“This may be something more appropriate for Mrs. Bradford. Is she there, by the way, your wife? May I speak to her?”
Marcus found this kind of attitude in his restaurants irritating at the very least. The danger and, frankly, rudeness of making assumptions about a person based on gender alone was something he drilled into his waitstaff. He hated nothing worse than people assuming Raine was his wife when they were out together. Fortunately he knew how to deal with these people.
“Can I have your name, please?”
“I’m Debra Lingham.”
“Debra. Can I ask you a question?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Are you married?”
“Yes, I am.”
“To a man?”
“Of course, to a man. What an odd question.”
Another assumption, maybe even a touch of discrimination there. Hopefully he would never have to meet Debra Lingham in the flesh, because he might be tempted to give her a piece of his mind.
“Well, Debra. First of all, I’m a family friend, and today I’m the house sitter. Secondly, I really don’t appreciate your telephone manner. If I tell you that we’re not interested, then I speak for everyone.”
“And I, Mr. Bradford, or whoever you are, am only doing my job. This happens to be an extremely generous offer, and you should consider yourself lucky that we are—”
Marcus slammed the phone down before the woman could say another word. Anger smoldered inside him. On top of everything else, had poor Tom had to put up with this kind of shit? When he turned and looked down, Katie stood there beaming at him.
“You sound just like Mummy sometimes,” she said.
“Something you should know, Katie. Just because people are grown-ups doesn’t mean they know how to be civil to other people. Some think they have the right to be rude just because of the job they do. My mother once told me that before I ever say anything to anybody which might be considered upsetting, I should think first of all how I would feel if someone said the same thing to me. Put myself in their shoes, so to speak. Your mummy was brilliant at doing that, which is why so many people liked her. One of her favorite sayings was ‘courtesy costs nothing.’”
“What’s courtesy?”
“It’s politeness in a person’s attitude or behavior. Your mummy was like that with everybody. Now, where’s your appointment card?”
“It’s in my bag. I’ll probably need another prescription. Doctor said last time that if the asthma doesn’t start to improve soon, he might consider other treatment. But at the moment I have to keep a diary of when I get attacks and rate them on a scale of one to five on how bad they are. There’s a boy at school, Stephen, who uses a machine at home where he has to breathe in steam mixed with medicines for half an hour. But he doesn’t mind because it’s usually when the cartoons are on.”
“Sometimes asthma just goes away with age, Katie,” said Marcus, trying to sound encouraging. Growing up, Marcus’s next-door neighbor and best friend had regular bouts of asthma that suddenly stopped when he hit puberty. Maybe some people were just lucky. On many a charity hospital visit, he’d met kids with far more serious medical conditions, but it just seemed unfair for someone so young to have to struggle with breathing when she should be outside enjoying the world.
Seven years old, thought Marcus, and already so much on her shoulders. There was absolutely no way he would ever walk away from this family again.
Chapter Five
A MONTHlater, after another late finish at the Shepherd’s Bush Old Country restaurant—this time a raucous hen party had kept them busy until after two in the morning—Marcus had happily headed home alone, asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Even as he went under, he resolved to have a slow, relaxed Sunday, which would entail a long snooze-in.
No such luck.
When the mobile phone went off on the bedside cabinet at eight, he was in two minds whether to let the call go to voicemail. Until he reluctantly cracked open his eyes and saw Tom’s home number on the display.
“’Lo?” he croaked.
“Uncle Marc, Uncle Marc,” shrieked Charlotte’s excited voice down the phone. Marcus yanked the device away from his ear. “It’s a sunny Sunday. And Daddy said if it was sunny today we could go to Water Kingdom. They have a Mayday special. But you have to come too. Katie needs to stay out of the sun. But if you come, I can go in the water with you and Daddy can stay with Katie.”
In the background he could hear Tom telling Charlie to give him the phone.
“Melanie at school says they have a new waterslide for us small kids. But you have to be companied by an adult. So can you come, Uncle Marc? Pleeeease?”
Once again Tom’s voice sounded in the background.
