The Honey Queen

Gunther grabbed menus and studied his with total concentration while a languid bargirl lit the red lamp on the table. Paolo stood at the bar gabbling in Italian to some friends.

Glorious aromas drifted from the kitchens and Peggy realized she hadn’t eaten anything but an apple since breakfast.

‘What’s good?’ she asked Gunther.

‘The fish and chips,’ he said.

Peggy’s mouth watered. ‘Sounds good to me.’

By eight o’clock, Peggy had eaten cod coated in feather-light batter, and was considering a dessert, while a stream of Gunther and Paolo’s friends had come and gone after joining them for a drink.

Gunther was in no rush: his wife was at her mother’s with the children and Paolo was meeting his girlfriend in town at ten. The jukeboxes, disco balls and the house speciality cocktail, Starlight Surprise, were working their magic, and a few people were dancing close to the bar. Paolo was talking to a tall, athletic guy who’d arrived at the table. He couldn’t take his eyes off Peggy.

‘David Byrne,’ he said, leaning in to shake her hand.

‘Peggy Barry,’ she said, smiling.

He was good looking, but not really her type. Despite fighting it, she’d always been drawn to bad boys and David Byrne was clean-cut and good looking, the sort of guy who’d been captain of the football team, head boy and undoubtedly Pupil Most Likely to Succeed. He probably helped old ladies across the road, which wasn’t a bad thing – she helped old ladies across the road. But for some reason, those sorts of guys never lit her pilot light.

Up close, she could see how handsome he was, with dark hair, blue eyes and a stylish suit – even though he’d taken the jacket off and loosened his tie. Despite the clean-cut handsomeness, there was something indefinably interesting about him that Peggy, who’d spent years watching people from the sidelines, couldn’t pin down.

And then, when Paolo slipped out of the seat to take a phone call, David slipped in and she found herself sitting next to him. He kept staring at her as though he’d been searching for something all his life and she was it.

Utterly disconcerted, Peggy stared back. His eyes weren’t blue, as she’d first thought, but a green-tinged azure, and around the black of the pupil were striations of amber like shards of sunlight. She couldn’t look away. His gaze wasn’t predatory or sleazy. It said: Finally, I’ve found you.

‘Paolo says you just moved into Redstone,’ David said, smiling.

His voice was deep, gentle. And kind. How could you tell that from a voice? You couldn’t, but still, he had a kindness about him that drew her in. Jolting herself back to reality, she said: ‘Yes, I’m new to the neighbourhood. I’ve taken over the old off-licence – now, how could a place that sells drink go out of business!’

Oh heck, she thought, now I sound like a deranged boozer who needs alcohol 24/7. And to prove it, I have two cocktail glasses in front of me!

She tried to surreptitiously shove the empty cocktail glass behind the ketchup and sugar containers.

What was wrong with her? Her stomach was swooping as if she was on board a ship in a force-ten gale.

‘That off-licence was a bit of a dive,’ David said. ‘Back when I was a teenager, it was the hot spot for under-age drinking. My father warned me and my brothers to stay out of it or there would be hell to pay – which isn’t really much like my Dad.’ He grinned. ‘What sort of business are you setting up?’

‘A knitting and craft shop,’ said Peggy, back on familiar ground. She waited for him to say she didn’t look like a knitting type of girl.

‘My mother knits. She says it’s meditation,’ he said instead.

‘Yes!’ agreed Peggy, astonished. ‘That’s exactly what it is – nobody else ever gets that unless they are a knitter.’

‘I can see it on my mother’s face when she knits,’ he admitted. ‘So, it’s just you on your own in Redstone, not your … family.’

‘No, just me,’ said Peggy, eyes glittering now.

This gorgeous man was interested in her. She wasn’t imagining it.

‘No husband, then?’

‘No husband,’ agreed Peggy, loving this courtship – because that’s what it felt like.

‘No harem of men relying on you …?’ His eyes were glittering too now, looking directly into hers, making Peggy feel as if they were alone and he was saying something wildly sexy to her, even though he wasn’t and they were in a busy bar. It was that low, rumbling voice and the way he looked at her. As if he knew her already.

‘No male harem,’ she whispered.

He had evening stubble on his jaw, she noticed, as he loosened his tie some more and undid the top button of his shirt. Why was that so erotic?

‘Good. Could I persuade you to go on a date with me, then?’ he asked. ‘Since we’ve cleared up the harem situation.’

‘You don’t have any harem situation yourself?’ she asked, even though she knew he didn’t. Exactly how, Peggy couldn’t have said, but she was sure that this man had no other women in the background.

He shook his head. ‘No, nobody for a long time. I thought it was because I was busy with work, but it turns out I must have been waiting.’ He smiled at her.

‘That was a bit—’ Peggy had been about to say corny, but she didn’t. Because he’d meant it. Waiting for her.

‘—sorry, I nearly said “corny”, but it’s not corny and you’re not corny, it’s lovely,’ she said instead, and then thought how ridiculous that sounded. She took a gulp of her cocktail to hide her embarrassment but then realized she hadn’t wanted to look like Drinker of the Year, so pushed the glass away.

‘What work do you do?’ she asked, then added: ‘I mean, people always tell me that I don’t look like a woman who knits, but you didn’t, so I don’t want to guess wrong about you …’ She had to stop this babbling.

‘I run an engineering company,’ he said, ‘which is not boasting about being a captain of industry. I’m an engineer and I’ve set up on my own recently. Every cent of my money is being ploughed into the company, hence the reason I live with my two brothers instead of in a magnificent penthouse, where I could invite you back for a glass of vintage wine and impress you with my riches.’

‘I wouldn’t be impressed by that,’ said Peggy truthfully.

David smiled at her, azure eyes meeting her dark ones.

‘I didn’t think you would be.’ He put his head to one side and looked at her. ‘I understand why people say you don’t look like a person who knits,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she demanded.

‘You’re more like a faerie from the forest,’ he said, ‘a creature from a fable or from the old Celtic myths we used to learn in school. It’s the trailing hair the colour of wet bark and those big eyes watching me, and the sense that you might disappear at any moment …’

He leaned forward and gently brushed back a coil of hair that had fallen over one of her eyes.

Peggy could feel redness rising up her cheeks. He’d got one thing right: she did disappear whenever she wanted to. But not this time. For now, she was perfectly happy where she was.

Peggy Barry, tired of being alone but almost resigned to it because she knew from experience that alone was the only way to go, somehow crumbled. When David said he’d been waiting for her, his words had the ring of truth in them – and suddenly she realized that was because it felt as if she’d been waiting just for him.

‘Would you come to dinner with me tomorrow night?’ he asked.

Peggy nodded first, then said yes in a voice that sounded too faint to be hers, ‘I’d love to.’

Peggy felt jittery and wildly excited all the next day. She couldn’t concentrate on the task of cleaning the filthy back room and kept stopping and staring dreamily into space, returning to earth to find her bucket of soapy water stone-cold.

She found herself thinking of Sleepless in Seattle and how love could hit you in the weirdest way, like Annie, who knew she could never marry Walter, hearing Sam on the radio and knowing, just knowing, she had to meet him.

Peggy had seen it hundreds of times: when she had the flu, when she wanted cheering up, when she was happy, when she was so sad she thought her heart might break. And she’d loved it. But she didn’t think something like that could actually happen …