‘If I’d known you were coming I’d have worn a clean one,’ I said. And, I thought, something that did up properly at the back and didn’t leave my arse hanging out.
‘Don’t you have any pyjamas, or a dressing gown?’
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘I have absolutely nothing. It seems that everything I arrived wearing was cut off and bagged as potential evidence. I even had to get my sister to go to the hospital gift shop to buy me a toothbrush.’
‘Isn’t there someone who could go and get you something from your home?’
‘Are you offering?’ I asked.
‘Yes, OK,’ Henri said with enthusiasm. ‘Give me a list.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘There’s a problem. The police have the key.’
And that was just as well, I thought.
I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted Miss Henrietta Shawcross, heiress to a multimillion-pound shipping fortune, letting herself into my tip of a flat to rifle through my Ikea drawers looking for a long-neglected pair of pyjamas.
‘Tell you what,’ she said, ‘I’ll go and buy you something. What do you need?’
‘You can’t go now,’ I said. ‘It’s too late. Everything will be closed.’
‘You’re joking. It’s Thursday. Late-night shopping, and only two weeks before Christmas. Everywhere will be open until at least nine. What do you want?’
She was clearly excited by the prospect.
‘A pair of pyjamas, then,’ I said. ‘Thanks. And something to go home in would be nice. And maybe a pair of cheap trainers.’
‘Shoe size?’
‘Nine.’
‘How about the rest of you?’ She raised her eyebrows in questioning amusement.
‘Waist thirty-four, chest forty-two, neck sixteen.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back.’
She disappeared.
I lay my head down on the pillow and I was laughing.
Never mind Prozac, a dose of Henrietta Shawcross was the perfect antidote for depression.
Henri returned just after eight, and she was heavily laden with smart black-and-gold shopping bags.
She laid out her purchases on the end of the bed: a pair of striped pyjamas, a silk dressing gown, some slippers, two shirts, a pair of beige chinos, a double-breasted blue blazer, crewneck sweater, socks, pants, a pair of fine-grain black leather shoes, and a full-length navy cashmere overcoat.
Even a tie.
‘Where did you get all this from?’ I asked.
‘New and Lingwood in Jermyn Street,’ she said. ‘It’s where my father went for all his clothes.’
‘But I only needed some jeans and a T-shirt from Primark,’ I said forlornly, fearful of what this lot would do to my bank balance.
‘Nonsense,’ she replied with a grin. ‘We can’t have you wandering around in just a T-shirt in mid-December. You’ll catch your death.’
‘Fewer references to death, please, if you don’t mind. Now, how much do I owe you?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It’s a gift. My pleasure. And I got you these as well.’ She handed to me yet another smart carrier bag that contained a leather wash kit, complete with a hairbrush and razor.
‘I could do with a shave,’ I said, rubbing my chin. ‘It’s been four days.’
‘I actually like your sexy designer stubble,’ Henri said. ‘Very George Michael.’
I looked right at her and she looked straight back at me. All the right vibes were seemingly in motion.
‘Are you playing with me?’ I said. ‘Because I won’t take kindly to you waltzing in here, buying me all these things and then swanning off, never to be seen again.’
‘And why would I do that?’ she asked.
I suddenly felt rather foolish. ‘I don’t know. I just wonder what you’re doing here.’
‘I’m here because I like you,’ she said, clearly taken aback. ‘You made me laugh at the races and I wanted to see you again. Is there something wrong in that?’
‘No. Of course not. It’s just...’ I tailed off, not knowing what to say next.
‘Don’t you like me?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do. Very much. But...’
‘But what?’ she demanded.
‘You must have a string of rich boyfriends.’
I was saying all the wrong things.
‘And what do you mean by that?’
‘I’ve seen pictures of you with all those celebrities, famous actors and such. At fancy parties. You and I don’t fit into the same social strata.’
‘But that’s not real life,’ she said slowly. ‘That’s just fantasy.’
‘Is this real life?’ I asked.
‘It is for me,’ she said, with tears welling up in her eyes. ‘Do you think I’d spend several days looking for you just to swan off and never see you again?’ She was hurt. ‘But I will, if that’s what you want.’
‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘That’s not what I want at all.’ I smiled. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Please stop saying you’re sorry,’ she said. ‘Superheroes never have to apologize for anything.’ She leaned forward and kissed me lightly on my mouth. ‘Now, get out of that dreadful gown and put your new pyjamas on.’
Henri stayed until well after the official end of visiting time at nine o’clock.
She had also picked up some smoked-salmon sandwiches from Fortnum & Mason’s food hall and we ate those, washed down with hospital tap water from the jug on my bedside locker.
‘I should have brought some chilled white wine with me,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I’ll remember that next time.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘how did you really find me?’
‘I called Gay Smith and asked her for help. She found your home address on the reply to her husband’s invitation.’
I nodded. ‘I gave it to him so he could send the badge for the Sandown box to my flat. I didn’t want it to get lost in the mailroom at BHA headquarters.’
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I went to your place on Monday evening but there was no reply, so I put a note through the door asking you to call me.’
‘I didn’t get it.’
‘I realize that now. But I wasn’t giving up. I tried ringing you at the BHA and someone told me you weren’t going to be in this week. I asked them if you were away on holiday. They said no, you were off sick. So I went back to your place yesterday morning and found the place crawling with men in white coveralls, wearing gloves and masks.’ She paused. ‘I was pretty upset. I thought you must have died of Ebola or something. One of the men eventually took pity on me and told me that you weren’t dead, you were in hospital, but he refused to say why or which one, so I spent most of yesterday afternoon and all of this morning playing the role of the distraught fiancée calling hospitals and asking after my lost lover who must either be dead or have amnesia.’ She laughed. ‘Do you have any idea how many damn London hospitals there are in the Yellow Pages? You could at least have been in one beginning with A. By the time I got down to U, I’d almost given up hope.’
I stared at her in disbelief.
‘You should come and work for me.’
19
My friend with the carving knife, and his taller chum with the red baseball boots, came a-calling sometime between one and two o’clock on Friday morning, well outside visiting hours.
Fortunately, I was awake.
In fact, I was more than awake, I was up and wandering around in my brand-new silk dressing gown and slippers.
When he’d said it, I hadn’t particularly agreed with Doctor Shwan that the itching in my chest was a good thing, yet it had been that itching, together with my desperate urge to scratch, that had woken me and driven me from my bed at the same time my unwanted visitors made their appearance.