She gave her email a final check and cast a quick eye over the agency reports in case anything dramatic had happened. Not that there would be much she could do about it if there were, she thought bitterly. Nobody in Askerby wanted news in their paper.
Her last job was to tidy her desk. She hated coming into a mess in the morning. Mac had used to call her a control freak but, if she was, she didn’t seem to be a very good one, Georgia had long ago decided. If she was so controlling, how come life so often seemed to be completely out of her control?
Shrugging on her coat, she went out into the outer office, aware, as always, of the tiny moment of silence that fell whenever she appeared.
‘I’m off now, Rose,’ she said, hating the way her voice sounded a little too hearty, a little too much as if she were trying too hard not to mind how long it was taking her to be accepted. ‘Don’t forget the editorial conference tomorrow morning. I want everyone there.’
‘I won’t.’ Rose looked important. She had been thrilled when Georgia had taken a chance on her and given her the job, and was even more pleased to find herself included in all the workings of the newspaper after being made to feel useless by her ex-husband for so long. ‘Have a good evening. Are you meeting your friend?’
‘My friend?’
‘Mr Henderson. He said he knew you,’ said Rose, suddenly anxious. She had made so many mistakes since she started, and she knew Georgia got impatient sometimes.
‘Oh…Mac,’ said Georgia. ‘Yes, we did know each other a long time ago.’
‘He seemed so nice,’ said Rose. ‘I thought he was absolutely charming.’ Her voice dropped as she leant forward to whisper confidentially, ‘And very attractive!’
Georgia couldn’t help smiling at her tone. In spite of the disastrous end to her own marriage, Rose was very concerned about her boss’s single state. She thought Georgia needed help bringing up Toby.
Georgia thought so too.
But Mac wasn’t the man to help her. Toby needed a father figure, someone kind and steady like Geoffrey, not someone like Mac, who had never really grown up himself.
Toby, come and pick up some of these toys, please!’
Georgia sighed as she stooped to retrieve a sock from the living room floor. It had been a shock to realise just how much mess one small boy could generate.
She had thought no one could be messier than Mac, whose habit of carelessly discarding clothes wherever he happened to take them off had driven her mad when they were married, but Toby was even worse. His bedroom floor was carpeted with cards, small plastic figures, bits of paper, crayons, books, unidentified and probably broken pieces of toys, and a good deal else that Georgia preferred not to think about too closely.
Picking up a ball of what looked suspiciously like discarded chewing gum, she grimaced in disgust.
‘Toby!’ Her voice went up in spite of herself. She tried so hard to be patient and loving, but after a long day at work, with only a few minutes to prepare dinner for Geoffrey, let alone think about how she was going to deal with her soon-to-be ex-husband, it was a huge effort not to snap.
‘There’s someone coming to the door,’ said Toby, which at least proved that he wasn’t deaf. Ever anxious for an excuse to avoid tidying up, he was peering out of the window at the front of the house. He was wearing pyjamas and, having ignored her request to use a comb, his damp hair stuck out spikily in different directions.
‘It’ll just be someone delivering junk mail, I expect,’ said Georgia, forcing herself to stay calm. Nothing was gained by losing her temper. Toby just withdrew even further into his shell.
‘He’s got a cool motorbike,’ Toby commented, without leaving his vantage point at the window.
Georgia frowned slightly. Junk mail wasn’t usually delivered by motorbike. Miss Sibley at number twenty-three often pushed newsletters for the local neighbourhood watch through the door at this sort of time, but she didn’t ride a motorbike and, if she did, it certainly wouldn’t be one Toby would describe as cool.
Curious, she went over to join Toby at the window. Sure enough, a motorbike was propped on its stand in the road outside the gate. It was a mean-looking machine, black and gleaming and very powerful, and something stirred inside Georgia. She knew only one person likely to ride a bike like that.
A sense of foreboding gripped her as the owner of the bike, hidden by the porch, rang the doorbell, and her frown deepened with suspicion. There was something awfully familiar about the arrogance of that ring.
‘Who is it?’ asked Toby.
Nobody could call Toby a beautiful child. He was thin and gap-toothed, with big ears and an expression that was usually sullen, but when he looked up at her, like now, with implicit trust that she would know the answer to everything, Georgia would feel her heart constrict.
‘I don’t know who it is,’ she told him. But I’ve got a pretty good idea, she added mentally. ‘We’d better go and see.’
He followed her out into the hall and lurked behind her as she opened the door. Sure enough, there stood Mac, in faded jeans, a white T-shirt and his battered old leather jacket, camera slung as always around his neck. Not to put too fine a point on it, he looked gorgeous. His dark hair was ruffled where he had pulled off his helmet, and his blue eyes were warm with a smile that Georgia had to physically steel herself to resist.
‘You’re early,’ she said brusquely. ‘I said eight o’clock, and it’s not even seven-thirty yet.’
‘I thought it would be nice to meet Toby before he went to bed,’ said Mac, completely unfazed by the hostile welcome, and he winked at Toby who was watching him with a wary expression.
‘Who are you?’ asked Toby, which seemed a fair enough question.
‘This is Mac,’ said Georgia quickly as Mac opened his mouth to answer. Life was complicated enough for Toby without trying to fathom his aunt’s exact marital status. There was no need for him to know that she and Mac had been married.
Were still married, fool that she was. Why on earth hadn’t she followed through with the divorce when they had first separated?
‘I knew him a long time ago,’ she said to Toby, trying to keep her explanation of this strange man’s arrival as simple as possible. ‘It was a real surprise when he turned up in Askerby, so I thought it would be nice if he came to dinner.’
Georgia had a nasty feeling that she was babbling, but Mac’s presence on the doorstep was ridiculously disturbing.
He didn’t look disturbed, of course. He looked utterly at ease, as always, with that good-humoured assurance that had taken him through more dangerous situations than Georgia cared to think about.
‘Hi, Toby,’ he said casually, but wisely made no move to get any closer or to engage him in conversation.
Toby was very wary of strangers and hated being overwhelmed by attention. It had taken him a long time to accept Georgia, and even now she still had to handle him with care. Geoffrey’s laborious attempts at conversation were met with monosyllables at most. More worryingly, he didn’t seem to be any more forthcoming at school, and he was slow to make friends.
Mac turned back to Georgia and produced a mango from his pocket with a flourish. ‘For you,’ he said, holding it in his outstretched palm, and Georgia’s breath snared in her throat.
It was just a fruit. A beautiful piece of fruit, plump and juicy, its skin blushing from pinkish-green to ripe red, but still just a fruit, and not even that rare. You could even buy mangoes in Askerby nowadays, if you were lucky.
But for Georgia mangoes meant so much more than a exotic edge to a fruit salad. Mangoes meant long, hot tropical nights, creaking ceiling fans and eerie yips and yowls in the darkness beyond the veranda.