Uptown Girl (7 page)

From
the weather-beaten, lopsided gravestones lining the edge of the green it appeared that the park was once a churchyard. Children laughing and the chimes of an ice cream van sounded in the background. The smell of freshly cut grass also filled the air. William Flynn was sitting upon a bench, seemingly caught up in his own world. He looked pensive – his face was slightly creased due to squinting in the citrus sunlight. He wore a nondescript pair of jeans and a grey polo shirt. His face and arms were tanned (the old fashioned way, from the sun). Looking at him through new eyes she realised that he was not unhandsome. There was a strength and intelligence in his features. Emma took a breath, brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes and walked towards the mechanic. Although she was nervous – butterflies were fluttering in either her stomach or heart – there was no question of her not going through with the scene (which she had spent the evening and morning playing out in her head).

“Hello,”
Emma brightly remarked, as she stopped by the bench, her shadow looming large in front of him.

William
widened his eyes in shock. For a moment, for once, he was lost for words. He was startled, or perhaps even entranced. Emma couldn’t help but raise the corner of her mouth in a slight smile. She had never seen the mechanic look surprised before; he looked cute. Thankfully, for Emma, surprise didn’t turn into disappointment.

“Hi.
Is everything okay with the car?” William said, still mildly bewildered by the glamorous woman’s presence.

“Yes.
The car was fixed up fine, thank you. I’m here to fix something else. I’d like to apologise for my behaviour the other evening – and for my behaviour when I first turned up at the garage. You didn’t see me at my best.”

It
was William’s turn to see Emma in a new light. Even Stevie Wonder could see that the model was attractive, but he now saw a softness and kindness in her fine features. A beauty.

“Please,
sit down,” the still somewhat gob-smacked mechanic replied whilst sweetly brushing flecks of dirt from the space next to him on the wooden bench. “I dare say I was probably at fault too when we first met. I’m better at dealing with machines than people.”

“My
friend Celia might disagree with you. She mentioned how much she enjoyed your company at dinner.”

“I
think that was due to a lack of competition,” William wryly replied.

A
gust of laughter burst out from Emma, like perfume sprouting out from a bouquet of flowers.

“At
least Celia only had to deal with them making advances on her for a solitary night. Unfortunately Daddy’s officers have been coming on to me for the past ten years.”

“Aye,
thankfully I have never had to deal with them making a play for me. Well, Julian might have.”

Again
Emma bloomed with laughter. As elegantly as she dressed and despite her normal poise Emma lost herself a little when she laughed. Or perhaps, in sharing a laugh and a sense of humour, she found herself.

“Well
if I promise that you do not have to invite Julian along as your date would you like to come to dinner at the house one evening soon? Daddy would love to see you again. I’d like to fix you a meal in return for you fixing my car.”

“Sam
will be jealous.”

“You
might not think that after sampling my cooking.”

It
was William’s turn to laugh and smile in a strange way at Emma. She was starting to match the portrait that her father had painted of her. There followed a slight pause, but one devoid of awkwardness.

“What
are you reading?” Emma asked, after noticing the paperback book upon the bench next to William.

“
The Plague
by Albert Camus. It’s about fighting for lost causes against overwhelming odds. Even if it’s a losing battle you still have to fight on if the cause is right.”

“It
sounds like it’s about my attempts at cooking.”

William
again smiled at her, appreciating Emma for her sense of humour and intelligence. He looked at her in a way that was different to how other men looked her, she thought – but it was welcome and nice.

“Are
you reading anything at the moment?”

“I’m
re-reading
Our Mutual Friend
. Have you read it?” Emma, who finding herself wanting to impress the mechanic, didn’t mention the books by Jane Green and Jilly Cooper she had also finished recently.

Again
William smiled at Emma and cocked his head slightly, seeing her anew – finding her interesting, fun, lovely. Finally he spoke:

“I
want to be something so much worthier than the doll in the doll’s house.”

Emma
was unable to speak – perhaps because her heart was in her mouth.

13.

Emma spent a further hour or so in the park with William. He sweetly insisted upon buying her an ice cream.

“I
haven’t had an ice cream from an ice cream van since I was a little girl,” Emma said whilst eating away, delight upon her face and in her voice.

“You
certainly look out of practise,” William replied, as he wiped away a spot of vanilla ice cream off Emma’s chin. The delight still remained – or even increased – upon her expression however.

Emma
had hoped that William would reveal how he had saved her father’s life when she brought up his time in Afghanistan. But William remained guarded about his own experiences. He opened up a bit more when Emma asked if he thought that it had ever been a winnable war.

“The
only time perhaps when there was an opportunity to win the war was when the government denied that we were at war. In terms of clear winners the aid industry, NGOs, the arms trade and any politician linked to the aforementioned may have done quite well out of the conflict... Unfortunately the Afghan people have lost the most,” the former soldier expressed with genuine sympathy. He then listened with interest to Emma as she gave her views on the subject, having taken an interest in the conflict due to her father being posted there.

William
was soon asking Emma about her own career though.

“Well
my commanding officers so to speak can be sexist, misogynist and shallow – and that’s just the women in charge at the top of the industry... Modelling is not all glamour. Things pay well, but at what cost?”

“What
job would you like to do – if you were no longer a model?”

If
someone had asked this question before of Emma, she could not remember the answer.

“I
think I would like to be a school teacher, like Celia and my mother – even more than I would like to be a model.” When the words came out of her mouth the confession was just as much of a revelation to Emma as it was to the mechanic.

Emma
asked William which school and university he had attended, believing he had gained a scholarship to a good private school. He replied by saying that the army had granted him a trade, and he had educated himself. He might have gone to school more if she had been his teacher, he said.

“You
may not have turned up if I had worked in your canteen though... But thank you for agreeing to come to dinner. Daddy will be pleased you can make it. I’m pleased too.”

“You
had me at hello Emma.”

He was so charming, in a genuine rather than refined way, she thought. He was sad and sometimes insular, but he was also kind and funny. She could have chatted to him all afternoon, about both serious and frivolous things. William Flynn ticked boxes she didn’t know existed. He made Emma feel things she hadn’t felt before. She didn’t have to play a dumb blonde with him, or parrot Kensington clichés. Emma drove back across the river pleased from having made amends – and from having made a friend too.

As
Emma entered her apartment she received a text from Jason.

“
I
want
to
spend
the
night
with
you
.
I
have
to
attend
a
dinner
party
later
but
I
can
swing
by
afterwards
.
Have
bought
you
something
special
to
go
underneath
those
outfits
I
got
you
.
Xxxx
Jason
.”

Emma
replied that she was going to have supper with her father and spend the night at the house. Emma wasn’t sure how she would have replied if that had not been the case. She caught up with some emails (party invites, job offers, gossip) and gave Celia a call to see if she needed anymore help in regards to the funeral arrangements. Celia was surprisingly calm when she mentioned that she was splitting up with her boyfriend. “We’re on a break, as they said in
Friends
... It’s for the best.” When she put down the phone to Celia, Emma wondered if perhaps she and Jason should temporarily split up. If she genuinely missed him then she might know that she felt something serious for him.

When
she got to her father’s house he smiled with paternal pride as Emma recounted how she had apologised to William – and that he was coming to dinner. Excited by the prospect of some good company – and decanting some vintage port again – Robert Hastings gave his friend a call to confirm and arranged things for the following evening.

Emma
waited till after dinner – and for her father to loosen up with a few drinks – and broached the subject of Afghanistan. Emma sat upon the rug by her father’s feet, as she had done as a child, and listened as he reported upon how William had saved his life in Helmand.

“We
were on our way back to Bastion from visiting another odious poppy farmer. I was asked to meet him to help win hearts and minds. I would have rather grabbed the bastard by the balls. But enough of that. The first vehicle in our convoy was hit by an IED. I was in the second vehicle, which flipped over whilst turning to avoid the wreck in front of us. I managed to cut myself out of my seatbelt, but I was pinned down from gunfire. The bastards had also fired an RPG at the third vehicle in the convoy. It struck the road, rather than delivering a direct hit, but the car Shakes was travelling in was still out of action. The men with him returned fire, but we were on the defensive. There was a gap of about fifty metres between my vehicle and the one behind. I couldn’t see anything through the smoke. And I couldn’t hear anything over the gunfire and ringing in my ears. I proceeded to cut the driver, who was unconscious, from his seatbelt. No sooner was he free though when a couple of Taliban appeared through the smoke, their rifles aloft. For the most part Emma my job meant that I was far more likely to get a paper cut than gunshot wound in the line of duty, but I must confess that my heart sank and my life flashed before me at this moment. I thought of you and your mother. Courage and cowardice are strange animals. I looked into my enemy’s eyes. The bastard smiled. But Shakes wiped the cruel grin off his face. He had run the gauntlet between the two vehicles, bullets pinging around him like fire-flies. He shot the two Taliban. He then handed me his rifle and lifted the unconscious driver on his shoulder. He said how there were more enemy approaching and we needed to retreat back to the third jeep. We proceeded to run back to the rest of the men, who were fortifying a position and providing covering fire. Were we lucky, mad or brave? I don’t know. Thankfully an Apache gunship was in the area and put rockets up our enemy’s arses, quite literally. When we returned to base I invited William over for dinner. I thanked him for saving my life. I asked him what had gone through his mind when committing such an act of courage. He looked sheepish, he could no longer look me in the eye, and replied that he had nothing to live for. His wife had died, in a car accident, six months previous. William is a widower too. It might be why we enjoy each other’s company so much. It’s not that we even talk about things. Rather we can have comfortable silences. She was a lovely girl, his wife. Her name was Jenny. She was a nurse. Some wounds don’t heal Emma. The pain cuts too deep.”

Emma
saw the tears glisten in her father’s eyes as she knew he was remembering his wife rather than William’s. Tears glistened in her eyes too. She got up, sat upon the arm of her father’s chair and kissed his forehead whilst holding his hand. Yet her heart also throbbed with pangs of guilt, as she remembered the sorrowful expression on William’s face when she joked how he would have no one to go home to after the party. She wanted to hold him and say how sorry she was.

“In
some ways we’re both still married, but to ghosts. William’s is the greater tragedy though, as he has his whole life ahead of him. Yet if I asked him, he’d still say he had nothing to live for. Blessedly I have you. But I fear William leads a life of quiet despair.”