Gethin Roberts felt his spirits soar.
Martha was even in a temper deciding what to wear. She didn’t want to play mediator between her friend’s widower and his sugar babe. She felt middle-aged and rejected outfit after outfit. In the end she elected for jeans, high-heeled boots and a turquoise top, over which she knotted a tight-fitting turquoise cardigan. She dumbed down her make-up, brushed back her hair hard, almost seeing Vernon Grubb, her macho hairdresser, wincing as she did so. He was always telling her off for not treating her hair with the respect to which it was due. Sometimes she thought he should have opted for professional rugby where he could have taken his aggression out on the opposing side rather than women in their middle years whom he bullied mercilessly about their hair.
They met at Richmond’s, a newly opened bistro in the town. Neutral ground. Martha was surprised at Simon’s choice. He was more likely to eat in one of the many ancient restaurants or coffee houses which sprinkled this medieval town than here. It was ultra modern, spanking white with echoing marble floors and a long counter where you queued for food. It was too bright white, not the sort of place Simon would ever have chosen for himself. Then as she sat down and looked around her she felt pity. It was peopled with earnest and self-conscious teenagers. Simon would feel like a fish out of water. She picked up a menu. Nouvelle cuisine, no more than twenty calories a portion. Lots of rocket and basil. She waited for an anxious twenty minutes worrying that she had come to the wrong place. She was on the verge of ringing his mobile phone when he arrived. And again this was unlike Simon. He was a stickler for time. Never late.
He spotted her straight away and waved. His clothes too were different. A leather jacket, chinos, an open-necked yellow shirt. Not the sober-suited man she knew. In fact she realized that she didn’t know this man. On his arm clung a girl. Martha couldn’t have called her anything else. She was not a woman but a girl with long straight blonde hair and a fringe, which she had to distractingly blink out of her large cornflower blue eyes every few minutes. She was slim to the point of emaciation and looked vulnerable in tight jeans, high-heeled boots, an anorak with a brown fur collar, little make-up and beautifully manicured long nails.
‘Sorry we’re late.’ Simon bent and kissed her cheek. ‘We couldn’t find anywhere to park and had to hoof it through the town. Not easy with Chrissi’s heels.’
‘Martha,’ he said unnecessarily and with a flourish, ‘this is Chrissi.’
Chrissi smiled, her eyes holding an expression of mute appeal. Shocked, Martha realized the girl desperately wanted her to like her, approve of her. Why? What on earth did she matter? She was merely a friend of Simon’s dead wife and here to mediate between Simon’s daughters and this ‘child’.
But there was no doubt about it, Christabel did want Martha to like her.
So her pity swung from Simon, who was trying to pretend he was thirty years younger than he was, to a girl who must know that all his friends, family and acquaintances and in particular his two very bright, very energetic and very opinionated daughters, would disapprove of this relationship.
Martha held out her hand. ‘Hello, Christabel,’ she said. ‘Do most people call you that or do they call you Chrissi?’
The girl nodded. ‘Either.’ She sat down. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she said in a breathless whisper. Then with a loving look at Simon she added unnecessarily, ‘From Simon.’
‘Always a bit worrying,’ Martha said brightly. ‘Shall we get some food?
‘You two choose,’ Simon said. ‘I’ll go and get it.’
Great, she thought. Give us a chance to get to know each other. And what if I don’t want to?
Chrissi watched Simon practically all the time he queued and bought the food. Martha limited her questions to ones she could comfortably address to a profile. Where had they met? At work – she was his (cliché, cliché) secretary. She lived with her mother and brother. (She didn’t mention the father). They ‘really, really’ liked Simon. Wasn’t he handsome?
Errm.
He didn’t look his age, did he?
Errm.
Simon returned.
As she’d suspected, even with the nouvelle cuisine that was on offer Chrissi didn’t eat real food, merely played with bits around her plate, nibbling prettily as a rabbit on her rocket. And she let Simon lead the conversation.
‘How’s Sam doing?’ he asked heartily.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘At least he’s off the injury list and back playing. He might – just might – be coming home and playing for Stoke – on a lend,’ she added, explaining to Chrissi. ‘He’s a footballer,’ she said, ‘with the Liverpool Academy. He’s almost fifteen. One of a twin.’ Then she gave Simon a bright look which was meant to put him at his ease because he looked so terribly uncomfortable. ‘You haven’t heard the best. Sukey has decided she wants to become an actress.’
‘Goodness.’ He looked startled. ‘Little Suks? What on earth would Martin have said, I wonder?’
‘He was always one to let his children choose their own path.’
‘Ye-es. But acting.’
The conversation stopped and she felt suddenly cross. What right did Simon have to drag her into this uncomfortable and untenable position? He should sort this out himself with his daughters. Not bring her in as mediator, no doubt to plead this child’s cause.
Chrissi spoke. ‘You were a friend of Simon’s first wife?’ She lifted her eyes to Martha’s, beseeching, Make this easier for me, please?
‘Yes,’ Martha said. ‘You haven’t met Armenia and Jocasta yet?’
‘Tomorrow. We’re having lunch together. We hoped -’ she put her hand in Simon’s – ‘that you would come along too. It would make it easier for me.’
‘Of course.’
Martha risked a glance at Simon. He was looking away, frowning and she thought she could read his mind.
This was not going to work. He knew it and she knew it too.
But then Chrissi swallowed a mouthful of salad and gulped. ‘You must be wondering what Evelyn would have thought of this,’ she said, putting her hand in Simon’s.
‘Evelyn isn’t alive,’ Martha said quietly. ‘If she was you wouldn’t be here, would you?’
The blue eyes met hers with some understanding and Martha felt relief that she had spoken what had been in her mind from the beginning of lunch when she had recognized the incongruity of this relationship.
‘I’m dreading tomorrow,’ Chrissi said miserably. ‘I know Simon’s daughters won’t like me.’ Her voice trailed away.
‘They’re grown women,’ Martha said firmly. ‘They must adjust.’
Simon’s arm stole around Chrissi’s thin shoulders. ‘Take heart, my darling,’ he said quietly. ‘Be brave.’
Chrissi was not the only one dreading tomorrow.
The rest of the lunch was equally perfunctory and Martha left the soulless restaurant at three.
Depressed and a little tired she decided to walk back down to the car park, towards the English Bridge, passing Finton Cley’s antiques shop halfway down Wyle Cop. She glanced in the window and had a shock.
It sported a huge sign. ‘Meet Martha Gunn’. Below it was a female Toby jug with the three plumes of the Prince of Wales on her hat.
Finton had mocked her before about her name. For ages she had not understood why. One day she had asked him. ‘Why do you always smirk when you say my name?’
He’d looked smug, a public schoolboy who had a secret. ‘I can’t believe you’ve lived all your life and don’t know the significance of your name? Your parents never told you?’
She’d shaken her head. ‘They might not have known either.’
‘Well that would be a coincidence.’
She’d waited, knowing he would tell her. ‘She was a Brighton bathing attendant,’ he’d said finally, ‘in the early nineteenth century and reputed to have attended the Prince Regent. One version of events has her actually throwing him into the sea. A risky thing. Look.’ He’d shown her the three feathers on her hat.