Page 60 of The Monday Night Heartbreak Club
‘Anyway. Dexter is stuffed. When the word gets out that his secret insurance policy has been busted open, practically everyone in the criminal underworld is going to be after him, including Jack the Ripper and whoever stole Shergar. He’s more likely to need Australia than we are.’
‘That’s reassuring.’ Casually, Flynn put his arm around my shoulders. I rocked but managed the extra weight rather well. My legs were tingling a bit, but I was absolutelynotgoing to mention that.
‘Why are we out here?’ I said, to distract myself from the fact that I was beginning to buckle at the knees.
‘We’re expecting a visitor. I thought you’d feel better out here than doing the whole queen thing, sitting in your chair. That’s why I didn’t stop you coming down to see the police off. Here, you’re upright and everything.’
‘A visitor?’ I couldn’t stop myself, I put a hand to my hair to try to tidy it. The sides were still shaved but growing back to a centimetre or so of bristle, while the top had retained its length, but I hadn’t been able to wash it properly one-handed and with stitches in my face. In consequence, I looked like a really bad punk. In fact, I thought, with the scar and the limp and the arm that had a brace to keep it straight even though it didn’t work, I looked far more like a career criminal even than Dexter.
‘Yes. Sorry I didn’t mention it before, the police rather drove everything out of my head.’ Flynn sounded perfectly relaxed. ‘Ah. Here he is.’
‘But…’Andmy jeans were halfway down mybackside; I’d lost a fair bit of weight in hospital.AndI’d spilled tea on my shirt; drinking one-handed was taking some getting used to.And, with the way my legs were tingling, I was beginning to contemplate using the stairlift, this once.
‘Hi, Dad.’
A car pulled up beside us. It was a Bentley, but from there, any resemblance to any car types I could name stopped. My brother or Fraser would probably be able to tell me how much it cost, what upgrades it had had fitted and its top speed, but that was their area of special interest and I didn’t care. All I knew was that it was sleek and shiny and being driven by a man I’d seen featured in theFinancial Times, who looked even craggier and sterner than he did on the TV.
‘Hey, Flynn.’ Careless of the double yellow lines and the small knot of people collecting on the opposite pavement, Andrew Mays-Harrison got out of the car and stretched, then looked across at the decimated building. The cat on the scaffolding looked back at him. ‘Well. That’s not good, is it?’
‘Long story.’
Flynn and his dad did look alike, I found now. When Andrew smiled, as he was doing now, he had more than a hint of the Daniel Craig about him, and he and Flynn had identical grins. In fact, I could imagine that in his youth, Andrew, with long hair and a slightly more slender frame, could have been a dead ringer for his son.
‘And this is Fee.’
‘Right. Fee.’ A hand came out to shake mine and, to his credit, he barely even looked at my scars or my hair, he looked directly into my eyes instead. ‘You’d better call me Andrew.’
At that point my legs stopped tingling and gave way completely. I buckled at the knees and slumped towards the floor, only to be caught and held up by Flynn’s dad, who managed themove without looking as though there were anything out of the ordinary in having to body-lift his son’s girlfriends.
‘Hello, Andrew,’ I said, from my position of being held against his chest with his arms under my backside. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Shall we go up?’ Flynn had also decided to treat this as a daily occurrence. He opened the door to the stairway and Andrew met the billowing smell of cod without any acknowledgement that this was in any way an odd way to go about a first meeting. He carried me up the stairs, pausing only to ‘good morning’ my downstairs neighbour, who was bustling about in her doorway, and put me down on the sofa.
My embarrassment had now reached epic proportions, and if one of the men had cracked a joke, or said anything about ‘sweeping me off my feet’, I would have turned into a small puddle of hot humiliated goo. But Andrew Mays-Harrison was an absolute pro and Flynn was used to me now, so we all pretended that this was perfectly normal behaviour and went on accordingly.
Outside, I could see the small crowd approaching the Bentley slowly, as though creeping up on a wild animal. ‘Andrew, you might want to move the car…?’ I began, cautiously. ‘Double yellow lines and all that,’ I finished, not wanting to damn my fellow Yorkshiremen by pointing out that cars of that rank were unusual in our tiny town, and it was going to find itself on the local Facebook page in very short order.
An airy arm waved. ‘It’s fine.’ Then Andrew turned to me and his grin was so like Flynn’s that I found I was smiling back. ‘I play golf with the chief constable.’
‘Yes,’ I murmured weakly; the rich really were a breed apart. ‘Flynn said.’
‘So.’ Andrew settled himself on the window ledge. ‘What are we doing about thewine bar, then?’
It was that ‘we’ that did it, and I suddenly saw what Flynn had meant by being in his father’s shadow. The calm assumption that owning a detonated bar was a family problem that they could put right together only went to show me how far from normal my own family were. His was suffocating, whereas I’d put so much space between myself and mine that I may as well have been in orbit.
‘Not sure yet, Dad. We’re waiting on the police deciding who they are going to charge and the thickness of the book about to be thrown at the culprits.’ Flynn took a deep breath. ‘And I’m not sure I want to stay around here, anyway.’
Andrew’s expression didn’t change. He blinked twice, his only indication of surprise. ‘I thought this was your great experiment in independence?’
‘I didn’t say I wanted to take on another enterprise, did I?’ Now Flynn looked almost mutinous. ‘I don’t need any help, Dad, truly. Fee and I are going to make a go of something. We just aren’t quite sure what yet.’
To my surprise, Andrew came over and sat down next to me. Actually, he didn’t so much sit as flump, and the frame of the sofa bed groaned a complaint. ‘Right,’ he said, sounding baffled. ‘Right. Of course. Yes.’ Then he glanced my way and winked, and I knew where Flynn got it from. ‘I didn’t think I’d be able to keep your wings clipped for much longer.’
‘You don’t mind?’ Flynn sounded astonished.
‘Of course not. You need to get out there and make yourself a proper life without having to look over your shoulder to check that I approve. I’m not a monster, Flynn, I’m your father and I want whatever you want.’
So,thiswas how proper families behaved, I thought, as the two men changed the subject with typical ‘bloke’ aversion to getting into anything sentimental. They were supportive and kindand they didn’t mention money or where it was coming from once. They made my family look like aliens.
