What She Wants (30 page)

‘There is.’ He handed her the narcissi, and by instinct she buried her nose in them and breathed in the delicious smell. She looked up cautiously, seeing the narrowed treacly eyes watching her like a bird of prey watched its victim. The bird of prey effect was heightened by the hooked nose. Very predatory. She didn’t know why but he was very daunting or overwhelming or something. She felt herself prickle up with a fresh crop of goose bumps. What was it about this guy? Even her skin went into meltdown when he was near. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, doing her best to get her voice back to normal. ‘Since you’re obviously bored and you were watching me, I thought I’d ask you to help me with my patio,’ he said, eyeing her old grey T-shirt and gym leggings lazily. ‘I’m not bored,’ she retorted. ‘I’m studying reports.’ ‘Looking out of the window into my back garden?’ For a brief moment, Sam tried to think of a suitably cutting and derisory retort. Nothing came to mind. She leaned against the door and sighed. ‘Yeah, you’re right. My mind isn’t on my work today,’ she admitted. ‘Murderous migraine,’ she lied, ‘although it’s gone now, thankfully.’ His handsome face creased up into a big smile, which miraculously transformed him from predatory male to friendly neighbour, despite the dark stubble on his jaw. ‘I figured you were sick because you’re never at home in the daytime, so I thought why not invite you over.’ ‘How do you know I’m never home during the day?’ she asked. ‘I watch you striding off down the road every morning,’ he said, still with that engaging grin. ‘You watch me?’ she said, eyebrows raised. ‘There’s something about this neighbourhood that makes you watch people,’ he said without inflection. Sam had to grin. ‘How am I supposed to help with the patio?’ ‘You can supervise,’ he said. ‘You look like the sort of

woman who’s good at supervising. And now that you’re migraine-free, you can make the tea,’ he added cheekily. ‘Shall I wait here for you?’ Why am I doing this? Sam muttered repeatedly as she scurried round the flat looking for her track shoes and something warm to throw on over her cardigan. I must be mad. I don’t know this guy. He could be a serial killer and he’s going to lure me into his house to bury me under the patio! But she still went downstairs. Well, she reasoned, she was bored and at least he was company, even if he was a playboy waster. It wasn’t as if they were going on a date. It was a neighbourly thing. She was way too old for him for a start. He didn’t even look at a girl unless her age was lower than her waist measurement. And probably about the same as her IQ, Sam thought bitchily. ‘Ready?’ he asked pleasantly as she came to the door. ‘Ready,’ said Sam with her most innocent smile. He led the way round to the back of his house where the patio slabs were piled high. He’d laid about half of them and Sam had to admit that it all looked very professional. She was impressed. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce yourself,’ she said, to hide being impressed. He held up two dirty hands ruefully. ‘Forgive me if I don’t shake but I’m covered with dirt and cement. I’m Morgan Benson.’ ‘Sam Smith,’ she said briskly. ‘I know,’ he said. Startled, she said: ‘You do?’ ‘I like to know all my neighbours.’ He grinned again and Sam noticed the tiny feathering of lines around his eyes, endearing crinkles that gave his face character. ‘Particularly ones who disrupt my parties.’ Her face flared bright pink. ‘If you’ve brought me here to insult me …’ Morgan handed her a strange oblong metal implement with what looked like three glass bubbles in it. ‘This is a

spirit level and I need you to help me check if I’ve got the slabs straight, OK? I didn’t bring you here to insult you. I brought you here to make friends.’ ‘I’ve enough friends, I don’t need any more,’ Sam said hotly. ‘Ah don’t be crabby,’ he said, hunkering down to examine the last slab. ‘Let me show you how this thing works. The trick is to have the patio draining in a particular direction so that rain doesn’t gather on it…’ he explained. She couldn’t be angry with him, Sam realized, because he just ignored it. ‘Now when the air inside the spirit level is correctly aligned in each place, then the slab is flat…’ By the fourth slab, Sam was a dab hand at the spirit level and was keen to lay her own slab. ‘Let me have a go,’ she said. ‘I’ll just make sure the sand is level,’ Morgan said from his kneeling position. He bent over the smoothed-down sand, making a minuscule adjustment. ‘I can do that,’ she protested. ‘I’ve watched you do four.’ He sat back on his knees and wiped the sweat from his brow with one muscular forearm. ‘Are you always this impatient?’ he inquired. ‘No,’ lied Sam, kneeling beside him. ‘Why don’t you do this one totally on your own, then,’ Morgan said, smiling at her. ‘I’ll take a break and watch.’ Sam’s eyes gleamed with pleasure. A challenge. Just what she liked. Morgan sat down on an upturned bucket, folded his arms, stretched out his long, cement-encrusted legs, and watched. It wasn’t as easy as he made it look. ‘Where did you learn to do this?’ she asked. ‘I wouldn’t have you pegged as the handyman type.’ Morgan looked at her with his lips twitching. ‘And what sort of guy did you have me pegged as? A party animal type of guy, perhaps?’ ‘You don’t appear to go to work at normal office hours

and you’re obviously well off enough to buy this house, so I didn’t see you as the sort of person who’d know how to lay his own patio …’ Sam knew she was getting deeper and deeper into this ludicrous explanation but there was no turning back. ‘You know, I thought you’d get someone in.’ ‘Ah.’ Understanding dawned. ‘You meant that you thought I was too feckless to do anything like this myself when I could pay someone else to do it.’ He had an unerring knack of hitting the nail on the head. ‘I’d pay someone to do it,’ stammered Sam. ‘But then you couldn’t lay a patio, until now anyway,’ he said. ‘I can so it would be a waste of money to get someone else to do what I can do. Besides, I like working with my hands.’ I bet you do, Sam thought, imagining those long fingers trailing all over the succession of women he had in the house. ‘What line of work are you in?’ she asked. ‘I’m retired,’ he said flatly. Bingo, Sam thought triumphantly. He was a trust fund guy, either that or an internet millionaire. Who else could retire at forty and who else would go round wearing only jeans and scruffy old Tshirts with holes in the seams? Mind you, if he was an internet millionaire she’d have a lot more respect for him than if he was just a waster. ‘You look frozen. Would you like tea?’ he asked. She nodded. He led the way into the kitchen, which didn’t look too different from the last time she’d been there, that never-to-be-forgotten occasion. Sam sat down on one end of a workmen’s bench that was decorated with paint splatters. ‘I love what you’ve done with this place,’ she said deadpan, looking around at the cans of paint on the floor and the half-finished kitchen cabinets. ‘It’s the latest look,’ Morgan replied, busily making tea. ‘I had the place feng shui-ed and they told me that wallpaper and paint were messing up my happiness corner and that if

I didn’t put doors on the cabinets, I’d experience inner peace. I need chaos, apparently. Milk and sugar?’ ‘Just milk. Seriously though, what are you going to do with this place?’ Sam asked. The kitchen was pretty much a shell but it was so light and airy that she could see how wonderful it would look when it was finished. ‘Maple everywhere in here,’ Morgan said, putting two mugs and a pack of biscuits on the table and pulling up an elderly deckchair for himself. ‘I once lived in a house where the whole place was awash with antique pine and I don’t want a shred of it here.’ ‘Don’t tell me: you had an Aga as well?’ joked Sam. ‘How did you know,’ he groaned. ‘I can just see you in a palatial pile with an Aga and a butler,’ Sam added. Morgan looked amused for a moment, then he shook his head. With a strange glint in his eyes he said, ‘Yes to the Aga, no to the butler. What sort of house did you think I lived in?’ Sam shrugged. ‘Somewhere big with family silver.’ ‘We had family silver, all right,’ Morgan said, still with that strange glint in his eyes. Sam smiled to herself. She knew it. ‘Are you going to live here when you’ve got rid of all the antique pine?’ she asked. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me,’ Sam remarked, ‘you’re going to sell it for ten times what you paid for it?’ ‘Do you disapprove?’ He ripped the top off a packet of biscuits. ‘No. There’s nothing wrong with that…’ ‘You do disapprove, don’t you? You’re a very disapproving lady, Ms Smith,’ Morgan said, handing her the packet of biscuits. ‘Is it having a migraine or are you always like this? I’m only asking because I like an easy life and if we’re going to be friends, you’ll have to tell me when you’re having one of your disapproving days.’ Sam dropped the biscuits as if they were poisoned.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding genuine. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. I was trying to be funny.’ ‘I’m not in the mood for funny,’ Sam said tightly. She felt like a little bomb packed full of emotional explosives and ready to go off any minute. It had been an awful day what with the doctor and everything, and now this man was being horrible instead of flirting gently with her and making her feel good. ‘Please stay.’ He held her hand tightly. ‘No,’ she said, wrenching it away. ‘I have to go. I’m not well.’ ‘I know, I’m really sorry.’ He sounded it too. The and my big mouth. I’m not used to company.’ Sam’s eyeballs swivelled upwards with disbelief. And after the trail of women she saw wandering in and out. ‘Migraine back again?’ ‘Er yes,’ she said, glad to be let off the hook. He grinned.

On Tuesday, Sam phoned in sick and then went to the doctor’s surgery to pick up her letter of referral. The receptionist told her she had an appointment with a consultant in three weeks. ‘That long?’ asked Sam, aghast. ‘That’s quick,’ replied the receptionist. ‘You’re going to see the top consultant in London, she’s very busy. We only got that appointment because the doctor wants you seen quickly and because they’d had a cancellation.’ He wants you seen quickly. Ominous. Sam tried to put it all out of her mind. She bought a couple of fat glossy magazines on the way home, and then decided to get some groceries. Proper food was what she needed. She’d do chicken breasts or something nourishing. A wire basket hanging from her arm, she was in the vegetable department of the local supermarket when she heard a voice behind her.

‘Hi there.’ It was Morgan, looking his usual disreputable self with at least two days’ worth of stubble on his jaw, wearing an open-necked shirt (ridiculously cold in this weather, Sam told herself, trying not to gape at the sliver of chest visible at the open neck) and that beige suede jacket he never left the house without. She’d seen him wear it countless times. Not that she’d been looking or anything, but from her front window seat she couldn’t miss him. ‘Hi,’ she said brusquely and turned back to squeezing avocados. ‘I think that even heart massage won’t bring them back to life,’ Morgan remarked. ‘Ha ha,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Ever thought of being a comedian?’ She waited for him to begin to answer then interrupted. ‘Well, don’t.’ ‘Is it a migraine or just a common or garden headache you’ve got today?’ he asked unperturbed. ‘Neither,’ she snapped. Honestly, would he ever get the hint that she wanted to shop in peace? She looked into his trolley. As she’d suspected, a huge TV dinner sat on the top. Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy. Yeuch. Noticing her glance, Morgan picked the package up and looked at it with distaste. ‘I know, this stuff is awful for you but the guy doing the plastering with me insists on eating this sort of junk for lunch.’ He put it back in the basket to one side so she could see the rest of his shopping: far more vegetables than Sam had in her basket, fresh fish and a packet of dill. ‘I prefer proper cooking myself.’ Sam coloured. Her own basket contained three TV dinners and she never bothered buying fresh fish. It made the apartment stink and why kill yourself cooking something smelly when you could get your weekly dose of seafood in a restaurant instead? Since she couldn’t shake him, she’d embarrass him.

Marching over to the feminine hygiene products, she positioned herself in front of the tampons and studied them carefully, as if she was planning to write a thesis on applicator versus non-applicator. To her chagrin, Morgan studied them too, head to one side before he picked up a pale blue pack and put it in his basket. ‘What did you do that for?’ she demanded. ‘You never know when you might need them,’ he said blandly. He was insufferable! Sam threw her usual brand into her basket and marched off to the cash register. She banged the basket down on the conveyor belt and waited. ‘Hi Morgan,’ said the girl on the checkout. ‘How are you doing?’ Naturally, he was standing behind her. Sam turned round to give him her hard stare but he ignored it. ‘Fine Tanya,’ he smiled back at the girl on the cash register, showing wolfish white teeth against that dark stubble. ‘How about you?’ Sam watched in disbelief. Tanya actually batted her eyelashes. She was smiling fit to burst a gut and she’d missed scanning Sam’s bag of avocados because she was too busy mooning at Morgan. Sam barely knew the name of the supermarket, never mind the names of the staff. But why was she surprised? This was the Babe Magnet she was standing beside. His house was like a homing beacon for west London’s young female population. He probably knew the name of every twenty-something in the whole metropolitan area, not to mention what her favourite sexual position was and what sort of tampons she liked best! Tanya finished with Sam’s groceries and Sam thrust her credit card into the girl’s hand. She signed the docket, whipped back her card, packed up her shopping and left without saying a word.

It was too close to the house to get a taxi, so Sam struggled along the road with her four carrier bags. They weren’t heavy but she suddenly felt so tired, as if all her muscles had turned to jelly. ‘Do you want a hand?’ he asked. He must have sprinted from the shop. ‘I can carry my bags myself,’ Sam snapped, knowing she sounded like an ungrateful harpy but unable to stop herself. Morgan gazed at her thoughtfully. ‘You know, Sam, for a good looking woman, you’re an awful bitch. I was only trying to help.’ ‘Yeah well, maybe I don’t need help,’ she snapped back. ‘I’m a grown woman, not one of your child bride types who probably need help with their shoelaces and their maths homework, OK?’ To her utter aggravation, he leaned against the wall and began to laugh so loudly that a woman wheeling a pushchair nearby crossed the road in alarm. Sam watched in taut fury as Morgan’s face creased up in mirth, making him look even more attractive, the bastard. And there was no sign of him stopping. He kept laughing and even wiped his eyes, as if she’d just told him a spectacularly good joke and he couldn’t control himself. ‘Stop it,’ she hissed after five minutes of belly laughing. ‘You’re making a fool of yourself!’ ‘You’re really something, do you know that?’ he said. ‘Or as my granny used to say, “you’re a caution”.’ Sam picked up her bags and stomped off. It was amazing how rage could give you a fresh burst of energy. When she got to the pedestrian crossing, she allowed herself a glance back to see if Morgan was following her. But he wasn’t. He’d disappeared. Feeling strangely let down that he hadn’t come after her, Sam walked home, her burst of energy gone. After she’d shoved the groceries away, she didn’t feel like cooking, so she went into her bedroom and lay down on the bed to relax and read her magazines. She woke up at half seven that evening, feeling groggy