A Home for Broken Hearts, page 7
Matt cringed and shook his head.
‘Really, I don’t want to …’ Lindsey put the flat of her palms either side of his face and jerked his head downwards with enough force to pull a muscle in the back of his neck.
‘It makes no difference to me, love,’ she said, keeping Matt’s head in position for a few seconds more, where he could not help but take in the impressive view. ‘You fellers go all gaga over them, but to me they’re just lumps of flesh – no more sexy than my elbows. They’re paying my way through uni so that I don’t end up thousands in debt and that’s it.’
‘Wha … what are you studying?’ Matt was surprised to feel relieved at being allowed to look her in the eye again.
‘Quantum Physics, I want to invent time travel one day,’ Lindsey told him. ‘So far I’m on track for a First, so not just a pretty pair, hey? Do you want to give ’em a feel?’
Matt could not have been more relieved when they were interrupted.
‘Back on set please girls, we need to get your school ties on,’ the photographer bellowed.
‘God, I hate it when they make me wear a costume,’ Lindsey joked, rolling her eyes. ‘Nice to meet you, Matt, and just between you and me, you should ask Carla out for a drink – she’s been eyeing you up since you got here.’
Matt watched as Lindsey strode back over to the set, slipped a tie over her head and then handled her fellow model as if she was assessing the ripeness of a pair of melons.
‘So are you cured?’ Pete asked him.
‘Cured of what?’ Matt said.
‘Glamour models.’ Pete nodded at the girls, who frolicked with each other with a most professional elan. ‘They’re usually better equipped than a lot of girls, but they’re still just girls. They’re not going to be ripping your clothes off and inviting you for threesomes in the back of limos – not these two. Lindsey’s got a fiancé and the other girl, Donna – she’ll take her clothes off but she won’t shag you unless you take her out for dinner more than once! Sometimes it’s like being thirsty in the middle of water, up to our elbows in tits all day long, but can’t get your hands on a pair.’
Matt thought of Lindsey’s offer and smiled to himself. ‘Right,’ Pete went on, ‘today was your treat – your story to tell your mates back home – but your job is to be an average bloke and write about things average blokes want to know about, cars, footie, bands, gadgets and how to get girls, and on a weekly like Bang It! that means you’ve got to get cracking today. There’s a features meeting now, don’t go in without any ideas or your new god our editor Dan’ll rip you to shreds. You’ll need to have uploaded all your copy, which means your column and two features, to the features folder by Wednesday. We put the magazine to bed on a Thursday, we get bladdered on Thursday night and on Friday we start all over again. So remember, even though your job is to be Average Bloke, you’re not. Average blokes don’t spend all day around naked women, they spend all day thinking about them – which is why our magazine is the field leader in the weeklies and the boss liked your column so much. So you know where you stand until your probation is up? Work like a bastard or get dropped, there is no in-between.’
‘Yeah – of course I’m up to it,’ Matt said with a bravado that he didn’t quite feel. ‘I’m stoked that I’ve got a chance to write for a national magazine. I’m going to give it my all, Pete – I swear.’
‘Good, let’s get back to the office then and get you on some real work. I’ll be five minutes while I just talk over the secretary brief with the talent. Nothing like a half-naked girl sucking on a biro, I always say.’
While he waited Matt noticed Carla leaning against a window-sill, powder brush in hand, the midday light igniting a fiery halo around her hair. She was about his age, maybe a couple of years younger, slender, with a nice figure under her shirtdress. OK, it was only his first day here and he had to move into his digs later, but apart from the other articles he had to write the first instalment of his column had to be ready in two days – he needed some material. He could recycle something old, or make something up, but Pete had just made it perfectly clear that he needed to impress from the start, and what could be more impressive than bagging his first London date on the day he arrived? Perhaps hitting on a girl through work was a bit of cheat, but Matt’s motto was always to strike while the iron was hot. Never pass up an opportunity, he’d lectured his regular readers.
‘Hiya.’ He approached her, his smile warm and friendly – open and casual.
‘Oh, hi.’ Carla looked him briefly in the eye before studying her chipped fingernails.
‘This is all a bit mad, isn’t it?’ Matt nodded at the models. ‘You’d think it’d be a turn-on but to be honest I’m more interested in a touch of mystery, someone who’s not so obvious.’ He noticed a smattering of freckles scattered across the bridge of Carla’s nose. She had painted her fair lashes black but he could just see their natural pale gold right at the very roots, where they met the near-translucent skin of her eyelids. It was these small vulnerabilities that really drew him to a woman, not how she was built, or how she looked. It wasn’t the tricks a girl used to make herself look better that Matt went for, it was the frailties she failed to hide that really touched him. They all had them, even Lindsey from Doncaster, for as much as she’d caught him off guard with her easy bravado it had been the white patches behind her ears where she’d failed to fake-tan that Matt had especially liked about her.
‘You don’t really think that.’ Carla looked sceptical, her light grey eyes narrowing. Matt tried to imagine her in the morning, her face clean of make-up. It was surprising how different some women could look in natural sunlight and without any cosmetic aids. Despite her profession Carla was wearing hardly any, and Matt liked that about her.
‘Listen, it’s my first night in town tonight. I’m moving into my new place later – but could I take you for a drink first? It’d be great to have someone show me around a bit.’
‘Really? I mean yeah, OK, why not? A drink, yeah that would be good. Great – I mean fine, whatever.’ A range of expressions from surprise to delight to studied nonchalance flitted over Carla’s face within a fraction of a second.
Seeing her mobile peeping out of the top pocket of her dress, Matt fished it out, careful not to touch her. He punched his number into it and saved it under his name.
‘Text me, yeah? Let me know where to meet you.’ He slipped the phone back into the pocket, feeling more heat between the two of them in that second than he had for the whole time he’d been talking to Lindsey.
‘Bye then.’ Carla swept the bristles of her brush over the tips of her fingers, leaving them dusted with glitter.
‘See you later,’ Matt told her. ‘Look forward to it.’
Matt followed Pete down the concrete stairs of the studio and out on to the bright street crammed with office workers, clamouring for lunch and a little midday sun before they chained themselves back to their desks.
‘So you’ve got your eye on Carla, then?’ Pete nodded in approval. ‘Nice little arse on that one and not a bad pair for someone so skinny.’
‘It’s just a drink,’ Matt laughed as he followed him into the back of a black cab.
‘A likely story! You and I know the score, Matt, and let me tell you, you might not spend your afternoons rolling around with naked models but you mention to any pretty little blonde you meet in the pub who you work for, and chances are most of them will be all too happy to show you what they’ve got in the hopes that you’ll get ’em on the next cover.’
‘Pete – you don’t decide that!’ Matt grinned.
‘I know that, you know that – but they don’t.’ Pete chuckled. ‘Best job in the world, mate. Best bloody job in the world.’
Matt glanced at his watch and sat up. It was almost eight p.m. He’d told the woman on the phone that he’d be at his new lodgings by seven at the latest. It was time to go. Carefully he eased himself off the bed, hoping not to wake Carla.
‘Where you going?’ she murmured, rolling over and exposing one delicate pink-tipped breast.
‘I’m moving into my new place tonight, remember I told you?’ Matt smiled, bending over and kissing her freckled shoulder. ‘We were going to have a couple of drinks and then they turned into doubles and we came back to yours for coffee to sober up and …’
‘Well, we did sober up.’ Carla leant up on her elbows, her tangle of auburn hair nestling on her shoulders, her black mascara spread under her eyes intensifying their pale blue hue. She stretched out two slender arms to him, cocking her head to one side and curling her mouth into the sweetest smile in her armoury. ‘Do you really have to go?’
‘I do,’ Matt told her. ‘I need to move in, I’m already late.’
‘Well, I’ll come with you then,’ Carla offered, already pushing back the bedclothes and reaching for her discarded bra. ‘Help you get moved.’
‘I’ve only got a couple of cases,’ Matt said, nodding at his luggage that he’d left in the hallway. There were two reasons he didn’t want Carla to come with him. He didn’t really want anyone to know that he was going to live with a widow and her kid. It wasn’t exactly cool, it wasn’t exactly the Bang It! lad lifestyle that Pete told him he had to embody. But it was the only place he had found close to work that he could afford and that wouldn’t mean spending a fortune in travel costs. It would do for now, at least while he was still on six weeks’ probation. Once the job was permanent and he knew he wasn’t going to have to go back up north with his tail between his legs he’d look for somewhere more … bachelor-like.
The second reason was he didn’t want Carla thinking that what had just happened meant anything, that the sex they had had would lead to a greater intimacy. Matt had broken his own rules. He hadn’t told Carla upfront that he wasn’t looking for a relationship, and that he wasn’t ready to commit to one woman. He hadn’t told her that he wasn’t looking for a girlfriend, his usual firm disclaimer when he approached any woman. In theory his blunt honesty should have put girls off, but so far that had rarely happened. Women heard what he said, they shrugged their shoulders as if they didn’t care – but almost all of them seemed to think secretly that he would change. That they would be the girl that would change him, one night with them and he’d be desperate to settle down, get a couple of kids and a dog. Almost without fail they were deeply upset when they realised that Matt never stuck around for more than a couple of weeks at the most. When he’d remind them about his disclaimer they’d look bewildered and hurt, as if they really believed that a few nights of sex, a few days of laughing and kissing automatically meant the beginning of a grand romance. Sometimes Matt felt bad about letting them down, but at least he always had his declaration to hide behind – proof that he had not led them on. But in the heat of a moment saturated with vodka, he had forgotten to make his intentions clear to Carla.
‘You should stay right there, relax,’ he instructed her.
Carla flopped back on to the bed, stretching her arms above her head.
‘If you insist,’ she smiled happily. ‘Today certainly turned out a lot better than I expected. Not that I do this sort of thing all time – never, actually. There was just something about you that seemed … right.’
‘For me too,’ Matt pulled his jacket on and sat briefly on the edge of the bed. ‘You are a fantastic girl, Carla.’
He meant it. Carla was funny, beautiful, and warm and engaging in bed. She deserved someone a lot better than him.
‘And life’s for living, isn’t it? I mean how boring would it be if no one ever took a chance …’ Matt didn’t reply, even though he knew Carla was looking for some sort of reassurance. Obviously going to bed with a man she had met only a few hours earlier wasn’t normally her style, she wanted him to tell her that she hadn’t made a terrible mistake.
‘So when do you want to meet up again?’ Carla went on after a moment’s silence. ‘I’m supposed to be hanging out with my girlfriends tomorrow, but I could cancel if you want?’
Don’t do that, Matt thought. Don’t just decide to change all your plans for me.
‘I’ve got to work,’ he told her, glancing at his watch. ‘New boy – lot to prove. Need to deliver a kick-ass column.’
‘Oh OK, no worries – well just call me when you’re free then,’ Carla said, a tiny frown line insinuating its way between her eyebrows.
‘Sure. See you.’ Matt got up and picking up his cases left hurriedly. He knew she’d be flopping back on the bed, her fingers in her hair, wondering what she’d done.
‘Hello.’ A boy opened the front door and greeted Matt without the faintest flicker of a smile. He was a good-looking boy, with bright eyes and oddly a smudge of lilac paint across the bridge of his nose. ‘Are you Matt Bolton because if you are, you’re late.’
‘I know, I’m sorry,’ Matt said, taken aback by the boy, suddenly very glad that the last remnants of the vodka he’d indulged in with Carla had receded to no more than a slight fuzziness around his temples. Somehow he got the feeling he was going to need all his wits about him. ‘I got held up at work, you know.’
‘What were you doing?’ The boy questioned him closely, with slightly narrowed eyes. ‘Were you interviewing Chloe Brand, voted Britain’s sexiest babe – was she wearing a bra?’
‘Wha … what?’ Matt spluttered, glancing around him as if this was a trap set to catch him out. ‘How do you know about Chloe?’
‘This kid Harvey, from school, nicks his dad’s copies of Bang It! out of the recycling and brings them to school. He charges us a quid a look. It’s worth it though.’
‘Christ!’ Matt laughed. ‘Does your mum know?’
‘No, and she’d kill me if she did, she still thinks I’m a little boy. So anyway – were you?’
‘No, I was not.’ Matt shook his head. ‘I don’t do that sort of thing – no one really does. They take those photos somewhere else far away from the office and then a staff writer makes up the interview.’
‘Really?’ The boy looked disappointed. ‘You mean Chloe isn’t really a huge Arsenal fan, and she doesn’t really love to watch a match wearing only the team strip and a pair of stilettos?’
‘How old are you?’ Matt asked him, peering through the crack in the door to take in what looked like an ordinary hallway of an ordinary home.
‘Twelve, nearly,’ the kid replied. Matt could tell that the nearly part was very important to him.
‘Makes sense. I guess I was interested in the same things at your age. Guess I have been ever since.’ Matt lowered his voice. ‘Look, if you want to pay a pound a pop to look at your mate’s mags that’s your business, but all I do is write stuff, all the words that you and your friends probably never look twice at. My job’s boring, mate, I promise you.’
‘Oh.’ Charlie looked disappointed, then perking up slightly he asked, ‘Do you have a PS3?’
‘Not on me,’ Matt told him. ‘I shared one with my old flatmate but I had to leave it behind when I moved. I’ve got a PSP though, and a DS – is that enough for you to let me in?’ He nodded at the doorway.
‘Spose,’ the kid shrugged and stepped aside, yelling, ‘Mum, he’s here!’
A woman hurried out of a back room, wearing an oversized man’s shirt and a pair of baggy jeans, her dark hair tied in a knot on her head. Like the boy she was spattered with lilac paint. She had the most remarkable pair of green eyes, like a summer meadow.
‘Oh you must be Matt,’ she greeted him, holding out a paint-covered hand. ‘We were worried that you’d been mugged or got lost, it’s a jungle out there. I’m Ellen and this is Charlie.’ She placed a hand on Charlie’s shoulder, who reflexively shrugged it off.
‘No, no – nothing so interesting …’ Matt thought briefly of Carla’s closed eyes as he had kissed her, the setting sun turning her skin a shade of pale gold. ‘Just caught up with work, first day and all that. Sorry, your sister Hannah, is it? She gave me your number, I should have called and let you know I’d be late.’
‘Oh, of course not – I don’t want you to think you have to keep me apprised of all your movements. I’m not that kind of landlady. To tell you the truth I have no idea what being a landlady is all about yet. I’m sort of making it up as I go along.’
She began to walk up the stairs, talking as she went, and Matt assumed that he was to follow her. ‘I’m not sure what Hannah told you. You know what the rent is and that it includes bills. You’ll get a key, of course, and a shelf in the fridge in the kitchen if you want one – it saves on labelling apparently – but there is room for a fridge in your room and a microwave if you like. Otherwise just come and go as you please.’
Slightly breathless as they reached the top of the stairs, Ellen pushed open the attic door and stood back, allowing Matt into the room first.
‘There’s a large bedroom, a loo and shower room. My husband and I always thought that …’ She trailed off for a second to a moment in time that Matt couldn’t fathom before snapping back into the present. ‘Anyway, I hope you like it.’
Matt walked into the room and looked around. It was large, almost the whole footprint of the sizeable house, with dormer windows on one side that looked out over the street and Velux windows on the other, letting in plenty of light. It was furnished with a somewhat elderly-looking double bed, a rather worn red sofa, a dark wood wardrobe and a desk. Through a door to the right Matt could see the shower and loo. It was basic, it was perfect.
‘It’s great,’ he said, turning to Ellen and letting loose his smile.
‘Oh, well – good.’ Ellen dropped her eyes from his, tentatively touching her hair as if she had only just remembered that she had screwed it up into a careless knot sometime earlier. Matt noticed the pierced holes in her earlobes, redundant without earrings.
‘Um, Matt …’ He watched as Ellen’s mouth undulated with uncertainty.
‘Yep?’ he asked her, offering an encouraging smile. She was probably somewhere in her thirties, pleasant-looking – rather the sort of woman who after getting married and having kids gives up on trying to attract men, because she just doesn’t need to any more. Matt had to admit that he was relieved. After talking to the openly flirtatious sister he’d been a little concerned that his new landlady would be something of a temptation, the kind of temptation that it was usually a very bad idea to give in to and of course he invariably did. But as sweet as she seemed, there was nothing about this woman to tempt him. She was a widow and a mum: as far as Matt could see those two things defined her. There was no danger of entanglement here.
