Was the man mad? Did he not think I’d see the text he’d just sent and shout to Nick, ‘Hey, Nick, that Alex Hamilton chap that you’ve just taken on is coming on to me. He followed me into the kitchen last night and stroked my face and now he’s just sent me a text. A really suggestive text. Sack him.’
Did it not occur to him that my mobile could have just been lying around in the kitchen, where any one of my family could have picked it up and read the message? I felt terrified at the very thought.
This sort of thing just doesn’t happen in real life. Well, maybe it does, if I’m going by all those garish magazines on display at the checkout in Sainsbury’s:
My mother had affair with my sister’s daughter’s grandad.
And how did Alex know my mobile number, anyway? I certainly hadn’t given it to him. A whole gamut of thoughts was racing through my head as I locked myself in the downstairs loo, found the message on my phone again and then, in a total panic, deleted the offending five words. I felt immediate relief that in their place was nothing: no words, no suggestion that they had ever been there.
And then regret.
No longer five little words that I could hug to myself, read again and again.
The man was dangerous. He was obviously a psychopath of some kind, who enjoyed playing games with defenceless housewives. I needed to tell Nick. He’d have to sack him. But Alex wasn’t working for Nick. What had he said? He was working with him. And, according to Nick and David, he was brilliant at what he did, had been headhunted from one of the top companies in Italy by David in the same way that David had gone after Nick himself a year ago. L’uomo needed Alex to take control of Italy while Nick made initial forays into India and China if they were to expand into that area of the world. Well, David Henderson would just have to find someone else to take care of Italy for him because, once Nick knew Alex Hamilton was a dangerous psychopath intent on the pursuit and downfall of his wife, he’d defend my honour and throw him out of the company.
But then I wouldn’t see him ever again.
‘What are you doing in there?’ Nick shouted from the other side of the door.
I jumped guiltily, walked over to the loo and flushed it. ‘What do you mean, what am I doing in here?’ I shouted back. ‘What does one normally do in the loo?’
‘Rebecca’s up and about to leave.’ Nick shouted again.
‘Why is everybody shouting?’ This from Rebecca.
I slipped my mobile into my pocket – it felt as if it were a potential weapon of mass destruction –and found Nick and Rebecca, who were now back in the kitchen instead of on sentry duty outside the loo.
‘I’m off,’ Rebecca said, gathering her bag and jacket and putting them on the table.
‘Home?’
‘Chicago,’ Rebecca laughed. ‘Well, not today, obviously, but I leave on Thursday and I’ve still loads to do.’
‘You’ll have a great time,’ I said.
‘Well, I hope I have more success with men over there than I have had here recently,’ she said ruefully. ‘I pulled out all the shots last night with your Alex guy – he really is rather gorgeous, Nick. Where did you find him? – but I gave up in the end. I’m not one to give up without a fight, as you know, but I had to give up on that one.’
‘He was with his girlfriend, Rebecca,’ Nick protested, laughing. ‘What did you expect him to do?’
‘Oh, just a little mild flirting would have sufficed. You know, hands reaching for a glass at the same time, playful little glances… and a not-so-playful hand on the knee when I moved across the table and sat next to him.’
‘Under Call-Me’s eye? He wouldn’t have dared.’
‘Oh, I don’t think for one moment it’s Gabriella he’s interested in. I gave him plenty of opportunity to follow me into the kitchen – at one point, I actually suggested he came out to help with my balls – but to no avail. I did have him down as a bit of a player, a real Jelly Deal, but now I’m not so sure. I thought I was a connoisseur of all men,’ Rebecca laughed. ‘I mean, I’ve had enough of them in my time, but your Alex Hamilton is a bit of a mystery to me. Right, I’m off. Look after Mrs D for me – she’s on loan only. I want her back once the girls are home with me.’
Once Rebecca had gone, I felt a bit bereft. I’d got to know her all over again this past year and now, with Grace out of action for the moment, I’d miss the nights out we three had had. Even though Grace and I had both been pregnant, it hadn’t stopped Rebecca organising little soirées out to a new restaurant over in Leeds or Manchester, or even a day out at the races. She would inevitably end up chatting up some new man wherever we went, but she never abandoned Grace and me: always brought over any potential date to meet the ‘Blooming Minders’ as she’d dubbed the pair of us.
My mind kept coming back to Alex and that damned text. Every time I thought about it, my heart did that little flippy thing it does when you’re waiting to hear an exam result or about to be told by Dermot O’Leary that you’ve won The X Factor. Or not. Well, I assume it does. I can’t hold a note, so I’ll never be able to verify that particular flippy heart thing.
I really wasn’t quite sure what to do because, at the end of the day, I hadn’t actively discouraged Alex when we were in the kitchen together making coffee. Hadn’t said, ‘Unhand me, young man, I’m a married woman with five children.’ Instead, if I remembered rightly, I’d wantonly leaned into that cool, caressing hand. Oh, shit.
Like a tennis ball at Wimbledon, my thoughts about Alex Hamilton went backward and forward. One minute I was mentally writing the text that I should have immediately sent as a reply to his, admonishing him for his reckless behaviour and totally wrong assumption that I was up for it. (It was anyone’s guess what it was.) The next I was replaying the text in my mind, imagining myself with the blue eyed one and, in no particular order, leather belts being slipped slowly from faded jeans, white T-shirts being pulled up to reveal a dark triangle of hair, blue eyes…
‘What’s up with you?’ Libby had come into the kitchen and glanced in my direction before going to the fruit bowl to plunder the fruit I’d bought a couple of days earlier.
‘What do you mean, what’s up with me?’
‘You were just standing there with a soppy look on your face.’ Libby said, starting to take the skin from a mango.
‘Oh, brilliant,’ I said, hastily rearranging my face, ‘you’re making a fruit salad. Make a big one and we can have it for tea.’
‘I don’t have time. This is my breakfast and then I’m off out.’
‘Breakfast? It’s afternoon.’ I glanced at the kitchen clock and realised I’d been leaning against the Aga having lecherous and totally illicit thoughts for the last quarter of an hour. This really would not do. ‘Where are you going?’
Liberty kept her eyes on the job of slicing the fruit. ‘Not sure. Just meeting some people from school.’
‘Where?’
‘In town.’
‘Do you want a lift?’
‘No, no… it’s fine. I’ll get the bus.’
‘Honestly, I don’t mind. If you’re going into town, I’ll fetch a few things from Sainsbury’s.’ I nodded towards the fruit. ‘Looks like we’ll need more of that.’
‘I’ve told you. I’m fine. Really.’
I didn’t believe Libby. Maybe it was the concentrated effort she was applying to the grapes. Or maybe it was that I, being guilty of subterfuge, could recognise a fellow fabulist when I saw one.
‘We’ve just been over to see Auntie Grace,’ I said.
‘And?’
‘She’s not in a good place. She’s obviously suffering from severe post-natal depression.’
‘But why on earth should she be? She’s got the baby she’s been desperate to have for years, and she’s got Sebastian. It’s all beyond me.’ Liberty took her bowl of fruit over to the big armchair by the window, tucked her bare feet up beneath her and started eating, flicking through a copy of Style magazine as she ate.
‘Libby, I need to ask you this. Are you up to something you shouldn’t be?’
‘Up to something I shouldn’t be? What are you on about?’ Liberty got up from the chair, put her half eaten bowl of fruit on to the sink and left the room, but not before giving me a look of utter disdain and slamming the door behind her.
‘Harriet, is my blue suit back from the cleaner’s?’
‘Mum, what can I have to eat?’
‘Mummy, I haven’t read to you today. Can I do it now?’
An hour after Liberty had left both the kitchen and then, five minutes later, the house, I was up to my ears in the usual maelstrom of Sunday afternoon family life. One of the twins – I wasn’t sure which – was tuning up for a full-scale overture, Kit was ravenous and assuring me there was nothing to eat and Nick was stressing about something upstairs.
‘Hat. My blue suit?’ Nick’s disembodied voice floated down the stairs again.
‘I’ve no idea,’ I shouted to the ceiling. ‘Your mother collected it, I think. Can you bring that crying baby down? Why do you need a suit, anyway, on a Sunday afternoon?’
‘I’m trying to pack,’ Nick hollered back.
‘Why, where are you going?’
‘Kiev.’
‘As in Russia?’ I shouted.
‘Or chicken?’ Kit sniggered, food obviously still uppermost in his brain.
‘Russia, obviously.’ Nick was now downstairs and in the kitchen, Thea over one arm and the suit over the other.
‘Russia? You never said you were off again. When was this planned?’
‘It’s been on the cards a while,’ Nick said, ‘but with Anasim here at the moment, David and I didn’t think it necessary. But I’ve just been speaking to him and he’d like us to go back out there with him this week.’
‘Us?’ Was I being invited to Russia? I’d always fancied a visit there. That would be a bit more exciting than sitting in the kitchen sorting out my family. I could take the twins, take Lilian with us, and get my sister, Diana, to come and stay with the others. I felt quite excited. ‘Who’s “us?”’
‘David and me. Who did you think?’
Right.
‘We’re flying out there tomorrow evening,’ Nick went on. ‘Listen, there’s some documentation Alex Hamilton needs for later on this week – I was going to take it over to him on Tuesday when I was supposed to be seeing him and Anasim in Manchester. I’ve just spoken to Alex, and he’s going to call in here for it on Tuesday afternoon instead. I told him I’d fax it over to him, but he says he’s in the area anyway and it’s no problem. Says he’s more than happy to call in with it, so can you make sure you’ll be in?’
*
By the time Tuesday afternoon came round I was in a total panic, determined to be out of the house… anywhere, Timbuctoo if necessary, rather than face Alex after the text he’d sent me. I wanted nothing to do with his little game, and thought the best course of action would be to leave the papers with Lilian and take the twins out somewhere until the coast was clear.
Except I wasn’t. Out of the house, that is. I’d told Lilian I was taking the twins to see Mum and Dad, and that was what I’d intended. The papers were in the kitchen and Lilian knew that Alex was calling in for them. She’d lost a filling from a tooth that morning and had tried to get an appointment straight away with her dentist, but had been told it would be at least a week before she could see anyone. Just as I was leaving, determined to stay away for as long as necessary, Lilian’s mobile rang.
‘Harriet, the dentist has had a cancellation. She can fit me in, but I’ll have to leave this minute.’ Lilian had glanced at the clock and was already pulling on her jacket. ‘Do you mind if I get off? I’ll only be an hour or so – I’m with the dentist down in the village – and then you can get off to your mammy’s.’
I’d considered putting the papers into a big envelope and leaving them on the doorstep, but Nick had said they were really important. How awful if a Russian spy – Liberty? – was just waiting behind the garden wall to pinch them and, because of that, L’uomo went pear shaped just as I was getting used to the idea of having a new outfit for weddings. Besides, I wanted to see him. Wanted to have those devastating blue eyes look into mine. My heart was doing that flippy thing once more, and I’d dashed upstairs to change into my best navy cashmere jumper, put on some lipstick and add a squirt of the old Aromatics to my over-pulsating pulse.
Oh, God, what if he didn’t come? What if Lilian got back before he arrived? I’d have to change back into my old jumper, abandoned inside out on my bedroom floor, and go, as planned, to see Mum and Dad. I dithered between desperately hoping Lilian would return before he came and desperately praying she wouldn’t. If it had been the evening I could have knocked back a quick gin while I waited but, as it was still early afternoon, imbibing of a drop of mother’s ruin didn’t seem wholly appropriate (as if waiting for some man whom I fancied like mad was).
I must have checked my lipstick a dozen times as I waited for the doorbell to go.
When it did, I jumped, but made myself wait thirty seconds to walk through the hall and to the front door.
He hadn’t been on the doorstep, but further down the garden doing something to one of my rose bushes. I had a couple of seconds to take in the black suited back and the short almost black hair before he turned and said seriously, ‘Greenfly.’
‘At this time of year?’ I laughed. He’d looked so ludicrous, in his business suit and shiny shoes, hunkered down among the rose bushes, that my heart had stopped racing.
He stood, brushed at his suit jacket where beads of water from the dying roses had found a home, then walked up the path towards me. His blue shirt was a perfect match for his eyes and I wondered, remembering the blue cashmere sweater idly flung over his shoulders in Harvey Nicks back in the summer, if he always colour coordinated his clothes to match them.
‘Hi,’ he grinned, kissing me ‘hello’ on my cheek. He stood on the doorstep, looking down at me, but made no attempt to go inside.
‘Erm, I’ll just go and get the stuff Nick’s left for you.’
‘OK.’ Alex smiled again and leaned back against the wall, his arms folded.
And I suppose that was the moment when I could have gone inside, fetched the envelope, brought it back and given it to Alex with a firm nod of my head, leaving him in no doubt whatsoever that I was a happily married woman and not up for anything the text he’d sent might have generated.
But I didn’t.