Out Late with Friends and Regrets (33 page)

Josh switched on a wide, white smile, and flicked his damp hair back.

“I’d love to help you girls,” he said, “just need a minute to jump into my jeans... Any chance of breakfast first, Babe?”

“I’ll make a cup of tea, lover, if you’d like to pop to the Polish deli and get us something to eat – come on in, Fin – I’ll just get my purse.”

“Nothing for me, thanks, Petra, I’ve had breakfast.”
 

Josh might be a useful set of muscles for loading and unloading.
 
It would make the process quicker.
 
He took the stairs two at a time, light as a cat, and the bathroom door slammed shut.
  
“Don’t forget to put the seat up, Josh,
and
down again, will you, Babe,” said Fin quietly, looking up the stairs, and Petra laughed.

 
“He’s a little unreconstructed,” she said.

“Is it True Love, do you think?”

“God, no.
 
I won’t see him again.
 
But that’s OK, that’s the deal.
 
I don’t let myself get fond of them.”
 
She kissed Fin on the cheek, and tied the sash of her oyster satin robe around her more tightly, before following Josh upstairs to get dressed.

In fact, Petra was fairly well organised, with suitcases, bags and boxes occupying most of the downstairs living area.
 
Fin was surprised just how much the house had contained in its cupboards and drawers.
 
She wondered whether to start loading, but decided that might be a bit presumptuous, so she went to the kitchen and filled the kettle.
 
Josh came in, wearing jeans and trainers, and carrying a T-shirt and jacket.

“What did you say your name was?” he asked, flexing his upper body as he pulled the tight T-shirt on.

“Fin.”

“I love your hair. It really suits you.”

It had grown out of its style and colour, with the brown roots showing quite plainly through the fiery red.

“Oh. Thanks.”
 
A pause.
 
“So what do you do, Josh?”

His eyes felt uncomfortable on her, but she was determined not to react.

“I’m an actor, actually.”

A piss-poor one, she thought.

“How interesting.
 
What have you done?”
 
Perhaps that was a bit unkind.

“Oh, you know, a few commercials, been in a couple of cop shows on the telly...”

Liar.

“I always thought you had to be in London or Manchester, to operate successfully as an actor.”

Her smile was innocent and encouraging.

“Oh, I’ve just come home to pay a duty visit to the crumblies.”

“Crumblies?”

“Parents.
 
They live in Harford.”

“And they won’t be worried that you’ve not been home?”

“No, well, I’ll give them a ring later.
 
It’s a bit early yet.”

“I’ve got a daughter who’s an actor, in London, funnily enough. She’s doing very well, been in a number of successful productions.”

Yes, sonny, I can lie just as well as you can.
 
And my Anna
will
succeed, once she graduates from drama school.

But the lock on his gaze was broken, and his interest wandered off with the change of central character in the conversation. Petra came down, and handed him a twenty from her purse.
 
On his return from the deli, Fin noticed, he didn’t give back the change.

Petra and Josh drank tea and ate rolls with smoked sausage in them in the kitchen, while Fin began stowing small items in the space above the cab of the Luton.
 
Then Josh came to help her while Petra stripped the bed and did the last-minute packing.

This could work out quite efficiently, thought Fin, until she noticed that Josh was brushing past her a little more closely than was spatially necessary as they shuttled past each other.
 
She wasn’t sure at first; it could have been accidental, and she didn’t want to make a prat of herself.
 
So she waited until he had emerged from the front door each time, before going back into the narrow hall.
 
But then he caught her up in the back of the Luton, and stood very close as she reached into the corner of the top shelf.
 
He pressed his body against her side.
 
She turned her head, eyes steady.

“Don’t.”

He shrugged, and grinned.
  
She couldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking he’d upset her, so continued the spasmodic exchange of remarks and suggestions about the job in hand as before.

It was the big mattress, on which he had presumably been pleasuring its owner only hours before, that did it.
 
It was particularly awkward to half-carry, half-slither down the stairs between the two of them; it kept trying to bend over and unbalance its porters.

“Hey, you are one strong lady,” said Josh, with a renewed smile.

“Yeah,” she replied.
 

Once out of the house they were able to carry it flat by its handles, and it was good to see that he found it as much a struggle as she to lift it up over the lip of the van without resting it on the dusty floor.
 
They propped it on its edge on a sheet of polythene against the nearside wall, and Fin tied it to the side struts and covered it in a blanket.
 
From behind, Josh put an arm under one of hers, and caressed her nipple with his palm.
 
As coldly and deliberately as she could manage, she turned and said, “You can pack that in, you randy bastard.
 
You are of no interest to me, you never
could
be of any interest to me.
 
You’re too young, too stupid, and the wrong sex.”

He stood, staring, as it sank in.

“You mean – you’re a –”

“That’s right.”

His expression was that of a man who has just found the remaining half of a slug in his partially-eaten salad.
 
Then he wrinkled his nose, and spat, the product landing on her sleeve.
 
He jumped off the tailgate, walked into the house, emerged with his jacket, and strode off down the street.

She was so shocked, she leant back against the mattress, feeling numb.
 
He was young, and should have been open-minded, surely? And if he really was an actor he would be mixing with gay people all the time. And his opinion didn’t matter to her in the slightest.
 
It was just the extreme nature of the reaction.

“Fin? What’s up? Where’s Josh?”

Petra stood at the tailgate, carrying a binbag full of linen.

“I’m afraid I scared him off.
 
He – he tried it on, and I told him not to waste his time because I’m gay.”

“Oh.”
 
Petra actually looked embarrassed.
 
“Oh well, never mind.”
 

Was this the attractive, passionate woman who had taken her into her bed, seemingly unable to get enough of her body? A woman, what’s more, who seemed perfectly at ease with her ex, and profoundly gay, husband? The possibility that Fin might have been upset by the boy-friend’s behaviour didn’t seem to strike her.

Come on, you wooss, she told herself, it goes with the territory.

“OK, Petra,” she said, “let’s get the rest of the furniture out, and get this show on the road.”

It was more difficult than Fin had expected, doing the unload with only Petra’s help.
 
Petra was no weakling, but didn’t have a sense of which way to move when the two of them had to shift one of the larger pieces, and needed frequent reminders of how not to strain her back.
 
All those repeated cautions, subliminally absorbed in the fitness classes, had actually born fruit.
 
Fin told herself that Josh hadn’t been planned in at the start of the procedure, so they were no worse off from that point of view; but Dek would have been a huge help.
 

By four o’clock most of Petra’s property was inside the flat at The Laurels.
 
She had insisted on unpacking her kitchen utensils and food, so that she could make them both lunch, while Fin continued ferrying in the load.
 
Fortunately, a cooker and fridge came with the fixtures and fittings of the flat, so it was only the mattress giving Fin serious misgivings.

“I really don’t think I can,” said Petra, looking at it.
 
“I’ve had enough, Fin.
 
I’m exhausted.”

Fin looked up and down the street, wondering if there might be a friendly neighbour working on his car whom she might ask for help.
 
It wasn’t that sort of road.
 
Men of furniture-moving age would be professional people who would pay other men to work on their cars.
 
Or move furniture, come to that.
 
There was, however, someone in a jacket with the hood up hanging about between the trees that bordered the avenue, some hundred or so yards down.
 
She realised that she had seen him earlier, but the information hadn’t registered.
 
This was not a part of town where hoodies gathered.
 
Neither was it a place one would expect to see an addict waiting for the man. She swallowed
.
 
Surely
not a stalker?

“I think Hamish was going to an antiques fair today, but I’ll try him anyway,” Petra was saying.

“Petra, I don’t want to worry you, but did you notice that guy earlier?” asked Fin, indicating the figure.

“If he was casing a house with a view to breaking in, I don’t think he’d be hanging about like that.
 
Teenager waiting for his girl-friend, I expect.
 
There’s a good alarm system in this place fortunately – oh, hello, Hamish, where are you, Darling? Oh, I see, yes, I thought you might be... Had a good day? Oh, did you? Well done... No, it’s all right, if you’d been at home I would have asked you to help us with this damned bed out of the lorry and into the flat, everything else is in... Oh, would you? I
could
phone him myself, but... Yes all right then, will you ring me back when you’ve spoken to him? Thanks... ’Bye.”

“He knows someone?”

“He’s going to ask Doc.
 
That’s his boy-friend.
 
Come on, let’s go in and have a cup of tea, it’s getting a bit chilly out here.”

“I’ve actually met Doc.”
 
Fin’s memory of him was of a young man rather more frail in appearance than Petra herself, but maybe they would manage between them.
 
They would have to.

“Will he? Oh, bless him,” said Petra, when Hamish rang back minutes later, and within the space of a cup of tea a taxi crunched into the drive.
 
Doc, in a pair of immaculate Levis and a red leather bomber, jumped out.
 
There were many kisses and greetings, and Fin noticed that the taxi had been asked to wait.
 
She glanced down the street, and saw that the hooded figure had gone.

“Right, let’s do it, Fin”, said Doc, taking off the jacket.
 

They squared up to the mattress, and to Fin’s delight they moved it inside and onto the box sections of the base with comparative ease.

“Doc, you’re a pal,” said Fin.

“Stronger than I look,” he replied, striking a pose to display his biceps, “small but perfectly formed.”

“Bless you, Darling,” added Petra, instigating another flurry of kissing.

Then with a wave, he was back in the taxi and away.