Sara Foster - Come Back to Me

‘No problem, David,’ Chloe replied, hoping that was it. But David followed her towards her office.

‘Do you know where Mark Jameson is, Chloe?’ There was only one Mark in the office, yet David nearly always referred to him by his full name.

‘No.’ Chloe looked startled. ‘Why?’

David grimaced and she swallowed a frustrated sigh at the ill-conceived insinuation that her relationship with Mark still went beyond office hours. Their involvement had been treated as an infidelity towards the firm. It had never been quite forgiven. Even though they had ended it long ago, and Chloe had since married, David Marchant regularly treated them both to looks of suspicion and distaste.

‘Well, he seems to have disappeared.’

‘Has he?’ Chloe had almost reached her own door as, surprised, she looked over to Mark’s office, which stood empty as if in silent agreement. She wondered, uncomfortably, how often the partners noticed these things.

David Marchant raised an eyebrow and lowered his voice to a discreet hum. ‘Neil played squash with him last night and said he seemed quite out of sorts – apparently, for the past week he’s been letting Neil win far more easily than he usually does.’ Chloe thought she saw the briefest trace of a smile cross David’s lips, before he cleared his throat and added, ‘Chloe, if anything is going on that we should know about, then – this time – tell us, won’t you, and avoid another embarrassing episode.’

He gave Chloe a curt nod, before striding off like a military general – casting glances left and right along the corridor as though checking his troops were all in order.

Chloe watched him go. Then she turned to look back at Mark’s office. She thought over David’s words, grimacing at the ‘embarrassing episode’ comment. She thought he was referring to the Christmas law ball, but that was nearly ten bloody years ago, for god’s sake.

She walked round to her desk, and sat down. It took her a moment to register the note waiting for her, and another moment to read it. Then she gave a strangled cry, jumped up, grabbed her coat and bag and rushed out again, no longer caring whether David saw her go or not.

Mark was frustrated as he got out of the taxi. The barrister’s clerk on the Blythe case had been in his office and only too happy to witter on about next week’s court appearance.

It took him a while to find the passageway, and once he was through it, he looked around, startled. It wasn’t what he had expected. He’d been thinking quaint, but these were grimy tenements arranged around a squalid, overgrown courtyard, with graffiti tags scrawled on the walls of the passage that led to them. He checked the crumpled paper in his hand, trying to ignore his befuddled brain, which was still puzzling over why he’d left work during the middle of the day to come here. There was a scruffy door, red paint flaking badly, with numbers 2 and 3 in brass on the front.

He couldn’t find a doorbell, so he pushed gingerly against the smooth brass plate to one side, and felt the door swing open.

There was a narrow staircase, and a door leading off to the right with number 3 on it. An empty McDonald’s wrapper and a discarded cigarette packet lay next to a shabby footmat. He debated for the thousandth time just what exactly he thought he was doing, then looked up the stairs, took a deep breath, and began to climb.

At the top a doorway was positioned on the uppermost step. Before he could change his mind, Mark knocked.

He heard a flurry of activity behind, which then fell silent. Anger and embarrassment suffused him. He shouldn’t have come. Nevertheless, he rapped smartly again, and waited.

‘Who is it?’ an unsteady voice called.

‘Mark,’ he shouted back.

‘Mark?’ There was more movement from inside. A bolt drawn back. A key turned. Then she was there, in front of him, like everything and nothing he’d imagined. Her hair was loose and tucked casually behind her ears, and she had a long black coat on, as though she were about to go out. ‘What are you doing here?’ she said. She looked worried.

He paused. The truth was, he didn’t know.

If he had been told this story by a third party and asked for his reaction, he would have said run! Get away from her, she sounds like big trouble. But in actual fact it wasn’t having that effect on him at all. There was something about these bleak surroundings and her lovely pale face that was bringing out the chevalier in him, making him stand up straighter, self-conscious of every movement, wanting to find the right juxtaposition of limbs and expression that would reach out to her.

The only thing that threatened this feeling was that Julia didn’t seem too keen on fulfilling the required role of distressed but willing damsel. She was fidgeting with the key in the lock behind the door now, and she hadn’t invited him in.

He looked straight at her and said, ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay, after… last week.’

She sighed. Her face relaxed slightly as she said, ‘That is very kind of you. I’m afraid I owe you a big apology.’

Mark waved his hand automatically. ‘No, don’t worry. It’s just… well, it was obviously…’ Why was he finding it so hard to pick the right words when in his job he was put on the spot all the time, and could always come up with a snappy retort? ‘… You obviously had a shock – seeing Alex like that.’

She looked distinctly uncomfortable now. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was a surprise.’

She wouldn’t be drawn out so easily, he realised. Undeterred, he pressed on, guessing his way. ‘An amazing coincidence, wasn’t it, you two meeting again like that.’

Julia lifted her head and looked at him intently. Mark held her gaze, searching her eyes, her face, for small cracks he might plunder for information. She looked nervous and weary and confused, but there was still enough composure about her to make him feel that to ask her anything outright would be judged as impertinent, and he didn’t want to watch her lovely face close against him.

Then she surprised him by seizing an initiative of her own. ‘There’s a coffee shop around the corner,’ she announced. ‘Do you want one?’

‘Great,’ Mark replied, taken aback.

‘Okay then.’ Without looking at him she removed her keys from the interior lock. ‘Let’s go.’

It had begun to rain heavily in the few minutes since Mark had arrived, so they ran, Julia with her hands in her pockets, pulling her coat close to her; Mark following, having nothing to shield himself with, praying that this place was close.

A few doors down from the alleyway, Julia yanked open a door in undignified haste. Mark rushed in behind her and collided with her when she came to a sudden stop by the cashier’s desk as she scanned the interior for a table.

‘Sorry,’ he said, as he automatically put a hand on her shoulder to steady himself. He felt her quickly pull away, but when she turned to look at him he was surprised to see she was laughing. Her face was alive with merriment for just a few precious seconds, before her expression faded into sombre composure once more.

‘It’s stupid,’ she said, with a small smile. ‘Getting caught in the rain always makes me feel so alive.’

Then she turned and made her way to an empty table at one side of the room; and Mark, entranced, followed.

They sat opposite one another, Julia watching the window behind Mark, where runnels of rain cascaded down the glass. She knew he was smiling at her, but a small tic in his cheek beat crazily, undermining his forced expression.

She had been at Alex’s door only an hour or so ago. She had been so close to him… but it had been too much, that street full of beautiful redbrick two-storey Georgian-style houses with parapets and sash windows, like something out of a BBC drama. She had thought that if she moved quickly enough she would go through with knocking on the door, but her brain caught up with her as she stood there with her hand raised, and her mind had been flooded with all the parasitical doubts and fears that had hitchhiked everywhere with her for ten long years.