The Other Life of Charlotte Evans Page 11

  Which was highlighted by Niamh’s continuing irritation. ‘Charlotte, are you with us?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ They all took the quiz so seriously. And rightly so, given they’d been quiz champions three times this year, beating rivals Team No Clue every single time. It was a Big Deal, apparently.

  Next to her, Ben’s fingers played across her thigh and he gave her a wink as their eyes met. She let out a big breath. Things had been so stressful the last few weeks, but now, as he nuzzled a kiss behind her ear, he was trying to make life better. He did. She curled into his touch and kissed his cheek.

  ‘Ahem.’ It was Sonja. ‘Get a room, guys.’

  ‘Hush.’ Niamh threw her pen onto the table. ‘Next question.’

  The question master spoke into the microphone. ‘Right, last question for this round: who was the first male professional dancer to win Strictly Come Dancing in 2004?’

  Ben’s shoulders rose. ‘What’s with all the dance questions? It’s supposed to be general TV trivia, isn’t it? Not sure how we’re expected to know that. Charlotte? This question has your name all over it.’

  Charlotte smiled. This was something she didn’t even have to concentrate on. ‘Finally, something I can actually answer! Brendan Cole. It was the lovely Brendan. And… do we need to say who his partner was?’

  Niamh frowned. Again. ‘Did you not hear the question?’

  Whoa, the atmosphere was decidedly frosty. ‘Yes. I did. And the answer is Brendan Cole.’

  ‘Right, that’s that.’ Sonja, this time. ‘I’ll hand this paper in. Who’s turn is it for beers?’

  Charlotte sighed. Something she could do to make peace all round. ‘I think it’s me. I’ll get them.’

  ‘I’ll come with you. Give you a hand.’ Ben followed behind her to the bar. He squeezed through the crowd and shuffled her in front of him. His body tight against hers. The closest they’d been in a while. She felt a thrill through her veins, down low. Hopeful. Sexy even. The stirrings of something she hadn’t been feeling for a while. Or at least she had, but hadn’t acted on it because, for the first time in their relationship, she felt out of kilter with him. Off balance.

  Maybe things would be better, later. When they were alone. She could make a start on building a bridge back to the closeness with him that she’d always loved. He lowered his voice. ‘Are you okay, Charlie? You don’t seem to be here today.’

  ‘Absolutely I am. I just answered the Brendan question and I know one hundred per cent that I’m right. I’m fine.’

  ‘Really? Because from where I’m looking your head’s somewhere else.’

  ‘It’s not. Honestly.’ It was. She knew it. Everyone knew it. And she felt guilt ripple through her, overpowering the sexy, which fizzled and flickered out. They were cramped in and she couldn’t even turn to him properly to answer.

  It didn’t seem to matter to him. ‘Last week I asked if you’d got the flowers ordered and you nodded. Then, yesterday, you rang me in a panic to say you hadn’t sorted the flowers. Now you’re not even trying to concentrate on being here. Being with us. With me. And, to be honest, I’m getting frazzled with having to bring it up.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m just a bit overwhelmed.’

  ‘Then ask me to do more. Or Eileen, Lissa… ask them to weigh in on decisions… things I don’t know about or understand, like what type of wedding favours we should have. Because I have no idea what one is.’ He paused. Shook his head, and pretended to be sad. ‘I don’t think they’re what I’d like them to be.’

  ‘I’ll give you a wedding favour, matey.’ She leaned in to him, wriggled her hips against his. Tried to find that feeling she’d had only moments before. Tried to make him laugh. Make everything right again. ‘I’ll give you a Tuesday Quiz Night favour later if you like.’

  ‘I do like. I like a lot.’ His hand ran down her spine. His fingers stopped in the small of her back and she felt the warmth of his hand there. Protective. Possessive. The person next to them took his drink and left, leaving a nice gap that Ben sidled into. He looked at her, pensive but more relaxed. ‘Hey, can we talk just for a minute?’

  ‘Sure. Is there more? What’s wrong?’ Charlotte’s heart began to beat faster. What had she done now? She seemed to be rallying in and out of everyone’s good books faster than a tennis player at Wimbledon.

  But Ben’s eyes dimmed. ‘Look… the thing is… I’ve got a bit of a confession.’

  Her heart rate tripled ‘Why? What have you done?’

  He looked down at the floor then back at her. ‘Just… I don’t want there to be any secrets between us… and I did something I shouldn’t have.’

  The guilt intensified. Because she was the one with the secrets.

  There was a scrummage further down the bar, a bit of shouting between two men. Banter, perhaps, that ended with a handshake. It took both their focus away, but she drew him back by tugging on his arm. ‘What’s going on, Ben? You’re making me nervous. What did you do?’

  He swallowed. Paled a little. ‘I ran a check. On your mum. On Carol.’

  ‘You did what?’ Charlotte stepped away from the heat of his hand. Preferring instead to feel the cool whip of disbelief. ‘Isn’t that against all your rules?’

  He nodded sheepishly. ‘A sackable offence. Yes.’

  ‘Wow. That’s so unlike you. Why would you do something like that?’

  His palms raised, trying to calm her. ‘I wanted to be sure she was legit.’

  ‘You don’t think I can judge someone’s character?’ What did you find? She was horrified that the thought ran through her head. ‘That was well out of order, Ben. You know that.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You really shouldn’t have done that; jeopardising things just to see if she is who she says she is. Don’t you trust that I can judge for myself?’

  His voice was sullen when he responded, defensive, on guard. He knew he was in the wrong. ‘I was just trying to help.’

  What did you find? ‘I didn’t ask you to.’

  ‘You know, that’s the problem these days. You don’t ask me for anything. You just bumble ahead without talking things through. I wanted to help you.’ Ben shook his head. ‘I’m trying to understand why you want to find your birth mum when you have a lovely mum in Eileen already. And why the need for the blood test, when you’re absolutely perfectly healthy? But every time I ask, you say it’s something you need to do. That’s not really helping me understand.’

  ‘So you just went ahead and did your own thing instead?’ Keeping things to herself was something she did. Self-protection. Don’t rock the boat.

  He shrugged in reply. ‘D’you want to know what I found out?’

  ‘No. I do not. Not if you got the information illegally.’ She tapped her fingers on the bar. Gave the order to the barman. Hell, Ben shouldn’t have done something like that. What the heck had got into him? ‘Don’t ever do anything like that again. You could lose your job.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’

  She couldn’t let it go. ‘I can’t believe you did that.’

  ‘I thought you’d want to know about her. I thought you might want some support, but clearly not. ‘

  ‘Not like this, Ben.’ She looked at his glum face and thought about the secret she was keeping from him, the appointment for the blood test she’d promised not to have, and felt a hundred times worse. He’d always been a source of support, had only ever helped her and encouraged her, and now he was trying to protect her. Her stomach clenched tight. It had been a tough few weeks and reacting like this wasn’t going to make anything better between them. ‘Okay. Well, I know you had good intentions. But please don’t risk your job again. We’ve got too much depending on it. Never mind the fact that you love it, you’ve got good promotion prospects. Please don’t put all that at risk for me.’

  His eyes darkened. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t. And definitely not now I’ve seen your reaction.’

  ‘Can you blame me? What would you say
if I’d done something like that?’

  ‘You mean, gone behind people’s backs? Done something everyone knew you shouldn’t? Taken a risk?’ He shook his head as if disappointed.

  Her gut contracted into a tight, hard ball. Not only had she done it, but she was planning to do it again.

  But the fact he had information niggled at her. Here was a link to her past, even if it had been acquired by dodgy means. ‘Okay. So what did you find?’

  He breathed out. ‘You really want to know? Even though I broke a zillion rules?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ Cold, hard fact.

  ‘It looks like your mum had a few run-ins with the police in her youth for shoplifting, but nothing for years.’ His eyebrows rose. ‘The rest of the family, not so much; she has a couple of brothers who’ve been done for a bit of petty theft. One of them paid a hefty fine for doing dodgy MOTs, that kind of thing. Hardly bad-ass gangsters, but not blemish-free either.’

  Relief was sweet. ‘So, she was honest about her background then. She wasn’t trying to hide anything, I don’t think. She seems to be trying hard to get on, with her café and everything. She seemed so proud of where she’d got herself to.’

  ‘Good. Because you have to be careful. You don’t really know who you’re dealing with. Not really. People aren’t always what they seem and I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  She slid her palm over his hand. ‘I’m pretty sure I won’t. I think I’ve got it in perspective. I know you don’t understand and how could you?’ She pointed over to the gaggle of Murphys laughing and teasing each other and tried to explain. ‘Look over there, Ben. There’s your family, right there. You have all that Murphy DNA in one room, and a whole lot more back in Ireland. I have nothing. And it feels like I’m losing out.’

  ‘Trust me, you’re not. I hope you haven’t said that to Eileen.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, of course not. I just have to do this… okay? I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine, it won’t change anything.’ Although she had a feeling it already had. That things were changing, like the way she regarded her mum, and between Ben and her as she pursued this path. Things were becoming fractious and fragile. But she’d come so far she wasn’t sure she could end it right now.

  ‘Well, it’s my job to make sure you’re okay.’ He tugged his hand from under hers and gave it a squeeze. ‘Maybe, after the wedding, you could take me along to one of your meetings with Carol.’

  ‘Thanks. Yes. That would be nice. Maybe, once we’ve reached some sort of rapport. It’s early days.’ An olive branch. He was good at that; at reaching out and making things right between them. Now it was her turn. ‘Hey, as you’re on another early tomorrow, why don’t I get some steak and we can forget the decorating and the wedding and have a date night? Just sit and chat like we used to?’

  His eyes narrowed a little. Something flashed cross his irises. Unease? Weird. Then it was gone. He shrugged. ‘Ah, sounds lovely. But I can’t tomorrow night; at least I’ll be late home. I’ve got to work an extra half shift.’

  ‘Oh? You never said. We were going to choose the door handles. Weren’t we?’

  ‘It’s okay. You said you liked the chrome ones. We’ll just get them.’

  She knew him well enough to know that, despite the olive branch, things were still off kilter. ‘When did you find out about the extra hours?’

  Another shrug. ‘Oh. This afternoon. I thought I’d said.’

  ‘No.’ Strange. He usually knew about overtime in advance. He definitely always mentioned it. It was usually written on the calendar stuck on the fridge. She shook it off. She was just being sensitive. ‘Well, if you show them how flexible you can be, it can only be a good thing.’

  His eyes widened. ‘What?’

  ‘With the shifts. You know. It will put you in their good books.’

  There was an audible breath as he smiled. Not one of his glittery, make-her-weak-at-the-knees smiles. Actually, more a fake one she’d seen him use with the rowdy neighbours when they’d tried to make amends for a particularly late party. ‘Yes. Of course. And we know what that means.’

  She nodded. Repeating their mantra at the same time he did, but not feeling anywhere like as much excitement as usual. ‘One step closer.’

  To their plan. Work hard now and reap the rewards later. One step closer to promotion for him. More money. More chances of choosing his hours. And eventually, a family.

  Only right now there was something weird going on and she wasn’t sure what it was. No secrets? ‘Are you sure you’re okay? We’ve got over our fight?’

  There was a brief frown as he shoved his wallet into his pocket, then picked up three glasses. ‘Sure.’

  ‘But you’re still not yourself.’

  ‘Well, let’s be honest, Charlotte, that makes two of us these days,’ he muttered and started to walk away.

  Across the room she could see Niamh gesticulating for them to hurry back. The quiz master was picking up the microphone. And there was no more time to talk this out.

  Chapter Nine

  The next few days were difficult between them. Ben was tight-lipped about the extra shift but mumbled, when he got home unusually exhausted and a little hotter and sweatier than normal, about having to do it again the next week, looking odd about the whole thing – a sort of embarrassed secrecy or something. Which was strange, because he usually loved any chance to do overtime for the extra cash.

  Even though he’d promised her nothing was wrong… nothing at all… he was distracted and quiet.

  She could hardly say she was any better. The blood test had been easy, but the waiting was killing her. More for Lissa than herself, because the counsellor had said the likelihood of them finding anything unusual or significant in Charlotte’s DNA was remote. Not that she could tell him any of this, she just had to work through it herself. Which meant she was being quieter than normal too.

  Life. So complicated all of a sudden. One little, benign lump had led her down a path away from her friends and family and towards something unknown and uncertain. Something that had her second-guessing everything. But she could make things right again. She could.

  So, it was the measure of just how much she felt things needed fixing that she was standing astride her rusty old bike, strapping her helmet onto her head and plastering a smile on her face. If the man wanted to go on a bike ride on his day off instead of decorating, who was she to disagree?

  They’d parked the car round the corner from Finsbury Park station, where the track started, and wheeled their bikes to an overbridge painted in bold blues, reds and oranges. Ahead of them the path, a disused railway line, was almost flat, and nice and wide, and stretched out for miles.

  ‘Ready?’ Ben snapped his helmet on and hoisted his leg so he, too, was straddling his bike. The tight, bright-green lycra cycling shirt he wore hugged all kinds of rippling muscles, which pulled her eyes to him. When he’d suggested doing this she’d almost baulked, but he’d looked so enthusiastic about doing something together, away from paint fumes and wedding things, she’d just had to say yes. And if it meant they got to spend some time together doing something different, then that had to be a good thing, right? Even if he was still clearly unimpressed with her and she was still bloody angry at him. Which never happened. Which made her feel a zillion times worse about everything.

  He carried on talking, ‘Watch out for pedestrians. The Parkland Walk is very popular with families and they don’t always look where they’re going – especially down by the tunnels where there’s a lot to see on the walls.’

  ‘On the walls? What does that mean?’

  ‘Graffiti’ He shrugged. ‘Also known as urban wall art or something. Apparently it’s good stuff. Strange, really. You can do it here and get rewarded… whereas usually I’m just arresting or cautioning kids for doing it elsewhere. Doesn’t make sense.’

  Not a lot did these days, to be honest – not least, things between them. ‘Okay. Well, if it’s good we should definitely
look.’ Normally she’d agree with him and laugh it off, or disagree and tease, but now there was a veneer of politeness and minding p’s and q’s between them that was stiff and difficult.

  She pressed down on her right pedal and pushed off; all the upset of the last few days was enough to heft a good deal of effort into her movements. She started with a flourish and quickly found her rhythm, but the path was wide enough for them to ride side by side and he clearly had much more strength than she did as he caught her up after two turns of her wheel.

  The route took them behind rows and rows of Victorian terraces, just like theirs, but overlooking gardens a lot neater and more established. Further along, embankments rose at either side of the track where fledgling trees and flowered borders made Charlotte think she was almost – almost – about to cycle into the bliss of countryside. If only the toots and horns of London transport weren’t there to snap her immediately back to being in one of the busiest cities in the world. But here, hidden by nature, she felt almost as if she could breathe better already.

  They pootled along, flanked now and again by tunnels and walls covered in flamboyant, bright, jagged drawings and writing that gave the whole area a vibrant, edgy feel. The sun beat down on their backs and they got into a steady rhythm that was bearable – if hunching forward on a pointy seat while moving your legs up and down fast could ever be described as bearable.

  Presently, Ben slowed to talk. ‘Oh, forgot to say; keep an eye out for the ghost when we get to Crouch End.’

  ‘Chasing ghosts? I didn’t sign up for that. I thought we were just going on a boring old bike ride.’

  ‘Mwahaha! You never know what’s going to happen when I’m around.’ He tipped back his head and laughed. It was the first time she’d heard it in days. It was lovely. Hopeful. Okay, maybe a little forced. Clearly he was trying to shatter the tension too, possibly a little too hard. ‘Expect the unexpected.’