Chapter 32
32
By the time three o’clock comes around, the standoff between me and Gregory is reaching epic proportions. He keeps looking at me, and I can practically hear his brain whirring as he tries to find some piece of his fabled company policy to use against me, but I’m losing interest in him. It was a fun game while it lasted, but my mind is now firmly back on the main task: Operation Get Jock To Speak To Me.
‘We’re closed,’ Gregory announces triumphantly as he swoops in to clear my plate.
‘Great. I’ll just wait for Jock, I mean Andrew, and then I’ll be out of your hair.’
‘Andy?’ he says with a malicious smile. ‘He left half an hour ago when the kitchen closed. Why didn’t you say you were waiting for him?’
‘You knew full well I was bloody waiting for him!’ I exclaim.
‘Did I?’ he asks innocently. ‘I must have forgotten. Anyway, he doesn’t want to talk to you. Forcing him to spend time with you against his will constitutes harassment, and I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that’s against company policy.’
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
‘It’s livened up an otherwise ordinary day, yes. Would you like me to call a taxi to take you back to the airport?’
‘No.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. One, you’d probably charge me for doing it, and two, I’m not going anywhere until I speak to Andrew. I will come back here every day, and not eat as many breakfasts as it takes, until I speak to him. What time do you open?’
‘Seven o’clock, but?—’
‘But nothing. Expect me at seven for the regular breakfast. I eat quite slowly, I’m afraid, so it might take me until three to finish it. I’ll be back every day at the same time until I get to speak to him. Just so you know.’
‘You wouldn’t,’ Gregory scoffs, but I can see the doubt in his eyes.
‘She would,’ a familiar voice says from the kitchen doorway.
‘What are you doing here, Andy?’ Gregory asks, clearly baffled. ‘I thought you’d gone home.’
‘I set off for home, but then I realised something,’ Jock tells him.
‘What?’
‘That Beatrice would do exactly what she’s doing. The only way to get rid of her is for me to talk to her, so I came back. Hello, Beatrice.’
‘Hello, Jock,’ I reply as coolly as I can. This is difficult when most of my internal organs are doing a victory dance and singing, He came back! He came back!
After we leave a still bewildered Gregory to lock up the café, Jock leads me in silence down several roads until we reach a small park. I follow him inside, where he slumps onto the first vacant bench. I perch myself carefully beside him and let the silence settle over us. Although I have about a thousand questions, starting with what the hell he’s doing working in a greasy spoon café for a man like Gregory, I need to let him go at his pace, I realise.
‘Why are you here?’ he asks eventually. His voice is flat and lifeless.
‘I told you. It was the only way I could find to talk to you after you stopped taking my calls.’
‘But I don’t want to talk to you, Beatrice. That’s why I stopped taking your calls, don’t you see?’
‘I know, and I’m sorry. Really properly sorry, Jock. I didn’t want Emilio, but it was two against one.’
‘It’s not just that.’
‘What is it then? Tell me, Jock.’
He sighs so deeply, it’s like he has the whole world on his shoulders.
‘Do you remember,’ he begins eventually, ‘that first night at Hotel Dufour after we were arrested?’
‘Vividly,’ I tell him.
‘Before that night, I saw you as little more than a career-obsessed automaton, like the majority of our clientele. But you were so different when we came back from the police station. You were funny and human, and that week we spent together was amazing.’
‘I enjoyed it too. All of it.’
‘The point is that you got in my head, Beatrice. I tried not to let you because I knew we were time limited, but you did and I couldn’t stop thinking about you after we split up. I’d wake up wondering what you were doing and think about you throughout the day. I knew it was futile and not good for me, that you’d moved on and that was that. I kept telling myself to pull myself together and let you go, but it didn’t work. And then I saw you on TV, and you looked so amazing, I couldn’t help but send you a message, even though the rational part of me knew I’d never be able to heal and move on if I kept picking at the wound.’
‘I loved hearing from you.’
‘I used to entertain this fantasy in my head that maybe you felt the same as I did. I knew it was nonsense; all the evidence showed you were getting on with your life, putting your career back on track and all the stuff I knew you would do, but sometimes I’d allow myself to daydream that you were missing me, thinking of me like I was thinking about you.’
‘I was!’
‘Yeah, well,’ he says bitterly.
‘I’m not following you, Jock,’ I tell him.
‘When you messaged me yesterday, you said you wanted to talk. Maybe it was stupid, maybe I read more into it than I should have. Well, I obviously read more into it than I should have, because I let myself believe that you were going to tell me something important. Something about you and me. Then you called, and it wasn’t you.’
‘Of course it was me!’
‘It wasn’t. It was the other Beatrice, in career mode, with her automaton career voice, offering me a job. Oh, and not because she actually wanted me, but only because she was desperate after the celebrity chef she’d chosen first went and got himself arrested. That’s when the scales fell from my eyes, and I saw that the Beatrice I’d fallen for wasn’t real. The real one is the one I knew and didn’t much like before we were arrested. That’s why I’m angry, and that’s why I don’t want to talk to you. I can see I’ve been an idiot; I really don’t want you in my face to show me how much of an idiot I’ve been.’
I’m staggered, and for a moment I can’t think of anything to say.
‘I think we’re finished here. Have a safe trip back to London,’ Jock says, getting to his feet. This is enough to spur me into action.
‘Sit down,’ I tell him fiercely. He’s hit a nerve, and I’m angry now.
‘Why?’
‘Because you don’t get to lay a truckload of shit like that on me without having the decency to hear what I have to say in return. At least, the Jock I thought I knew would never do that.’
He sighs and sits back down.
‘Right,’ I begin. ‘First things first. You got in my head too, Jock. Like you, I tried to move on, but you were always there. Even when I was busy, you were in the background. When you texted me in Mallorca, I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to know that you were still thinking of me. But, like you, I’ve tried to be realistic. Everything you said led me to believe that you were happy up here, that you were working in a top-class restaurant and moving on with your life. What the hell is the deal with Gregory’s, anyway?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Hm. Anyway, all the vibes I was getting from you were that you’d settled and moved on. I spent hours analysing every conversation we’d had, trying to pick up the faintest clue that you felt the same as me, but there was nothing. Not a thing. I was happy for you, Jock, and I tried to do the same. But when The Mermaid project came up, I’ll admit I had my own daydream. In my dream, you and I were working together, doing what we do best and making a success of it. But it was much more than that. I had a fantasy, just as stupid as yours, that we would also be together again, but without any time limits.’
‘It can’t have been that important a dream if you promptly signed up the first celebrity chef that walked past.’
‘Have you listened to a word I’ve said? You were always my first choice, Jock. If the decision had been mine, I’d have been on the phone straight away. But it isn’t. I have business partners, and they overruled me. I tried to tell them that Margate wouldn’t be taken in by a cynical marketing ploy, but they felt Emilio would help to fill the place from day one, and you wouldn’t because nobody knew who you were.’
‘They’ve got a point,’ he concedes. ‘Emilio does have a big following. At least, he did .’
‘Exactly. So, reluctantly, I went with the flow. Then Emilio got himself arrested and I seized the opportunity to revert to my original plan. I was so excited about speaking to you, and then it all went horribly wrong. I mean it when I say I’m sorry, Jock. I made a huge mess, but this isn’t about The Mermaid. It’s about you and me. Yes, I admit that I want you to come and cook at The Mermaid, because you’re a brilliant chef, but there’s much more to it than that. I’m going on an incredible adventure and I want to share it with you. Don’t you see, Jock? Career Beatrice and the Beatrice you say you fell for aren’t different people. I’m both of them, only not the automaton part. It’s not wrong to want to be good at what I do for work, but I’m still the Beatrice you say you fell for as well. I’m sorry for making such a mess of everything but I want to try to put it right, even if you decide you don’t want to come on the adventure with me. Because I care about you, Jock. You’re an incredible man and nobody has ever got me the way you do.’
He turns to look at me and I try to read his expression, but it’s inscrutable. I’m desperate for him to say something, anything.
‘I see you’re wearing your hair up again,’ he observes eventually.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I always saw it as a metaphor.’
‘ What? ’
‘Hair up meant career mode. I fell for you when you let your hair down.’
‘Sorry, Jock, but that’s total bollocks. I put my hair up automatically at the moment because I’ve been working on a building site, among lots of machinery that would happily take my head off if loose hair got tangled in it. Look.’ I reach behind my head, yanking out the pins and the doughnut to let my hair fall loose around my shoulders. ‘Is that better?’
He smiles. God, I love his smile, and I was seriously starting to think I’d never see it again. ‘Have I been a bit of a dick?’ he asks.
‘No. Well, maybe just a little bit. But if anyone is the dick here, it’s me for not telling you the truth in the first place. I really am sorry.’
‘Can I ask you a question?’
‘Sure.’
‘Did you really daydream about me?’
‘More than you can imagine.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?’
‘Why didn’t you? And, while I’m thinking about it, why did you tell me that Gregory’s was an upmarket restaurant?’
‘I didn’t. You jumped to that conclusion and it suited me not to correct you. It’s not exactly the career path I dreamed of, and I was embarrassed.’
‘Why are you working for him?’
He sighs. ‘I found out I was basically unemployable up here. Head-chef positions don’t come up very often, and nobody would take me on as a sous chef because I’d been a head chef before. Chefs are a paranoid bunch; you don’t want someone under you who’s used to being in charge, is possibly more capable than you and is definitely after your job. So, I hawked myself around, aiming lower and lower, until eventually Gregory took me on.’
‘I really don’t like him.’
‘He’s OK, actually. Yes, he’s a bit inflexible and he does like to spout his company-policy line, but he’s not a bad guy to work for.’
Silence falls again, but there’s no tension in it now. We’re both lost in our thoughts. After a while, his hand reaches out and takes mine. I savour the warmth of it, enjoying the effect the physical contact is having on me.
‘What happens now?’ I ask eventually, hoping he hasn’t noticed the slight tremble in my voice.
‘I don’t know. What do you want to happen?’
‘In my fantasy, this is the part where you’d take me in your arms and tell me you were never going to let me go again. We catch the next plane to London together and live happily ever after in this beautiful hotel by the sea.’
‘I can’t come to London with you on the next plane,’ he says softly.
‘It’s OK. I understand. What do we do about you and me, though? I can’t just walk away from you again.’
‘Beatrice, shut up for a minute. I can’t come with you because I need to tie up a couple of loose ends here before I fly south. I need to let Gregory know, give notice to my landlady, those kinds of boring things. When did you say you were opening?’
‘Three and a half weeks from today.’
‘Bloody hell. I’ll be down by the weekend then. Gregory’s going to hit the roof, but I assume you don’t need a reference from him anyway.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely.’
He stands, takes my hands in his and pulls me to my feet before wrapping me gently in his arms, tightening his grip as I fold myself into his embrace. I’d forgotten how this felt and I turn my head so I can listen to the reassuring thump-thump-thump of his heart. ‘I don’t ever want to let you go,’ he says, ‘but I’m going to have to, just for the next few days. What time’s your flight, by the way?’
‘I haven’t booked one yet,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t sure how long I’d need to be up here.’
‘Stay the night,’ he urges. ‘Please?’
I pull my head back so I can look into his eyes. ‘Why would I do that?’ I ask with a smile.
He smiles back. Did I mention that I love his smile? ‘We still haven’t worked out who the phantom spooner is,’ he replies simply.