Guilt Trip Read online

  ‘Writing!’

  ‘Would you go into anything blind, Monsieur Montaigne? No, I thought not. Good evening to you.’

  I may have sounded cool, but all the same my palms were sweating as I headed back to Griff, now in the kitchen happily consulting a recipe book. He looked up enquiringly.

  Shaking my head, I put on a fake American accent. ‘Congratulations! You have won a holiday in Florida! Or not,’ I added in my normal voice. ‘Anything I can do?’

  EIGHT

  Even if I hadn’t wanted to get involved with Griff’s play, there was no way I’d have let him drive to the oast and back in Thursday’s weather. When a week ago he’d gloomily observed that we were heading for autumn, I might have insisted we were still in summer, but this evening I would have said we were heading into an early winter. Global warming? Hardly. But climate change? Spot on. They said we’d get more storms, and rain bringing floods. Tonight we got enough rain and wind to make me believe them. Whoever they were.

  We were still in the small van, but not for much longer. Griff had point-blank refused to contemplate something he considered as infra dig as a Ka, though where he’d got the idea he had any dignity to lose I wouldn’t know. At least, when I’d dragged him along to a veritable paradise of car showrooms just outside Ashford, he’d conceded to a shiny suited salesman that a top of the range second-hand Fiesta might do.

  Top of the range! After a van! But so long as it came in silver with one of those forgettable sets of registration numbers and letters, it was fine by me. Actually, I’d lost my heart to a magenta one, but since we were aiming to be invisible, not instantly noticeable, I’d had to let my head take over. I couldn’t wait to take delivery. And I don’t think Griff could either.

  Once again, I managed to park between other vehicles. Griff came round to the driver’s door to ease me out, as if I were royalty, though actually I was so anxious I was afraid I might be sick. Pre-stage fright, perhaps. Crazy.

  ‘Remember,’ he said quietly as I zapped the central locking, ‘that you have skills they need, my loved one. No one else was prepared to take on the irritating task of props, and no one was saintly enough to sit through every single performance of this damned production with ears and eyes open at all times. There will be people who carp and complain – that you’re too quick with a prompt or too slow, too loud or too quiet. But if they need you it’s their fault – remember that. If they had the lines, you wouldn’t need to intervene. As to the props, do as that dear dead BBC reporter did – count them out and count them in. With your unparalleled eye for detail, you’ll know exactly where they should be put each time.’ He squeezed my hand reassuringly.

  ‘I might make notes anyway,’ I said, returning the pressure as he pushed open the door. The place was blacked out, with only the stage lit up. No one stood under the lights, preferring the darker seating area, where they stood virtually invisible to anyone coming from outside.

  ‘Ah! Griffith’s darling child!’ Emilia declared, surging up to me and air-kissing both cheeks. ‘Welcome. Thrice welcome.’

  Blow me if once again I didn’t want to curtsy. ‘Thank you. As you can see, I’ve brought along a box of items Griff thought would be useful, ready for when the cast need to use them.’

  She wafted them away, although Griff had assured me it was high time that the actors were getting used to handling fans and so on. ‘Oh, in the oast itself, I suppose. We’ll discuss them during the break.’

  Discuss? What was there about fans and smelling salts bottles to discuss? I caught Griff’s eye. He raised his eyebrows to heaven and mimed slitting her throat. It was easier to do as she asked, so grabbing the box I elbowed the heavy door open. There was a stack of plastic picnic tables in the middle of the roundel, and I plonked my burden on there. Dusting my hands, I returned to the others.

  ‘Vina, you could sit over there,’ a woman in dun trousers declared, pointing to the furthest point from the stage. Brilliant idea. Or not.

  ‘Lina.’ And then, because I needed to know the actors’ names too, I repeated it more loudly, smiling around the loose knot of people watching the little scene. There wasn’t much response. It was as if they were afraid I’d nick their parts.

  ‘Are you sure she’s capable of this?’ another man demanded of no one in particular in what I suppose was a stage whisper. It certainly meant every single person in the space knew that he doubted my skills. I knew his, of course – picking his nose.

  ‘Absolutely. My darling Lina can do anything. She has never, ever let me down in anything,’ Griff declared, in an equally carrying voice.

  ‘It’s a matter of timing,’ Nose Man muttered, not quietly enough. ‘Sensitivity and timing.’

  Though I was ready to throw the script that I’d scanned and printed for myself at him, I smiled and confined myself to recycling Griff’s earlier comment to me. ‘If you actors know your lines, then you won’t need either from me, will you?’ Armed as Griff had suggested with pencils, a rubber and even a little torch, I tucked myself into a corner. I was still fizzing – mostly excitement, I think, though a bit of anger lurked too.

  ‘Dear Griff – such a clever child,’ Emilia said, almost ready to pat my head as if I were a pet dog.

  ‘But what about the warm-ups?’ a voice demanded. ‘They’re so intimate, so private.’

  Emilia permitted exasperation to flit across her fine brows. ‘But Evelina is now part of the company. She may wish to join in.’

  Griff hadn’t mentioned anything about intimacy or privacy. I shot him a look.

  ‘I have yet to hear of a prompt needing voice exercises,’ another voice said.

  ‘I should have thought they were exactly what a prompt needed – no point in the girl whispering, or we won’t hear her.’

  I caught Griff’s eye. ‘Maybe if I come back in ten minutes?’ Not waiting for a reply, I headed out. Now the fizz was definitely anger.

  Head down against the rain, I strode round the worst part of the industrial estate, not even bothering to dodge puddles. The litter could stay where it was too. There was no sign of either of the men, though a smile from the one with the gorgeous eyes and soulful expression wouldn’t have come amiss. In fact, a smile from anyone would have been nice. A large van drove off from what seemed an empty unit, the driver negotiating the potholes as carefully as if he was carrying a load of cut glass. I fancied he turned his face away as he passed me. But there was no time for speculation. If I was late back it would look as if I’d had an attack of pique.

  Griff was already in place at his plank desk, though there was no sign of anyone else. By the sound of the thunderous thuds from the roundel, they were climbing the stairs to the gallery. Whatever exercises they’d been doing, walking softly wasn’t one of them.

  Lights, camera, action – or whatever.

  What had all seemed so glamorous when I’d peeped round the door now seemed desperately slow. No wonder Griff got frustrated with his fellow cast-members. He knew, instinctively it seemed, how to turn a line, how to make the right gesture and when. Emilia did too, even if I found everything she did a tad exaggerated.

  Even with their scripts, the others missed lines, fumbled for words, waved their arms round vaguely. I chipped in once or twice.

  Puncture Man turned on me. ‘Why should you think I need a prompt, when I have the script in my hands?’

  ‘Because you turned over two pages at once and missed half a scene.’ How to win friends, I don’t think.

  Come half-time – or was there a technical term? – someone produced glasses and wine. A glance at the bottles told me they weren’t worth risking my licence for, so I slipped off to the van to find the bottle of water I always keep handy.

  And practically ran into the David Tennant lookalike, standing remarkably close to our van. Again.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I asked, not as if I thought he needed help.

  ‘Yours, is it?’ He didn’t look guilty – not even slightly fazed. And I liked his vo
ice, which was a nice light baritone.

  ‘Yes.’ Usually, I say which half of the partnership I am, but not this time.

  ‘You had a bit of difficulty the other day.’

  It was hard to tell whether he was being sympathetic – not much warmth in those eyes of his.

  ‘Brilliant manoeuvring by the truck drivers,’ I countered. ‘But they didn’t need to slash the tyres.’ When he said nothing, I added, ‘I lost a whole morning’s work sorting that out.’

  ‘Work?’ he repeated, as if the concept was strange to him.

  ‘Yes, work. No work, no breakfast.’

  ‘But surely all you do is stand in a shop and take people’s cash.’

  ‘Yes, but you need to have the shop open for that. And saying I stand there all day taking cash is rather like saying all a doctor does is look down people’s throats.’

  His eyes gleamed briefly. ‘Six years of study, a mountain of student debt?’ He made a ‘this high’ gesture over the top of his head.

  ‘Apprenticeship and learning on the job.’

  ‘Learning what?’

  ‘Try social history, history of art, furniture, porcelain.’ For some reason I didn’t want to mention my restoration work. In any case, why was I putting up with all these questions? It felt more like a cross-examination than a conversation. ‘And you? What’s your area of expertise?’

  To my surprise, the question, more formal and aggressive than I’d intended, brought another brief twinkle to his eyes. If I knew what was amusing about it I’d try again. When he smiled he really was as attractive as I’d first thought.

  ‘Oh, this and that.’

  Not interested in either, I reached into the van for the water bottle and zapped the locks again with the extra pressure on the button that set the alarm.

  But he hadn’t finished. ‘So what’s going on in there?’

  ‘Amateur dramatics.’

  Now the skin round his eyes crinkled nicely. ‘Are the public allowed to buy tickets?’

  ‘I should imagine the answer is: Yes, please. You put on a show, you want an audience.’

  ‘When’s it on?’

  I clapped a hand to my mouth. ‘No idea!’

  We both collapsed into giggles. ‘Isn’t it rather important to know when you’re going to perform?’

  ‘Might be if I was. I’m just prompt and props. And it’s time I went and laid a few out,’ I fibbed.

  ‘Will you be here every Sunday?’

  What if he was asking all this so he could try to break into our premises, in the belief they must be empty? Bring on those anonymous wheels. Or what if he was casually going to run into me again? I tried a sideways approach. ‘Assuming I can find someone to take my place in the shop again, yes. And will you be knocking around here this-ing and that-ing?’

  ‘Assuming I’m not toiling to pay off my student debt.’

  With that I had to be satisfied. And guilty. Setting up a flirtation with another guy. Not good. Sorry, Morris. But it was so good to have a bloke look at me as if he appreciated me, not just my skills in building sandcastles for his daughter.

  ‘Only, next time we’ll try it with props for us all, dear ones,’ Emilia declared, wrapping up the session. ‘Theresa, is there any hope of those drapes you thought you might find? Oxfam, was it?’

  Theresa, the woman with whom Griff had had that falling out, had been way too busy. ‘Surely, she should be doing it,’ she said, nodding at me.

  She? The cat’s mother? But finding props was what I had volunteered to do, so I produced a smile from somewhere and jotted. ‘Any particular fabric or colour?’ I asked.

  ‘Velvet, a nice dark crimson for preference,’ Griff said. He looked worn out, but obviously he wasn’t too tired to remember we’d acquired some heavy curtains exactly like that in a lot we’d wanted.

  ‘Budget?’ I asked, pen poised.

  Emilia’s eyebrows went walkabout, at least as far as they could, post facelift or Botox or whatever. ‘Darling, I’ve no idea how much things cost.’

  ‘Neither have I. So I need to know how much you authorize me to spend. Do you want receipts?’ I studiously avoided Griff’s eye.

  ‘Darling, you make this sound like a business! It’s not as if I haven’t known Griff for ever – I know he’s not going to swindle me out of thousands.’

  Did she, indeed?

  While she and the others chuntered away about budgets, I got on with stowing the few props they’d used, most of which had found their way on to the planks that formed Griff’s desk, which I had to take apart, propping the planks behind the boxes they stood on. Planks? No, something much more interesting. I held Griff back as the others drifted away. ‘Where did you get the timber?’

  ‘No idea. It was here when I took up the role.’ He asked with what seemed an effort, ‘Why?’

  I pressed on all the same. ‘Did you ever look underneath?’

  ‘My dear Lina, why should I? How could I?’

  ‘Look at the patina.’ I stroked them like other people stroke cats. ‘I don’t know much about wood, Griff, or furniture, but I can feel when something’s old and top quality. And this is both.’

  ‘When have you ever been wrong about such things?’ Managing a smile, he touched my cheek with pride. ‘Am I right in thinking that there’s more of the same around somewhere? More planks like this, and maybe some legs?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. If they aren’t part of a sixteenth or seventeenth century refectory table I’ll eat them for supper.’ I added more seriously: ‘The thing is, Griff, I’m not exactly the flavour of the month round here, am I? So maybe it’s you who might just ask where they came from.’

  I had a pretty good idea, of course. From a skip not far from here. It struck me that another walk round the estate at a time when they wouldn’t be expecting me, courtesy of the good-looking man, might prove interesting.

  I grinned. ‘I’ve found out when the smokery and cheese factory open, by the way.’ He needn’t know when I’d found out. ‘We must come over one day . . .’

  NINE

  Monday’s weather was as lovely as the previous day’s had been vile, made even better by another card in an envelope from Morris – Le Touquet this time. But after breakfast in the garden, Griff drifted about as if he had all day to fill with nothing. If I knew him, he was trying accidentally to ‘forget’ the appointment he had with the practice nurse. Perhaps this involved her taking a sample of his blood; he was so squeamish that he always wittered on about being likely to faint. But I was on to him. ‘If you don’t set out in the next five minutes, I shall have to drive you down, shan’t I? And then I can ask the nurse what they’re looking for.’

  ‘I do wish you wouldn’t nag me so, Evelina. I’m just looking for my glasses.’

  ‘Here.’ I passed him his case. ‘Reading glasses, unless you’ve put the wrong pair in again. Scoot.’

  He scooted, oozing resentment.

  What did he think was wrong with him? Something he didn’t want me to know about. Had he confided in Aidan? I could scarcely email Aidan and ask, because any secret wasn’t really mine to tell, and simply asking would reveal there was a secret. What if I looked his new pills up on the Internet? I might get some clues there. But then what would I do with the knowledge? If I taxed Griff with it, he’d know I’d been spying on him, something we’d both sworn solemnly never to do. For years the pact had worked: I didn’t want him to know every last awful detail of my past life – no more than he could guess at, anyway – and he was very reticent about the details of his relationship with Aidan, for which I’d been really grateful, though I was a bit less prissy these days.

  I stood outside his room, biting a stray hangnail. How would I feel if he rooted about in my things, to check on my contraception, for instance? Or to see if my father had ever given me any goodies I was keeping private? As it happened, I was hiding just one thing, a photo of Pa’s mother, my grandma, and I couldn’t for the life of me think why. After all, o
n posh occasions I sported the Cartier watch Pa had given me, and from time to time I let slip that Pa still hadn’t run her engagement ring to earth, though he very much wanted me to have it. But I think hiding the photo was as much to protect Griff as anything – the less I was involved in my past, his theory ran, the more I’d be locked into his present.

  Even though I stretched my hand out, I couldn’t push open his door and hunt for tablets, or even that mysterious spray. Just couldn’t. I’d simply have to try harder to make him tell me all about his appointment and ask what he’d told Aidan.

  The office phone rang. I ran down to answer it.

  The person at the other end didn’t wait to hear who’d picked up. He said immediately, ‘Have you thought any more of my proposition, Lina? You’d be very unwise not to, you know.’

  Deep breath time. Perhaps if I sounded as pompous as Aidan, who people never argued with, he wouldn’t pick up my terror. ‘Monsieur Montaigne, I told you I would consider any offer you put in writing. None has so far arrived.’

  He cut the call.

  The phone rang again. I nearly wet myself. Then I realized the voice at the other end was altogether more gentle and measured.

  ‘First ring, eh, lass? Must have known it were me. Now, I shall be passing not far from your place in about half an hour. If you fancy getting that kettle on, I’ll drop the rest of your property off. Can’t say fairer than that.’

  Big Dave sank on to the garden bench as if he’d been toiling for the last five or six hours. Perhaps he had: perhaps his hens woke him early. Or perhaps his kids had. He wrapped a huge hand round the biggest mug I could find. The thick slice of Griff’s latest cake looked so inadequate that I pressed the rest on him.

  ‘Nice spot,’ he said, looking at the garden, Griff’s pride and joy, full of colour and shape, as one type of flower gave way to another, with shrubs and trees joining in. ‘Like the Tardis. You’d think, looking in from the outside, you’d only have a pocket handkerchief – one of those chic spaces full of decking and minimalism, if you can be full of minimalism, of course. But this – this is like the cottage gardens in jigsaws I used to do with my gran.’ He drank deeply and sighed. ‘Another tradition gone. My kids play with their computer games, and their grandma is off in the Caribbean with her toy boy.’