Theweekend hadn’t just been about sorting out the internal décor ofher new place. Saturday night had been her first proper date sincehoming in on Mark shortly after his release from HMP Ford, gettingon for two years ago. Simon had picked her up and driven them up tothe Hammersmith Odeon; AC/DC had been doing theirFor Those About to Rocktour for almost a year and this was the last oftheir four nights there. Gemma was hardly a fan of heavy metal buta free gig and backstage passes sounded good. Last time she’d seenSimon, at Annabel’s, he’d looked the stereotypical young Citytrader, or yuppie to give them their recently acquired acronym, aslick, narrow-lapelled Armani suit and matching tie. It was strangeto see his alter ego, but also oddly comforting. His black T-shirtadorned with some weird kind of mythical creature, tight blue jeansand black baseball boots hardly matched the Porsche Carrera but theincongruity worked for her. The main thing was that she’d had agreat night. The band put on an undeniably brilliant show – theymight have been Australian and very loud but they were bloody good.After that they’d had a few drinks, either with members of the bandor part of the massive road team that accompanied them – Gemma hadnever been good with faces – and she and Simon had got onbrilliantly too.
They’d held onto each other for most of the night and she’d enjoyed kissing himfor the first time. Of course, he’d wanted to take her back to hisflat in Camden and no doubt try to impress her enough to sleep withhim, but she’d decided to leave that till she’d moved up to Londonherself. It wasn’t that she was prudish, and she knew she’d enjoyit with him, but there was still a kind of loyalty to Mark and sheknew it would somehow feel better once they’d actually moved apart.It was also, though, the sense the she was in control that feltgood. Anyway, she had made sure Simon knew she fancied him and thathe wouldn’t have to wait too long. It was nice that he’d been quitegentlemanly about it all. In the end she’d let him drive her backto the flat in Holland Park; he hadn’t had as much to drink as herand they’d taken enough coke to keep awake so she didn’t feeloverly guilty. Rebecca and Victoria were asleep, so she made him acoffee and gave him a ‘next time I promise’ kiss. She liked thefact that he had tried to persuade her to let him stay. To be fairby then she had been pretty tempted herself; in fact she would havebeen rather pissed off if he hadn’t at least tried, but was pleasedshe’d stuck to her plan. She had always been good at that. Thinkingback, Gemma felt a definite glow of satisfaction. It seemed afuture was unfolding itself almost unilaterally; and it felt quitegood.
***
Gemma knew that shehad to try and keep her excitement at moving away from looking tooobvious. She had spent the afternoon in the cottage sorting outwhat she was going to take to London and what was going to be leftthere. Mark had gone off on some kind of mission and she’d promisedto make them something to eat later. Now that things were fallinginto place for her Gemma just wanted it to be as painless aspossible with Mark.
She’d startedfrying the onions and mince and decided on spaghetti Bolognese;shepherd’s pie had crossed her mind but the inevitable associationwith poisoning and murders probably meant they would never be ableto face that dish again.
It was a little beforesix when Mark’s Escort pulled up at the side of the house,accompanied by the usual scrunching of tyres and yanking of thehand brake. She saw him grab some sort of folder from the backseat; he had an oddly determined, slightly manic, look about him.He came in, opened a can of lager from the fridge and called Gemmaover in an oddly presumptive manner.
‘Look Gemma,I know you’re going to move out and I know I’ve got to move on; andI do know you’ve been fair enough with the house and things but Idon’t want it to just end with you moving out, I’d like us to dosomething together first. And that’s what I’ve been trying to sortout today.’
Gemma checked themeat, added a sprinkle of mixed herbs, put a pan of water on thehob for the pasta and came over.
‘Well, whatdo you mean?’
‘I’d like to go awayfor a few days before you leave, just us two, as a proper goodbye.Anyway, I’ve been into a couple of travel agents, in Farnhamactually, and there’s a cruise around the East Mediterraneanleaving Southampton next week. It’s only for a week and the latedeal is really good. It calls in at Malta or Naples I think andthen Dubrovnik in Yugoslavia. What do you reckon?’
It hadn’t been whatshe expected and Gemma was thrown a little off guard.
‘I don’t know, I’vegot lots to do here and don’t you think it might just make thingsmore difficult between us?’
Apparentlynot; Mark was clearly full of it.
‘Well, I’veread up on it and it’ll be great and we can easily afford it. Look,why not at least celebrate what we’ve done before we finally splitup? It will be fun, I promise, and I’ve not gone anywhere sinceI’ve been out of prison.’
Even though Gemmawasn’t convinced that he had really come
