Page 57 of The Plot Twist

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 readallof 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 wouldhaveall her books, had read them allandwanted 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.Werebeing 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.’

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