The One You Really Want

The Talbot Arms, on the outskirts of Kilnachranan, was lit up as they approached it, festooned with multicoloured Christmas lights and a flashing Santa on the roof. From the sound of things, a riotous party was already in progress.

‘We needn’t stay for long,’ Nancy reassured her mother, because Rose wasn’t used to parties. ‘Just an hour or two.’

‘Don’t be such a spoilsport,’ said Jonathan. ‘It’s Boxing Day. This lot will still be going at midnight.’

Nancy looked at him; a little hindsight was a dangerous thing. Now that she was fairly sure he was having an affair, everything he said or did seemed significant. The amount of effort he had put into his appearance could mean something. Was he secretly tweezing those stray hairs between his eyebrows? Why, after six years of wearing Eau Sauvage aftershave, had he recently switched to the new Calvin Klein? And was it to match his underpants?

‘There’s Nora who does the food. She’s around your age,’ said Jonathan. ‘If you wanted, you could give her a hand in the kitchen.’

‘Sorry,’ said Rennie, putting his arm round Rose’s shoulders as they made their way up to the front door of the pub, ‘she won’t have time for skivvying in the kitchen, she’s going to be far too busy dancing with me.’

‘There might be karaoke.’ Nancy felt it only fair to warn Rennie. They were notoriously fond of a singalong down here at the Talbot Arms.

‘No problem.’ Rennie winked at her. ‘Me and Rose would be delighted to show them how it’s done. We’ll sing a duet.’

Nancy was on edge, Carmen could tell. She was smiling and greeting people she knew, but there was a hint of brittleness to her smile and her knuckles, as she clutched her drink, were white. Luckily, nobody else was paying her much attention. Everyone was far more interested in nudging each other and whispering that that was Rennie Todd.

It was always amusing, watching other people’s reactions to celebrities. Rennie, on his best behaviour for Nancy’s sake, was handling the situation well. He was great at remembering people’s names - just as well, seeing that Jonathan was currently proudly introducing him to Hamish, Pete and a whole host of drinking friends - and excellent at pretending to be interested when they all regaled him with stories of how they had once been in a band that could have made it, if only the record companies had had the sense to offer them a record deal.

Spike had hated the attention, but Rennie took it all in his stride. Listening, Carmen smiled to herself as she heard the plump one called Hamish saying, ‘Ah, we were great, everyone said so, but you’d send out a load of demo tapes and never hear back. If you ask me, no one ever even bothered to listen to them. I’m telling you, we could have been mega.’

‘It’s a tough business,’ Rennie agreed sympathetically. ‘We spent a couple of years doing the pub circuit down south. One night we played to an audience of six, and two of them were passed out drunk on the floor.’

‘We did, we were lucky,’ Rennie agreed good-naturedly. ‘Hey, you’ve almost finished that one. Let me get you another drink. Rose, how about you? By the way, have you two met before? Hamish, this is Rose, my new girlfriend. Rose, say hello to Hamish.’

‘I know.’ Nancy smiled, though her eyes continued to dart restlessly around the pub. ‘D’you think that could be the one, over there?’

‘Wouldn’t have thought she was his type.’ Then again, Carmen supposed, it was hard to know what kind of girl Jonathan might go for. Any one of them here could be a potential Other Woman. Plus, they could have got it all wrong and she wasn’t here at all.

‘I’m going to give Nora a hand with the food,’ said Nancy. ‘Have a chat with her, see if I think she knows anything.’

When Nancy had disappeared into the kitchen at the back of the pub, Carmen made her way over to the bar where Rose and Rennie were surrounded by a crowd of Jonathan’s friends. Hamish was now quizzing Rennie about how it felt to play in front of an audience of forty thousand fans at Wembley. Rose, chatting away to a dark-haired woman in her late thirties, was admiring her dress.

‘Monsoon,’ Carmen heard the woman tell Rose. ‘A few sequins always brightens things up, don’t you think?’

‘I’ve never had anything sparkly like this.’ Rose was stroking the sleeve. ‘Always too worried about the dry-cleaning bills, I suppose. I feel safer in things you can put in the washing machine. But this is beautiful. Oh my word, so is that.’ Reverently she pointed to the brunette’s right hand. ‘Look at this ring!’

From where she was standing, Carmen saw three things. Firstly, despite being in mid-conversation at the time, Rennie stopped speaking for a moment.

Third, and most damningly of all, the brunette dimpled with pleasure and proudly waggled her fingers so that the diamond glittered in the lights from the nearby Christmas tree. And for just a fraction of a second she met Jonathan’s gaze and smiled at him.

‘Haven’t seen that before!’ Grabbing her hand, Hamish bellowed, ‘Bloody hell, Paula. Bit of a rock, isn’t it? Where did that come from?’

‘It never is.’ Shaking her head in admiration, Rose said, ‘Aren’t people clever these days? You’d never know the difference.’

‘Thought you’d got yourself a secret admirer,’ said Hamish jovially. ‘Right, who’s for another drink?’

Within minutes, Rennie was doing what he did better than anything else in the world. Flirting with the brunette whose name was Paula. It was a talent he’d never needed to hone; flirting came as naturally to him as breathing. Aware that Nancy was still in the kitchen and Carmen was sitting on a stool over at the bar watching him, he found out that her name was Paula McKechnie and that she was thirty-five and divorced with no children. He also learned that she worked in an art gallery in Edinburgh, was currently single and adored Thai food.

‘Tell me,’ said Rennie confidentially, ‘d’you ever get that thing where you meet a complete stranger out of the blue and just . . . click with them?’

Rennie pulled an apologetic face. ‘The thing is, I think it may be happening now. What are you doing tomorrow night?’

‘Well, I’m staying at the Kincaid Hotel for a few days. I’ve never been to Edinburgh before, so I don’t know anywhere, but if you could suggest a good Thai restaurant, I thought maybe you and I could check it out. Or anywhere you like. I’d love to take you out to dinner, get to know you better.’ Rennie paused, a hesitant smile on his lips, then shook his head and said self-deprecatingly, ‘But it’s OK if you don’t want to. Just thought I’d ask. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

During the course of their conversation he had been aware of Jonathan standing a short distance away, talking about rugby with his friends but clearly paying close attention to what was going on in the vicinity. Paula, also aware of this, said ‘Um, the thing is, it’s a bit—’

Paula, terrified that she was about to miss her chance, whispered in a frantic undertone, ‘No, look, give me a call tomorrow.’ Turning away from Jonathan, she scrabbled discreetly in her fake Louis Vuitton handbag for a card and thrust it into his hand. ‘There’s my number, but it’s better if you don’t tell anyone. You know what people can be like . . .’

‘You’d rather keep it between us.’ He nodded understandingly. ‘It’s OK, I do know what people can be like.’

There was no sign of Nancy. Carmen was still on her stool watching them intently. Beckoning her to join them, Rennie said cheerfully, ‘Hey, Carmen, over here. Got something to show both of you.’

‘OK, little trick I learned.’ Pushing up his sleeves in businesslike fashion, Rennie rubbed his hands together and waggled his fingers like Paul Daniels.

‘If I can remember how to do it.’ He paused, deep in thought, then nodded and held out his hand to Paula. ‘Right, give me that ring of yours.’

Entranced, Paula slid it off her finger and passed it over. ‘Don’t make it disappear, will you? Auntie May’ll go mad.’

‘I won’t make it disappear,’ Rennie promised. Taking the Frascati bottle in one hand and carefully eyeing the level of the wine, Rennie held up Paula’s ring and said, ‘OK, now concentrate. I can only do this once.’ He exhaled slowly. ‘Ready?’

Carmen was narrowing her eyes at him, warning him not to mess about, to get on with whatever it was he was about to do.

‘Better tell Auntie May to take your ring back to the shop and complain. This isn’t cubic zirconium,’ said Rennie. ‘They’ve only gone and sold her one with a real diamond in it instead.’

‘OK.’ Paula leaned forward confidingly and lowered her voice. ‘Someone gave me the ring for Christmas. I know it’s a real diamond. I just didn’t want everyone else to know. You have no idea what it’s like, living in a place like Kilnachranan.’

‘Having an affair with a married man, making sure his wife doesn’t find out,’ said Rennie. ‘Can’t be easy.’

Paula’s jaw tightened. She looked at him for a couple of seconds then briefly shook her head. ‘It isn’t. Can I have my ring back now?’

‘I’d say you got the better deal,’ Rennie continued. Maybe this wasn’t how they’d planned it but he was buggered if he’d stop now. ‘It’s Jonathan, isn’t it?’

‘Come on, don’t give me that. You’re having an affair with Jonathan Adams, right under his wife’s nose, and now you’ve been caught out—’

‘Rennie,’ hissed Carmen, jabbing him hard in the ribs, and this time he did stop. But it was too late. Turning, he saw Rose standing behind him holding a tray of baked potatoes and a bowl of prawns in mayonnaise. Shit, shit. From the expression on her face, she’d heard everything.

Rennie mentally braced himself for the crash of the metal tray dropping to the ground. Shit, of all the people to have come up behind him at that moment.