by Kate Russo
She waits for him to look up before answering. “It was fine, thank you. Lovely bed in the master.”
“Good. Yeah. It’s one of those mattresses that claim to keep you cool. So it should be really nice when the weather gets warmer.”
She chuckles. “At my age, women are hot all year round.”
His eyes twitch while he digs around in his brain for an appropriate response. She loves doing this to men.
“You’re a runner?” she asks, letting him off the hook.
“No, not really, just trying to be healthier, I guess, in my old age.” He paces around the garden. “Mind if I sit for a minute?” he asks, pointing at the ground. He looks as though he might collapse if he doesn’t.
“Of course! Did you have some horrible guest that wouldn’t let you sit in your own garden?”
He flops down on his back and stares up at the sky, emptying his pockets into the grass, then turns his head to look at her. “No, but you are the friendliest. Most want privacy. They don’t want to see your face at all.”
She rolls her eyes. She’s never known a day of privacy in her whole life. People who demand it bore her. “Honestly, Bennett, I’m happy to share it all. I like your face.”
He smiles back. “Even when I look like this?”
She brushes it off. “I raised two athletic sons. God, they used to stink.”
He chuckles at that, stretching his arms across the lawn.
“Oh, how was meeting the boyfriend last night?” she asks, feeling like maybe they’ve got a bit of a rapport building.
He stops chuckling and sits up. He’s cautious. “I don’t think I like him.”
“What’s wrong with him?” She sets down her iPad to signal she’s listening.
“I don’t know if I can put my finger on it. He’s too polite, maybe? Strong handshake and he called me ‘sir.’ In fact, he wouldn’t stop calling me ‘sir,’ even when I asked him not to.” She can hear the agitation building in his voice. “It won’t stick, right? Am I going to have to deal with some kid calling me ‘sir’ for the rest of my life?”
She starts laughing before he can even finish stating his concerns. “Poor Dad. I’d be worried if you didn’t hate him. That would mean you weren’t paying attention.”
He shrugs.
“You two are close? You and your daughter?”
“Yeah,” he says, almost misty-eyed.
“She won’t stay with anyone you hate.”
“So, if I just hate them all . . .” he says, apparently hatching a plan.
She nods, laughing. “Well, one day she’s going to bring home a young man that will remind you an awful lot of yourself, and you’ll have no choice but to like him.”
He flops back down on the grass. “I think you underestimate the power of my self-loathing.”
They’re both laughing now, Bennett so hard that he starts coughing and has to roll over onto his side to relieve his chest.
“I could use your help,” Kirstie says, when he’s finally stopped hacking.
“Of course,” he says, pulling himself up.
“I don’t need you to stand,” she says, motioning him to sit back down and he complies. She loves that about him. He’s like a well-trained dog. She picks up her iPad. “Where should I live?”
He looks taken aback, but then quickly smiles. “Big question.”
“I’m looking at properties and maybe I’m in the minority, but I don’t think I want one of those Victorian terrace houses. I want something modern. I want someplace with a real city feel to it.” She realizes, of course, that she’s describing the opposite of his house. “No offense.”
“None taken,” he assures her. He stares up at the sky, thinking. “I don’t know what your budget is . . .”
“It’s pretty big,” she says. “Go on.”
He looks right at her and she can tell he wants to ask where all the money has come from, but he doesn’t. If he’s figured out who she is and why she’s here, he’s given no indication. “Well, then maybe you want to look at the Barbican.”
“Ohhh,” she says, typing that into Google, saying it as she goes, “Bar-bi-can.”
“It’s right in the center of town. Very modern. Like a little city in the city.”
She scrolls through images of the brutalist designed estate with its three towers looking out over the city. It’s all concrete, as far as the eye can see, like it’s grown straight up from the pavement. How on earth did Bennett understand, so effortlessly, a place she’d actually been imagining? She looks over at him, excitedly. “I love it. Oooo . . . Look at this one! Tenth floor, Lauderdale Tower . . . three bedrooms. Gorgeous kitchen . . . not that I can cook. Wow! The views!”
She spins the iPad around so Bennett can see. He comes closer, squatting in front of the screen, but clearly trying not to get too close. His sweat smells sweet, like old socks dipped in honey. He shrugs, looking at the images as she scrolls through them. “Well, yeah, it’s amazing.”
“This is perfect for me. How did I not know about this?”
“Happy to help.” He sits back down, clearly satisfied with a job well done. “Maybe I should become an estate agent.”
“For wealthy divorcées,” she says. “You’d make a killing.”
He seems to be genuinely mulling over this possibility.
“Yep. I love this!” she declares, setting down the iPad and clapping her hands together in one big boom. “Come have a look at it with me!”
He looks back at his studio, nothing on his easel. “Yeah, okay. Let me get cleaned up,” he says, standing.
“What happened to your little painting?”
“Done.” He smiles proudly.
She hopes he’ll offer to show it to her, but he doesn’t.
When he’s gone inside, she looks up at her citrine crystal on the bedroom windowsill. She’d swear it’s glowing.
* * *
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When Kirstie and Bennett step out of Barbican Station into the afternoon sunshine, she immediately looks up at the concrete towers that reach forty-two stories each in front of her. The glass-walled skyscrapers of the city shimmer in the distance.
“What time is the viewing?” Bennett asks, glancing at his watch.
“Three,” she tells him, strutting down Aldersgate Street, confident, like she knows where she’s going.
“That’s it, there.” Bennett stops in the middle of the sidewalk, pointing at the tower directly in front of them. “Lauderdale Tower.”
She grabs his arm and shakes it with excitement. She wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for him, and for that reason alone she thinks she has the right to touch him.
Almost a foot taller, he smiles down at her. “Still like it, then?”
Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. She likes everything about this moment, though she reminds herself that she tends to get overexcited by things she really should think through. But, she loves a good gut feeling and still continues to trust hers, despite the fact that it’s clearly led her astray before.
“We’ve got a little time. Want to see the pond?”
“There’s a pond?!” She does her best to sound thrilled, not wanting to tell him she’s recently developed a fear of water. After all, for the last two decades she’s gradually transformed herself from woman to stone, thinking that was what she needed to do to build her defenses, to become impenetrable and solid. Until that night on the balcony, it didn’t occur to her that there’s one problem with stones: they sink.
* * *
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She can’t tell how deep it is. That’s Kirstie’s first thought as they approach the man-made pond at the center of the Barbican Estate. The water is a dark, greenish-brown, covered with a thick green moss. An abyss, Kirstie thinks, stagnant and dense. She imagines her body
sinking to the bottom, never to be found. Shuddering, she turns her attention to the fountain that spits and gurgles in its center. Around it, a few small, long-beaked birds wade through the water, picking at the moss. Bennett’s looking at her, strangely. “Sorry,” she tells him. “Got a shiver.”
“I thought you were always hot?”
She scowls at him, then turns her attention back to the birds. “Aren’t they cute. What are they?”
“Birds,” Bennett says.
She looks over at him again, pretending exasperation, though in truth she enjoys his facetiousness.
“No clue. I’m not a bird guy.”
“Ornithologist,” she says. Her father was an avid bird lover. “You’re not an ornithologist.”
He shakes his head, no, he’s not. Unlike Albert, Bennett doesn’t seem to mind being corrected. They amble along the brick-lined terrace that surrounds the pond, where residents and city types have gathered to eat sandwiches out of triangular cardboard packages.
Bennett points to the restaurant that runs along the side of the pond. “That’s the cafe, there. They serve chicken—also a bird, so I’m told.”
She squints at him, trying to figure out if he’s flirting or if he’s just like this. Most men, when they flirt with her, just stare at her cleavage, but Bennett seems to prefer teasing, like a boy on the playground who doesn’t yet know about sex, only proximity.
“You’re going to go for a swim, Bennett. If you’re not careful.”
* * *
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The estate agent is waiting in the lobby of Lauderdale Tower when they arrive. She’s a younger Indian woman, probably in her thirties, even shorter than Kirstie, dressed in a grey pantsuit. “Hello, there,” she says, reaching out her hand. “I’m Priya, and you must be Kirstie?”
“Yes! Hello!” she says, taking Priya’s hand. She indicates to Bennett, who’s several feet behind her. “This is my friend and second pair of eyes, Bennett.” He takes his hand from his pocket and waves.
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Kirstie persuades, adopting a sprinter’s stance.
Priya looks surprised, possibly a little frightened, by Kirstie’s enthusiasm. Kirstie is used to that look—equal parts intimidation and pity—from other women. Priya turns to Bennett for guidance.
“She’s a little excited,” Bennett says with the classic British restraint Kirstie’s never been able to master. This is exactly why Kirstie brought him. He’s more likable. He’s handsome and he’s got this little scar under his eye that gets really deep when he smiles, making him just rugged enough. Priya’s noticed it already.
* * *
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After a short elevator ride, during which Kirstie was effervescent, like freshly poured prosecco trying not to fizz over the side of the glass, they arrive at the flat. She’s excited by the idea of changing her life so completely that, maybe, in a few years her old one will be unrecognizable. Maybe it’s not the right thing to want that. Maybe she should want to hang on to some elements of her old life, but why? A butterfly, she suspects, doesn’t long for the days it was a caterpillar. She hopes that when she steps into the flat, she’ll be able to see clearly, for the first time in thirty years, what life without Albert—a life on her own—could look like. For a long time, solitude had been scarier even than death. That’s what a guy like Albert does to you. He convinces you that your worst enemy is yourself. It hadn’t even occurred to her to be frightened of him, fearing herself instead. She still hates being alone in a room, so she keeps the TV on in the background. Afraid of her own thoughts, she takes sleeping pills at night to avoid being left alone with them for too long.
She opens the door to a long corridor, Bennett and Priya trailing behind. She does this slowly and quietly, almost as if she expects to encounter a predator around any corner—old habits die hard. When she comes to the edge of the kitchen, where the flat really opens up, she feels her face stretch into a wide, mouthy grin, and she turns back to Bennett, grabbing his arm and dragging him up beside her. “This is it!”
He looks at her like she’s nuts. “It’s the first place you’ve seen. You haven’t even seen the whole thing.”
“Haven’t you heard of love at first sight?”
His eyes seem to go dark, not exactly the reaction she’d hoped to elicit. Grabbing his shoulders, she shakes him, then goes over to the bank of wide windows that offer views of the other two towers. “Look at the view!” Light bounces off the glass of the skyscrapers in the distance. “Can you imagine waking up to energy like this every morning?!” Opening the door, she goes out onto the concrete terrace and peers over the edge. Below, the pavement bustles. “Ah! Men in suits everywhere! I wonder what they all do. Where are they all going?” It occurs to her that she’s talking to herself. Neither Bennett nor Priya have followed her out. She watches them chat through the glass, and when they share a laugh her heart sinks, wondering if it’s at her expense.
Bennett notices and joins her on the terrace.
“What was so funny?” she asks, when he leans his weight on the concrete ledge.
He looks at her strangely. “Oh. The rising cost of property in London. Suppose it’s not that funny, really . . .”
She nods, relieved. “I know you think I’m crazy. But it’s not just practicalities. I’m also looking for a gut feeling.” Again, she looks down at the pavement below. Strange, but the concrete actually empowers her. If she fell over the side, she wouldn’t sink, she wouldn’t gasp for air, wouldn’t disappear. She’d go splat. There’s something comforting about a hard impact. No use trying to explain this to Bennett; though she wonders if he is thinking about death, too, as he leans over the edge. “‘Look first with your heart and then with your head.’ That’s what they say on the property programs,” she says, trying to convince herself as much as him.
He looks out to the city, deep in thought, before he finally shrugs. “Yeah, alright.”
“Let’s look at the bedrooms,” she says, taking him by the hand and pulling him indoors.
“Do I get to pick which one I want?” He grins.
She realizes, their hands clasped, how elusive solitude still is to her.
* * *
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Back on Aldersgate Street, she says, “I need to make a list of questions. Will you help me think of all the practical things I need to ask?” Albert handled the purchase of their house in Salcombe. Before that, she’d lived at home with her parents or in a house share in Torquay. “I should at least try to make it seem like I know what I’m doing, but I don’t,” she adds. “I have no idea.”
“I’m no expert,” Bennett admits, running his hand through his hair. “It’s been over twenty years since I’ve bought a house. You might want to consult someone else.”
“I haven’t got anybody else, so put your thinking cap on.”
He smiles nervously.
“Have you got plans tonight?” she asks.
He glances at his watch. “I guess I thought I’d try to meet Claire at the end of her shift, but that’s not until eleven.”
“Perfect! Can I borrow you until closing time?”
He shrugs. “Yeah, okay.”
“Let’s find a pub and make a list. Then I’ll buy you dinner.”
She loops her arm through his to keep up with his pace. She wonders how long it will be before he starts asking questions about her past. She’s amazed that he hasn’t already. For such a sweet bloke, he seems rather self-absorbed. It’s nice, though, she thinks, that he doesn’t know her history. She’s noticing that the more time she spends with him, the more she forgets it herself.
* * *
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They find a small pub tucked into a courtyard next to a church that Kirstie thinks must be five hundred years old, at least. Thousands of people walk pas
t this church every day, she imagines, and they have done for hundreds of years. It reminds her of the vastness of history, and she likes that. The ocean used to make her feel that way—like she’s only a speck on the vast earth, a tiny blip in this world. Comforting, somehow. “I feel like I’m in a Dickens book,” she says.
Bennett pulls on the heavy wooden door to the pub, and they step into the empty, dimly lit room. “You like Dickens?”
Kirstie laughs. “I’ve seen A Christmas Carol on TV.”
He smirks, like he’s caught her in a lie.
“And you’re an expert?”
“Yep. Dickens and birds.” He grins as they hover by the dark wooden bar.
“Alright?” the barman asks. He’s a pale, skinny guy in a black shirt and trousers, both covered in white, crusty stains. Kirsty wonders if they keep him in a cupboard when he’s not on shift.
Bennett takes the lead. “Pint of lager, please.” He motions to Kirstie.
“Nonsense, we’ll share a bottle of pinot grigio,” she tells the barman, whose pointy hook nose goes back and forth between the two of them.
“You still want that lager, mate?”
“No,” Bennett says. “I guess not.”
When the barman hands Kirstie two glasses, she goes off in search of seats, leaving Bennett to follow with the wine and cooler.
“I like this one,” she says, choosing a table. “Nice view of the church.”
Bennett sets the ice bucket and wine in the center of the table. “Oh. You’re religious, now?”
She smiles. “Don’t be daft. It’s just pretty.”
He stays standing, regarding the church.
“Come on, admit it!” she says. “It’s pretty!”