Chapter 14
Jake made himself a sandwich and picked up his phone to call Faye again. He’d left it all morning, hoping she’d call back during her break. It was now lunchtime. He frowned. She still wasn’t picking up. He looked at the sandwich and didn’t feel hungry. He glanced at his watch. He’d have to get a move on if he was going to check in to the airport hotel. His flight wasn’t until the next afternoon, but he just didn’t fancy hanging around his house until the next day. He had made up his mind.
He bounded up the stairs and was just packing some clothes into a small carry-on holdall when the doorbell rang. He looked up. ‘Now what?’
It was still ringing when he opened the door.
Marcus was standing there with his finger on the buzzer. He removed his finger when he saw Jake. ‘Ah, I was starting to think you’d gone already.’
Jake looked Marcus up and down then looked past him to the street, where Marcus’s black Saab was parked. ‘What the hell are you doing here? And what do you mean – gone already?’ Jake said in surprise. How on earth did he know I was going away? he wondered.
‘Faye says you’re going on holiday.’ He sounded worried.
‘Faye told you?’ Jake stared at him angrily. So she hadn’t answered his calls, but she’d spoken to Marcus. ‘So, I’m going on holiday. What’s the big deal?’
‘But you don’t go on holiday, not since—’
‘Well I’m going now – no thanks to you.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Jake held up his bandaged hands. ‘I can’t do my job with these, can I?’ Jake shut the door in his face. Then swiftly opened it again – Marcus was still there. ‘And when did you get on a first name basis with Faye?’ Jake involuntarily opened the door wide. Marcus took it as an invitation to step inside, which he did. Barring physically throwing him out, Jake knew he wasn’t going to get rid of him that easily.
Jake reluctantly shut the front door.
Marcus hovered in the hallway, poking his head into Jake’s lounge. ‘You’ve done some decorating,’ Marcus said conversationally.
Jake gave him an uninterested look and walked up the stairs.
Marcus followed. ‘I didn’t notice this morning.’
Yeah, but you noticed Faye , Jake thought. Just how much had Faye noticed Marcus? They had been out in the hall talking for a considerable time. It occurred to Jake that perhaps the two of them had hit it off. After all, didn’t women like them tall, dark and handsome? He had money. Apparently he’d even appeared in some high-brow magazine in a list of London’s most eligible bachelors – an unwanted accolade he himself had been only too familiar with not that long ago. And things were not going well with Lydia.
Jake tried to brush the thought aside, but it kept coming back.
‘What do you want, Marcus?’ Jake opened the wardrobe door in his bedroom and took out four shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans. He didn’t plan on being away long.
‘Where are you going?’
Jake returned to the wardrobe to dig out some underwear and socks. He didn’t forget to pack some jumpers – it could be chilly if he went for a walk down by a loch, even in summer.
He threw them in his hand luggage, along with the shirts, and looked at Marcus. ‘What – did you think I was going to spend my time off work moping about the house?’ It was, in fact, exactly what Jake had had in mind before Arnold Wright had called.
Jake had one final look in the wardrobe to see if there was anything else he might need.
‘You’re not going to tell me where you’re going, are you?’ Marcus said.
‘Nope.’ Jake turned around to find Marcus standing on the other side of the bed, studying something on his bedside cabinet. Jake knew what he was looking at, but Arnold’s address was tucked safely in his wallet, and the time he had written down on the notepad by the phone had no reference to a flight or destination. Marcus had no way of knowing where he was going. Jake realised he had nothing to worry about. Marcus wasn’t going anywhere; he had a multi-million-pound corporation to run, and he never took time off – ever.
Jake zipped up his bag. He was done packing.
‘When are you leaving?’
‘None of your bloody business, but you’re leaving right now.’ Jake pointed at the door.
Marcus walked around the bed towards Jake. ‘Faye told me you were so concerned about me that you dropped everything this morning to look for me.’ Marcus spread his arms wide as though he were going to give Jake a hug, or worse, was expecting to receive one. ‘And I thought you didn’t care. Awww ...’
‘I don’t.’ Jake elbowed past him to pick up the notepad with his flight time. Returning to the wardrobe, he picked out a clean, pressed white shirt and hung it on the wardrobe door. He glanced at Marcus. ‘Why are you still here?’
Marcus sat down on the end of the bed.
Jake turned his back to him and managed to undo the top two buttons of his shirt. He gave up with the rest and just pulled the shirt over his head. ‘Blast.’ Jake’s hands were stuck in the sleeves of the shirt.
‘You need some help with that?’
‘No.’ Jake managed to prise his hands out of the sleeves without disturbing his bandages. He tossed the shirt on the floor, and in the corner of his vision saw Marcus’s hand reaching for it.
Jake put on the clean shirt. With his back still to Marcus, he attempted to do up the buttons. It wasn’t working. He was having difficulty manipulating the buttons into the holes with his fingers so tightly pinned together under the bandages.
‘Dammit.’ Jake let his arms fall to his sides in defeat.
‘Jake?’
Jake turned around.
Marcus was still sitting on the bed. Jake’s shirt was neatly folded beside him. ‘You need a hand with that?’ he said gently.
This time, Jake didn’t object.
Marcus stood in front of Jake and tentatively took the second button from the top. Jake rolled his eyes in frustration; he had a feeling he was going to regret packing so many shirts.
‘Feel like you’re five again?’ said Marcus in an amused tone of voice.
‘Yes. Thank you.’ Jake stared up at the ceiling.
Marcus finished and stood back. ‘Need tucking in?’ He chuckled.
Jake hadn’t thought of that. He looked down at his shirt. It looked okay over jeans; it was the look he had preferred in his student days. Of course, he wasn’t exactly twenty anymore, but he thought he looked passable.
Marcus slumped back on the bed and propped himself up on his elbows, watching Jake. ‘Can you drive like that?’
Jake was having difficulty lifting the bag off the bed. ‘None of your damn business,’ said Jake irritably as he slipped the shoulder strap over his left shoulder and hoisted the bag off the bed. Jake walked straight past Marcus and out of the door.
Downstairs, Jake picked up his jacket and car keys and turned around to say a silent goodbye to his house and his new life – for now.
‘You’re going right now?’ Marcus had followed him back down the stairs like an abandoned puppy whining for some attention.
Jake turned on Marcus. ‘Look, they’ve given me the week off, and then it’s the school summer holidays. I’ve got over six weeks of free time.’ Jake wasn’t about to give him any details of the trip, but perhaps if Marcus thought he wasn’t going to be around for six weeks, he’d stop showing up at his house.
‘I am going on holiday right now. So why don’t you stop beating about the bush and get to the point – what do you want?’
Marcus looked at the floor.
Jake studied him. Here was a smart guy. He was the head of a global business in all but name. The events of a few months earlier had inadvertently propelled them both into success in their professional lives, albeit along vastly different routes. And it had propelled them both into chaos in their personal lives. Jake’s was practically non-existent, apart from the women he kept bumping into in his local supermarket. He remembered them from the London offices of the Ross Corporation – and he knew who was behind it.
What did Marcus think he was trying to do? Fix him up on a date? Perhaps Marcus thought if he got really involved with one of those women, he might be persuaded to return to his old job with the firm.
But what really annoyed Jake was Marcus’s attitude to Lydia. Hadn’t Marcus learnt anything from that tragic event almost seven months ago? Jake would have thought that the loss of Ellie would have cemented Marcus’s relationship with Lydia – not driven them apart. Jake had expected that in time, Marcus would patch things up and make it work with his fiancée, but if anything, he seemed to be veering more violently off the rails.
And this gave Jake pause for thought.
There was an unexpected upside to his holiday that he had not considered until now. He would not be around to pick up the pieces – and Marcus knew it. That’s why Marcus was there, attention-seeking again. Marcus was losing his audience; an audience he was scaring every time he went off the rails in a spectacular fashion during one of his benders. Jake was sick and tired of being that audience, witnessing that crash.
Jake didn’t have to ask Marcus what he was doing there because he already knew. ‘I am not going to be around to pick up the pieces.’ Jake poked a finger in Marcus’s chest. ‘So you had better get your act together.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You know what I’m talking about.’
Marcus’s face looked a picture of dumbfounded innocence.
‘Do you think I’m that stupid? I know the signs. It’s a part of our teacher training, to be on the lookout for substance abuse in the children in our care.’ What Jake didn’t know, and what he was sure Marcus wasn’t going to tell him, was just what substance he was abusing.
‘I’d better go.’ Marcus made a sudden move to the front door.
‘Oh no you don’t.’ Jake moved quickly, positioning himself between Marcus and the front door, blocking his escape. He wanted some assurance from Marcus, some sign that he understood.
‘I just wanted to apologise. That’s all,’ Marcus said unexpectedly.
Jake stared at him. Was this it? Was he finally getting that apology after waiting almost seven months? Was Marcus finally giving in and acknowledging what he had done, if not for him, then at least for Eleanor?
Marcus turned and looked down the hallway.
Jake followed his gaze. ‘You mean you’re apologising for this morning.’ Jake couldn’t hide his disappointment. ‘It’s not important.’ Jake turned towards the front door.
‘There’s something else.’
Jake turned back. Expectation hung in the air. He studied Marcus. They had been best friends once – the three of them, Marcus, Jake and Eleanor.
A best friend to Eleanor, a best friend to Marcus; Jake had been the glue that had held the three of them together. But left alone, Marcus and Eleanor had always acted like any normal siblings – like they hated each other.
Jake had been the calming influence – the negotiator. When Jake was there, they had played, when Jake was not, they had fought. And things had never changed; as they had grown older, they had not grown closer. Marcus and Ellie had always been like chalk and cheese. Where Marcus was loud and brash, Eleanor was quiet and shy. Where Marcus excelled in the classroom and on the sports pitch, Eleanor struggled.
Eleanor, as her mother had so often reminded her, had never been destined to be a great success like her brother. She had told her she should forget college, settle down, produce babies, and lead the role of the pampered, rich wife. Jake had come to realise that her mother, the actress who never was, had never been able to bear the thought of Eleanor achieving something – being somebody in her own right.
Thanks to Marcus, she had got that wish. Thanks to Marcus, Eleanor would never have the chance to reach her potential.
Jake decided he didn’t care a jot whether Marcus set the record straight now or not. He was past forgiving. The time for apologies had expired.
Jake turned his back on Marcus and opened the front door.
‘There’s something else,’ Marcus said again.
Jake stepped outside and slammed the door shut. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to know.