‘Does it matter? You won’t be here anyway.’
‘True, true. Go and fetch us another beer, would you, Mats?’
‘You’ll be drinking at the pub, Frankie.’
‘Oh not another of your little preachy sermons. Don’t think I can stand it. Any wonder I want to clear out of this place whenever you’re around? A right little Miss Prim and Proper you’ve become ever since you started filling your head with ideas about high-flying jobs in marketing. You should ’ave just stuck it out as secretary in that poxy little company you were at before.’
Pushed to the limit, Mattie snapped shut the book she had been studying and fixed him with a cold stare.
‘But I couldn’t, could I, Frankie? And we both know why!’
He staggered to his feet, raked his fingers through his hair and headed towards the kitchen with a thunderous scowl on his face. But this time she wasn’t going to let him get away with his jibe.
Three nights ago it had felt damned good to yell at someone and she was going to do that now. This time at the right person instead of at a perfect stranger who had happened to rub her up the wrong way. A perfect stranger who had, unsurprisingly, not reappeared at her exciting little workplace, even though she had caught herself watching out for him, and then berating herself for letting him get under her skin when she had figured him out for what he was.
‘Well?’ Mattie went to the kitchen door and leaned against the frame, her eyes stormy, watching as Frankie helped himself to another lager, which he proceeded to drink straight from the can.
‘I can’t be bothered to argue this one with you, Mats. Why don’t you just head back to those books of yours and carry on pretending you can get somewhere in life?’
‘No! I want to have this one out, Frankie. I’m sick to death of all your slurs and insults. I couldn’t stick it out in that job because the money wasn’t enough to keep us both!’ She had tiptoed round this long enough.
‘I suppose you blame me for the accident!’
‘I don’t blame you for anything! But that was nearly two years ago! So isn’t it about time you just woke up to the fact that you will never become a professional footballer? It’s over, Frankie! You need to get your head around that and—’
‘Know what, Mats? I don’t need to stand here and listen to all of this! I’m off.’
She felt tears of frustration prick the backs of her eyes, but she stayed where she was, blocking the doorway.
‘You need to get a job, Frankie.’
He slammed the half-empty beer can on the kitchen table and lager shot out of the top over the table-top.
‘An office job, Mats? Think I should get myself decked out in a cheap suit and see if anyone wants me?’
‘It doesn’t have to be an office job.’
‘Well, then, maybe a job like yours, then, eh?’
‘That job happens to pay five times what I was getting as a secretary and a hundred times more than I was getting working at that restaurant.’
‘So you could take time off and study those books of yours. As if you’ll ever be able to do anything in any company.’
‘Well, it didn’t last long, did it? I had to jack that in so that I could get something better paid to pay the bills you have no intention of paying because you won’t get a job!’
‘Know what? If you feel that way, why don’t you just clear off, Mats?’ His blue eyes met hers and he looked away.
‘Maybe I will,’ she said, turning away, only half hearing him as he apologised. Again. Told her he needed her. Again. Slammed his way out of the house. Again.
They both knew that the end of their relationship had already arrived, had arrived quite some time ago, as it happened. But Mattie knew how hard it was to say goodbye to history, to memories of them both as teenagers, when they had had high hopes of going places. Just as she knew that the only glue keeping them together, as far as she was concerned anyway, was pity.
His star had been so promising, and then when the accident happened she had just felt so damned sorry for him, too sorry to take the final step and walk away even though she could see how he had changed, how they both had.
He was enraged and bitter at what fate had done to him but even those spells of anguish, of opening up to her, communicating, had dwindled away. She realised that they hadn’t really communicated in months.
Not, she thought as she tidied away her books and began getting dressed to leave the house, since he had broken down and sobbed like a baby on her shoulder over eight months ago. When yet again she had allowed herself to feel sorry for him, to struggle on with him, knowing that he needed her.
She had, after all, known him for such a long time.
In a way, the nightclub was just the right job for her, quite aside from the fantastic earnings.
There was no time to think about her own problems when she was busy scuttling around the tables, catching up with the other girls now and again so that they could share a giggle about their customers.
But their argument tonight had been different. Had had an edge to it that they had both felt.
Two hours later her mind was still harking back to it, when she looked up and there he was, the man, the stranger, sitting on his own at the back of the room, and her heart gave a sudden, illogical leap of pleasure which disappeared as fast as it had come.
How long had he been sitting there?
And now that she had spotted him, she became acutely conscious of her every movement until finally she had no choice but to walk towards him, even though he wasn’t seated in her patch.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I told you I would return,’ he asked with the same slightly amused, lazy drawl that sent a shiver up her spine. ‘Missed me?’
‘Of course I haven’t missed you, and I also thought I’d made my position clear. I’m not for sale along with the drinks and the food.’ And, since there was no more to be said on the subject, she knew that she should just spin round on her heel and walk away, leaving him ample time to get the message once and for all. But she didn’t. She hesitated.
‘Why don’t we leave here and go somewhere a little more civilised for some coffee? I know a particularly good coffee bar that’s open all hours.’
‘A coffee bar that’s open all hours? Oh, please! And where would that be? On another planet?’
‘Actually, in a hotel that caters for men like me. Not, I might add, the lying pervert you categorised me as but a workaholic who keeps highly irregular hours.’ He raised one eyebrow, leaned back into his chair and proceeded to watch her very intently.
‘I don’t think so. Thanks all the same.’
‘You look exhausted.’
