Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
‘T here you are.’ Martin was already waiting for her on the corner of St James’s Park, where Horse Guards Parade met Birdcage Walk. Allie loved this part of London, she loved the old buildings, the sense of history, she hated the tourists though, they always seemed to be teeming about. But this evening was an exception, the earlier rain had put paid to sightseeing.
‘Here I am,’ Allie concurred. ‘So, what now?’
‘We walk. We walk, we talk, and we carry on until you know where to go next with your book.’
Allie was familiar with this drill. She had done it many, many times over the years. Sometimes with a friend by her side, sometimes on her own. But she had got out of the habit, her recent writing drought proving too strong for her to believe she could walk her way out of it. Still, it was nice to hear that it was something Martin relied on as well.
‘OK, so where to?’
‘Let’s start in the park. We’ll go round the lake and see where we are when we’ve done that.’
They made their way into the park, taking one of the pathways that would, sooner or later, lead them to the lake.
‘Do you walk with Angie?’ Allie asked. Martin raised an eyebrow quizzically at her. ‘I meant when you’re writing?’ she clarified. ‘When you’re stuck. Or when you got stuck in the past.’ She thought jealously of Martin’s manuscript, which seemed to be speeding towards the finish line at an impressive rate, while hers limped tortuously at the back of the pack.
‘Sometimes, although not that often. There was always something else to do. Something else dragging our attention away from each other. Normally I’d walk on my own, or with one of my friends. Sometimes my son would come, when he was younger. He’s too busy with his own life now, of course.’
Allie felt a pang at the mention of Will. Martin had often mentioned his children in the past, before Allie was aware of who Will was, and she had enjoyed listening to Martin talk about them. But now it gave her the ick, and made her heart beat too fast thinking about all the lies. Not lies , she corrected her internal monologue, merely an omission of the full facts. That clarification made her feel so much better.
She could see the lake ahead of them now and was enjoying watching the water catch the end-of-the-day sun through the trees up ahead. Neither of them spoke as they came closer to the water’s edge, and then both of them stopped to take in the view. Here, it was busier, tourists and Londoners alike gathered under the ancient London plane trees, feeding the ducks under the willows. Allie leaned against the metal railing, which stopped people from getting any closer to the water. She took a sideways glance at Martin who was gripping the railing and looked lost in thought.
‘Memories?’ she asked, suddenly realising that perhaps this was why Martin had suggested the park.
‘Hmm,’ he neither agreed nor disagreed. He loosened his grip on the railing and turned around, now leaning his back against it. Allie looked up at him.
‘What does that mean?’ She wasn’t willing to let this opportunity get away, not just because she suspected she might be about to strike the jackpot with anecdotes she could weave into her novel but also because Martin looked like he wanted to get something off his chest – she was nothing if not altruistic.
‘Angie used to work right over there.’ He pointed off in the general direction of ‘outside the park’. Allie honestly couldn’t say if it was north, south, east or west and she wasn’t even going to hazard a guess.
‘She did?’
‘She did. She worked at a research institute for years before taking the job at Imperial.’
‘Wow.’ That stream of words didn’t make much sense to Allie, although they sounded impressive.
Martin smiled ruefully. ‘She loved working there, but the money was terrible. Ironic, really, that taking a job in academia was so much more lucrative. And they offered her tenure, so there was that security, too.’
Allie nodded wisely, wishing she had paid more attention to Martha when she talked about sciencey stuff like this. She presumed tenure was a good thing from the way Martin said it, although to her it sounded like it could be a low level and specific type of torture.
‘I wasn’t exactly in a position to offer any kind of financial security, so it made sense for her to take it. And she never complained, she does love being at Imperial.’
‘It was so nice to meet her the other night.’
‘Hmm? Oh yes. She loved you. I don’t think I had realised that not only had she read all of your books, but she owns every one too. You know she thought about getting her copies out so you could sign them but then she got embarrassed and decided not to.’
Allie blushed at this, the very idea that Angie, with all her poise and class would be too embarrassed to ask Allie to sign her books. The very idea that Angie would have all her books, had read them all and wanted Allie to sign them. It would have given Allie a warm glow had it not been for the fact that Allie wanted desperately (and secretly) to bang her son, which poured a quenching torrent of cold water on those feelings.
‘That’s so sweet of her. I’d be happy to.’ Allie risked adding, ‘Next time,’ in the hope that she might get to meet Angie again. ‘I’m so pleased you two are talking again and working things out.’ She glanced over at Martin whose shoulders had slumped at her words. ‘What is it? You don’t seem so thrilled?’
Martin said nothing.
‘Oh…’ The penny dropped for Allie. ‘You haven’t spoken to Gigi about the money yet have you?’
Martin groaned, which was pretty much what Allie felt like doing (both in a good and a bad way) when she thought of his children, or more specifically, one of his children. Martin’s groan however, was definitely a bad groan.
‘She’s away at the moment, on some kind of retreat.’ Allie rolled her eyes and was amused to catch the tail end of Martin’s eye roll too. ‘We’ve agreed to talk to her about it when she gets back. Not that she’ll still have the money, of course. But Angie says, and she’s right, I know she’s right, that that isn’t the point and that we need to finally lay some ground rules down with Gigi. Of course, Liam’s furious about the whole thing.’
It took a moment for Allie to recall that he was talking about Will, that this was Martin’s nickname for him. It was beyond jarring.
‘He is?’ she finally managed to croak.
‘Yes. I think he’s always known that we… I,’ Martin corrected himself, ‘have bailed Gigi out. But I don’t think he realised the extent of it. And he’s really cross with me for not telling him, and especially for not being honest with his mother.’
There was a long pause during which they both watched a group of tourists attempt, unsuccessfully, to get close enough to one of the pelicans so that they could pose with it in a photograph. The pelican in question was having none of it, and seemed to be mocking them. Letting them get just close enough that they thought they were in with a chance and then inelegantly waddling away as they tried to frame the shot.
‘He used to love the pelicans.’
Allie was jolted away from the comedic scene. ‘Who?’
‘Liam. I used to bring him and Gigi here at lunchtimes in the summer, when they were off school and Angie was working over there.’ Martin pointed outside the park again. ‘Liam was obsessed with the birds. Always more interested in feeding them his sandwiches than in eating them himself. Which was probably due to my terrible attempts at sandwich-making. And probably why he ended up getting so interested in making his own food at such a young age. Desperate to escape my cooking,’ Martin laughed.
Allie was fascinated by this insight into the life and times of young Will. She knew no matter how many questions she asked him herself, she would probably never have unearthed this tiny tableau of his childhood. And she was deeply aware that Martin probably wouldn’t be sharing half of this with her if he knew that Will and Allie were seeing each other. Were being the operative word here. Will might not feel like seeing her again once he knew that she had used false pretenses in order to prise these priceless nuggets of his childhood out of Martin.
Allie coughed to cover her shame. And then, once she started, she couldn’t stop.
‘Are you OK?’ Martin asked in consternation as Allie bent double, going redder and redder in the face. She put a hand up to tell him that really she was fine and that actually this was a wonderful way to get him to stop talking about his children. He got the first part, but the latter was lost in translation, which was probably for the best.
‘Shall we go on?’ she eventually managed to ask after having taken a long drink from her water bottle.
‘You’re sure you’re OK?’
‘Allergic to pelicans,’ she said as they made their way back onto the path.
* * *
Despite the awkwardness of her near choking experience by the lake, and Martin’s insistence on repeatedly bringing ‘Liam’ into the conversation, it had been good to catch up with Martin. He understood what she was going through, he’d been there before, and he knew what had worked for him in the past. Also, she’d got some really good material to work on and if she could only park her thoughts about Will for the time being she might even get something down before her next meet-up with Martin. Which he had insisted on scheduling for before the end of the week.
‘Keep up the pressure,’ he had said as he extracted a promise from Allie to meet him sometime on Friday. And she had agreed, because really she had no other alternative.
Allie had left Martin at the north-west corner of St James’s Park. She wouldn’t have called it that, she’d have identified it as being somewhere near Buckingham Palace, where the tourists congregated for real, and therefore somewhere she really didn’t want to be. Martin had ambled off in the direction of Victoria and Allie had checked her phone, hoping for a message from Jess. She should have gone straight home to write, get the ideas down before she forgot them. But first, she really wanted a drink and a debrief with Jess, who unfortunately hadn’t responded. Taking matters into her own hands, Allie called her. Jess picked up on the second ring.
‘Hey!’ Allie said. ‘How’s things?’
‘Hey, not bad. Where are you?’ Jess could obviously hear the sounds of the excited tourists chattering in the background.
‘Buckingham Palace.’
‘Right. Why?’ Jess asked incredulously.
‘I went walking with Martin, we ended up here.’
There was a pause. ‘Did you tell him? About Will?’
‘No.’ Allie didn’t even try to prevaricate.
‘Allie!’
‘Alright,’ Allie was irritated, ‘I didn’t call you so you could judge me. I called to see if you were out tonight.’
‘No, not tonight. Having a quiet one.’
‘Uff, when do you ever have a quiet one?’
‘I do! Just not very often.’
‘Does it have to be tonight?’ Allie whined. ‘I want to talk to you!’
‘We are talking.’
‘Not on the phone! Face to face. Preferably over a drink.’
Allie could hear Jess sigh. ‘Not tonight, Allie, OK? I’m home, I’m not coming back out. If you want to talk we can talk now.’
Allie was silent. ‘What about later on in the week?’
‘I’m free Friday?’
‘OK!’ Allie latched on deliriously. ‘Friday’s good! I’m meeting Martin for a catch-up but can be free whenever you get off work.’
‘Allie?’ Jess asked in a dangerous tone. ‘You are planning on telling him on Friday, aren’t you?’
‘Well, yes, I mean, no, I mean, maybe? I think I should tell Will first, don’t you think?’ Allie’s voice was pleading. She was desperate for Jess to agree, desperate to be let off the hook for just a few more days before her world came tumbling apart.
Jess exhaled. ‘Maybe you’re right.’
Allie experienced what she could only describe as absolute delight to have had her decision verified, only for a caveat to be firmly put in place.
‘But that just means you should tell Will before Friday. Then you can tell Martin afterwards.’
‘But he’s away,’ wheedled Allie. ‘And as I said before, I think I should do it face to face.’
‘Ideally, yes. But we don’t find ourselves in ideal circumstances, do we? So now I think you need to make the best of a bad situation.’
Allie scowled. Jess was not playing ball. Maybe it was better that she wasn’t free this evening. It was easier to ignore her when they weren’t opposite each other, only separated by a bottle of chilled sauvignon.
‘OK, whatever. I’ll tell him.’
‘Good. I’ll message you about Friday.’
Allie put the phone down and stomped off in the direction of Green Park Tube station, trying not to feel too guilty about the fact she had just lied to her best friend. She would tell Will, of course she would. She just hadn’t been completely clear with Jess about when exactly she planned to do this, because she wasn’t really sure herself.