, the waiter’s eyes lit up as he checked the amount and his impassive mask almost slipped, so I reckoned Clayton must have left a generous tip. Show-off. He made a couple of calls and when we went out, the helicopter was waiting for us. And we were heading home.

As the helicopter came down by Ravensike Lodge, I looked out anxiously for the shooting parties, but they were out of sight, thank goodness. I didn’t think that the gamekeeper would take too kindly to a helicopter buzzing through his carefully driven birds. We got out, the rotor blades slowed down gradually to silence. The pilot walked off with a wave and Clayton and I were still standing there, with only the sound of the sheep.

‘Thank you for lunch,’ I said. ‘And the helicopter ride.’

‘It was a pleasure,’ replied Clayton. ‘Are you OK to get home from here? If not, I can get someone to drive you.’ He nodded his head towards the house.

‘No, I’m fine, thanks. It’s been good.’ And it had. I was surprised at how much I’d enjoyed myself. When he wasn’t showing off, Clayton Silver could be OK, really. I supposed.

‘Hey, I guess I’d better have your number, yeah?’

‘Well, yes. If you think…I mean…Well, why not?’

He took out his desperately stylish phone, keyed something in and then handed it to me.

I saw that he’d typed ‘Miss Tilly’. I tapped in my number and I resisted the urge to scroll down through his other numbers. I didn’t want to seem too keen, so I just smiled and handed it back to him, as if it were neither here nor there.

He put his phone in his pocket, then put his arms round me and kissed me, first on the cheek and then on the mouth, just lightly but very nicely indeed. I didn’t want to enjoy it. But I did. Quite a lot. I tried to look indignant but I failed.

‘I’m glad you could join me,’ he said. ‘I enjoyed the conversation and I just loved making you go pink!’ And, of course, I immediately went bright pink again. I was cross with myself. Cross with him. He laughed and added insult to injury by kissing my cheek once more before turning and loping back up the drive and in through the gates of Ravensike Lodge, which opened magically as he approached. I expect famous footballers get used to that sort of fairy-tale thing.

The house was sparse, but clean. It had a flagged floor scattered with pegged rugs and a fire burned cheerfully in the range. As the photographer’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he noticed with surprise a small selection of books on a shelf by the window, and, in a chair by the fire, a boy of about eight or nine, his leg wrapped in makeshift bandages round a wooden splint, resting on a stool.
The boy seemed to be knitting. He turned to look at the stranger.

‘My youngest,’ said the woman. ‘He hurt his leg in a fall and cannot yet get back to work.’ She dipped her head and shrugged off her shawl. He almost gasped at the sight of her hair—a rich red auburn. As she shook her shawl, one thick lock of her hair came loose and fell gently down around her throat. Impatiently, she pinned it back and he marvelled at the elegance of her movement. He could, he thought, have been looking at one of the society women who came to his studio to be photographed, not someone scraping a living in this wild dale. She nodded in the direction of the boy. ‘Until he’s back at work he can knit and make himself useful that way.’

She went to the fire, stirred something in the pot, tasted it and looked at the boy. ‘You can have your broth now.’ The boy’s face lit up.

The woman looked at the photographer. ‘You’re welcome to a drop.’

‘That would be very kind.’ He was cold and wet and some broth would indeed be wonderful, but he knew there wasn’t much food to spare in this household. ‘But only a drop, please, Mrs…’

‘Allen. Matilda Allen.’