‘I’d rather,’ said Smith, looking her in the eye, ‘be with you. OK?’
Finally giving in, sinking to the sofa, Sarah’s ‘thank you’ made Smith roll her eyes. Sitting there, re-watching a familiar episode from season two, bitching mildly about the characters’ hair and whitened teeth, Sarah had felt looked after. Cared about.
By unspoken agreement they didn’t discuss Leo. When they heard him creep in at two a.m. Sarah had yawned and gone out to greet him, but not before Smith had taken her by the arm and whispered, ‘Listen, you, this Sarah-shaped person, is fine, is sweet, is special. Do you hear me?’ She’d pulled Sarah to her, her arms like chopsticks. ‘You’re not the problem. Remember that.’ She’d pushed her away. ‘Now skedaddle,’ she’d smiled, obviously exhausted and ready for bed.
Leo had been fearful, penitent, afraid he’d gone too far. Sarah, too tired to probe, had accepted his cock and bull story. As she listened to him snore beside her, she thought of how he regarded Smith as a destructive, selfish person, with no notion that Smith was keeping her upright.
The last blog was titled ‘Bon Voyage!!’ Headscarf wound around her naked head, Smith beamed, cheek to cheek with Sarah in the back of a taxi. Sarah recalled the thrum of the idling engine and the taxi driver asking, ‘Which terminal, ladies?’
‘Don’t say “terminal”!’ There was no situation dark enough to blunt Smith’s funny bone.
The second glass of Prosecco appeared on the table. Sarah looked up to say ‘thank you’.
‘This one’s on me.’ It was the tieless man from the bar. His jacket was over his shoulder. His head was to one side. He smelled of spirits and his smile was wolfish.
Sarah sprang up.
‘Whoa!’ The stranger caught the toppling glass. ‘I don’t bite.’
‘I have to . . . the loo.’ Sarah pointed to the lobby, as if he might not know what a loo was.
‘Hurry back.’
From the tone of his voice, he knew she was escaping. A doorman let her out and she sped down the street, her phone to her ear.
Jane was delighted. ‘Get your arse over here! There’ll be a negroni waiting.’
It wasn’t far to Escapologist, a cocktail bar in Covent Garden that was darker than Claridge’s, with leather chairs and tiled floors beneath an arched ceiling.
‘Fancy meeting you here.’ Tom rose from a low seat in the candlelit twilight.
Sarah laughed. She was uneasy; Tom was bathed in the blinding light of fidelity. He made her feel shoddy.
Tom bent forward to kiss her cheek, then seemed to think better of it. ‘You look . . . nice, pretty, um, great.’ Tom looked helpless. ‘You’re not an easy woman to compliment, Sarah.’
‘I’ve scrubbed up, that’s all.’
‘See what I mean? Hard to compliment. You look great.’ Tom maintained eye contact as they took their seats so that the compliment landed.
‘Where’s Jane?’
‘She had to leave.’
‘What? I spoke to her a few minutes ago.’
‘She gets these migraines. Has she told you?’
‘Yeah.’ Sarah had seen Jane in the grip of a migraine. ‘Poor thing!’
‘It’s been bubbling under all day, apparently, and then it suddenly kind of blossomed and she had to go. She said to say sorry.’ Tom looked apologetic himself. ‘So it’s just me, I’m afraid.’ He pushed a tumbler towards her. ‘And this, of course.’
‘You’ll do,’ smiled Sarah. The amber cocktail winked at her from its crystal glass. The room was womb-like, relaxing. The company was good. ‘I just ran away from a man,’ she laughed, and told her tale of the smooth operator at Claridge’s.
‘He’s probably sitting there wondering if you’ve fallen down the toilet.’
‘It was mean, wasn’t it?’
‘Nah.’ Tom had little sympathy. ‘He’ll survive.’
‘He seemed the type who does it all the time.’ Sarah sipped her drink. It was bracing, to say the least. ‘Once upon a time I would have sat and let him chat me up. I used to like adventures.’
‘And now?’
‘I was scared.’
‘It’s only what? Six months since your divorce. You’re out of practice.’ Tom raised his glass to her. ‘I’m sure you have many more adventures ahead of you, Sarah.’
The famous quote from Ernest Hemingway, that drinking makes other people more interesting, didn’t apply here. Tom interested Sarah hugely; it felt odd, even a little wrong, to be alone with him without his wife, her friend. But he’s also my friend, she reminded herself. ‘A night out feels like an adventure these days. The flat takes up all my time.’
‘Is it rude if I say you don’t get out enough?’
‘Almost, but no.’
‘You’re finally getting over him, aren’t you?’
‘He has a name,’ smiled Sarah. ‘Yes, I’m getting over Leo.’ No need to tell Tom she was getting over Leo by getting back with Leo. ‘But, I’ve always been a homebody, even when I was young.’
‘There’s a difference between being at home and being imprisoned.’ Tom flicked a look at her, as if to gauge her reaction. ‘Stop me if I’m being an arse.’
‘You’re not in the least arse-ish.’ Like Jane, Tom’s bluntness sprang from a good place, somewhere near the heart. Sarah intuited that it was unusual for Tom to intervene like this; the thought warmed her.
He sat forward, startled. ‘Hang on, aren’t you on Mikey duty?’
‘I swapped with Lisa.’ A rota hung over the table in the communal hall. Mikey had the residents of twenty-four eating out of his tiny paws. His hot-water bottle was changed regularly, as was his shredded paper bedding. He’d put on a little weight, and was, Sarah felt, enjoying his new lifestyle.
‘I hope she remembers to feed him.’
‘For a professional carer, Lisa sometimes seems, well, uncaring,’ said Sarah, ‘but trust me, round about now she’ll be serving the finest minced cat food to the young master.’
‘Mikey has to get better. I made a promise.’
‘And you never break your promises.’
‘Never.’
‘I believe you.’
The bar filled up. Every now and then, another drinker gave them a look, an easily translated glance that was best summed up as ‘nice couple’. Perhaps it was the easy conversation or the body language as they tilted their frames towards each other.
Maybe, thought Sarah, her negroni to her lips, it’s the crackle of sexual attraction. She hadn’t realised it was mutual, but the hive mind of the Escapologist thought differently. Her wayward libido agreed, treacherously sending a frisson shooting through her whenever her foot touched Tom’s by accident beneath the table.
Her conscience made amends by drawing Jane back into the circle. ‘This feels peculiar without Jane.’
‘Does it?’ Tom looked mildly aggrieved. ‘It’s nice to get away from the non-stop personal comments, to be honest.’
‘She has a right to make them,’ smiled Sarah.
‘Well, yes and no.’ Tom looked quizzically at Sarah, as if he’d just realised something. ‘Are you, does this . . . would you rather not? Without Jane to chaperone us?’
‘I love having Jane around, that’s all.’
‘Me too, but I’m allowed out without her.’ Tom’s phone, face up on the table, glowed and he jumped. ‘Sorry,’ he said, glancing at it. ‘I’m really not one of those people who look at their phone all the time but I’m waiting to hear from my agent. One of the producers of Vile Bodies is in the States, and he’s getting in touch at the end of their working day which is round about now.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ said Sarah, doing just that.
‘And everything else. Legs. Eyes. The lot.’ Tom leaned back and groaned. ‘I promised I wouldn’t let myself get all het up about this . . .’ He sat forward, his face intense. ‘I want to make a mark, you know? I don’t want to die without doing something.’
‘What does making a mark entail?’
>
‘I’m not sure.’ Tom laughed. ‘My job’s so trivial. In your line of work, you see the difference you make.’
Sarah had come across this misapprehension before. ‘It’s not a Michelle Pfeiffer film, where the gutsy lady gets through to the troubled young street punk and suddenly the kid’s learning the violin and going to Harvard. It’s slow and dispiriting at times, with a few steps back for every morsel of ground you win.’
‘But you love it.’
‘I used to.’ Tom deserved a sincere reply. ‘I’m trying to feel that way again, but falling back in love is tricky.’
Tom was surprised. ‘I’ve seen you with Una. You care.’
That compliment meant more to Sarah than any amount of ovations for her hair or her eyes or her ‘curves’. ‘Thank you.’
The phone beeped again. Tom moved his head and harrumphed. ‘Jane making sure I’m looking after you.’ He drained his glass and motioned to a waiter. ‘Now you know what keeps me awake, what do you worry about?’
‘All the usuals.’
‘What’re they?’
‘Sickness. Poverty. Dying alone.’ Sarah puffed out her cheeks. ‘The fun stuff.’
‘You won’t die alone.’ Tom seemed sure of this.
‘I’d like that in writing, please.’ Sarah tucked her feet under her chair. Boundaries.
The waiter hovered and Tom checked with Sarah whether she wanted another negroni or something different. ‘Olives?’ he asked. ‘Are you hungry? Do you need some tap water on the side?’
‘Jane’ll be proud of you.’ After years of playing both PA and au pair to Leo it was novel to feel looked after. Even the strongest, most independent woman can unbend now and then, let another adult take the strain. Sarah had been clenching her buttocks, and her mind, for months; she felt some of the tension dissolve. No doubt it’ll be patiently waiting when I get back to number twenty-four. ‘Where did you grow up, Tom?’ She imagined him in a comfortable home, with comfortable parents; he was the product of happiness, she felt sure.
‘Gloucestershire. Place called Fairford.’
‘Sorry, never heard of it.’
‘No reason why you should, unless you’re into tea shops.’
‘Actually, I am,’ said Sarah. ‘Heavily.’
‘Teenage boys, as a rule, have zero interest in scones, so I got out the millisecond I could. Came to the smoke, as nobody ever actually calls it.’
‘And found Jane?’
‘Yup. In a revolting two-bedder over a minimart in Dalston. This was before the hipsters invaded.’ Tom rubbed his nose. Hard. As if he wanted to rub it clean off his face. ‘With you, all roads lead to Jane.’
‘Not for you?’ Sarah found herself listening hard to his answer. A dash of disrespect and this night out would turn sour.
‘She’s part of me,’ said Tom.
The simplicity put Sarah’s mind to rest.
Olives arrived. A couple had a row at the bar. The music got a little louder. At Tom and Sarah’s table the conversation was fluid, easy, ordinary even.
But not dull. Sarah thought of Jane, at home in the dark with lights exploding in her head, willing herself better before the next day’s trip to Southwold. A quaint town marooned in Suffolk’s infamously flat landscape, Southwold wasn’t dull, despite its lack of skyscrapers; Tom and I are Southwold, in human form.
Sarah loved Southwold.
It’d be effortless to love Tom, too, if he was free, if she was free. Another woman might have capitalised on her rapport with Tom – another woman like, ooh, Helena, for example – but Sarah dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s when it came to love.
Apart from that big fat affair-shaped situation I have going on with Leo, obviously.
‘It’s almost midnight.’ Tom looked at his watch, eyebrows hoiked. ‘Where did the night go?’
The bill arrived. ‘Let me . . .’ Sarah always paid her way.
‘Shut up. And no.’ Tom was firm.
A torrent of tourists still milled on the cobbles. Covent Garden felt like a scene from a movie, brightly lit, full of life, with the Victorian bones of the grand old buildings as a backdrop.
It was oddly date-like, Tom and Sarah leaning close together as they navigated the crowd. Sarah thought of Jane, wondered how she’d feel about somebody borrowing her husband in this way. Jane’s fiery friendship was important to her; the minuscule redhead was a giant oak. Perfect for sheltering under, roots reaching far beneath her feet. How could a kook be so solid? Number twenty-four was – a little late – reaching out its arms; even Mavis was one of Sarah’s posse now.
When Tom’s phone let out its attention-seeking buzz, they both ducked into an arched doorway. Sarah listened as he said, ‘Seriously? I mean, for real? Jesus. OK.’ He put his phone in his pocket, his face blank.
‘Bad news?’
‘I got it.’ Tom put his hands to his head. ‘I got the part, Sarah. I got it.’
‘Oh my God! Congratulations!’ Sarah did a wee dance. ‘You’re going to make your mark, Tom.’
‘We should celebrate.’ Tom shook himself and grinned, waves of elation radiating from him. ‘I know just how to do that.’
Tom’s lips were full, bold, as they moved against Sarah’s for a second or two at most. He spoke, his face so close it blocked out their surroundings. It was just them. ‘We should do this again. What do you say?’
Tom didn’t recognise Sarah’s silence as horror. ‘You. Me. A table covered with food. A bottle of something cold.’ The silence persisted; Tom lost some of his confidence and his face moved away and the world crowded back in. ‘Sarah? Say something.’
‘And Jane? Is she invited on this picture-perfect date?’
‘Jane knows. She’s known I’ve felt . . . like this, since I met you.’ Tom was halfway to angry as he said, ‘Look, Jane and I do our own thing.’
Sarah wiped her lips and Tom took a step back. ‘She doesn’t need to know,’ he said. ‘If that’s what bothering you.’
‘Christ, you’re . . .’ Sarah backed away, as if Tom was infectious. ‘Why would I want to have dinner with somebody like you, Tom?’
‘Wait a minute.’ Tom put up his hand. ‘Time out, woman.’
‘Do not call me woman.’
‘OK, time out, crazy bitch,’ said Tom. ‘I got it wrong. Fine. I thought this was going somewhere. Let’s walk away, yeah? Pretend this car crash never happened.’
‘You need to think about why you do this.’
‘When I need psychoanalysis I’ll book you for an hour. Until then, back off. Now, much as I’d love to hang around for further character assassination, it’s late.’ Tom turned, with a terse wave of his hand that was more good riddance than goodbye.
Chapter Twelve
Notting Hill, W11
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Sunday 24th July, 2016
THERE IS NOTHING MORE VISIBLE THAN THAT WHICH IS SECRET
The sun persevered; confounding all the doubters who believed it favoured the other side of the Channel. July took up the baton from June, weeks unfolding in a bright haze.
All the windows in the house were open. No longer hermetically sealed boxes stacked on top of one another, number twenty-four felt like a doll’s house, its back opened up for play.
From Sarah’s kitchen she heard the ambient sounds of Notting Hill. The buses wheezing on the main road. The clatter of workmen excavating basements. Feuding R’n’B in the back gardens. She painted, hypnotised by the repetition of the brushstrokes.
The flat was beginning to look like somewhere a person could live: not me. Each sweep of the brush brought her closer to the deadline. Sarah was being dragged towards the end of August by summer’s implacable forward motion.
She tried not to think about it, and thought of little else.
Down on the emerald lawn, Tom snoozed in a deckchair. These were his last few weeks of anonymity before the BBC publicity machine turned him into a star. A Mr Darcy. A Poldark.
One morning, thrown together at the post table by sarcastic fate, she’d said, ‘If you’re wondering why I’m avoiding you—’
‘Nope,’ Tom had said, shortly. ‘I’m not wondering. It’s fine by me.’
Anger had redoubled, inexhaustible. Four weeks had done nothing to dent the intensity of her outrage, both at what Tom had done and his lack of repentance. She was a liberal person, slow to condemn, quick to justify, but Tom had gone too far for any defence to be credible.
Tom’s allure had always been difficult for Sarah to acknowledge; now she saw it as simply sexual. Tom was a good-looking guy; to admit she’d been drawn to his personality would mean she was a terrible judge of character. Again.
The attraction was only ever meant to be hypothetical; he overstepped the mark. That vigilant conscience of hers muttered that she was no angel when it came to adultery, but Sarah had an answer for that: Leo’s different! He used to be mine, and might be mine again.
At times Sarah grew hot worrying that Jane knew about the horrible kiss.
In truth, the kiss hadn’t been horrible. When narrowed down to one mouth meeting another, Tom’s lips had been almond-sweet.
I pulled away.
Sarah revisited her behaviour like an investigating police officer.
I did nothing wrong.
If that police officer dug deeper, Sarah looked less lilywhite. She’d fancied Tom, despite her efforts not to, since they’d met. Had her body, her scent, her eyes betrayed her, and given Tom the confidence to make a move?
Male voices drifted up from the garden. Sarah peered down to see the two decorators from Lisa’s flat lighting up cigarettes on the lawn.
Lisa was there, too, giggling, pushing back her fringe. Even from this distance, Sarah could make out her Cleopatra eyeliner.
You go, girl.
A short rap sounded at the door. A signature knock, she heard it most days, and Sarah knew who to expect when she opened the door.
The Woman at Number 24 Page 15