The One You Really Want (34 page)

‘There's all sorts. Candy floss. Dental floss. Don't you know what dental floss is?'

Charlie cackled with laughter. ‘Ain't had teeth for forty years, have I? What would I be doing with dental floss? Hey, Nick, give us a hand here, lad. Who wrote
The Mill on the Floss
?'

‘I'm Switzerland.' Nick was busy clearing the table of mugs. ‘Strictly neutral. Doesn't Harry know?'

‘Harry? Any ideas?' Charlie gave the middle-aged man next to him a nudge. Harry looked up from the battered Mills and Boon novel he'd been absorbed in and said quietly, ‘What?'

‘
The Mill on the Floss
, lad. Who wrote it?'

‘George Eliot,' Harry muttered.

‘Never heard of him. Sure about that?'

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘
Yes
.'

‘Then why didn't you say so?' The thing about Harry was he seldom
bothered
to speak, but when he did he was always right. ‘George Eliot!' Charlie declared with confidence and a great roar of triumph went up from his team as Baz threw down the card in disgust.

 

Carmen had finished mopping the floor. Harry, evidently finding the noise too much for him, left the table and settled himself on one of the chairs pushed against the wall at the far end of the room in order to read his paperback in peace. Another of the chairs was occupied by a new visitor to the shelter. Grubby and dishevelled, with rheumy grey eyes and a matted beard, he was probably in his forties, though it was never easy to tell. He had the nose of a hardened drinker and smelled strongly of beer. He'd barely spoken to Nick when he'd shuffled through the door an hour ago, refusing an offer to have his clothes washed and dried for him and accepting only a mug of coffee. Since arriving, he had smoked several cigarettes and silently observed the goings-on in the recreation room. Carmen was used to this kind of behaviour. New visitors were always welcomed, never interrogated. They preferred to stay in the background and make up their own minds about the shelter. If they decided it was too quiet, too chaotic or too smoky, or that the staff were too bossy or the food not to their taste, they would shuffle out and never be seen again.

‘Carmen, Carmen, over here!' Charlie was energetically patting the empty chair beside him. ‘Harry's buggered off, the bugger. You'll have to take his place.'

‘Let me just put my mop and bucket away.' Carmen decided half an hour of Trivial Pursuit wouldn't hurt.

‘Here, I'll take them.' Relieving her of the task, Nick added in a low voice, ‘Don't eat the biscuits. Baz just sneezed all over them.'

Carmen inwardly squirmed with pleasure as Nick's hand brushed against hers. ‘I'll try to remember that.'

‘I think you've got an admirer, by the way. New chap over there. Can't take his eyes off you.'

‘Really?' Carmen didn't look over.

Nick grinned and murmured, ‘Who can blame him? He's got good taste.'

‘Oh, bloody hell, pink. Entertainment.' Charlie snorted in disgust. ‘Get yourself sat down, girl, and put your clever head on.'

Baz, reading aloud from the card, said, ‘What was the name of the sixties recording artist, the Singing Nun?'

‘Easy. Julie Andrews,' Charlie said promptly. ‘Always fancied her.'

‘Mother Teresa,' cried one of the older members of the team.

Alf, sucking noisily on his pipe and scratching his unwashed head, said ponderously, ‘I reckon it's Madonna.'

 

Annie was tidying up in the kitchen with one of the other helpers. Having put away Carmen's mop and bucket, Nick headed back through to the recreation room and made his way over to where Harry and the new visitor were sitting. Taking the empty chair between them, he said easily, ‘So how are you doing, Harry? Chest better now?'

Harry nodded and carried on reading his Mills and Boon.

‘Good book?'

‘Very good. Driving narrative. Plenty of emotional tension. Nice plot twist in Chapter Seven.'

‘Excellent.' Nick watched Harry's hands begin to tremble as he closed the battered paperback. ‘Ever thought of writing a book yourself, Harry?'

‘Oh, I have. I mean I
did
,' Harry said quietly.

Crikey. Intrigued, Nick said, ‘You actually wrote a book?'

‘Several.'

‘Harry, that's fantastic. I'm impressed.' As he spoke, it occurred to Nick that Harry might be doing an Albert, that he could be about to announce that he was, in fact, J. K. Rowling.

But Harry simply shook his head. ‘Don't worry. No need to be impressed.'

‘Hey, you're wrong,' Nick insisted. ‘Just
writing
a book is an achievement in itself. It doesn't matter if you don't get published, you've still—'

‘I did get published, though. That was the problem.' Harry turned his head to look properly at Nick. ‘I wrote a novel and sold it to a publisher. The editor took me out to lunch and told me how fantastic the book was. He said it would be the making of me, that I had a glittering new career ahead of me, that my book would hurtle into the bestseller charts, because his company would do everything in their power to make sure it happened.'

Nick waited, didn't speak. He'd never heard Harry say so much before; today was evidently the day for unburdening himself.

‘My wife was so excited,' Harry went on eventually. ‘We felt as if we'd won the lottery. This was it, our lives were about to change. The publisher had offered me an advance. It wasn't huge, not one of those mega deals you read about in the papers, but decent enough. We both decided I should give up my job in the Civil Service and write full-time, because the sooner I produced the second novel, the sooner we could sell that one too. It made sense, so that's what I did.'

This time the silence was more prolonged. Nick, aware that the new visitor to his left was listening too, finally said, ‘So the first book was published?'

Harry nodded, first examining the cracked spine of the Mills and Boon, then his blackened nails.

‘It was. But it didn't hurtle into the bestseller lists. It barely sold at all. We were disappointed, but the publisher explained that this often happened with a first novel. People prefer to buy books written by authors they've heard of. Anyway, I had the second novel finished by then, so we pinned all our hopes on that.' Leaning forward on his chair, Harry wearily rubbed his face. ‘Except the publisher didn't like it. Said it wasn't of publishable standard. He suggested changing it and I tried to do as he asked, but it was just so
hard
, and six months later he rejected the rewrite. By this time we'd remortgaged the house and my wife was running up credit card debts. That's when it all started to go really wrong. She kept yelling at me to write
better
, and the more she yelled, the more impossible it became to write anything at all. So for the next year I struggled with another book, but the publisher didn't want that one either. They dropped me. My wife left me three weeks later. Then the house was repossessed and the credit card companies started asking when I might be thinking of paying them back. Can't blame them really, I suppose. Anyway, that's when it all became too much for me. I'd failed at everything. Lost everything.' He paused. ‘That was six years ago.'

Nick shook his head. Behind every homeless person there was a story.

‘That's a rotten thing to happen, Harry. I'm sorry.'

‘Look on the bright side.' Harry's smile was wry. ‘At least I have my health.'

‘You could have a go at writing again,' said Nick. ‘No pressure on you this time. Just write because you want to, not because you have to.' Encouragingly he added, ‘All it takes is a notepad and pen.'

Harry shrugged. ‘I don't think so. Nothing to write about any more.' Wiping his nose with a handkerchief he said gruffly, ‘Thanks anyway. I've never told anyone before.'

‘I'm glad you did.' Nick gave his arm a brief, reassuring squeeze. ‘And Harry, if there's ever anything I can do to help, just let me know. I mean it.'

‘Thanks.' Harry nodded.

‘Now, why don't I get us a nice cup of tea?' Turning to the newcomer who smelled so strongly of alcohol, Nick wondered what his story was. Heavy drinking presumably, leading to problems with his family . . . divorce . . . losing contact with the kids . . . ‘How about you, cup of tea?'

There were tears in the man's eyes, Nick saw; hearing Harry's story had evidently brought back to him how much he himself had lost.

Then again, you could never guess.

‘No thanks.' The man cleared his throat and gazed fixedly across the room, clearly unwilling to be drawn into any form of conversation.

‘OK. Just tea for you and me then, Harry.' To lighten the mood, Nick said, ‘Hey, I've never met a real author before! What's the name of the book you had published?'

‘
Pay Day
.' With a grimace, Harry said, ‘Appropriately enough.'

‘Well, I'll look out for it.'

‘I saw a copy in a charity shop before Christmas.' Harry absently scratched his neck. ‘Thought I wouldn't mind reading it again myself.'

Eagerly Nick said, ‘Great!'

‘It was one pound fifty.' Harry shook his head. ‘Couldn't afford it.'

 

As she rounded the corner into Fitzallen Square, Rose couldn't remember when she'd last been happier. She was really here now. Who would have thought that life could turn out like this?

It had been such a wonderful day. Working to brighten up Carmen's little flat had been a pleasure rather than a chore. Now she was heading home -
home!
- to cook dinner for everyone and this evening she would sit watching TV with Nancy and Rennie, and crack on with her knitting, an off-the-shoulder pink and green sweater designed by Zac for one of his overseas clients.

Alerted by the sound of footsteps, Rose saw Brigadier Brough-Badham making his way along the pavement towards her, hatchet-faced as usual and marching briskly along with his hands thrust into the pockets of his long beige trench-coat.

As he reached Rose, without slowing down or sparing her even the briefest of glances, he said curtly, ‘Get rid of him.'

Astounded, Rose whirled round to gaze at his departing back. Indignantly she shouted, ‘Get rid of
who
?'

But Brigadier Brough-Badham carried on walking without deigning to reply.

Having assumed he was referring to Rennie - who, at a guess, had either said or done something disreputable again - Rose realised her mistake less than a minute later. The man sitting on the front step of the house, leaning against one of the white pillars, was what Brigadier Brough-Badham would no doubt term as
undesirable
. His hair was dirty and straggly, Rose saw as she approached. He was bearded, bleary-eyed and possibly the worse for drink judging by the way his legs were sprawled in front of him. Poor fellow, he must be freezing. Well, it clearly wouldn't be sensible to invite him into the house, but she could certainly bring him out a mug of hot soup and put together a parcel of food.

‘Hello, pet.' To be polite, Rose said gently, ‘Are you waiting for someone?'

The man gazed blearily up at her. Finally, in a hoarse voice, he said, ‘Yeah. I'm looking for Carmen.'

Carmen got the shock of her life when she arrived home an hour later and recognised the man sitting at her kitchen table. Almost jumping out of her skin, she saw the dinner plate in front of him, the half-full mug of coffee, the grubby grey woollen scarf hung over the back of the chair.

Her heart palpitating wildly, Carmen hung back in the doorway. Oh God, this was seriously creepy. What was he doing here? How had he known where she lived? And what on earth did Rose think she was doing, allowing him into the kitchen and feeding him beef stroganoff?

‘Hi, sweetheart,' Rose said gaily. ‘Hungry?'

Hungry? Was Rose out of her
mind
?

‘What's going on?' Carmen addressed the visitor to the shelter - the one who, according to Nick, had spent the entire afternoon covertly watching her. Although whenever she had in turn glanced over at him he had appeared to be more interested in Nick. Heatedly she demanded, ‘Have you been following me?'

‘No.'

‘Then how did you find out where I
live
?'

‘God, I'm good,' drawled the man, sitting back in his chair and peeling off his beard. ‘I should be an actor.'

‘You bastard!' shrieked Carmen as Rennie pulled off his wig and broke into a broad grin. He still looked so hideous she could barely take it in. As she watched, he popped out the soft contact lenses with their ageing pale grey lines around each iris.

‘Here, clean yourself up.' Delighted with her part in the subterfuge, Rose was at the ready with a pack of wet-wipes. ‘That's not really dirt on his face, pet,' she consoled Carmen. ‘It's all make-up. Isn't it clever?' she went on admiringly. ‘He certainly fooled me.'

‘Fooled Carmen too.' Baring grotesquely stained teeth at her, Rennie dragged off the holey brown sweater he'd been wearing, to reveal one of his own T-shirts underneath. ‘Better now?'

‘Bastard.' Carmen was tempted to hit him. ‘And your teeth are revolting.'

‘I wanted false ones but it was too short notice. Remember Lisa?'

Carmen nodded. Lisa, an ex-girlfriend of Rennie's, had worked as a make-up artist for the BBC.

‘I rang her this morning.' Rennie sounded pleased with himself. ‘Went round to her house and got her to grubby me up. Gave myself a fright when I looked in the mirror, I can tell you. Then again, it has its good points. Had a whole carriage to myself on the tube.'