‘On your own?’ she asked.
‘Yeah – but, what if I hadn’t been?’ I opened the door, and she walked into the cooler hall. I looked at her, exasperated. ‘Is this because I haven’t texted you back? Is that why you’re here?’ Then another, much more worrying, thought occurred to me. ‘How did you know I was here? Have you been following me?’
She looked at me like I was mad and said crushingly: ‘Jonathan, I like you, you’re very sweet and we’ve had fun, but things have moved on now. I’m not actually here to see you.’ She reached into a pocket in her dress and pulled out a slim, small rectangle and passed it over to me. ‘Could you give this to your father for me, when he gets back?’
I took it and stared at her name in shiny black letters. ‘What do you want with my dad?’
She looked at me, slightly irritated. ‘I heard on the grapevine your parents are looking for a Botox doctor for their new club and spa. I appreciate it’s all maybe a bit close to home, but we’re both adult enough to put everything behind us, aren’t we? Your parents’ new facility is going to be a captive audience of some pretty wealthy people and I’m good at my job. There’s no reason why this shouldn’t be a very successful partnership.’
I looked at her in disbelief but tried to play down my panic. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea really, do you?’
Alex pretended to look confused. ‘I don’t see why not?’
I shoved the card in my pocket, closed the door and turned to her.
‘Don’t do this. This is about us. If you really wanted to work with my parents you’d email like a normal person, you wouldn’t come round to their house.’
She frowned. ‘That’s exactly what I did. Sorry, I don’t think you understand. Your dad called me back, and I was supposed to meet him here this afternoon for a preliminary chat before I go and pick up my daughters from school. He’s obviously got caught up or something, and I don’t feel comfortable waiting here with you alone, for obvious reasons, so if you could just give him my card so he knows I did come, that would be great.’
‘Wait.’ I reached out and grabbed her wrist. ‘Dad arranged to meet you here? Why not at the new site?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he just liked the sound of my voice?’ She smiled sweetly at me.
I saw exactly what she was up to, instantly. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree there,’ I said coldly. ‘My dad can be a right arsehole, but he loves my mum more than anything in the world.’
‘Oh, I’m sure,’ she said innocently. Then she stepped closer to me, pressing her body up against me. ‘Don’t you think you better let me go? He could be back at any moment.’ She looked at me and smiled.
I swallowed. I wasn’t going to do this. Not again.
She didn’t take her eyes from me, just took my free hand with hers and put it up the skirt of her dress. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw but I could already feel her hand moving to the button on my trousers.
‘Just quickly,’ she whispered.
* * *
We did it on the stairs. I knew I shouldn’t – and I didn’t even use anything. She got up carefully afterwards and went straight to the downstairs loo.
‘Well, I think I’d better go now anyway,’ she said, re-emerging to find me dressed and sitting on the stairs with my head in my hands. ‘I’ll see myself out.’ She paused and sighed. ‘Look, just don’t give my card to your father if it’s a problem, Jonathan. I understand.’
I didn’t look up, just waited until the door had closed and I heard her car leave. Then I started to panic. I’d never not used anything before. Ever. She was too old to get pregnant though – surely? And what was SHE thinking? She was married. My blood ran cold. What if she was actually proper mental and tried to say she’d come round here to see Dad – which he’d back up – and I’d forced myself on her? There’d be stains all over her dress. She was a doctor. No one would believe me and not her. I felt sick and I didn’t know what to do.
I waited for Dad to arrive, but he didn’t, and it was only after I called him on his mobile – something I never do – and he picked up sounding all concerned, saying ‘I’m in a meeting, but are you all right?’ that I realised that Alex almost certainly wasn’t telling the truth about having contacted him at all.
‘Yeah, sorry, Dad. I’m fine. I’ll see you later. Don’t worry.’
When he did come home, I had to make up something about my car breaking down to explain why I’d called him, which, in true Dad style, he then didn’t let go, wanting to get to the bottom of it.
‘You’re sure you didn’t leave your phone charger plugged in again, because that can drain the battery?’ He looked up at me over jacket potatoes and ham at dinner, as Mum passed me the salad bowl, and Ruby put some butter on the side of her plate.
‘Like I said,’ I repeated for the hundredth time, ‘one minute there was nothing there, the next it just started again. I thought I was going to have to jump it and if you were at home you could come over with some leads.’
‘At home? At two o’clock in the afternoon? I was at the site. But Mum could have come out if you’d needed one of us?’
I looked at him carefully. Was he lying or not? Had he been planning to meet Alex and got delayed? ‘Are you looking for any new staff at the moment?’ I said. ‘Beauty stuff I mean?’
Ruby sniggered. ‘Think you should do that instead of vlogging then, J?’
‘He knows vlogging isn’t a career,’ Dad said sharply. ‘Don’t you, Jonny boy?’
And now was he trying to change the subject and turn the focus on to me instead? I thought about him opening the front door to Alex, her smiling at him and walking into our house, clutching her black bag in her short red dress – and put down my knife and fork.
‘Let’s not start all that again,’ Mum said. ‘Jonny knows he needs a backup in case vlogging, or modelling, doesn’t take off. He’s still doing his exams, and he’s still going to apply for university.’
‘Which really is a waste of time,’ Dad said. ‘I know that school says you’re a bright little bunny, but neither them or you seem to be able to work out that thirty grand of debt for three years getting pissed when you could join the family business and start making money straight away isn’t the smartest idea.’
‘That school gets a lot of kids into the top universities,’ Mum said pointedly.
‘I should bloody hope so, the amount they charge each term.’
‘They’ve got Oxford in mind for Jonny.’
‘You might want to tell Miss Healy that’s the plan, then,’ I said. ‘She asked me where I was thinking of in English and when I said, Oxford, she got all sniffy and “oh no dear, I don’t think so”. She hates me. They all do.’
‘No, they don’t. Elsbeth Healy wants to spend a little less time staring at that engagement ring of hers and a little more time actually teaching,’ Mum snapped. ‘You leave her to me, the stuck up cow. Are you not hungry, love?’ She nodded at my untouched food.
I shook my head.
‘I really would like you to try and eat.’
I sighed and did as I was told.
Dad pointed his knife at me. ‘I want you to do that Personal Trainer module over the summer holidays. I know you’re thinking it’s all fatties you’d be training, but it’s not,’ he continued. ‘And with your looks you’d get all the mums shoving their kiddies in the crèche. Two birds with one stone.’
I thought of Alex and her stained dress. ‘Can I leave the table please, Mum?’
‘You have gone a little bit pale all of a sudden.’ Mum was frowning. ‘I think someone’s had a bit too much sun today.’
I stood up suddenly, jolting the table and making all the knives and forks jump. ‘Sorry, I need the loo.’
I hastened to the downstairs cloakroom, closed the door and leant my forehead on the cool of the mirror. I didn’t know what to think. My proper phone vibrated in my pocket and I pulled it out.
Can I come over and see you in a bit? Thought we could go for a drive and take some nice sunset snaps?