Kate Lawson - Keeping Mum

Cass couldn’t take her eyes off them. The pair of them drew her like a magnet. Their body language was a peculiar mixture of familiarity and reticence—maybe they were afraid of being seen, maybe Andy was afraid of looking silly with someone so young, maybe the girl wasn’t sure of him or quite what to do. Whatever it was, it was obvious to even the most casual observer that they were together. Cass kept on staring. There was an instant when the girl tried to slip her arm through his. Andy artfully avoided it. Cass was mesmerised.

‘S’cuse me, can I help you?’ said a voice from somewhere behind her.

It took Cass a few seconds to realise the question was being directed at her, and even longer for her to get her thoughts back on track. ‘Oh I’m so sorry. I’d like some—some…’ Her mouth worked up and down. The word was somewhere there in the back of her head; it was just a case of finding it.

The woman smiled her encouragement.

‘I’d like some fish,’ said Cass, trying to buy herself some time.

The woman nodded. ‘Righty-oh. Well, you’ve come to the right place, love. What do you fancy? We’ve got some smashing cod or then there’s Nile perch, nice bit of tuna, or red snapper if you fancy something a little bit more exotic…’ She managed to make it sound like a night in a lap-dancing club, but Cass couldn’t quite tear her mind away from Andy and the girl, which must have shown on her face.

‘Would you like me to give you a bit more time?’ the woman said. ‘Maybe you’d just like to take a little look and I’ll come back to you?’

‘No, it’s fine,’ said Cass. ‘I’d like…’ What the hell was it she wanted? Cass’s brain rolled over and played dead. She looked up in desperation. Behind her the queue was getting restless.

‘It begins with H…’ she said miserably. ‘And it goes early, which is why I’m here. I was sent by my mother’s husband, my stepfather, although he’s a lot younger so I don’t call him that…’ Cass cringed: her brain might be dead but her mouth was alive and kicking and just kept on going.

‘And he sent you to buy a fish that begins with H?’ The woman said helpfully, as if playing I-Spy was something she did on a regular basis.

Cass nodded.

‘Haddock?’ suggested the woman. She managed to make it sound like an insult.

Cass shook her head. ‘No, I’m sure it wasn’t haddock.’

‘You sure? Only it’s not dyed, and we do sell a lot of it—and we’ve got some lovely thick fillets. That’s very popular. Smoked. That always goes real quick on a Saturday.’

‘Or there’s hake? Or what about herring?’ suggested the other woman who was working behind the counter, as she plopped a couple of nice plaice fillets onto the scale. ‘Have you got any idea what he was going to do with it?’

Someone in the queue behind Cass made a fairly graphic suggestion. Cass began to sweat, Buster began to whimper. Just exactly how many fish were there that began with H?

‘Huss?’

Cass shook her head again.

‘How about halibut?’

‘Halibut,’ Cass said, with a genuine sense of relief. ‘That’s it. I’d like some halibut. Please.’

‘Righty-oh, we’ve got a bit left; it always goes early, you know.’

Cass nodded. ‘So I’ve been told. Have you got four nice pieces, please?’

‘Certainly have,’ said the woman, holding out a snow-white piece of fish towards her. ‘Four like that?’

Cass nodded. ‘That will be great. And a pint of prawns please,’ she said, although try as she might to concentrate on the fish, Cass’s mind kept being pulled back towards Andy and the young woman. She couldn’t see them now, but she guessed where they would be heading. They would be in Sam’s Place.

Above the market square, the town clock was just chiming the hour. It was eight o’clock. Wasn’t that what the note Fiona found had said, ‘Saturday eight o’clock?’ The only difference was that Fiona had assumed it was eight o’clock in the evening, not eight o’clock on a cold wet windy early autumn morning.

Walking home, Cass mulled over what she should do. Should she ring Fiona and tell her? Fiona had asked for her help. Or was it one of those things best left alone? Cass hunched against the wind, Buster tucking in behind, slipstreaming out of the weather.

Fiona didn’t take bad news well. Cass could remember the time when she’d seen Peter Bailey—the boy whose children Fiona planned to bear when they were both about fifteen—in town with Alison Wickham. They had been holding hands. When Cass had told her, Fiona had accused Cass of lying and then of being jealous and, finally, when the two of them had caught Mr Bailey and Ms Wickham in a sweaty clinch behind the groundsman’s hut after double games, of gloating—immediately before she sent Cass to Coventry.

The bottom line was that what went on between Fiona and Andy was none of her business. Even though they were friends , asked her conscience? Especially because they were friends, countered Cass. And even if Cass had known about the girl before Fiona came round, her advice would have been that Fiona and Andy needed to talk about what was going on between themselves first, before they involved anyone else, particularly if that anyone else was likely to get mashed in the middle.

Cass sighed. The halibut weighed heavy as an albatross, the drizzle finally broke loose into a full-scale downpour, and even Buster was keen to beat a retreat as they hurried home.

As she slid the key into the shop doorway, Cass decided that the best course of action really was to say nothing. Maybe seeing Andy and the girl together was just a coincidence, or completely innocent. Maybe Fiona coming round had planted a seed in her imagination; maybe she had imagined the little buzz between Andy and the girl. Maybe Fiona and Andy had already sorted it out, talked it through, made everything right. Maybe today was the day that Andy was going to tell the little blonde that it was over for good. If she said anything, Cass might put her foot right in it and break something that wasn’t broken or cracked, something that was nine parts mended.

Who was she kidding? Cass sighed, wondering who’d died and made her Claire Rayner.

Meanwhile in an alcove in the back of Sam’s Place, at one of the smallest tables, furthest away from the large plate-glass windows, Andy watched as Amelia’s fingers knitted tightly around a tall thin mug of hot chocolate. She was hunched over it, apparently frozen, blowing away the steam as well as warming her hands, occasionally glancing up at him from under those long, perfectly mascara-ed lashes. She was wearing pink fingerless gloves.

The bar at Sam’s Place had an old colonial feel to it, with an overhead fan, lots of dark wood, ochre-coloured rag-rolled plaster and rattan furniture arranged around a central bar, and at this time of the morning it was practically empty. The guys from the market were over in the Nag’s Head if they wanted a beer and at Bennie’s on the corner or one of the stalls if they wanted coffee, tea or bacon butties. Behind the servery, a couple of staff were busy fiddling with the coffee machine; other than Andy and Amelia, their only other customer was an elderly man reading his newspaper and drinking coffee. He hadn’t looked up since the two of them had walked in.

‘You look rough,’ Amelia said, blowing over the top of the mug.

Andy, who hadn’t been sure exactly which way this conversation was going to go, smiled. ‘Well, thanks for that. I’d like to return the compliment but you look great.’

She had the good grace to blush. Last time they’d met Amelia had cried and shouted and stormed off, because he couldn’t think of anything to say that could help her with the pain, so he’d said nothing and been left standing in the middle of the beach at Holkham on his own, with people staring at him.