Heaven's On Hold Read online

  ‘Just the same,’ said Annet, ‘ I want to be kept in touch. Will you please make sure to call me if there’s anything I could or should be handling.’

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘In fact, Piers, perhaps you’d give me a ring every day where possible around this time, and touch base – let me know what’s come in.’

  ‘I will, but are you quite sure you wouldn’t rather be left in peace?’

  ‘I’ll be more peaceful if I’m kept in touch. Trust me.’

  ‘OK, whatever, oh God I wish I could see Freya, does she have hair?’

  ‘Quite a lot, darkish.’

  ‘Like you!’

  ‘David’s dark as well.’

  ‘I suppose he is …’ Piers spoke musingly. ‘I can’t wait any longer, I’m going to have to dash out to Baby Gap at lunchtime and buy something fetching.’

  ‘Don’t go mad,’ said Annet, ‘ with your hard-earned bunce. Please.’

  ‘It’s not particularly hard-earned,’ replied Piers unguardedly, adding as an afterthought, ‘with you away. And I shall go as mad as I like. Are you having a christening?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  ‘Quite,’ agreed Piers. ‘And I’ve got too many godchildren already.

  Still it’s a crying shame to pass up the party opportunity – all the more reason to buy the poor little mite a present.’

  Border and Cheffins was the most upmarket property agents in the district, and its premises reflected its status. Not for Border and Cheffins any breezeblock business-park monstrosity, or high-street shopfront: their offices occupied a gracious Georgian house in an area too spacious and leafy to be called town centre, too smart and central to be a suburb. Secluded but within easy reach of amenities was how Doug Border would have put it. In the case of Border and Cheffins the garden had been left at the back – though the herbaceous borders had been replaced by low-maintenance shrubs – but levelled to create (currently redundant) car parking at the front. Other than this, and a discreet brass plaque in the porch, there was nothing to advertise that the house was now offices. Even functional blinds had been eschewed in favour of elegant and expensive curtains, the choice of Doug’s wife Marsha.

  Doug was grandson of the original Border, and ran the show. He had inherited a comfortable, established business and made it fabulously successful. David told himself that he did not, in the main, envy Doug his millions, but he did envy him his easy entrepreneurial flair, a flair which had skipped a generation after his grandfather Lionel, and returned in its fullest form in the grandson. Doug’s father, Gordon, had been a plodding, consolidating presence; it was Lionel who had been the instigator and moderniser. Doug himself had the acumen to see that the way to a brilliant future was to emphasise the qualities of the past – hence the house, the curtains, the whole decor with its rose reds and cinnamon browns, its watercolours and old maps and trailing plants in jardinieres – its real fire in the hallway, forsooth, through the winter months. The term ‘ estate agent’was proscribed – Border and Cheffins had started life as a land agents and was now simply a land agent gracious enough to take on the crème de la crème of county property. As practice got if not sharper then at least more combative and profit-driven, so the ambience in which it was conducted became mellower and more gentlemanly.

  David could see for himself how admirably all this worked. Border and Cheffins’ clients, people who bought and sold property for monumental sums, were among the most hard-nosed imaginable, but liked to see themselves as toffs. And it was the genuine toffs who struck the hardest bargains. Though it was nominally his administrative skills for which David had been employed it was in his unassumingly patrician manner that his value to the company lay. He was without personal vanity where work was concerned, but he had gradually become aware that his was an emollient presence and made the clients feel that they were engaged in transactions that were gentlemanly rather than, as was in fact the case, dog-eat-dog. Only last year, when the rock star Chris Harper (a little past his sell-by date but still worth millions and coining in the royalties) had been bidding for a beautiful house with private fishing rights and a deer park, David had almost single-handedly smoothed the hackles of the local landowners, calmed and reassured the threadbare, aristocratic vendors and brought home the bacon and the sale at a price in excess of everyone’s wildest dreams.

  Doug had whooped, slapped his shoulder, popped champagne, dragged him and Annet out to dinner and declared to anyone who would listen that David was his main man, and if he only midwifed such a deal once a year it would take care of them all in the twilight of their years.

  On the way home in a minicab afterwards Annet was sceptical about Doug and his enthusiasm. ‘He’s jolly enough, but he’s a user. I’d watch your back if I were you.’

  ‘I wasn’t born yesterday,’ had been his reply as he’d taken her happily, drunkenly, in his arms, but even through the euphoria he’d been able to hear the faint sound of a cock crowing. Because compared to his wife he had been born yesterday, if not later, and they both knew it. It flitted across his mind that she might be the tiniest bit jealous, and the last thing he ever wanted was to upstage her. That wasn’t how it was with them.

  He was less vulnerable than he appeared, she more, a fact tacitly acknowledged between them: the delicate balance of their relationship depended in large part on this tender collusion.

  When he arrived this morning there was a temp in the outer office. She introduced herself as Jackie – a neat, plain, unflappable, young woman with a slightly censorious manner. He had only to think something and it was done.

  ‘Good girl though,’ said Doug in the gents’ washroom at lunchtime. ‘No nonsense. Might invite her to apply.’

  ‘I shall reserve judgement.’

  Doug chortled. ‘Reserve it as long as you like old boy, after last time.’

  ‘Yes.’ David frowned. ‘I felt bad about that.’

  ‘Why? We’re still standing.’

  ‘No, about the girl. If she was employed beyond her capabilities that was my fault.’

  ‘Forget it,’ said Doug. ‘I bet she has.’

  Forgetting it was easier said than done. Jackie’s terse competence was a constant reminder to David of how patently unsuited her predecessor had been to the job. To make matters worse there was a letter from Gina amongst the afternoon post: he recognised the round, carefully-formed handwriting. It had ‘Personal’written across the corner of the envelope, so thankfully Jackie had not opened it, but placed it on the top of the pile.

  He set it aside and left it till last. Even then he was too self-conscious to read it in the office and only took it out of his pocket when he’d reached the car park and was sitting behind the wheel. She really shouldn’t be doing this, he told himself. He’d read it now it was here, but then it would be incumbent on him to choke off any further communications.

  ‘Dear Mr Keating,’ she said. ‘I do hope you and the family (!) are well. I realised that you would probably be back in the office this week, and so am taking the liberty of dropping you this line to ask if you would be prepared to give me a reference. I realise this sounds a bit strange when your company let me go, but you were kind enough to wish me well, and I believe that the position I have applied for would be ideal.’ He imagined she must mean that she would be ideal for it.

  ‘I am writing not ringing so as not to put you on the spot!

  but I would be so grateful if you could say yes. You can

  contact me by phone or letter at the above. Perhaps I should

  say that I have sent off my application today, so I need to

  have references ready just in case. The father of a friend who

  is a methodist minister has also agreed. As I hope you will,

  you were so understanding when I had to leave.

  With very best wishes,

  Yours sincerely,

  Gina C. King.’

&nb
sp; He read this several times before restoring it to his jacket pocket and starting up the car. What on earth, he wondered inconsequentially, did that pretentious middle initial stand for? He found the tone of the letter as a whole hard to place. In spite of the apologies and the gratitude, there was something importunate that lingered in the mind after reading. Some would have said the letter’s mere existence was an impertinence, but no, he didn’t feel that, you could hardly blame the girl for trying, when he himself had made it so abundantly clear – and she had remembered – that he wished her well. He was in no doubt what his response should be. He should bin the letter and leave it at that: if she had any sense she would infer that no reply meant no dice.

  Turning all this over in his mind he drove slowly, but without due care and attention. Approaching a T-junction on the edge of town he completely failed to see a cyclist coming from his right and turned out into the woman’s path. Fortunately for them both he didn’t hit her, but she wobbled dangerously, put one foot down to stop herself and dropped the bike so that it scraped her leg. Being a big woman and no longer young she then fell forward over the bike in an undignified way, her skirt hitched up and her backside in the air. To his chagrin, when he leapt out to help her she apologised to him.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking.’

  ‘Really, the fault was all mine.’ With some difficulty, and aware of the excoriating disapproval of other road users, he took her weight as she righted herself and disengaged from the bicycle. ‘Is your leg all right?’

  Still clutching his arm she peered down at the sticky graze on her shin. ‘ Oh, it’s only a scratch, I’m more bothered about my stupid old stockings,’

  ‘Yes, what a shame.’ He steered her with one hand, the bike with the other, on to the pavement, and leaned the bike against the street sign. ‘You must at the very least let me get you some more.’

  ‘Goodness, don’t be silly …’ She was handsome in a downright, unadorned way, with sad, serious eyes. David thought how odd it was that when a woman of Annet’s generation wore stockings it was generally a sexual signal, whereas in this woman’s case her sturdy support hose were probably something she’d moved into without having passed through the intervening phase of tights.

  ‘And what about your bike?’ he asked hastily. ‘ Let’s have a look.’

  ‘It’s fine, it’d take more than that I promise you. Built to last, like me.’

  David was no expert but the bike did, to his relief, seem undamaged.

  ‘May I give you a lift home – or to wherever you were going?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ She shook her head and held up a hand to prevent further discussion. ‘It was my own silly fault.’

  ‘Well, I tell you what, let me have your name and address so I can get in touch.’

  He saw what he was sure was her split-second conditioned response about not giving her name to strange men – and found it touching, both for its old-fashioned good sense and its implied girlishness. Instinctively he glanced at her left hand – no wedding ring.

  ‘Just so I can check you’re all right,’ he added. ‘For my own peace of mind.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Having for no particularly good reason decided to trust him, she gave him a six-figure number, of which the first three were common to all the numbers in the town, and the second three easily consigned to memory.

  ‘Thank you.’ He held out his hand. ‘David Keating, by the way.’

  ‘Jean Samms.’

  ‘And again my apologies. That was exactly the sort of thing that gives car drivers a bad name amongst pedestrians and cyclists.’

  She reclaimed the bike and he returned to his car, where he scribbled the number on the corner of an old car park ticket, and allowed her with a smiling gesture to cross the road in front of him. As he started the engine he saw her put her left foot on the pedal, scoot for a few yards, and get back in the saddle – a brave woman, considering.

  Shaken by this mishap, and the knowledge of how much worse it might have been, he concentrated hard for the remainder of the journey home.

  He usually arrived back at least three quarters of an hour before Annet, so it was strange to open the door to the sound of the radio – and Freya’s complaints – and the smell of cooking. This, he supposed, was how millions of men half his age expected to be greeted at the end of a day’s work.

  He went into the kitchen. The baby was in her basket on the table and Annet, in jeans and sweatshirt, was at the stove, turning noodles and whatnot in a skillet, with her hair in a ponytail. Her backview was like that of an eighteen-year-old, but when she turned round she looked tired and fierce.

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her. ‘ Hello, how’s it been?’

  ‘We have missed you, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘Good.’ He bent to kiss her again, but she moved tensely, quickly away. ‘Have you got a drink? There’s still some stout.’

  ‘No, but I’m all right at the moment, would you pick her up?’

  ‘Of course.’ He craved a drink himself, but it didn’t seem right to pour one before taking charge of the baby. He removed his jacket and hung it over the back of one of the chairs, and then lifted his daughter out of her basket.

  ‘So what on earth is the problem?’ he said. It was meant to be rhetorical, affectionate, of no consequence, but Annet answered sharply:

  ‘What do you think? It’s gripe time.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Which began about—’ she consulted her watch angrily – ‘two hours ago?’

  ‘Poor darling. You must be frazzled.’

  ‘You could say that.’ She stirred, turned the heat off, stood holding the wooden spoon with both hands. ‘ Frazzled and …’ She added something which, what with her dropping her voice and Freya squawking in his ear, he couldn’t hear.

  ‘And what?’ He tried to put his hand on her shoulder but she twitched away.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I’m the one who’s had it easy. Just tell me what I can do now.’

  She put the spoon down on the side and walked out of the kitchen. She’d been making one of her fail-safe, standby Chinesey things – chicken, water chestnuts, spring onions, it looked appetising. From habit, he placed the lid on the skillet and followed her. He was conscious that with Freya screech-screech-screeching away, his presence, no matter how good his intentions, was less than soothing.

  ‘Please,’ she said, as he entered the drawing room. ‘Please, darl, don’t bring her in here. I honestly can’t stand another second of that.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Suddenly he remembered something Tim had said. ‘Tell you what, I’ll take her out in the car for a bit. That’ll give you a break and with a bit of luck it’ll send her to sleep.’

  He was rewarded by the sight of her face softening, warming, in gratitude. ‘Oh, darl, would you? It doesn’t have to be for long, but I can’t tell you … could you stand it?’

  ‘Very easily.’ It was true. Nothing would be too much trouble if it could achieve such an effect.

  ‘You have to take my car, it’s got the carrycot straps.’

  ‘No problem. You pour yourself a drink and take it easy, promise?’

  ‘No problem. David —’ He paused in the doorway. ‘ I do love her, truly.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What I hate is feeling as if I don’t.’

  ‘Yes.’ He understood.

  Annet’s Toyota was small, mean, sporty: not as comfortable as the Volvo, but equipped with drop-dead acceleration. As the engine pounced into action he had to remind himself that what he was engaged in was the late twentieth-century equivalent of the lullaby: so much available speed was a real temptation. But his heart-stopping getaway, lurching pauses and swooped corners had only a beneficial effect on Freya, who was asleep within two minutes of pulling out of the drive.

  He’d decided on a six-mile circuit of the village, taking in the hill which led to the ridgeway, but then branching off and h
eading due east, then south and round. It had been an indifferent day weatherwise and with the dull cloud cover it was almost dusk as he drove along the top of the escarpment, with Newton Bury beginning to light up like a minor constellation beneath him. His spirits rose, and with it his speed. He might as yet be an anxious and inept father, but the opportunities fatherhood afforded to be of service to his wife made it all worthwhile.

  When he got back to the village he was almost afraid to stop in case Freya awoke. He slowed down on the approach to Gardener’s Lane, and once round the corner actually paused, with the engine idling and home in sight, savouring the peace – both his, and Annet’s, behind the warm curtains of Bay Court. It was astonishing the extent to which either tumult or tranquillity were dependent on the baby’s sleep patterns. He remembered with shame those times when he’d glanced censoriously at harassed mothers yanking on the arms of toddlers while clutching a buggy in which a screaming baby writhed and yelled incessantly. In a peripheral way he had assumed both stroppy toddler and screaming baby to be consequent upon the mother’s bad temper. Now he realised all too clearly that it was the other way about. The mere sight of his daughter’s sleeping form was enough to slow his heartbeat and steady his breathing, so that ease stole through him.

  To confirm this pleasant sensation he turned to look at the Moses basket, held by its straps like a lifeboat by davits. All he could see of Freya was one minuscule fist resting motionless on the pale quilted lining. The gentle thrum of the idling engine was like a heartbeat. Outside another heaving autumn wind had got up, and the lane ahead was no more than a tunnel of stirring darkness in which the lights of houses, his own included, were like those of boats at anchor on a restless sea. A handful of large, random raindrops spattered on the windscreen. Almost wistfully, he prepared to move off.

  His foot was already hovering over the accelerator, and he was glancing automatically in the rear-view mirror when he glimpsed someone about to cross the road behind him. A pale, startled face looking out from a hooded jacket, an arm flew up – perhaps the person thought he was about to reverse – and then, presumably for the same reason whoever it was stepped back out of sight. David paused for a moment, hoping by not revving the engine to reassure the pedestrian and give him or her time to cross over, because the rain was intensifying. But whoever it was didn’t reappear, and he almost wondered whether he’d imagined it. Except that his heart was beating at the narrowness of his escape from a second accident in one day.