Perfect Timing (26 page)

Jake didn't know what he'd eaten, but something was doing its damnedest to wrench his stomach inside out.

‘I'm sorry, this evening's off,' he told Claudia. He felt so dreadful it was a struggle even to hold onto the phone.

‘Food poisoning?' Claudia had spent enough time working in offices to know this was the oldest and least original excuse in the book. Along with funerals. ‘Sure it isn't a funeral?'

‘What?'

She looked at her glamorous reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. All that make-up, all that careful hair curling, all for bloody nothing.

‘Are you really ill?'

Jake closed his eyes. His stomach was churning ominously.

‘Of course I'm ill. Why would I invite you to dinner and then cancel?'

Claudia's self-confidence was deserting her. All she knew was that she was being stood up. Insecurity flooded through her like poison.

‘Maybe you found out how much dinner was likely to cost.'

‘Oh come
on
…'

‘Okay, I know. I'll drive over. I can look after you.'

Jake hadn't been sick for almost fifteen minutes. Sweat prickled across his icy skin, reminding him it was time he headed for the bathroom again.

‘Please don't,' he said urgently. The prospect of having Claudia here to witness his condition was too awful to contemplate. ‘I mean it. You mustn't.'

You mean I mustn't come over and find out you aren't really ill, thought Claudia. Mentally she was ten again, in an unflattering pinafore dress, and Angie was trilling to all and sundry, ‘With hips like mine, I can't imagine how I managed to produce such a gawky great lump of a girl!'

‘You won't, will you?' Jake had to double-check.

‘Of course I won't,' Claudia snapped back.

A great wave of nausea swept through him. Jake lurched unsteadily to his feet. ‘Sorry, got to go—'

It gave Claudia the tiniest amount of satisfaction to hang up first. She kicked off her high heels and stomped barefoot through to the kitchen. No Caspar, because he was too busy being happily married to Babette. No Poppy, because she was busy being even happier with Tom.

No Chez Nico.

And no Jake.

Claudia, whose own stomach was growling with hunger, peered at the contents of the fridge. I'll have scrambled eggs on toast, she decided, trying hard to be brave. And lemon pudding.

Then she burst into tears.

Ben McBride took the message on Friday afternoon while Dina was out at the supermarket. Returning weighed down with nappies, she spotted the brief note propped against the phone.

‘Poppy rang! What did she say? What's this bit?' Dina dropped the nappies and wandered into the kitchen, where Ben was mending the toaster. ‘Your writing's in a world of its own. She's found what?
God?
'

‘Tom.' Ben was poking and prodding amongst the wires with his screwdriver. ‘She said to tell you she found Tom. Whoever he is.'

Dina didn't tell him. Tom was, after all, the reason why Poppy hadn't married Ben's precious brother.

‘He's an old friend. That's brilliant news.' It was like giving up smoking, then breathing in the seductive whiff of a cigarette; the urge to zip up to London came over her in an instant. Eyes shining, she turned to Ben. ‘You aren't working this weekend, are you?'

He gave her a weary look.

‘What does that mean? You, buggering off again, leaving me stuck here with the baby?'

‘Poppy's my friend.' Dina's arms were crossed, which meant she wasn't going to give up without a fight. ‘She's had some good news. Is there anything wrong with seeing a friend, helping her celebrate?'

The look of defiance on her face was what Ben couldn't bear. Dina always made him out to be some kind of ogre, the boring grown-up out to spoil her fun. And all he wanted was for them to have fun together…

‘Go,' he said stiffly, ‘if that's what you want.'

‘Thanks.' It was so easy to twist him round her little finger. Dina dropped a triumphant kiss on top of his head. Now she could ring Poppy and fix things up.

She pulled a face when Claudia answered the phone.

‘Poppy's not here,' said Claudia in a ‘so-there' voice. ‘She'll be at Tom's flat. And no, I don't have the number. Sorry.'

Bitch. But Dina's weekend was at stake, so she forced herself to sound friendly.

‘Great news, isn't it, about Tom? Actually, Poppy suggested I came up this weekend—'

‘She isn't here,' Claudia repeated.

‘Yes, but I can still crash in her room, can't I?' Dina's manner was confident, all-girls-together. ‘I mean, I don't want to play the third wheel at Tom's place.'

‘Look, I'm just on my way out. Staying here isn't really on, I'm afraid. Maybe you should make other arrangements.'

Bitch,
bitch
. Claudia was giving her the kind of brush-off normally reserved for double-glazing salesmen. Except double-glazing salesmen weren't allowed to bite back.

‘Okay, no problem,' said Dina breezily. ‘I'll give Jake a ring.'

It was a shot in the dark, but Poppy had told her Claudia was keen on Jake.

‘Jake? You can't do that! You've never even met Jake.'

Dina grinned. Bingo. The bitch was rattled.

‘So?' she countered innocently. ‘He's a friend of Poppy's, isn't he? I bet he'd put me up.'

‘My God, you have a nerve.'

‘Anyway, I've been looking forward to meeting him for ages. Poppy says he's lovely. And now he's got all that money stashed away—'

‘He's not going to want you turning up on his doorstep,' Claudia interrupted furiously. ‘I'll tell you that for nothing.'

Before putting the phone down Dina purred, ‘Want to bet?'

Ben had finished mending the toaster. Testily he said, ‘What was all that about?'

‘Poppy shares a house with a complete cow.'

His face reddened with suppressed rage. ‘And who the bloody hell's Jake? Dina, you're not going up to London and staying at some bloke's house. Not some bloke you've never met. I won't have it.'

‘Don't get your knickers in a twist. Of course I'm not going.' She didn't even know where Jake lived. The weekend was off. Upstairs, Daniel began to wail. With bitter satisfaction Dina said, ‘I was just winding her up.'

***

Claudia, who had been lying about going out, was so angry she couldn't even manicure her nails straight. She gave up and ran a bath instead, tipping in half a bottle of hair conditioner by mistake.

It was four days since Jake had canceled their date and there had been no word from him since.

If I phone to warn him about Dina, she thought miserably, he'll think it's just a pathetic excuse to speak to him.

It wasn't as if they'd parted on the sunniest of terms. Oh, but if that slut Dina really did have plans to get her claws into Jake, how could she
stand
it?

The bath water was weirdly slippery. Unable to relax, Claudia climbed out and ran downstairs. She found Jake's number in the phone book, picked up the receiver, and dialed. Then, her courage failing her, she put the phone down after the first ring. Jake hadn't bothered to make contact all week. She would sound so obvious, so… desperate.

Claudia forced herself to sit through
Coronation Street
and
The Bill
in her dressing gown. By eight thirty, her agitation was at fever pitch and most of the nails she had lopsidedly manicured earlier were bitten to the quick. If Dina had caught the coach straight up to London she'd have arrived by now. She would be wearing a skimpy top and an up-to-the-bum skirt, and carrying a change of clothes in that cheap leather-look bag of hers. With her cat-like smile and sickeningly tiny figure, Claudia realized, Dina was a low-rent version of her mother. Except even Angie didn't have quite that much barefaced cheek.

By nine o'clock, she couldn't stand it anymore. Not knowing what was happening was the worst torture of all. Leaping to her feet, Claudia raced back upstairs and pulled on a white sweater and pale green trousers. Moments later, she tore them off and changed into a black sweater and black jeans. It made her look like something out of a spy movie, but maybe that was what she needed…

She was so nervous she could hardly drive. By the time she reached Jake's road, she had taken four wrong turnings and her
A-Z
was practically in shreds.

Trembling like a leaf, Claudia parked four doors away and switched off the ignition. The lights in Jake's house were on and the living-room curtains had been drawn, but carelessly. One of the curtains had got hooked up against a pile of books on the windowsill, leaving a smallish triangular gap.

There could be no backing out now. She had come this far and she had to know. Fueled by jealousy, Claudia slid out of the car and crept, Milk Tray-style, across the road. Thankfully, there was no one else in sight.

Not so good was the way the house had been designed. Five steps led up to the front door and the minuscule front garden, surrounded by railings and planted as a rockery, was eight feet below the window ledge. If she clambered over the railings and onto the rockery, there was no way she could see into the window. If she mounted the steps and leaned across as far as she possibly could… well, she would fall over.

Claudia hovered agonizingly on the pavement wondering what to do next. She jumped as a front door opened and shut at the far end of the street, and watched a fair-haired man climb into a van and drive off. Moments later, realizing what the van had been parked behind, she experienced a surge of adrenaline and raced up the road to investigate.

The dumpster was three quarters full, packed mainly with builders' rubble and planks of rotted wood. But thrown in on top, by some miracle, was a dining chair. Granted, a chair with the seat missing and only three legs, but enough to do the trick.

Joyfully, Claudia hauled herself into the dumpster, seized the chair, and eased herself out onto the pavement. She ran with it back to Jake's front garden, climbed over the rusty railings, and wedged the chair against the front of the house with the missing leg nearest the brickwork to keep it secure.

The street was silent. All she could hear was her own breathing. Balancing herself carefully, one foot at a time, on the frame of the chair to which the seat had once been attached, Claudia edged her bitten fingernails up the wall. She was safe, she wasn't going to topple over, all she had to do now was grab the window ledge and pull herself from a crouch to a standing position—

‘Oi, you!' yelled a voice from the other side of the road. ‘Stay right where you are! Smash that window and I'll smash your head in.'

Claudia almost wet herself. Whimpering with fear, she tried to climb down. Her fingers scraped against the wall, losing what feeble grip they might have had. One knee gave way. The chair wobbled in the opposite direction and cracked under the strain.

She landed in the rockery with a scream and a bone-crunching thud.

‘Don't move!' ordered the rough male voice, now close behind her. ‘Thieving bastard, I hope you've broken both your bloody legs. Don't you move a muscle. Jake, GET OUT HERE!'

It was a nightmare. Everything hurt. Too appalled to cry, Claudia lay in the darkness amongst the rocks and splintered chair legs wishing she could at least have been knocked unconscious. Anything to be spared the humiliation of the next few minutes.

Above her Jake's door opened, spilling out light.

‘What's going on?'

‘Bloody cat burglar. Saw him from our bedroom window. It's okay,' the rough voice declared with satisfaction, ‘I've already phoned the police. They're on their way.'

Not okay. Not okay at all. Struggling to raise her head from the ground Claudia heard herself moan pathetically, ‘Oh please, not the police.'

‘Flaming Nora,' the rough voice exclaimed, ‘it's a bird.'

‘Jake, it's me. Make them go away. Not the police,
please
.'

‘
Claudia?
' Jake leapt over the railings in amazement and appeared beside her. ‘Are you hurt? Can you move?'

‘Ouch, I think so. Oh no—'

The wail of a police siren shattered the night. Gritting her teeth—at least they were all still there—Claudia let Jake help her slowly into an upright position. Somehow, between them, he and the man from across the road managed to lift her back over the railings. She sat on the steps of the house with her head buried in her hands and listened to Jake explaining to the police officers that she wasn't a burglar; it had all been a mistake.

You're telling me, thought Claudia, hot tears of self-pity seeping through her aching eyelids and dripping onto her wrists.

‘Well, well, you're a dark horse and no mistake,' marveled his neighbor when Jake had persuaded the police to leave. ‘Never had you down as the type to have a fan club, Jake. What are you, some kind of rock star in your spare time?'

‘His name's Dan. He's very into Neighborhood Watch.'

One way or another, Claudia thought morosely, Jake's Neighborhood Watch scheme was out to ruin her life.

‘Now'—he put a mug of coffee into her hands—‘are you sure you're all right?'

‘Is that meant to be a joke?'

‘I mean if you want to see a doctor I could drive you to the ER.'

Claudia shook her head. The last thing she needed was a gaggle of medical students with smirks on their faces prodding her bottom. By tomorrow, it would be one huge bruise. The least she could do was keep it to herself.

‘Sorry about the chips,' said Jake, breaking the silence.

‘What?'

He pointed to the mug she was holding, chipped around the rim.

‘I'd have thought you could've treated yourself to new ones,' said Claudia. ‘Now you can afford it.'

It wasn't the first time she had made that kind of remark. Jake really wished she wouldn't. He wished he didn't keep remembering Poppy telling him that Claudia was only interested in men with more money than sense.

Ironically, it was probably thanks to Claudia that he was still living here. The more digs she made, the less keen he became on the idea of moving to a smarter address. And it wasn't as if he was cutting off his nose to spite his face, Jake reassured himself. There was no rush, and he'd always been happy here. He loved this house.

He glanced briefly around his cluttered, comfortable-but-shabby living room, seeing it through her eyes.

‘Would you like to criticize my home too, while you're about it?'

Claudia shook her head. The room was actually quite cozy, though clearly the domain of someone whose priority in life was not interior design. The carpet was threadbare in places, the furniture old and functional rather than elegant. Those striped blue and green curtains didn't match anything else in the room…

Bloody curtains, she thought crossly. If he'd only taken the trouble to draw them properly there wouldn't have been that enticing gap and she wouldn't be here now, nursing a bruise the size of a pizza and looking a complete prat into the bargain.

‘So what
were
you doing outside my front window?' asked Jake at last.

Claudia couldn't look at him.

‘I wanted to find out if Dina was here.'

‘Who?'

‘Poppy's friend. From Bristol.' Painfully, she forced herself to meet his astonished gaze.

‘I've never even met Dina!'

‘I know. But I wouldn't let her stay at the house tonight so she said she'd ask you instead. She told me you wouldn't turn her down and anyway, from what she'd heard, you sounded right up her street. She's a shameless uppity trollop.' Claudia was indignant. ‘And a gold-digger to boot.'

Mildly, Jake said, ‘Well, she isn't here. You came up my street instead. If you were so worried, why didn't you just phone?'

‘After you'd stood me up on Monday and hadn't bothered to get in touch all week? You'd have thought I was chasing you,' Claudia snapped. ‘That would have looked great.'

‘You lying splattered all over my front garden didn't look that great,' he pointed out. ‘A phone call would have been easier. Anyway, why would I think you were chasing me?'

‘Oh come on! It happened to Caspar all the time. He spent his life getting us to field phone calls from besotted girlies.' Her lip curled. ‘They were a standing joke.'

As opposed to a flat-on-your-back-in-the-rockery joke, thought Jake. Diplomatically, he didn't say so.

‘I'm not Caspar.'

‘No.'

‘I'm not anything like Caspar.' Dryly he added, ‘And I've never had a phone call from a besotted girlie in my life.'

Claudia thought it was just as well everyone wasn't like Caspar. Imagine a world full of them…

‘What, never?'

Jake shook his head.

‘Why not? You aren't that ugly.'

‘Thanks.'

Flustered, Claudia said, ‘I didn't mean it like that.'

He smiled slightly. ‘You should have seen me as a teenager. When you're awkward and shy
and
you wear drug store specs, girls don't exactly swoon at your feet.'

‘But you must have had a girlfriend at some stage.'

‘I had a girlfriend for five years. Emily. She wore glasses too,' said Jake. ‘The first time I kissed her, at the school Christmas disco, it was like antlers clashing. Everyone saw us go clunk.' He mimed the jarring action. ‘We didn't live it down for months.'

‘Yes, but you were together for five years, so it must have been serious. What happened?' Claudia was burning with curiosity.

‘She had cystic fibrosis. She died.'

Claudia's hands went up to her mouth. ‘No! How awful. God, I'm sorry… Poppy never told me.'

‘Maybe because Poppy doesn't know.'

‘But that's so sad—'

‘It was a long time ago.' Jake shrugged off her sympathy. ‘Do you want another coffee? If you want to use the bathroom to tidy yourself up, feel free.'

It was pretty galling, being told to tidy yourself up by Jake—rather like Gollum suggesting your teeth could do with a scrape and polish—but when she reached the bathroom Claudia saw what he meant. The rubble in the dumpster had left a layer of grey dust over her black sweater, and her hair was thick with it too. There were twigs in her bangs and a smudge of mud across one cheek.

What a fright.

‘I'd better go,' she said when she had made her way back downstairs.

Jake, rather touchingly, was emptying a packet of peanuts into a dish. Next to it stood a bowl of Ritz crackers.

‘Do you have to? I still don't know why you came.'

You blind bat, can't you see I was jealous? Why else would I leap about in a dumpster like a demented monkey? Why else would I try and climb up the outside of your house?

Claudia couldn't say it. She gazed hard at a frayed patch of carpet and wondered why getting it together with someone you fancied had to be so fraught. Why couldn't she make something approaching a first move? If Jake really did like her, why couldn't
he
?

For a mad moment, she wondered what he would have done if she'd come back downstairs naked, if she'd just ripped off all her clothes and presented herself to him in all her wondrous glory.

But if she had, she would have looked an idiot what with all the crease marks on her stomach from wearing too-tight jeans, not to mention the whacking great bruise on her bottom.

Wondrous glory was hardly the phrase most likely to spring to Jake's mind.

‘Here,' he offered her the dish, ‘have a peanut.'

I'm such a failure, thought Claudia miserably.

The peanuts were stale. They tasted disgusting.

‘Come on, sit down,' Jake urged. ‘
Raiders of the Lost Ark
starts in a minute. You know, with Indiana Jones.'

Indiana Jones. Wild, brave, reckless, and passionate. Claudia, her imagination running riot, wondered if some of that recklessness and passion might rub off on Jake. She sat down cautiously—ouch—at one end of the sofa.

‘You'll be more comfortable if you stretch out,' said Jake. ‘Put your feet up. Here, have a cushion.'

She uncurled her legs a few inches, wondering if he was inviting her to rest her feet on his lap.

‘Am I taking up too much room?'

‘Don't worry about me. You're the invalid. I'll sit on the chair.'

‘Eh up,' said Poppy at work the following week when Jake accidentally let slip that Claudia had spent Friday evening at his place. ‘I saw Claudia yesterday and she didn't mention any of this! Come on, tell. Are we talking true romance here or what?'

‘Actually, we're talking about watching
Raiders of the Lost Ark
and sending out for a Chinese. That's all.'

‘What? Claudia hates takeaway Chinese! She calls it repulsive slop.'

Jake flushed. This explained why Claudia had left most of hers. Probably not expensive enough for her; he should have ordered a takeaway from the Savoy Grill.

‘You aren't telling me everything,' Poppy persisted annoyingly. Her own current state of bliss had got to her like religion. She longed for the rest of the world to be as happy as she was with Tom.

If she'd been a Jehovah's Witness, thought Jake, he could have closed the door in her face. But she wasn't, she was here on the stall, with an awful gleam in her eye.

‘Jake, I have to know! Did she stay the night?'

‘No!'

‘Oh well, maybe that's too much to hope for.' The gleam was still there. ‘How about heavy petting?'

‘Poppy, stop it.'

‘Snogging, then. You must have kissed her.'

There might not be a door to slam in Poppy's face but there was a cash register he could bring down on her head. Taking off his glasses so at least he couldn't see her anymore, Jake said wearily, ‘No.'

‘Not even a weeny one? On the doorstep? A good-bye peck on the cheek?'

Of course he had kissed her, a million times and a million different ways… in his dreams. All the time Harrison Ford had been swashing and buckling his way across the screen, sweeping his heroine masterfully into his arms, Jake had imagined doing the same to Claudia. The trouble was, the more he had wanted to, the more firmly he had remained welded into his chair. Crippled with uncertainty, he hadn't dared move so much as a muscle. What if he tried it and she screamed? Or laughed? Or slapped his face?

As for the dreaded saying-good-bye-at-the-front-door scenario (surely the ultimate doorstep challenge)… well, he
had
been gearing himself up to it. A friendly kiss on the cheek, Jake had assured himself, wouldn't be out of order. Not a slapping offence, at least.

But as Claudia had hovered and he had wavered, a motley crew of lads from the Crown and Feathers had been making their way noisily up the street. Spotting Jake and Claudia in the lit-up doorway they had passed by chanting, ‘Give her one, give her one, give her wo-on,' and that had been that. Chance blown.

Hugely embarrassed, realizing he couldn't possibly kiss her now, he had taken a step back.

With an awkward little wave Claudia had scuttled across the road to her car and driven off.

Jake looked so sad, Poppy rushed to reassure him. ‘Oh well, never mind, she was only interested in your bank account anyway. And imagine, if you married Claudia, you'd have Angie as a mother-in-law.' She giggled. ‘She'd have your jockeys off in a flash.'

‘How's Tom?' said Jake, because Poppy was easily diverted these days and he didn't want to imagine marrying Claudia.

Poppy heaved a besotted sigh.

‘What can I say? He's wonderful. I'm so happy I could burst. The more we get to know each other, the better it gets. I'm meeting all his friends, and he's so
proud
of me.' Dreamily she shook back her hair. ‘I know it sounds sick-making, but I had no idea it was possible to feel so… so
special
.'

Poppy had got it bad and Jake was glad for her. He just wished it didn't make his own life feel so empty in comparison.