Chapter 5
5
We stayed on the riverbank that wonderful warm and sunny afternoon for hours, chasing after Boris, who was intent on pinching the remains of the picnic, nibbling on a selection of French cheese and fruit – grapes, fresh lychees, lusciously dark crimson cherries – and chatting, but Fabian didn’t kiss me again. It was as if he’d given me a taste of something sweet and delicious and was now withdrawing the treat. Whether this was a deliberate tactic – remember, I’d seen him in action in court – or whether the two kisses were enough to make him realise he didn’t relish more, I was quite unable to work out.
As if to reinforce the second option, Fabian glanced at his watch and suddenly jumped up. ‘Goodness, I didn’t realise the time. Are you working at the restaurant this evening? I need to get you back.’
‘No, I rarely work Sundays – Sunday’s my day for sorting myself out for the coming week, going over routines at the gym – I’m lucky: my friend owns Xander’s gym on Prestbury Street and lets me in free of charge. Anyway, you know, Sundays are for the usual stuff.’
Fabian nodded. ‘Me too, I’m afraid.’
‘Going over routines at the gym?’ I quipped, using humour to keep a smile on my face when I had the awful feeling that my Sunday spent with Fabian Carrington was about to fizzle and I should log it as a one-off. A Sunday with a beautiful, smart and interesting man – who, in reality, was way out of my league.
He laughed. ‘I have a potentially very heavy case I’m going to be working on over the next few weeks. I really need to get back to London and get stuck in.’
I jumped up, hoping he might take my hand and pull me back down beside him on the picnic blanket, but he stood, packed away the remains of the cheese and prodded Boris, who was sleeping soundly in the shade of a great oak, gently with his foot.
‘All ready?’
We strolled back with Boris walking sedately on the lead, any conversation that of polite strangers.
The ice-cream kisses might never have happened.
‘Oh.’ Fabian stopped as we approached the house to find a large red flashy car pulled up at the side of Fabian’s silver Porsche. ‘My brother appears to be home.’
‘Weren’t you expecting him?’
‘Not really. Come on, I’ll sort the remains of the picnic stuff and grab my keys.’
I wasn’t quite sure if that was an invitation to follow Fabian back into the house or remain where I was in the garden, but Boris, whining and pulling on the lead, made the decision for me and I followed in Fabian’s wake through the open front door.
A sandy-haired man, without Fabian’s devastating good looks but obviously his brother, was sitting at the kitchen table, feet up on the chair opposite, glued to the football match on the small TV on the wall, a huge doorstep of a chicken sandwich in one hand and a bottled beer in the other.
‘Didn’t know you were home?’ Fabian was saying as he emptied the picnic basket, wrapping cheese and quiche neatly before replacing them back in the huge stainless-steel American fridge.
‘Was in the area, so thought I’d grab a beer and see what was on the agenda. Mum and Dad not back, then, I see?’
‘No, not until this evening. I’ve been here all weekend to dog-sit.’
‘And other things as well, by the look of it.’ The man glanced in my direction and then, taking a bite of his sandwich, nodded at me.
‘Robyn, this is Julius, my brother. Julius, Robyn.’
There came another nod, followed by a full-frontal appraising examination as Julius looked me up and down and then proceeded to undress me with his eyes, while continuing to make his way stolidly through the sandwich. ‘Where’s Jemima?’ he finally asked, turning back to Fabian as he swallowed and wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. ‘Thought she was the one looking after the damned dog.’
‘Had to fly off to Copenhagen. Some trouble brewing there – in-house politics of some sort.’
‘Well, that’s what happens when you abandon the family profession and go off in a different direction. Always said there’d be trouble there.’
‘Right,’ Fabian said, ignoring Julius and picking up a large black bulging briefcase, a navy sweater and his car keys. ‘We’re off. If you leave before Mum and Dad are back, make sure you put Boris back in his crate in the utility, with plenty of water.’
‘I’ll just nip to the loo, if I may?’ I smiled across at Fabian. Not having wanted to squat down behind a tree on the riverbank, I was at the crossing-my-legs stage of wanting to pee.
‘First door on the left.’ Fabian smiled back at me, but he appeared tense.
I left the two of them to it and headed out of the door. I could have stayed in that downstairs cloakroom for ever. A loo and huge white basin dominated a room bigger than my entire bedroom in Soho, the walls filled with family photographs, surfaces sporting Jo Malone candles and diffusers, as well as towering piles of folded and rolled white and navy soft fluffy towels. Behind me, an open Fortnum & Mason wicker basket held croquet paraphernalia, while a plethora of expensive-looking tennis racquets stood idly against the wall by the door.
I smiled at my reflection in the huge mirror, fancying myself ensconced in a copy of Ideal Home magazine. As I washed my hands, I perused the myriad wooden-framed photographs of Eton where hundreds of boys, frozen in time behind the glass protection, grinned down at me. Where was Fabian? I wondered. I spotted him almost instantly, a boy of thirteen or so, sitting cross-legged in front of a row of unsmiling staff, his dark hair flopping onto his starched stiff white collar, his large eyes as captivatingly magnetic and enticing then as now, twenty years or so on.
I spent a long time taking in the tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed image of a much younger Roland Carrington, the current Lord Chief Justice, and another of him with a tall, raw-boned, reddish-haired woman who must be both Fabian’s as well as Julius’s mother – and from whom Julius Carrington had obviously inherited his looks.
I made my way back, but stopped when I realised Fabian and Julius were in the middle of a discussion and, from its heated tone, apparently at odds with one another.
‘You have to drop the Warrender case,’ Julius was saying, his tone bullying. ‘There’s so much?—’
‘I don’t have to do anything, Julius,’ Fabian interrupted crisply. ‘I’m more than able to make my own decisions on clients I do or don’t take on.’
‘Some pretty strange decisions you appear to be making lately…’ Julius paused, a snort of ribald mirth following. ‘So, where’d you pick that one up?’ I could almost see Julius Carrington’s head nodding in the direction of the downstairs loo. ‘Don’t think Ma would be overly impressed… you know what I’m saying? Oops, sorry, not very woke of me, that, was it? Mind you, she’s a looker, I’ll give you that. You can pass her on to me once you’ve finished with her.’
‘You’re utterly disgusting,’ Fabian snapped and, hearing him taking his leave, I quickly moved back to the open front door, desperate for him not to realise I’d overheard the words that were making my heart thump with fury and embarrassment. Not to mention disappointment. So much disappointment.
Fabian led the way to his car without a word, the actor in me conjuring up an expression of beatific normality on my features while, in reality, my insides were churning and I just wanted to get the car ride over and tell someone what I’d overheard.
Jess. I needed to talk to Jess, my sister.
‘I’ve a confession to make, Robyn,’ Fabian eventually said, when, five minutes after we’d set off, neither of us had said a word.
‘Oh?’ He’d slipped the note to Claude in Graphite the other night as a bet laid down by the other men on the table? He couldn’t cook any more than I could – he’d ordered all that delicious food online from Waitrose and decanted the lot into his own dishes? He was allergic to out-of-work actors? Any kind of actors?
‘Oh?’ I said again when he didn’t speak, now not only furious and humiliated but also irritable.
Eventually he started to laugh, a little amused moue of embarrassment on his face as I turned to look at him while he concentrated on the road ahead. ‘I knew you worked at Graphite , Robyn.’
Well, I wasn’t expecting that.
‘Oh?’ I said for the third time. ‘Did you? How?’
‘Robyn, I saw you in the public gallery the morning you came to court.’
‘Right?’ This was news to me. From what I remembered, it was me doing all the gawping – I didn’t recall Fabian looking back again towards me after that first initial meeting of eyes, when he’d appeared to look away without interest.
‘And from that one chilly, superior glance into the audience…’
‘The audience?’
‘…you were able to ascertain I was a waitress? At a particular restaurant in Mayfair?’ Anger at what I’d just overhead Julius Carrington say was rendering me sarcastic, the smile I’d plastered on my face to get us through the drive home slipping in direct proportion to the Porsche eating up the miles on the motorway.
Fabian looked sheepish. ‘No, of course not… I…’
‘What?’
‘Robyn, I’m sorry. I’ve upset you. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘You’ve still not told me. Did you follow me? Stalk me?’
‘No, of course not!’ Fabian was laughing at the very idea. ‘I asked Shirley who you were.’
‘Shirley?’
‘Who you were sitting with in the public gallery.’
‘Oh, Shirl, the famous Old Bailey groupie?’
Fabian smiled at that. ‘Shirley’s been sitting in the public gallery as long as I’ve been defending. I made sure I was on the concourse at lunchtime, hoping to bump into you, but you’d already left. Shirley, as always, was there, ready to say hello, and I simply asked who she’d been sitting with. She didn’t know your name, but did know where you worked, which was obviously handy.’
When I didn’t say anything, Fabian apologised once more. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t stalking you.’
‘Well, I think you probably were. And you were lucky I was working on the Friday shift – I don’t work every evening.’ I paused. ‘And lucky that you managed to get a table.’ I still couldn’t smile and show Fabian how ridiculously happy I was to be at the centre of his detective work. Not now, not after hearing Julius Carrington’s unpleasant words.
‘It did take three weeks for a table to be free.’
‘Which coincided with your birthday? That was fortunate.’
‘I thought so.’
We drove in silence until we hit the centre of London, and I realised I’d no idea where Fabian actually lived in the city. ‘So,’ I finally asked, ‘does Shirl often score women for you?’
‘Goodness, that’s harsh.’ Fabian appeared genuinely shocked. ‘Robyn? What is it? I’ve really enjoyed this afternoon, really enjoyed talking to you, and I’m so sorry if my method of finding out who you were, my wanting to get to know you, seems underhand. Sleazy even? But I wanted to be upfront with you. I can’t think of any other way I could have had of making contact with you.’
We were heading for Marylebone and I saw my chance at a red light: ‘You can let me out here, Fabian, please. Really. You’ve a lot to do and I can get the bus from here.’
‘Don’t be silly.’ Fabian put out a hand. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Fabian, I’ve had such a lovely afternoon. Thank you so much…’ I hesitated. ‘The thing is, you see, I heard what your brother said…’
Fabian closed his eyes briefly. ‘He’s my half-brother and a pillock into the bargain. Always has been. I’m so sorry you had to hear that… I didn’t realise…’
‘It’s OK, really.’ It wasn’t. ‘Thank you again… Look, there’s a 453 bus… that’s mine…’
‘Robyn…’
I opened the car door and, with as much dignity as I could muster, ran towards the town hall where my bus was just about to leave.