When I dare to lift my head I find Angus glaring at me as if he is trying to bore into the wall directly behind my chair and realise that this is what it must feel like to be a witness on a stand. I think, I’ll remember this the next time I’m in the Immigration Tribunal, though I can’t tell whether it will make me more sympathetic or actually more persistent – knowing how naked it feels sitting there, with truths so close to the surface that the right line of questioning could reveal them in a moment.
Eventually I say, ‘Is there any possibility of changing the date for dinner? Could we go on Saturday instead?’
‘You’re suggesting I just call up The Ivy and get them to switch the reservation to Saturday? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a table at that restaurant?’ His sarcasm is metres deep.
‘No,’ I murmur. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘And you want me to ask my friends to change their plans for the weekend because my fiancé forgot about our dinner engagement and made alternative plans she’s not willing to change!’
‘Angus, I’m sorry!’
Having risen to a crescendo Angus’s voice drops suddenly, like a pianist drawing a recital to a close with a final, definitive chord. ‘You can’t go to the birthday party, Claire. That’s all there is to it!’ He picks up his glass again and drains it.
I run my tongue over my lips. Inhale. Make myself meet his eyes and say firmly, ‘I can’t back out of the birthday plans, Angus. I’m really sorry, but I simply can’t do it.’
For a while neither of us speak. The evening is lying at our feet beyond recovery, like an animal that has been felled by a stray bullet. After a minute or two, Angus gets up, dish in hand. I jump to my feet and indicate at the smeared traces of salmon flesh and peas, ‘I can take that into the kitchen, I need to fetch the dessert anyway.’
Angus doesn’t move a muscle. ‘I’ll take it. I don’t want dessert.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Angus!’ As I lean forward he elevates his hand, raising the plate out of my reach. My heart is scudding inside my T-shirt, bleating with distress. ‘Angus, this is ridiculous! Please sit down. Let me get the lemon posset.’
I see him lower his arm and for a split second I think he is going to sit down but then his mouth curves into a smile that my gut registers as bad news before my brain does.
‘I already told you I don’t want any dessert, Claire! Didn’t you hear me? No fucking dessert! And if you want my dinner plate, well you can certainly have it!’ He slams the china back onto the table with such force it skims over the cloth and smashes onto the floor together with a wine glass and the carefully re-lit candle.
There is a moment of unblemished silence before he turns and starts to walk upstairs, the back of his neck rigid. Halfway up he stops. ‘It was a nice meal, Claire, but you didn’t actually cook anything, did you?’ he says without turning around. ‘All you did was open some packets. I saw them in the kitchen when I went to fetch the matches.’
* * *
After Angus has gone, I begin to pick the broken shards of porcelain and crystal off the carpet, kneeling on the floor and piling the fragments onto the unbroken plate. I hear him pacing overhead in our bedroom and wonder if he will come back downstairs again when he has calmed down, knowing I would prefer that he didn’t. I realise I am not particularly surprised at how the evening has turned out, although whether that is because I never really believed I could make a success of it, or because I never really believed I could make a success of Angus, I can’t tell. The Red Queen, I think, needs to be told her advice is actually shit.
I see that a piece of glass I’m holding is glossed with red and assume it’s from my lipstick until a bead of blood drops lazily onto my lap followed in quick succession by another. Grabbing one of the napkins, I bind my finger with it, lean back against the wall and close my eyes. The last time I sat like this, on the floor of my sitting room, was just after the white-haired guy and his mate came to call for Mark. I remember how I sank to the ground after slamming the door. How Mark came and sat beside me. And I remember what happened next.
I don’t know how long I stay there, folded against the skirting board, but the next thing I am aware of is my hand, the wounded, wrapped hand, being held gently by somebody else.
‘Good God, Claire, you’ve cut yourself!’
I open my eyes and see Angus on his knees in front of me. His eyes are puffed and bloodshot and I realise with slow astonishment that he has been crying.
‘It’s OK,’ I say, ‘it’s just a scratch.’ I begin to struggle to my feet until Angus puts his free hand on my shoulder.
‘No, stay sitting down until I’ve checked out the damage.’
‘There’s no need. Really, I’m fine—’
‘Stay where you are, Claire!’ There is an echo of his earlier tone that makes me freeze. However, almost instantaneously he smiles. The steady, expansive way it moves first his lips, and then his cheeks and then his irises, is like a dimmer switch gradually turning the light to maximum. He says softly, ‘I’m so sorry for spoiling the evening. I’m going to make everything better but first I’m going to take a look at your hand.’
I wait by the wall and a moment later he comes back with a tray bearing a small bowl of water, some cotton wool, antiseptic cream and a box of plasters.
‘Now then…’ He peels back the napkin and proceeds to bathe and dress the rather unimpressive cut on the second finger of my right hand with painstaking care. ‘Shall I get you some Nurofen?’ he asks once the plaster is in place and it is obvious there is no more possible first aid to perform.
‘No, Angus, it’s really not necessary.’
He keeps hold of my wrist as if I might get up and sprint out of the door if he let it go. ‘I was out of order, Claire, for reacting the way I did to the fiasco about tomorrow. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s OK,’ I say, knowing it wasn’t OK at all but aware that perspectives can change; that what may not seem OK at the time it happens may come to seem really quite OK later. And vice versa. I touch his cheek, ‘I’m sorry for forgetting about the dinner.’
‘I only behaved the way I did’ – he continues – ‘because I was disappointed. I wanted you to meet my friends and I expected you to be so pleased about going to The Ivy.’
I groan. ‘It’s such a shame the reservation clashes with Agatha’s birthday.’
‘Who’s Agatha?’
‘She’s a…’ – I don’t quite know what label to give our relationship – ‘a colleague, we work together in the same team.’
‘She’s not a very close friend, then?’ Angus lets go of my wrist and pushes a stray lock of hair away from my eyes, tucking it behind my left ear.
‘No, but—’
‘Are you sure you can’t cancel?’ His hand stops moving and settles on the bell-pull of my ponytail.
‘Angus!’ I take my hand from his face.
‘I’m sorry! Forget I said anything.’ He returns his hand to his lap and we sit in silence.
‘Look,’ I say eventually, ‘the birthday drinks start about five thirty. They may not go on too long. I could probably get to The Ivy for about eight o’clock.’
‘That would be perfect!’ Angus kisses my cheek as if he were congratulating me. ‘We’ll wait for you in the bar.’
‘You don’t want to wait at the table?’
‘Not without the star of the show! Now,’ he stands up, ‘how about that dessert?’
I follow him into the kitchen and take the lemon posset out of the fridge. Instinctively, it seems, both of us avoid going back to the table and the shattered remains of the meal; we eat standing up by the countertop instead. At least Angus eats; he makes a point of finishing the entire thing, complimenting me on my choice of dessert and observing how well it goes with the salmon. I find I have lost my appetite and end up tipping most of my bowl into the sink where it drains down the plughole in a canary-coloured swirl of sugar.
I offer Angus a coffee, but he declines, as I knew h
e would, saying it will keep him awake and he needs an early night because he has an eight o’clock meeting the next day. However, it gives me reason to boil the kettle, to delay downstairs while he heads to bed. I carry a cup to the sofa and curl into one of the corners. I shouldn’t have forgotten about the dinner and Angus shouldn’t have lost his temper. But how do you identify the point where one wrong ends and another wrong begins?
I find I have chosen the end with the trunk and I place the mug carefully upon it. I imagine what might have happened if I had opened the box earlier this evening, how easy it would have been to change the dynamics of the argument.
One of the tea lights I lit earlier is still burning and there is a faint glow of borrowed light from upstairs where Angus is probably getting ready for bed. In the almost dark the furniture in the room makes anonymous shapes while the elegant decor and bespoke shelving is invisible. Without these superficial distractions I can feel the age of the building as if it is a pulse throbbing through the paintwork. Like an audience settled in for a show, the trophy house is digesting the first act, sufficiently interested, I think, to keep watching: waiting to see what will happen next.
Chapter Thirteen
Five years earlier
When Daniel walks in the door of the Railway Tavern it takes me a split second to recognise him, although actually he’s dressed no differently from when I said goodbye to him six hours earlier. I am struggling to adjust to this reinvented Daniel, the one who looks absurdly old in his budget suit, lace-up shoes and a haircut so severe the felted planes of his skull are visible like the contour lines on a map. He arrives at my table, where I have been waiting with growing frustration for nearly an hour, and dumps his laptop bag by the chair opposite mine.
‘How did it go?’ I ask.
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Hard to tell. I guess they were pretty nice, but they could have been nice because they were interested or nice because they’re not interested so they couldn’t be bothered to ask me anything difficult.’ As he speaks his eyes rove about the room, as if surveying the smattering of drinkers and lingerers who seem to be the backbone of the clientele; the occupants of the saloon are mainly commuters stopping for a shot or three to sweeten their re-engagement with family life, or loners settling down to a long, liquid dinner. I didn’t look out of place sitting on my own for so long; now that Daniel has arrived he and I are the only couple here.
‘Hey’ – I touch his hand – ‘I expect they were nice because you were brilliant. If they weren’t interested they wouldn’t have asked you to go for an interview, right?’
‘Maybe…’ He turns to me at last and I see how exhausted he is. ‘There were so many applicants for only four spaces. They were interviewing for the whole of today in thirty-minute slots, and apparently yesterday was exactly the same.’
I sigh in sympathy.
He gestures at the empty glass that was actually my second. ‘Drink?’
I nod and he heads to the bar.
About six weeks ago Daniel announced that he didn’t want to be a lawyer after all, despite the fact that out of our crowd Daniel is the one most likely to bag a first. Instead, motivated, it seemed, by the constant news reports of refugees packing themselves into over-crowded boats and airless trucks, he wanted to work as a strategist for one of the international organisations that are trying to put systems in place for the homeless and displaced. Once the wave of post-exam partying had ebbed he began to apply for jobs, real jobs with job descriptions, contractual hours and annual salaries boasting of alien concepts such as pay progression and pensions. Most of the other law graduates, me included, have signed up for law school, the medics and vets still have years of debt accumulation ahead and everyone else either plans to travel or do a succession of unpaid internships, arranged and funded by their freely educated, home-owning parents. We all know the real world is rushing fast towards us, but so far only Daniel has dared to step into its path.
While he waits to be served, I watch him pull out his mobile, glance at the screen and put it back in his pocket. I promise myself not to ask him about today’s tally of messages. Whenever I do he assures me it’s been better – ‘much better’ – lately and always insists so forcibly that there’s no need to get the police involved I’ve stopped asking him to call them. All the more annoyingly, I’m starting to suspect he is concealing his phone from me, tucking it away in drawers and bags, so I have no easy way of checking the real volume of traffic on his mobile or even of monitoring the drip-drip of pings and buzzes; it’s not that I don’t trust him, I just want to know what’s going on. Surely that’s not unreasonable?
Anyhow, this evening, I want to talk to Daniel about something other than his bonkers ex-girlfriend; I’ve discovered he has a surprise up his sleeve, a nice surprise, and I’m impatient to tell him that I know all about it, to save him the bother of keeping the secret any longer. Besides, it will be a welcome distraction from the dying embers of our student days. I touch the shoulder bag hooked onto the back of my chair for reassurance; it’s just a matter of choosing the perfect moment.
Daniel returns carrying a pint and a large glass of white wine while gripping a packet of salt and vinegar crisps between his teeth. The Tavern is a scruffy, unfashionable place, its dark tables pocked with water rings and its carpets and curtains so old that the place reeks of cigarettes although smoking in pubs has been banned for years. The only reason we’re here rather than one of our old haunts is because of its location, which is right next to the station. When Daniel had his first interview in London a couple of weeks ago I arranged to meet him on the platform so we could wander into town and get something to eat. Since his train was running late he suggested I wait in the Tavern; we adopted the same routine when the same thing happened a few days later and, well, here we are again.
Daniel sits down and rips open the middle of the crisp packet.
‘So tell me how it went,’ I say. ‘What did they ask you?’
He shrugs and takes a long pull on his pint before speaking. ‘I already told you I don’t know how it went. I’ll find out in a few days.’
‘Well, could you answer their questions?’
His glance is withering. ‘Of course I could answer the questions. It wasn’t bloody Mastermind. But what matters is whether I gave answers they liked and how my answers compared to those of the other candidates. And I have no way of knowing that myself, so I’m afraid I can’t tell you.’ He drinks again, like somebody necking water after a long, hot run.
I sit up in surprise and consider him more closely. The shadows staining his eye sockets, the ridge-like prominence of his cheekbones and his pale complexion have become such permanent features that I realise I had stopped noticing them. I wonder if this is the stress of job-hunting, toing and froing to London on trains that never seem to run to timetable, or whether he has been lying to me about the volume of messages and calls. Perhaps the numbers haven’t actually eased off at all.
‘Daniel?’ I begin, but he interjects before I can get further.
‘Hey’ – his foot finds mine under the table – ‘I’m sorry for snapping. I’m just tired, you know? It’s been a long day.’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Of course. I understand.’ I smile and press back against his leg.
He inspects his near-empty glass. ‘I’m going to get another pint. Do you want anything?’
‘No, thanks.’ I have barely touched the first drink he bought me, but as he gets up I catch his sleeve. ‘OK, I’ll have another to keep you company.’
While he waits at the bar I see him take off his jacket and throw it across his arm. The evening is sultry; although the weeks of glorious sunshine have finally dwindled a persistent heat lingers, like dulled beauty on an older woman’s face. I consider my shoulder bag, the contents of my shoulder bag. This, I decide, is the ta-da moment: the perfect antidote to the chronic flatness of this evening’s mood.
As Daniel places his order I fish into my bag and pull out a large
glossy travel brochure, unable to resist a quick, tantalising flick through its pages before I set it down. The title is City Breaks, with listings for hotels and flights, and even suggested itineraries in all the usual places: Paris, Rome, Venice, Madrid, Prague. I have my eye on Venice; who wouldn’t die for a weekend of gondolas, art and gift shops bursting with masks and glass bottles? But if Daniel has set his heart on somewhere else – even, I barely dare to hope, already booked tickets, chosen a hotel – possibly a charming little bed and breakfast run by a silver-haired landlady – I won’t mind at all. Anywhere we can be together, undisturbed, with nothing to focus on but each other, is more than fine by me.
I found the brochure in the drawer of Daniel’s desk about ten days ago, when I was searching for his phone. It was hidden beneath a stack of publications from the United Nations on the refugee crisis, together with a couple of similar magazines from different travel companies. The other brochures contained trips to more exotic destinations like India, Thailand and Vietnam. I’m not an idiot, however. I know locations like those are way too ambitious for our poor crippled credit cards, although I don’t blame Daniel for picking them up and fingering their seductive pages even if he finally settled – as I know he must have done – on the more modest City Breaks option.
I place the brochure in the middle of the table. The photo on the cover shows a couple, hand in hand, gazing dreamily up at the Eiffel Tower. The picture has been taken from behind so you can’t see their expressions, yet anyone can tell from the coordinated, upward tilt of their heads and their interlocked fingers what a wonderful time they are having.
The Couple: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist Page 13