Part 23 (1/2)

'Well done, Twiggers. Give me five.' Suddenly Marcus's mobile trilled out. 'Hi, Nats!' he said happily. We all looked up. Natalie was standing on the other side of Regents Park Road, her curtain of white-blonde hair lifting slightly in the breeze. 'Oh,' Marcus said. 'Oh.' He looked crestfallen. 'Well, it's only a little sniffle. Honestly, it's nothing. I shouldn't have mentioned it. It's just a bit of a summer cold. No, no, no, I'm sure I'm not infectious. Streptococcal? I very much doubt it.

Virus? No... Of course I'm sure. Okay,' he sighed. 'If that's how you feel. All right then. All right. I'll ring you later.' He snapped the phone shut, then smiled ruefully.

'I take it your date's off,' Lily said, as we watched Natalie drift away.

'Yes,' he said. 'She's decided that she doesn't want to see me after all in case she catches my cold. She's very sensitive, you see.'

'She's the delicate type then,' said Phyllis.

'Yes,' he said, 'she's very delicate.'

'Fragile.'

'Yes,' he agreed, with a slightly idiotic smile. 'She's fragile.'

'So I don't suppose she's very sporty, is she?' Phyllis asked. He smiled indulgently. 'Oh no, she's not sporty at all.'

'She's not the outdoors type.'

'Far from it.'

'So she's rather different from you, then?' Phyllis per sisted.

'Yes. But then it's opposites that attract. Isn't it?'

'Yes,' she replied. 'Sometimes.' An odd silence descended.

'And...does she go to the self-defence cla.s.ses?' I asked him.

He shook his head. 'I've tried to persuade her, but she says it's too rough. And it is quite rough; we do a lot of mock-attacks and throws and falls-it's very physical, obviously. Are you coming tomorrow, by the way?'

'I certainly am.' I glanced at my watch. It was nine. 'Okay, everyone, the light's going, so I think we'll call it a day. See you all next week at the same time, and I'll see you tomorrow evening, Marcus.'

'See you then,' he said with a smile. But when I got back there was a message on the answerphone from David, asking if he could bring our date forward to Thursday as he had to fly to Stockholm on Friday to do a couple of shoots.

'But I'd love to see you,' he said when I phoned back. 'Especially as I'm travelling quite a bit at the moment. I thought we could go to the Photographers' Gallery-a friend of mine is having an opening there. And we could maybe see a film afterwards, or go for a Chinese, whatever you like. How does that sound? Are you free tomorrow?' I thought about the self-defence cla.s.ses with a slight pang.

'Ye-es,' I said. 'I am.'

'I'm really sorry to let you down again,' I said to Daisy a few minutes later. 'But you see, David's going to Sweden on Friday morning and he'll be away for five days, so I just...'

'Don't worry,' she said. 'That's fine. I'll phone Marcus tomorrow morning and tell him you're not coming after all, but it's going to be really good this week. He's going to teach us the elbow jab and the wrist grab. Then we're going to learn how to disable a single unarmed a.s.sailant. Marcus is going to be in a fully padded body-suit, built to withstand heavy blows. I'm going to find out how it actually feels to hit someone!'

'Crikey.'

'Have you written down Nigel's birthday party, by the way?'

'Yes, I have. August the second.'

'And don't forget-he knows nothing about it.'

'Don't worry. My lips are sealed.'

The next morning my mother's 'Llama Karma' leaflet arrived in the post. On the front of it was a photo of Carlos and Jose, looking concerned and compa.s.sionate. I remembered my idea. I picked up the phone and dialled Dad.

'Can you ever take a day off?' I asked him.

'Well, it's a bit tricky at the moment because we're so busy in the run-up to the opening.'

'But could you take at least, say, a morning off? Or even just a couple of hours.'

'I suppose I could. Why are you asking?'

'I'll explain in a moment, but do you definitely want to see Mum?'

I heard him sigh. 'Yes, I do. I feel that if I could only talk to her, then I might be able to neutralize her hostility and her att.i.tude towards me might change. I just want to feel we can be...civil,' he went on. 'But I don't know how to achieve it.'

'Well, I think I do.' I told him about the Llama Karma days. 'Why don't you sign up?'

'But how? She's blocked my phone calls. And if I made the booking by letter, she'd recognize the writing-and she'd see my name on the cheque.'

'Hmm. That's true.' I stared out of the window.

'I could always pay her cash,' he went on. 'But then it would be very easy for her to refuse. She'd take one look at me and shut the door.'

'I know how to do it,' I said. 'I'll send her the cheque and pretend that you're a friend of mine. I'll say that I owe you a hundred quid, so I'm paying for your llama therapy. She's hard up at the moment so she'll cash it immediately, which means she'll be obliged to honour the booking.'

'But won't she want to know who I am?'

'Yes-but I'll give her a pseudonym.'

'Such as?' I glanced at my bookshelf. Charles Darwin... Konrad Lorenz.

'Lawrence Darwin,' I said.

'Is he one of the Darwins?' Mum asked, as she took down the details half an hour later.

'Um, I think so.'

'How interesting. And how do you know him?'

'He's a friend of...'

'Daisy's?' Mum antic.i.p.ated.

'Yes.'

'Well, of course, Daisy knows so many people,' she said. 'What with all those parties she does. But why are you paying?'

'Because...we went to a...'