Lucy Alex

Chapter 7

Bad Dates and Tall Stories

Friday evening was a surreal experience that will remain in my memory forever. I had hardly seen Chrissy since the Saturday night excitement, she got up after I went to work, she went back to her room before I got in and if I walked into a room she walked out. Hardly an auspicious start to an evening out.

On Friday evening the cab arrived at the house at seven thirty and we met in the hall by the front door. Chrissy had made a bit of an effort, putting on an understated dark blue dress with matching shoes and bag, but she looked a little haggard, she had lost weight and looked older than her years. She walked toward me with a tight smile then walked out to the taxi without saying a word.

There was almost no conversation in the taxi, and when she did speak she gave monosyllabic answers, I could not draw her into conversation about anything and I was regretting ever agreeing to this charade, Chrissy needed psychiatric help, not a French meal with her Mum's boyfriend.

We got to the restaurant five minutes early and we waited in silence to be shown to our table. The Maitre D' asked for the name of the reservation which we duly gave, and he looked in the diary "Ah yes" he said "table for two, non smoking."

Chrissy replied "No, smoking please."

The Maitre D' consulted his diary and said "Madame is fortunate, we have a cancellation." He showed us to our reallocated table.

We sat, and the Maitre D' asked what we wanted to drink. Chrissy requested a double vodka and tonic and I ordered a white wine. As soon as the Maitre D' had gone she took cigarettes and an expensive looking lighter from her bag and proceeded to light a cigarette and puff nervously at it. She did not look at me once, it was as if I was not there. She picked up the menu the Maitre D' had left and began flicking through it.

I tried to start a conversation again but with the same results as before so I mentally took a deep breath and decided to try a different tack.

I said "I got a 'phone call last week from a friend, Dave, who has had a really tough time in the past year." Chrissy glanced up at me then returned to looking at the menu. "He was involved in a freak accident whilst going to work. He's a plumber and he was working in the centre of London; he had parked his Transit van outside a newsagent to pick up a paper and while he was in the shop some idiot had bent his van's radio aerial so that it was sticking out to the side and unfortunately Dave didn't notice. As he drove along the aerial caught a woman pedestrian across the neck and injured her really badly, the paramedics had to resuscitate her on the side of the road and she was admitted to hospital in a coma."

Chrissy still did not look at me and she made no comment, but she had stopped studying the menu and was listening, I covered a grin and continued.

"Well I don't know if you know, but under British law if someone dies within a year of an accident then the person causing the accident can be tried for manslaughter, if they live for more than a year then it becomes death by misadventure. I didn't know that until Dave told me last week. The injured woman never recovered from the coma and died last Monday, three hundred and sixty days after the accident. Dave had to attend the inquest on Friday."

I stopped and studied the menu, turning the pages as if trying to decide what to order. I said "The rack of lamb sounds really nice."

I could feel Chrissy's eyes looking at me, willing me to continue. I ignored her. Finally she said "What happened?"

"Sorry? Where?" I looked around as if to see if I had missed something in the restaurant.

"Your friend...did he go to prison?"

"What? Oh...no." I looked back down at the menu as if the story was not really that interesting. "He was really lucky, the coroner put her death down to natural causes...but he did say it was the worst case of van aerial disease he had ever seen."

I waited a moment then looked up at Chrissy.

She was trying very hard not to laugh and she was losing, her eyes shone with moistness and I felt myself joining with her laughter. Suddenly the tears welled from her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, her face crumpled and she let out a huge sob. She grabbed a serviette and put it to her face then stood up and fled from the table to the restaurant door.

I quietly said "Shit – didn't expect that." I took my wallet from my pocket, removed twenty pounds for the drinks and turned to leave, stopped and added another ten for the serviette and inconvenience and took off after Chrissy.

I got out of the door and the street was fairly busy with the usual Friday night revelry and I could not see Chrissy. I called Lorraine, but it went to answer machine. I said "If you're there, pick up, I really need to talk to you."

The phone clicked and Lorraine's concerned voice said "What's happened? Is Chrissy OK?"

I replied tentatively "Er...no, not really, she ran out of the restaurant on me and I can't find her anywhere in the street. I'll check the taxi rank and the bars, but I think she is heading for home. If she turns up there let me know and I'll make my way back."

"What happened, did you say something to her to upset her?" She was starting to sound angry now, which I did not need on top of everything else.

"I told her a joke...it's a long story; the main thing is to find her, if she turns up let me know. In the meantime please don't jump to too many conclusions."

"Sorry, I just feel a bit protective toward her at the moment. Call me if you find her, and I'll call you if she comes back here. Sorry to doubt you, I should know you by now."

I started trawling the bars and the taxi rank with no success. Twenty minutes later my phone text message alert went off, it was a message from Lorraine, Chrissy was at home, she was fine. I went to the cab at the front of the line and headed back with a feeling of relief and trepidation.

When I got back to the house Lorraine and Chrissy were not around, I approached the bedroom and could hear voices so I headed for the kitchen to make myself a sandwich and a cup of tea. I was sitting at the breakfast bar when Lorraine came in and walked over to me and gave me a hug and kissed me tenderly on the lips. Her eyes were moist and it was plain that she had been crying.

She said quietly "Chrissy's in our bed, we have been talking, like we used to talk before." She sighed and put her head on my shoulder. "Chrissy is really sorry about what happened tonight, she has been bottling up all her emotions, not letting anybody into her life. That way she couldn't get hurt. When you made her laugh tonight, it opened the emotional floodgates and she couldn't stop, she needed to let it all out and she needed her Mum, which makes me so much happier. Thank you."

I kissed her head and said "That's fine, as long as she's OK now, perhaps she can start the healing process and get on with her life." I held Lorraine tight and continued "If Chrissy wants to sleep in our bed tonight I will use one of the spare rooms that are made up."

She smiled and said "Thank you for being so understanding." She kissed me again and went back to her daughter.

Next morning I went for a long run and met up with some runners from the local running club, of which I had been a member a couple of years previously. I recognised a few faces and joined them at their steady pace for a couple of miles before rejoining my own route on a bridle path as we passed the gate entrance to it. I find road running boring, which is why I let my club membership expire.

I got back to the house at about nine thirty and Lorraine and Chrissy were not up, I put the coffee percolator on and went for a shower in one of the guest suites.

When I went back to the kitchen for breakfast with a towel round my waist both Lorraine and Chrissy were there in their dressing gowns drinking coffee, they were both laughing. Lorraine and I hugged and kissed our good mornings while Chrissy poured me a coffee and made toast. Lorraine said "Thank you for what you did last night Darling."

Chrissy handed me my coffee and kissed me on the cheek then she looked into my eyes and said "Yes, sorry and thank you"

Chrissy went off to get dressed, leaving Lorraine and me together in the kitchen. I put my coffee down, pulled Lorraine gently to me and kissed her. When our lips parted I asked "How is she doing? She looks a lot happier; it's as if she has lost a couple of years over night."

"She is much happier" she said. "Last night we talked and talked, the sun was coming up when we finally settled down for sleep. We started out talking about sad things, about Dean and the abuse he put her through, and we spoke about Mike and the affairs and the way he treated me but we ended up talking about happy times and good times with the rest of the family. Your name came up quite a bit, your ears should have been burning."

I smiled "All bad I hope."

"Oh yes very, very bad! Because when you're good you're very good, but when you're bad you're better!"

We drank our coffees whilst making plans for the rest of the weekend and we decided that we would go out for lunch and so some shopping and possibly go to the cinema that evening, depending what was on.

I went to get dressed as Lorraine tidied the kitchen. When I came back out, Chrissy was walking past the bedroom door, she was wearing jeans and a simple white blouse and had wet hair, she flashed me a big smile as she went past and she went down the stairs in front of me with a spring in her step that had definitely not been there in the preceding couple of weeks.

Lorraine asked "You look nice. What are you doing for the rest of the day?"

Chrissy replied "I haven't made any plans, I was going to call a couple of friends, let them know that I am still alive and see if they want to meet up. What are you two doing?"

"Lunch out, shopping, cinema, possibly dinner out. Want to come?"

She thought for a moment then said "Yes please, I think I will. I'm hungry, I need some knew clothes and underwear and I haven't been to the cinema for ages. What are you going to see?"

I said "We don't even know what's on, we'll find out when we get there."