Wish Upon a Star (18 page)

Claire went into the living room where her wheelie bag was waiting. She’d left the handle out for a quick getaway. Michael followed her. ‘You don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I’m staying on.’

A look of incredulity spread across his face. ‘You can’t stay,’ he said. ‘How much money have you got?’

‘Seven hundred and eighteen dollars,’ she told him.

‘Christ. This suite costs more than that per night.’

‘Well, I won’t be staying here then, will I?’ Claire heard the slightly nasty tone in her voice and pulled it back. She had to remember that she felt nothing but gratitude toward Michael. He had brought her here and she was grateful, and the fact that he didn’t have a clue as to who she was, was not something for her to be nasty about.

‘How will you live?’ he asked.

‘I’ll work,’ she said.

‘You don’t have a work visa. They’re very difficult to get.’

Claire shrugged. ‘Then I’ll find a job that doesn’t require one.’ She smiled at him. ‘I’m a lot lower on the financial food chain than you are.’ Despite the smile, she was finding it difficult to keep a pleasant tone and his paternal arrogance did not sit well on him. ‘I’ll be all right,’ she said. ‘I want to thank you for everything. It’s been wonderful.’ She walked back and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

He blinked and almost flinched away. She was very close to his face, but that view receded as she used all her self-control to turn and walk down the hall, her bag squeaking behind her. ‘Isn’t it odd that we figured out how to build space shuttles before thinking of putting wheels on suitcases?’ she asked, then turned the hallway corner and walked out of his life, she thought, forever.

Claire came out of the underground and pulled her wheelie bag down Camden High Street. In bed beside Michael she had realized that she did not have to go back with him. She could stay on and savor London. She didn’t know how long her money would last or how long she could manage to stay but in the dark, at the hotel, the idea had been balm to her wounded self-worth. Sometime between getting on the tube, though, and getting off, her courage had deserted her. She felt foolish and lost, literally and figuratively. How would she get back? And where would she go back to? Perhaps like Hansel and Gretel, she should have left a trail of breadcrumbs behind her. But like the two of them she had a family that wouldn’t welcome her back. What was ahead? Starvation in a witch’s cage?

Michael’s thoughtless discarding of her wasn’t much different from the way her mother, Fred and even her father had behaved. Her mother didn’t want her around, Fred went away and didn’t bother to keep in touch and her father, for all the love he had professed, left her without any provision for the future.

Eventually she had realized that she had to get off the tube somewhere, and she’d read that Camden had a big Sunday market. She’d liked Portobello market, so she thought she’d give this one a try and then at least she’d have some entertainment while she decided what to do.

Now, for a few moments, Claire felt panic: Her act of false bravado was actually an act of idiocy. But the March sunlight warmed her face and the incredible bustle around her was impossible to ignore. After all, she was in a new place and it certainly didn’t look like Staten Island, Manhattan, or even Portobello Road.

The street was jammed with shoppers and almost all of them were young. None of the middle-aged ‘antiquers’. This was new merchandise. Hundreds, or more likely thousands of tourists and locals walked in throngs on the sidewalk and in the road. They wore leather and piercing, cashmere and silk, denim and flannel. She had never seen such a wide variety of ages, nationalities, styles, and types.

And the shops were—well, they were also like nothing Claire had ever seen. Many of them seemed to have half of their wares out on the High Street itself. Shoes, leather wares, backpacks, purses, new cheap clothes, vintage clothes, coats and jackets spilled out almost onto the road in racks, on tables, in boxes. As if all that wasn’t a riotously confusing enough bazaar, the bizarre architecture, where each shop seemed to have some enormous representation of what they sold extending out from the upper floors and onto the street, added to the visual madness. Giant shoes, a pair of Levi’s too big for Paul Bunyan, and a biker jacket that looked like a size XXXXL.

But the energy was great. The people walked along eating, laughing, talking, selling and buying in the liveliest way. Street hawkers yelled and joked and cajoled potential customers. If the English had a souk she supposed this would be what it was like and she was glad she was here. In fact, though she didn’t have a place to stay that night, a way to earn a living, a bank account or any friends or family nearby that she could go to, she felt happier and more content than she could ever remember feeling. She would worry about all the rest of it later. For the moment, at least, it was enough for her to walk in the pale sunlight among all the colorful action and feel—for a change—as if she were a small part of the scene.

But, as usual, she was alone. She thought of Michael again, probably at the airport by now. She shouldn’t miss him and she wouldn’t miss him. He certainly wouldn’t be missing her. Aside from his flash of anger, which was probably nothing more than surprise, she knew he felt nothing for her. Why should she feel anything for him? She buttoned the top of her raincoat and shrugged her shoulders. She felt cold, and her empty stomach gave a little nudge. It was stupid to think about Michael. She simply wouldn’t allow it. She had made a choice. She was going to be glad that she did. Like Abigail Samuels, she had her dignity. And she had the opportunity for an adventure; this, she reminded herself, was a lot more than she usually had.

Claire found herself on a corner looking at a street sign. She was on Chalk Farm Road and the name alone made her smile. There was something about this city: its terminology, its quaintness mixed with its modernity that charmed her. She felt differently about being here in a crowd than she had about the crowds of New York, where she’d always felt excluded.

Well, she was hungry and decided she would walk until she found somewhere to get a breakfast or—she smiled to herself—perhaps a ploughman’s special. She had done that without Michael and she had enjoyed it. As she walked along Chalk Farm Road she crossed a small bridge. Beneath it ran a little river. Looking more closely, Claire noticed a lock. Perhaps it was a canal. At any rate it was very pretty, edged with cobblestones and weeping willow trees. That nineteenth-century touch was delightful among the twenty-first-century crowds and noise.

From her perch on the bridge she could see a huge warehouse beside it, decked out on many levels with shops, terraces and people. She walked under a railway trestle and beyond the shops where leather jackets, sneakers and the like were being sold and into a far fancier area with some galleries, boutiques and several bistros.

There, at last, the crowd thinned. Perhaps half a mile from the underground she found just what she was looking for. The café looked like a working man’s diner. Outside there was a triangular signboard on which was scrawled in chalk, the fact that breakfast was served all day. Tired and hungry but exhilarated, Claire opened the door, pulling her wheelie bag behind her.

The place was filled with men and they seemed to be very busy either just eating or eating and talking to one another. She could smell the bacon and her mouth watered. But, despite her hunger and her relief at being about to sit down, she hesitated. She looked around in some dismay. There were only four long tables, not individual ones and she would have to take her place beside one of these strangers. Too shy to do it, she turned to leave when she heard a woman’s voice call out to her, ‘Is it breakfast, then?’

She turned back to see a dumpy middle-aged blond wearing a pilled sweater and wrapped in a very dirty apron. She was gesturing to a seat and smiling. Because of the smile and Claire’s hunger (and despite the woman’s caked make-up and dirty hair) she sat where she was told. ‘Move over, Burt,’ the blond said to the small man in the chair beside the empty one. He was eating his breakfast with a spoon and had his arm protectively surrounding his plate. The waitress looked down at him. ‘She won’t touch your food, you silly bloke.’ She looked up at Claire. ‘Village idiot,’ she said. ‘Harmless when he takes his teeth out.’ Half of the men in the café laughed. Burt picked his head up.

‘Better to have shop-bought teeth than to be as long in the tooth as you are,’ he said and there was more laughter.

‘Oh, you.’ The waitress looked back at Claire. ‘They’re a bad lot, all of them, but they don’t mean no harm.’

Claire was relieved. The man wasn’t impaired and it was clearly safe to sit down. She thanked the waitress, who continued to stand over her. ‘A slap-up breakfast?’ she asked. Claire wasn’t exactly sure what that was but she nodded her head. It had taken all of her courage to sit down and there didn’t seem to be any menus, just another unreadable blackboard. ‘Tea?’ the waitress asked. Claire nodded again. ‘With or without?’

Claire preferred her tea black with lemon, but didn’t think slices of fruit would be available here. ‘Without,’ she said. Moments later she was surprised when the waitress put a cup of milky tea in front of her. Before she could object the waitress was gone, returning with a plate the size of a hubcap and filled almost to overflowing with two fried eggs, grilled tomatoes, thick slices of streaky bacon, fried mushrooms, French fries—and baked beans! Claire looked at the plate with dismay. If she began right then she wouldn’t be able to finishing eating until dinnertime. Then she realized that was a good thing. With her limited money she might be down to two meals a day in no time. She began to eat, avoiding the beans as best she could. Though incredibly greasy, everything was surprisingly good.

Perhaps I’m just born to be a peasant, she thought. Though the breakfasts at the Berkeley had been exquisite she actually preferred this. She wondered whether Michael had ever, or would ever, eat a meal in a place like this one. Probably not, she decided, though he might have done as a lark after some late night carousing at Wharton. She took a bite of the eggs and looked around her. The problem wasn’t the food. Being without Michael and his privileges would not really bother her but being without Michael—or anyone—as a companion was hard. She felt self-conscious as the only woman—besides the buxom waitress—and the only American. Other people were alone but they did all seem to know one another, at least casually. She sighed. Why did it seem that her lot in life was to always be alone? If Michael had been there, unlikely as that thought was, she would have had someone to joke with, someone to point out the strange little man in the corner to. She sighed again and took a tentative mouthful of beans. Well, she told herself, she would have to start accepting her state. The men who liked her made her feel lonely, even when she was with them. And the men she liked were not likely to stay with her long—or at all.

She ate in silence for a while. Burt, next to her, was also silent and that was a relief. Around her there was some talk of Arsenal, and Claire listened to some argument about it. At her table there seemed to be some good-natured teasing between three men, one of whom they called ‘Badger’. Claire wasn’t sure if that was the man’s first name, last name, an abbreviation for ‘bachelor’ or—probably unlikely—a reference to
The Wind in the Willows
. He was getting married—or had just been. Or perhaps had never been. She found it was difficult to understand their speech.

‘Another tea?’ the waitress asked, showing up at Claire’s shoulder. Claire nodded then tried to work out how she could get it black. ‘With or without?’ the waitress asked again and Claire had the courage to ask.

‘Without what?’

‘Without sugar,’ the woman said, as if only a simpleton would ask the question.

Claire picked up the cup. The china was as thick as her finger. ‘I’d like it without sugar and without milk.’

‘Without milk? Daft.’ The waitress shrugged. ‘Is that the way you all drink it?’ Claire nodded. The waitress shook her head. ‘No wonder you’ve picked such arses for presidents. You drink your tea all wrong.’

‘Well, I have always wondered why we have fifty candidates for Miss America and only two for president,’ Claire said. Most of the men as well as the waitress laughed.

She looked at Claire. ‘You are from the States, then? You’re not a Canadian or an Aussie?’

‘No. I’m from New York.’

This started an entire flood of conversation. People’s brothers, children, mothers, or friends had been to New York and to Orlando. Burt, who had cleaned the plate beside hers, smiled at her with his store-bought teeth. ‘Me wife’s been to Orlando. Went with her sister. Do you like it?’

‘I’ve never been,’ Claire told him. ‘I live in New York.’

‘Haven’t been to Orlando? And you live right there?’ He shook his head. ‘How do you get to Disney World, then?’

‘I’ve never been,’ Claire repeated and decided that it was best not to add that she’d never wanted to go. But because Burt was eyeing her she smiled apologetically. ‘I don’t like Mickey.’

‘She doesn’t like Mickey Mouse!’ he said aloud.

‘I thought that was illegal in the States,’ a younger man with red whiskers commented. There was some laughter, which made Claire’s face flush.

‘It is,’ she said. ‘I did a term in prison, but escaped. That’s why I’m here. I’m wanted.’

This raised a lot of good-natured laughter. After that Claire kept her eye on her plate and was left alone, though a few men went on to chafe the ginger-haired man about something else she didn’t comprehend. While they were clearly working men, Claire was surprised to hear that none of them used profanity. No one called anyone else a ‘dumb mother-fucker’, the way Jerry and his pals would have at the drop of a bean. And there were no fart jokes, which beans would have automatically introduced in Jerry’s world back home. She wondered if the English knew ‘beans, beans, the musical fruit’, a favorite poem of Jerry’s.

Claire finished as much of everything (but the musical beans) as she could. When the waitress came by asking if she wanted yet another cup she shook her head and was presented with a tiny piece of paper with some numbers scribbled on it. Her meal was surprisingly cheap. Less than five dollars, as close as Claire could figure it. She put down some money, including a big tip, and when the waitress came back to collect it Claire screwed up her courage and asked if the woman ‘might know about an inexpensive guest house or hotel nearby’.