Then I remember.
‘There’s no time to explain!’ I exclaim, suddenly shoving Ryan back in the direction of the front door, so hard that he actually stumbles a little. ‘There’s a guy here — he’s in the bathroom — and he can’t see you. He just can’t.’
Ryan digs his heels in, stands straighter, looks around, suddenly spoiling for a fight. ‘Who is he? What does he want?’
I shove him again with every muscle in my body, but now it’s like pushing an unyielding stone.
‘You don’t understand,’ I say urgently, tugging on the duffel bag in Ryan’s hand. ‘I promised I’d go out with him tonight if he helped me find you. I would’ve promised him the world, don’t you get it? He can’t see you. You’ve got to go. Now. Just wait on the other side of the road. Outside the tapas bar.’ I point through the window, through the plane trees in the middle of the road, to a sign with the outline of a black bull on it.
Ryan’s face is mutinous and he tightens his grip on me. ‘I’ll clear it up with him. He’ll understand. He’ll have to. How could he hold you to that if he sees us together?’
‘No time,’ I hiss. ‘No way to let him down gently. It’s too complicated to go into now. Just wait for me and I’ll come to you. I won’t be long. Wait for me?’
Ryan’s face clears and he bends and takes my face gently in both his hands.
And I know what he’s trying to do, what’s in his heart, and I freeze, fear and desire at war within me.
He sees the look in my eyes and smiles.
‘Only if you want to,’ he breathes, his eyes hynoptic as he inches closer. It’s something so longed for that I slide my arms around him again, amazed at myself, at my temerity, almost succumbing to the moment before pushing him away.
‘Not now,’ I mumble. ‘I need time to to work us out, and that’s the one thing we don’t have right now. You’ve got to go.’
He sighs. ‘I can afford to be generous, I suppose.’ But I can feel his reluctance to let me go even as he’s pulling away, out of reach.
‘Wait for me,’ I say again. And it’s not a question.
He smiles, a smile that crinkles up his eyes and makes him seem lit up from within. ‘Until the end of time,’ he says quietly, and leaves with another flurry of the plastic curtain, waving once at me through the front window before crossing the road.
When I turn around, Ranald’s standing silently beside the service area. I don’t know how long he’s been there.
I rush back over to his laptop on the table and log out clumsily, saying, ‘Thanks. All yours again.’
He glares at me and I look away, almost bumping into him in my haste to put some distance between us. There’s guilt mixed in with all this, too. I can’t bring myself to tell the guy that dinner tonight is out of the question; that it’s out of the question forever, because he and Lela will never have a future. Lela’s riding into the sunset with someone Ranald can never measure up to. Not in a million lifetimes. And he’s standing right across the road at this moment, probably hailing us a taxi cab.
Ranald’s eyes blaze into mine for an instant, as if he can pick up my thoughts. But then he sits back down and flicks impatiently between a couple of open windows on his laptop, as if he’s waiting for something to come through.
I feel like I’ve been dismissed, but also ridiculously relieved. He didn’t see. He can’t have, the way he’s staring so intently at his screen.
The postman bustles in and leaves a sheaf of mail with me for Mr Dymovsky. Unable to stop myself, I peer out through the front windows at Ryan’s waiting figure, before taking the post to Mr Dymovsky’s office. He looks up gratefully, but his thoughts are elsewhere and his thanks are distant.
‘The cafe’s still quiet,’ I say at the door, ‘and my friend’s arrived. I was thinking I might leave now . . .’
Mr Dymovsky nods and says in his usual way, ‘What you like, Lela, what you like,’ before returning his gaze to the correspondence in front of him.
I’m heading for the cupboard with my rucksack in it when Franklin Murray steps through the door, meeting my eyes sheepishly. He sits with his back to everyone, near the front of the cafe, and pulls the day’s newspapers towards him with a heavy air.
‘Ah, the prodigal bankrupt,’ Ranald says loudly, with satisfaction, and for a moment his fingers are still on the keyboard of his machine.
Reggie takes one look at Franklin’s back and flounces out of the shop with her lighter and cigarettes, eyes hard, head held high. I know she’s still holding a grudge against him and won’t be back until he leaves.
It’s also been bothering Mr Dymovsky that Franklin has kept coming in here since he took a pot shot at one of the ceiling panels, but the boss is still in his office, and lost souls need to eat. There’ll be no one to make Franklin’s sandwich and serve him coffee if I go right now. So I change direction away from my things and head back to the breadboard to set about organising Franklin his usual meal while he commences reading every word of the newspaper forensically, as if the answers to his misfortunes are somehow encoded there.
Just as x2019;m placing Franklin’s coffee down on the table, Justine bats her way through the greasy plastic curtain into the cool of the shop. She closes the front door firmly behind her, pushes her loose fall of heavy hair off her broad shoulders and looks around.
‘What are you doing here?’ I say, wide-eyed. ‘Is everything all right? Is she . . .?’
‘No!’ Justine responds hastily. ‘She’s just the same as when you left. Sorry if I scared you, coming in like this.’
She walks over to me, oblivious to the way Franklin stares, sandwich paused halfway to his fiftytwo-year-old mouth, the way Ranald’s eyes follow her around the room greedily. She’s modestly dressed in a denim, knee- length skirt, gladiator sandals and the same oversized purple tee from this morning that just skims her curves. Not a scrap of make-up to hide the bruises on her face. But she looks in control today, bold, tough as nuts.
‘The nurse said it’d be all right if I ducked out for a couple of hours just to sort out my pay situation and maybe speak to Mr Dymovsky,’ she tells me. ‘See if there’s really a job going. It’ll mean taking a huge pay cut, but it’ll give me a chance to get my shit together. The hours are better, too. And there’s plenty of muscle on the premises to keep Bruce off my case . . .’
She glances into the kitchen at Sulaiman’s back, and I smile despite the tension I’m feeling.
‘Mr Dymovsky’s in his office,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll show you the way.’
And then, I promise myself fiercely, I’m getting the hell out of here.
Behind us, I hear Ranald say imperiously, ‘Where’s my coffee, Cecilia? What’s the hold-up?’
There’s something a little bit off about Ranald today.
But I don’t really care, because Ryan’s waiting for me, and I will shortly shrug off all the petty irritations of this life as a snake would shed its skin.
Chapter 19
I leave Justine and Mr Dymovsky chatting away together like old friends and return to the front counter. It’s 11.27. Wherever I am in the cafe, whatever I’m doing, my eyes keep returning to the window.
Sulaiman turns up the volume on the Arabic station he always has playing on the radio in the kitchen. Begins to hum along to some incredibly complex tune that keeps rising and falling. It’s beautiful. Otherworldly. Like a muezzin’s cry; a call to prayer set to music.
He looks at me through the narrow open window between us. ‘It’s too late to leave now.’ His tone is almost conversational; there’s no longer any heat in his words.
I have no idea what he means and I snap, ‘But I am leaving now,’ unable to comprehend the man’s sudden interest in Lela’s comings and goings. ‘And no one — not you, not anyone — is going to stop me.’
Sulaiman shrugs, as if he’s lost interest in the conversation. ‘Tell that to him,’ he says, pointing over my shoulder.
I turn to see Ranald get up from his table and head to the front window, look out into the street. First to the left, then to the right, as if he’s about to cross a busy road or embark on a perilous journey. I wonder what he’s
