The Collected Short Stories - Jeffrey Archer [271]
After I had showered and dressed, I roamed aimlessly around the house. I wondered how quickly I could persuade Anna to move in, and what changes she would want to make. Heaven knows, I thought as I walked through to the kitchen, clutching her note, the place could do with a woman’s touch.
As I ate breakfast I looked up her number in the telephone directory, instead of reading the morning paper. There it was, just as she had said. Dr. Townsend, listing a surgery number in Parsons Green Lane where she could be contacted between nine and six. There was a second number, but deep black lettering requested that it should only be used in case of emergencies.
Although I considered my state of health to be an emergency, I dialled the first number, and waited impatiently. All I wanted to say was, “Good morning, darling. I got your note, and can we make last night the first of many?”
A matronly voice answered the phone. “Dr. Townsend’s office.”
“Dr. Townsend, please,” I said.
“Which one?” she asked. “There are three Dr. Townsends in the practice—Dr. Jonathan, Dr. Anna and Dr. Elizabeth.”
“Dr. Anna,” I replied.
“Oh, Mrs. Townsend,” she said. “I’m sorry, but she’s not available at the moment. She’s just taken the children off to school, and after that she has to go to the airport to pick up her husband, Dr. Jonathan, who’s returning this morning from a medical conference in Minneapolis. I’m not expecting her back for at least a couple of hours. Would you like to leave a message?”
There was a long silence before the matronly voice asked, “Are you still there?” I placed the receiver back on the hook without replying, and looked sadly down at the handwritten note by the side of the phone.
Dear Michael,
I will remember tonight for the rest of my life.
Thank you.
Anna
BURNT
“Thank you, Michael. I’d like that.”
I smiled, unable to mask my delight.
“Hi, Anna. I thought I might have missed you.”
I turned and stared at a tall man with a mop of fair hair, who seemed unaffected by the steady flow of people trying to pass him on either side.
Anna gave him a smile that I hadn’t seen until that moment.
“Hello, darling,” she said. “This is Michael Whitaker. You’re lucky—he bought your ticket, and if you hadn’t turned up I was just about to accept his kind invitation to dinner. Michael, this is my husband, Jonathan—the one who was held up at the hospital. As you can see, he’s now escaped.”
I couldn’t think of a suitable reply.
Jonathan shook me warmly by the hand. “Thank you for keeping my wife company,” he said. “Won’t you join us for dinner?”
“That’s very kind of you,” I replied, “but I’ve just remembered that I’m meant to be somewhere else right now. I’d better run.”
“That’s a pity,” said Anna. “I was rather looking forward to finding out all about the restaurant business. Perhaps we’ll meet again sometime, whenever my husband next leaves me in the lurch. Goodbye, Michael.”
“Goodbye, Anna.”
I watched them climb into the back of a taxi together, and wished Jonathan would drop dead in front of me. He didn’t, so I began to retrace my steps back to the spot where I had abandoned my car. “You’re a lucky man, Jonathan Townsend,” was the only observation I made. But no one was listening.
The next word that came to my lips was “Damn!” I repeated it several times, as there was a distressingly large space where I was certain I’d left my car.
I walked up and down the street in case I’d forgotten where I’d parked it, cursed again, then marched off in search of a phone box, unsure if my car had been stolen or towed away. There was a pay phone just around the corner in Kingsway. I picked up the receiver and jabbed three nines into it.
“Which service do you require? Fire, Police, or Ambulance?” a voice asked.
“Police,” I said, and was immediately put through to another voice.
“Charing Cross Police Station. What is the nature of your inquiry?”
“I think my car