The Queen of New Beginnings (31 page)

“I would never have done that, Alice. You watched it, then?”

“I had no choice. George insisted. We watched it together in the hospital.”

Clayton pictured the scene, the two of them sitting on plastic chairs in some cheerless hospital room. He suddenly knew there was something hugely important he should do. “Would you mind if I came up there to visit George?” he asked. “I’d like to see her. To thank her.”

“I’m sure she’d love to see you. She must be sick of seeing me every day; you’ll make a welcome change for her.”

“What about you? Would…would you like to see me?”

“I can think of worse things to do.”

“In that case, I’ll come up tomorrow. Which hospital is she in?”

He scribbled down the necessary details. When he’d got all the information he needed, Alice said, “You mentioned in your message on my answer phone that you had something important to tell me. What is it?”

“It can wait until tomorrow. I’d rather tell you face to face.”

“That sounds ominous. Is it good or bad?”

“I’m…I’m really not qualified to say.”

“Won’t you tell me now? I shan’t sleep for wondering what it is.”

“Good-night, Alice. I’ll text you when I’m on the train and I know what time I’ll be arriving.”

“Don’t you dare hang up on me!”

“But you know better than anyone how I need my beauty sleep. Good-night. Sleep well.”

Alice woke early the next morning. Relieved that Ronnetta’s Last Resort hadn’t inflicted too much damage, she showered and dressed, ate a hurried breakfast and got down to work at the kitchen table. She had the last hundred pages of a manuscript to read before going to the hospital to see George. The manuscript was a first for her; it was for a much-applauded debut novel. It was contemporary adult fiction and she was determined to make a good job of it as for some time now she had been hoping to break into the world of adult fiction. She would love to work on more books like this one.

She had read solidly for an hour when her mind began to wander from the text and she found she was rereading the same lines. Her concentration had gone and knowing from experience there was no point in bullying her brain to do something it didn’t want to, she allowed herself a small distraction: to think of Clayton.

She was both anxious and excited about seeing him later today. It hadn’t been her intention last night to admit that she had missed him, and she certainly hadn’t intended to cry. When she had picked up the phone she had been full of feisty Katya, imagining with amusement the expression on Clayton’s face at the other end of the phone. But the moment he had said he had missed her, something had cracked inside her. He’d made it worse by calling her Alice, compelling her to dispense with the act of Katya and to be herself. She had lost it then.

In bed afterwards she had realized that ringing Clayton while pretending to be Katya had been nothing but a means to speak to him without having to talk to him honestly. Katya had effectively been a carefully constructed cloak of invisibility. Except Clayton hadn’t played by the rules; he’d snatched the cloak off her, leaving her emotions vulnerably exposed. With hindsight she should have waited until today before ringing him.

She looked at her watch and wondered if Clayton was already on the train and on his way. She had decided not to tell George that he was coming to see her. She knew that it would make the old woman’s day and she wanted his arrival to be a surprise for her. Whatever criticisms Alice had of Clayton, it was good of him to go to so much effort.

What wasn’t so good was his refusal to tell her last night what it was he had called her about in the first place. Why the mystery?

She made herself a cup of tea and got back to work.

• • •

Clayton blamed Signor Ego. If only he hadn’t been so damned greedy for yet more back-patting affirmation, Clayton wouldn’t have stuffed the letters Glen had forwarded to him in his pocket to read on the train.

Captain Sensible rolled his eyes and muttered something about there being only one person who should shoulder the blame. It was Clayton who had set this particular ball rolling and it would be Clayton who would have to explain matters to Alice. How she would take this latest turn of events, he didn’t know. Isabel surfacing from the past was one thing, but Natasha and her brother—even if the odds of it happening had to have been high—was an altogether different kettle of fish.

Alone in the first-class carriage as the changing landscape streamed past him, he read the letter again. How tempting it was to open the window and throw the piece of paper out onto the track.

Yet the decision wasn’t his to take. Yes, he’d put Alice in this invidious position, but that didn’t give him the right to interfere with her life under the pretext of trying to protect her. In all probability she would assert she didn’t need protecting. And who knew, maybe this could lead to some sort of closure for her.

He tossed the letter aside with a flash of irritation. Since when had he started using words like closure? He’d be suggesting she try past-life regression therapy next.

He plugged himself into The Waterboys’
Book of Lightning
on his iPhone. He had started out the day thinking how much he was looking forward to seeing Alice again, but now he was dreading it. He had confidently imagined that he now had the situation in hand, at least on a level he felt he could deal with. But with the arrival of this letter, that confidence had gone to hell in a handcart.

He tried to sleep. But he was too agitated to nod off. When he reached the track “Everybody Takes a Tumble,” he gave up trying to sleep. How could he when Mike Scott was taunting him with lyrics like:
To break your heart into pieces is what I’m here to do…I’ve got nothing but trouble in store for you…and everything bad that you ever heard about little old me is true…

A mortar attack of shame went off inside him. He had to make amends. He simply had to protect Alice. And there was only one way to do that, he realized with a bolt of clear thinking. Or manic certainty, depending on your viewpoint.

He neatly folded the letter that lay on the table in front of him, ripped it into four evenly sized pieces, checked he was still alone, then stood up and opened the window. He watched the bits of paper flutter away.

There.

Problem solved.

No decision required.

The letter had never existed.

Captain Sensible groaned.
Clayton Miller, how do you live with yourself?

I’m protecting Alice, Clayton silently replied.

Yourself, more like it
, Captain Sensible fired back with disgust.

• • •

The last time Clayton stepped foot inside a hospital had been when his mother had been dying. She had suffered a stroke, just like George. But unlike George, she hadn’t lingered. Parted for a mere two months from the only man she had ever loved, she had seemed in a tearing hurry to catch up with him.

Clayton followed the directions Alice had given him on how to locate George’s ward. After a few missed turns, he eventually found it. At the entrance, he mentally adjusted his tie and straightened his hair. A sign to his right informed him politely but firmly to clean his hands from the dispenser on the wall. He put down the bunch of flowers he’d brought from the shop downstairs and squirted a dollop of what smelled like an alcohol-based gel onto his hands. He rubbed it in.

That was when he saw Alice. She was sitting by the side of a bed, a book on her lap. He could see her lips moving, as if she was reading aloud. Even at this distance, the withered husk of a woman in the bed who was hooked up to God knew what in the way of life-saving machinery bore little resemblance to the spirited woman Clayton had last seen on Christmas day. He hoped he would be able to mask his shock.

He approached the bed slowly, not wanting to disrupt what seemed such an intimate moment. But as Alice turned a page and raised her head slightly, she caught sight of him. She hesitated, glanced at George who had her eyes closed, then back at Clayton. She beckoned him nearer. When he was standing beside her, she smiled fleetingly then leaned closer to George and took her insubstantial hand in hers. “Look who’s come to see you, George,” she said.

The old woman’s eyelids flickered open. First she focused on Alice, then she followed the direction of Alice’s gaze. After what felt like an eternity had passed, her eyes finally settled on Clayton. Her expression didn’t change; the mischievous face that he remembered was now devoid of all animation. But then he saw something; the dullness lifted from her eyes and was replaced by a sparkle of vibrant emotion. He moved in closer and bent to kiss her cheek, something he had never done before. “George,” he said, “it’s got to be said, I’ve seen you looking better.” He showed her the flowers he’d brought. “The best money could buy. I had them specially flown in this morning from the Channel Islands for you.”

“Li…ar.” Her voice was faint and strained.

“Yeah, I knew I wouldn’t be able to fool you.”

“I’ll see if I can find a vase,” Alice said.

Clayton handed her the bouquet and when she’d gone he sat in the chair next to the bed. George stared at him. Clayton stared back at her. “If you could keep quiet for just a few moments,” he said, “and let me get a word in edgeways, there’s something I want to say, something important.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Sur…sur…surprise,” she said after several attempts to get the word out. “Nice.”

“Hey,” he said with a smile, “what did I say about keeping quiet? Zip it old woman, it’s my turn to speak. OK? Good, because it’s important what I have to say. I want to thank you for giving me a lift to the shops that day when we first met. If you hadn’t done that, I would never have had the pleasure of getting to know you and that would have resulted in a massive gap in my script where you should have been. You really added something to it. I just want you to know that.”

“St…stopbing suss…sussentimental, you’re making mesick. Youwer…youwer a beaky bastard fwhat you did.”

“You’re right, George, I was a right beaky bastard, but you understand why I did it, don’t you?”

“Dint intrupt me. You have to makebings right floliss.”

“Floliss?”

“For…Alice.”

“George, I’d love nothing more. But do you think there’s any chance she’ll ever forgive me?”

“Time. Give…her…time.”

“I hope you two aren’t talking about me.”

Clayton started. “Of course not,” he said much too quickly. He stood up and tried not to look guilty as Alice squeezed past him to put his flowers, now in a vase, on George’s bedside locker.

“Hezlibing,” George said.

Clayton looked to Alice for help.

Alice smiled sweetly. “She said you were lying.”

“Traitor,” Clayton hissed good-humouredly at George.

“You…need…to…talk.”

Again Clayton looked at Alice. “She’s right, we do.”

Alice nodded. “We will, George,” she said. “But not now. Clayton and I will talk later. For now, he’s come to see
you
.”

“Or maybe the three of us could talk,” Clayton said, suddenly seeing a way to deliver his news to Alice with a safety net in place. “I’ll go and see if I can find another chair.” He hurried off before Alice could stop him.

When he returned, he positioned himself on the other side of the bed from Alice.
Nice going
, muttered Captain Sensible.
Using a dying old lady as a human shield; it gets better and better. I’m so proud of you.

“So, Clayton,” Alice said, “put me out of my misery. What was it you wanted to tell me face to face? Or are you going to say you’d rather not say anything in front of George?”

He swallowed and met her challenging gaze. “No, no, this is fine. The thing is, since
The Queen of New Beginnings
went out, I’ve received a fair amount of mail about it. Including a letter from a woman called Isabel Blake.” He paused, seeing the look of two and two making four in Alice’s face. “And yes, she did indeed turn out to be Isabel Canning. I’ve met her and she says she would really like to meet you. But she quite understands that you might not be so keen to meet her.”

Alice frowned and put a finger to her top lip; she tapped it slowly.

“I didn’t give her your address or telephone number,” Clayton added. God, he wished Alice would stop tapping her lip. It was such a small, insignificant gesture on her part, but he still found it strangely erotic. Right now it was proving to be a powerfully evocative reminder of their brief time together. It was something he had deliberately not written into his script when shaping Alice’s physical characteristics for the screen; he had decided it was too intimate a detail to share with the rest of the world. “I told her I’d pass on a message and her contact details,” he went on with the greatest of effort, trying and failing miserably to tear his gaze away from her face. “It’s entirely up to you what you do.”

Alice tapped her lip some more. He silently groaned. It was as if she was teasing him! Eventually she lowered her hand. “What about Rufus and Natasha?” she asked quietly. “Have you heard anything from them?”

“No,” Clayton lied without hesitation.

She stared at him hard.

“No,” he repeated, trying not to flinch.

And with that easy lie came the certain knowledge that he had just blown things for ever with Alice. He wasn’t to be trusted. Even if what he had done had been to protect her. No, she deserved somebody decent. Somebody whom she could trust implicitly. Somebody who wouldn’t look her right in the eye and lie so effortlessly.

He had left home this morning thinking that maybe, if she could forgive him for what he had done, there might be a chance to pick up where they had left off. But now he knew that could never happen. He cared too much for her to put her through the misery of being involved with him. He was an integrity-free zone. She really did deserve better.

The lyrics from the Waterboys’ song “Everybody Takes a Tumble” echoed inside his head—
I’ve got nothing but trouble in store for you…

What more needed to be said on the matter?