White Nights - Ann Cleeves [94]
He collected them from Ravenswick. Cassie was wearing a new pink cardigan and Fran had put on make-up and the earrings he’d given her for her birthday. I should have made more of an effort, he thought. It seemed as if he’d been wearing the same clothes for days. The show took place in the saloon below deck, so the audience were crammed into seats very close together. As Lucy Wells had said, it was packed. Mostly families, mostly visitors. It still smelled of a boat, wood with a hint of tar. And they could feel the movement of the water under them.
The show was an environmental piece aimed mostly at the children. There were songs about the rainforest and melting ice floes, but enough of a pacy story to keep Cassie enthralled. Lucy played a green fairy, dressed mostly in emerald Lycra with a couple of wispy wings. Perez found his eyes drawn towards her, became lost for a moment in a sexy fantasy, thought of the possibilities that would be closed to him if he was committed to Fran.
After the show the actors jumped down from the low stage and mixed with the audience, following up some of the issues raised in the piece. Lucy came up to Perez.
‘You made it,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you would.’ She seemed extraordinarily pleased to see him. Perhaps that’s what actors do, he thought, disconcerted. They exaggerate without meaning to. She was playing with some green glass beads she wore round her neck and he saw that her hands were plump and soft.
‘Did you enjoy it?’
‘Very much.’ He paused and saw that a compliment was in order. ‘You were very good.’
‘It’s not a role that requires much characterization,’ she said, smiling. ‘Fun, though.’
He was flattered by her attention. There were all these people to speak with and she’d chosen him. Beyond her, he could see Cassie and Fran chatting to friends.
‘When do you leave?’ he asked.
‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ Something in her reply made him think that if he suggested they might spend the evening together she would agree. That she’d be delighted. He was horrified that the thought had even crossed his mind.
‘Good luck,’ he said to Lucy. ‘I hope everything goes well for you. When you’re famous, I’ll be able to tell folk I met you.’
He moved away from her and put his arm around Fran’s shoulder, asked her in a whisper if she was ready to leave. Later, he wondered if it was a good thing he’d done, walking away from a lonely young woman who wanted his company, or if he was just a coward.
That night he stayed at Fran’s place again. While she prepared supper he sat on Cassie’s bed and read her a story. She was asleep by the time it was finished and he stayed for a moment, thinking how it must be for her, having a new man in her mother’s life. And how it would work for him, sharing her with Duncan Hunter, her father, a man he didn’t much care for, though once they had been best friends.
Back in the kitchen Fran was draining rice. Her face was flushed. She’d taken off her jacket and was wearing a sleeveless white T-shirt. He could see the lacy pattern of her bra in relief through the fabric. Distracted, he returned to the subject of her ex-husband.
‘What will Duncan make of us seeing so much of each other?’
She tipped the rice into a brown earthenware bowl.
‘I like everything I’ve seen of you. If you’re talking literally . . .’
‘I’m being serious.’
‘You’re way too serious. It’s my mission to get you to lighten up. Anyway, who cares what Duncan thinks? It’s none of his business.’
‘Cassie’s his business.’
‘I’d never stop him seeing Cassie and neither would you.’
He could tell she thought he was making difficulties where none existed. In London she’d been surrounded by unconventional families. She’d told him about close lesbian friends who’d fostered a son; many of her colleagues were divorced and remarried, and for them weekends had been a time of shared parenting, the entertainment of visiting stepchildren. He was used to more traditional ways, but didn’t want to question her judgement. He