Come Back to Me (7 page)

Mark had spent all Sunday trying to concentrate on work, reading through notes so he'd be ready for court tomorrow. His mind kept wandering to the inordinate number of people who had annoyed him lately. He was fed up with the lot of them.

However, as the evening went on he'd felt his anger towards his mother softening, and he'd picked up the phone.

‘No,' she had sniped upon hearing his query, ‘there's no word, Mark. I'll tell him to call you if he returns any time this century. He'll be needing a good divorce lawyer.'

‘I don't do family litigation,' Mark snapped back.

‘I was thinking of Chloe, not you,' his mother retorted.

‘Look, Mum, I know you're angry –'

‘Oh, you do, do you, Mark? Well, as your father always says, you are extremely intelligent, since you take after him.
And perhaps you're even a little bit psychic too, if you know just how I'm feeling right now.'

‘Mum, for god's sake, I'm just trying to help.'

‘Just leave me alone then,' Emily Jameson had shrieked, and the line had gone dead, leaving Mark bristling with pent-up fury.

He gave up on reading his case notes and went out to buy something to eat, musing over another case coming up this week, where he had mixed feelings about the middle-aged policeman they were representing. Returning to his apartment block, he cursed the maintenance man who had stuck an orange cone in front of the ground-level lift. It was getting late and he just about had time to eat the take away he'd bought before he'd need to get to bed in order to be on top form for work tomorrow.

When he reached his front door he fumbled around for his key, dropping it twice before he made it inside. He flung the takeaway box onto the kitchen top then decided to have a quick shower before eating. He marched through his bedroom into the ensuite bathroom and turned on the taps.

It was amazing how a spell in his high-pressure shower with the taps turned up as hot as he could stand could lift his mood and reinvigorate him. He emerged back into his bedroom from within a cloud of steam, towel wrapped around his waist, and went to the kitchen to re-heat his Thai meal. His mind was clearing, beginning to focus on what he needed to get ready for tomorrow. For starters, he had to talk to Chloe about the Abbott case before Neil got to them both, as he was completely out of touch and was praying that Chloe had got around to doing more than he had
so far. Neil had warned them that the media would be all over them when the time came, and Mark had not had the experience of fending off a whole tribe of journalists during a case – the odd court reporter didn't quite compare with what was threatening to develop here.

Perhaps he should read the papers in his bag now, he thought, as the microwave announced with a ping that dinner was ready. He collected his meal and, still clad only in a towel, got his papers out of his briefcase and began to read.

He was at the bottom of the first page when the doorbell rang. He cursed loudly – it was the last thing he needed, and who the hell was it anyway at this time? – then stalked across and flung the door open, to find the concierge had let a sodding tramp upstairs. ‘Jesus,' he said to the sight that greeted him, eyeing the unbrushed, unwashed grey hair, the patchy stubble of silver beard, the untucked, half-open shirt, dirty trousers and only socks where shoes should be. And it wasn't just his vision getting assaulted – his nostrils were on high alert as well.

Then he looked at the face again, closer. His disdain turned to horror as he found himself staring at a twilight-world version of his esteemed father, Henry Jameson.

 

Mark would have liked longer to gather himself, as his head was spinning, but after a few seconds' delay his dad lurched to the door and over the threshold, falling towards him. Mark instinctively put out his arms to help him upright, but instead found himself unexpectedly required to support most of the weight of a sixteen-stone man and, unable to
do so, staggered back inside the apartment where they fell in a heavy, painful heap to the floor. Mark felt his wrist jar awkwardly as he hit the ground with it trapped underneath his father's chest.

They both lay there in silence, until the ting of the now functioning lift alerted Mark to the fact they were in full view of the corridor. As fast as he could he pushed his dad off him and was at the front door, slamming it shut. He looked down and saw he was naked; his towel still half-trapped under his father.

Mark had never been required to reverse roles with Henry before. Surveying the crashed-out heap of parenthood at his feet, he found himself thinking of cases he'd come across where children would come home to find parents passed out from some kind of excess. He suddenly understood as never before the burden of responsibility such children were forced into. Some of them were still babies themselves, and he'd read about them dutifully providing comfort to a needful father or mother. Now here he was, in his thirties, faced with the same predicament, and he had absolutely no idea what to do.

After a few moments, with his father out cold on the hallway floor but quite obviously breathing, Mark stepped over him, threw on some clothes, and then went back to his cooling microwave meal while he tried to figure out what to do next.

Four a.m., and Chloe was wide awake.

Alex had got home an hour ago and slipped into bed silently beside her. Neither of them had tried to talk or even to touch one another. Now a soft yellow glow from the streetlight filtered in through the curtains, making his sleeping face just visible to her. She could still remember lying in bed awake like this before, newly married, enthralled by the sleeping person by her side who she could now call ‘husband'. She'd traced the contours of his face with her eyes: his soft skin; the dark stubble that appeared almost immediately after he shaved. It drove him mad, but she loved the tousled look he took on with the shadow of a beard forming. It was the informality of it – the contrast to the men she met at work with fresh red nicks on their faces daily, and ties strangling their bulging Adam's apples. Alex never did up the top button of a shirt unless he absolutely had to.

Now, as she looked at his face, she had the urge to slap him. It seemed that all the solidity they had built; the foundations of their relationship, their marriage, which they had painstakingly erected and climbed up together, could be brought down in an instant by nothing more than a short, sharp pull from a third party.

Chloe's mind was hastily replaying scenes from the past, re-evaluating them in the light of the last few days and hating what she saw there afresh.

They'd met on the underground during that strange time during Christmas and New Year when everyone seemed to move in a dream, suspended in the twilight of the year, waiting for the turn of the calendar. She had come back from the Lake District early, thankful for the excuse that she had to go into work to finish some case notes, and had perched on one of the uncomfortable metal seats at Holborn to read while she waited, the platform thronged with red-nosed people, wool scarves wound tightly around necks, everyone desperate to jump on a train and make their way home. Chloe had gone past the point of jostling with other people and standing staring at sweaty foreheads, struggling to find a hand-hold to steady herself. She preferred to wait until there was a comfortable amount of space, and always walked to the ends of platforms, knowing the carriages were emptier there. Then, that day, Alex had come up to her.

‘Excuse me?'

She'd looked up to see an attractive man with wavy brown hair and a slight frown watching her.

He paused for a moment, seeming to release a frosty
breath, looking at her curiously, then asked, ‘May I sit down?'

‘Of course.' She moved slightly, not that it was necessary as there was plenty of space. She wondered where he was from – not London if he felt the need to ask to sit; when you travelled the tube every day such politeness disappeared quickly.

He sat down, and she tried to resume her book, though she was still aware of him next to her. She felt like she should say something, but didn't know what, then he'd got there before her.

‘Good, isn't it,' he'd said to her. ‘I could hardly put it down.'

She'd looked up from her book. She was reading
One Hundred Years of Solitude
, and every time she took the book from her bag she grimaced at the irony of the title. She was so busy with caseloads she barely went out any more. Startled, she said, ‘Yes, it's a beautiful book.' She looked down at the cover, then at the packed platform, just as someone trod on her toes in their effort to find a pocket of space in which to wait. She winced, and added, ‘Sometimes one hundred years of seclusion sounds quite tempting.'

He'd laughed. ‘Indeed. Well, don't let me stop you!' He'd gestured to the open pages.

So Chloe had turned back to the book, but had failed to read another sentence, now acutely aware of him perched next to her. Although she was no longer looking at his face, it had imprinted itself on her mind – his laughing brown eyes, and the kind smile.

Each time a train came they'd both leapt up. Each time
they were at the back of a queue of people, who all pushed and fought their way on. Each time the doors closed before they could make it on themselves she had felt relief that they were both still there.

The first few times they didn't acknowledge one another. But as they sat back down for the fourth time, they finally caught each other's eyes, and laughed.

‘I hate fighting my way on when it's packed,' Alex said. ‘Do you fancy getting a coffee while it thins out a bit?'

He'd asked it in a leisurely manner – too leisurely really; Chloe could hear the nervousness in his voice. The last thing she'd wanted at the time was a man in her life: not only was she always manically busy at work, but she was having a lot of fun with her girlfriends and enjoying the freedom of it all. Yet Alex had a smile that drew you to him, and she found herself saying yes, and not only going to a coffee house but to a restaurant and then a wine bar, before finally heading home as the first wisps of midnight snow floated around her, with a smile on her face and the faint impression of a first kiss still hovering on her lips.

He had phoned her often from that point – not too much or too little, but enough to make sure she knew he was keen. And she responded in kind, loving the laughter that seemed to come easily when they were together; their enjoyment of simple things, such as a walk in the park; feeling that she didn't need to be something other than herself to make an impression on him – that he saw past suits and makeup and job titles and salary, straight into the core of her.

As Chloe lay awake, she wondered whether she had ever seen into the core of him, or if she had been so wrapped up
in being appreciated herself that she had forgotten to look properly at Alex, to see if she could penetrate his own outer shell and glimpse his heart. She thought she had, but now …

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and crept quietly downstairs. In the kitchen the table was covered with newspapers, coins, a Blockbuster card … and Alex's mobile phone.

She snuck over to it, feeling like a criminal. They had never felt the need to check each other's texts or emails, or open each other's post. They voluntarily shared all the details of their lives without the other having to go over them beforehand.

However, all that had changed in the past few days, Chloe thought grimly. And it had not been of her doing.

She pressed the tiny buttons and the screen lit up. As she went to text messages and scrolled through, she breathed a sigh of relief. There was nothing in there apart from various short messages from friends – mostly about football. There were no hidden love-notes or secret expressions of rediscovered longing.

Yet she still couldn't stop. She went into the phone book stored on the SIM and scrolled through the numbers. There was nothing in J except for ‘Jamie' – Alex's brother.

Her mind was already beginning to succumb to tiredness, soothed by the knowledge that her fears were unfounded. The buttons bleeped quietly under her fingers as she tried to get back to the screensaver picture of her and Alex. She found herself looking at his call log, and quickly scanned the numbers. Apart from calls to her, most were to clients, and there were a couple to Jamie. But there was one number that
stood out. It was not converted from digits to a name, therefore obviously not a regular contact. He'd called it less than twenty-four hours ago.

Chloe's heart fluttered as she stared at it. There was something familiar about it. She checked her own phone, and moments later, knew who it was.

Mark.

Why on earth was Alex calling Mark?

She flung the phone back onto the table, hating it for reaffirming her fears, and crept up to bed, rubbing her stomach gently. She opened the bedroom door as quietly as she could. It gave a tiny wail as it was pushed aside, then another one as she held the handle firmly and re-latched it.

Chloe tiptoed towards the bed, guided by the light of the streetlamp outside, and looked at Alex's still form, then his face, to check she wasn't disturbing him. She found his eyes – coal-dark in the dim light, but wide open, staring at her. She jumped slightly and took a quick breath, blinked and refocused. Now his eyes were shut and his breathing seemed even. She shook her head, wondering if she'd imagined it after all. But her heart was racing.

Mark was in the office early, keen to get a headstart on work this week, but his thoughts kept returning to his dad. He wondered if his father were still snoring his unshaven head off in Mark's bed. By the time Mark had finished his dinner last night, Henry had shown no sign of moving. Mark had watched him for a while from his chair, and the longer he stared at the inert form, the more irritated he felt. Eventually he'd got up and given Henry a sharp poke in the ribs, which seemed to have no effect on his consciousness, but did cause him to curl up into a foetal ball.

At the movement, Mark had decided he'd had enough. He'd yanked hard on Henry's arm, bending at the knees, his muscles straining as he pulled with all his strength to get his dad's arm around his shoulder and heave him up into a sitting position. ‘Come on, Dad,' he yelled. ‘For fuck's sake.'

Henry had responded with a load of mumbled slurs, which Mark could make nothing intelligible of, but he seemed to have got through, as his father moved obligingly, and Mark managed to get him to his feet and propel him towards the bedroom. Once Mark had Henry sitting on the bed, he had let go of him, and his dad had immediately fallen smack back against the mattress like a dead weight. If Mark hadn't been so cross and out of breath he would have laughed at the sight. It was too surreal. Henry's mouth had opened upon impact and he began to inhale in gurgling snores.

Mark had taken his pillows from the bed and a spare blanket from the walk-in wardrobe, and dumped them in the lounge. He'd returned with a pint glass of water and the washing-up bowl – in case his dad felt like throwing up. To make sure Henry would see it, Mark left it on his father's stomach, the bowl moving up and down gently with Henry's breathing like a boat bobbing in the breeze.

Then he'd gone into the lounge, turned the TV up higher than was necessary, and nestled under the blanket, half-watching the screen while he flicked through his papers until he fell asleep.

When he'd woken up he'd had to go into his bedroom for clothes. Henry had moved in the night. The bowl was on the floor, unused, and the water glass was only a quarter full now. Henry was on his side, back to the room, breathing evenly, but Mark had the feeling his dad was awake. He was grateful for the pretence. He couldn't even begin to frame a suitable conversation with his father since they had been thrust into such uncharted territory.

As he doodled on a legal pad, he wondered whether to phone his mother and tell her that her wayward husband had made an appearance, but he had no particular desire to talk to her either, since she seemed somehow to be holding Mark accountable for Henry's actions.

He hadn't got much done by the time everyone started arriving around nine. Half an hour later he got a phone call telling him one of his clients had decided to settle, which meant he didn't have to go to court that afternoon, but also that quite a lot of the work he had been doing for the past week, not to mention that morning, had been a waste of time. Mark secretly loathed parties who chose last-minute settlements – they lacked the gumption to call proceedings to a halt early and save themselves money and their legal team time; and they also lacked the integrity to follow through on their cause. He was especially curt to the opposing party's solicitor on the phone, and she ended the call having barely got out her final sentence.

A few hours later, he had just sent the temp running out of the office near to tears after he'd berated her for bringing the wrong case file, when David Marchant stuck his head round the door, glanced briefly at the secretary's hunched, departing back, and said, ‘Everything okay, Mark?'

‘Fine, fine,' Mark replied, leaning back in his chair nonchalantly, hoping he could replicate a confident, relaxed manner, which was in reality eluding him right now. ‘And you?'

‘All good.' David came in and sank onto the chair opposite Mark's desk. ‘I heard Dawson and Hamish settled.'

‘Yes,' Mark said, smiling. ‘Eleventh hour.'

‘Oh well.' David leaned forward. ‘At least you can shift
that one along now, it seems to have been dragging on for an eternity.'

Mark had the feeling David was making small talk, and was intrigued. It wasn't characteristic of his boss. He smiled and waited.

‘So,' David continued, settling back into his chair again after a pause. ‘How's Henry? We haven't seen him round here lately.'

A-ha. Mark felt his shoulders stiffen and froze in an attempt to appear relaxed, then realised that was a dead giveaway. He began to shift a little in his seat. Neil and David seemed to accept his father's frequent office visits, although Mark had managed to glean a few signs of irritation over the years when Henry overstepped the mark in company matters that really no longer concerned him. He usually dropped in to the offices once a week, and did the rounds, meeting and greeting people whose doors were open, offering advice where he felt it needed to be dispensed. When Mark heard his father talking to Neil and David, he was usually bragging about the heaven of retirement – long lunches after rounds of golf, afternoons at his club, where he dined and supped with former judges and barristers. It was obvious to Mark and, he presumed, others too, that his dad was struggling with an excess of spare time and a recess of status far more than he was admitting.

‘He's fine,' Mark smiled pleasantly, thinking of his father's inert form in his bed a few hours earlier. ‘Just … busy, I think.'

One of David's eyebrows twitched slightly. ‘Well, give him our regards, won't you,' he said, getting up.

Mark sighed impatiently once David had gone. His desk was cluttered with case files, but now he had nothing urgent he didn't have any desire to look at them.

He thought of Alex's phone call yesterday morning, and the piece of paper stuffed in his top right-hand drawer. He needed a distraction.

He looked at his watch. It was one o'clock. Her flat wasn't all that far away. And he could drop off the Blythe documents to the barrister en route.

Don't be an idiot, he berated himself. You're not a love-sick teenager with bad acne any more. It was bad enough last time. You'll just look like a stalker now.

Yet as he got up, his legs didn't seem to be following his brain's commands.