The Woman at Number 24

by Juliet Ashton

  Sarah wondered if the added ingredient was Jane; she was a natural leader, always on the side of inclusion and generosity. A benign dictator. That didn’t cover it; the residents of number twenty-four had been through a lot. Keeley was right; hardship doesn’t always cause callouses. It can soften, too. Number twenty-four now found it easier to be kind.

  ‘This wasn’t my idea.’ Jane routed Helena, who’d already posted four selfies with the woman of the hour. ‘Tom organised it. We just did as we were told.’

  Sarah had kept away from Tom, like a dieter who doesn’t trust herself at the Pick ’n’ Mix counter. Now that everybody looked his way, Zelda raising her glass, it was safe for Sarah to study him.

  Graham, drunk and garrulous, slapped Tom on the back, and Helena murmured something about him being a dish. The dish stared back at Sarah and jerked his head towards the kitchen as he left the room.

  She hesitated. It was only a second or two but Sarah felt a couple of lifetimes go by. She looked at Jane, who was head to head with Zelda. She looked at Leo, who was staring at the ceiling, probably because Sarah couldn’t possibly be up there. She looked down at Una, who waved one of Mikey’s paws at her.

  And then she followed Tom, because she could see her route to the kitchen laid out in glowing footprints. She had to do it. Her life had narrowed to this moment in this shabby flat with this man, as if the house in her heart had always kept a room ready for him.

  The kitchenette was not itself. Some brave soul had polished the windows and scoured the tiles and laundered the curtains.

  First things first. ‘Where’s Camilla?’

  ‘Gone home. Gone for good. Just gone.’ Tom was breathless, like a student about to take a career-defining exam.

  ‘Were you kind?’

  ‘Of course. She guessed. She’s always known.’

  ‘What has she always known?’ Sarah moved a little closer. For now, she enjoyed the fact that they weren’t touching.

  ‘She guessed that it’s you, Sarah. That it’s always been you.’ Tom smiled, as if this fact relaxed him with its obviousness.

  Sarah closed her eyes. He was good. He was kind. At this distance he was insanely sexy. ‘Tom, are you too good to be true?’

  He grabbed her, and Sarah felt his mouth press against her forehead.

  ‘Is this it?’ whispered Tom against her fringe. ‘Can we finally let it bloody well happen?’

  Sarah tilted her head. They kissed, with the old-lady milk jugs and doilies and oven gloves as witnesses.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sarah.

  ‘For the party?’ asked Tom.

  Their diction was slurred by the kissing.

  ‘For giving me a chance.’

  ‘Shut up,’ he laughed. It was hard to laugh and kiss; things got messy. ‘What else could I do, you crazy woman?’

  ‘I think I love you, Tom.’ Sarah gulped. It’s too soon! She pulled away. ‘Sorry, Tom. I’m exhausted, and now this, it’s got me all . . .’

  ‘I love you too,’ said Tom. ‘Even when you didn’t love me back, when you were making cow eyes at Leo. When you told me I was evil and dangerous. I loved you then.’ He held her face in his hands, the better to look into her eyes. ‘It’s like when orphan chimps are imprinted on whatever they see first, even if it’s an old tyre or something. They love that tyre and they want to be with it.’

  ‘I’m your old tyre?’

  ‘You really are.’

  ‘Tom, we don’t have to go this fast.’ Sarah couldn’t be flippant. She’d lost so much. Whether this was love or something very like it, she wanted to insulate it, keep it safe.

  ‘I know we don’t have to go fast. Which is precisely why I want to. Your dad was right. About you. About a lot of things.’

  ‘How’d you mean?’ Sarah leaned against him, savouring the way he didn’t sway. Even the smarmed peroxide hair was acceptable. It’ll grow out. And Sarah would get to see it. Their future was unfolding, like a flower, in that very moment.

  ‘When he said you’re perfect the way you are. That you’re good enough.’

  ‘He was talking about you, too.’ She was soppy. Super soppy. Tom was a drug.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘About you? Yup.’

  ‘About Leo. About not needing a father figure. Because I don’t think I’m up to that role.’

  Sarah heard the tremor in his voice. She fixed her eyes on him, soppy no longer. ‘I don’t need a father figure, Tom. I have a perfectly good father. He just happens to be dead. He’s still with me. Up here.’ She tapped her head. ‘In here.’ She laid her hand on her chest.

  A fluttering bird folded its wings inside Sarah. A peace descended. She gave up struggling against her mother’s accusations and accepted that, yes, she was just like her dad. And that’s fine. He hadn’t been a hero and he hadn’t been a cad; he’d been himself.

  ‘Hey. Where have you gone?’ Tom lifted her chin with his finger. Their mouths were so close that their breath mingled.

  ‘Nowhere. I’m back.’ Sarah squeezed him. He felt just as bulky and warm as her fantasies had led her to believe. ‘We’ve wasted so much time.’

  ‘Time officially starts . . . now.’ Tom marked the moment with a kiss. ‘No regrets, OK?’

  Sarah, who believed that the best strategy for coping with life was to keep dreams small and hopes modest, leaned against Tom’s chest, lost in a dream so vast she could wander its halls forever.

  ‘Speech!’ shouted somebody from the sitting room.

  Emerging sheepishly to a good-natured burst of knowing applause, Sarah and Tom saw Zelda on her feet. She’d combed her hair, put her face to rights and was a grande dame once more.

  ‘Even though I earn my living writing,’ she began, looking around her, lingering on each face, ‘I can’t find the words to thank you for tonight. This is more than just food and drink. It’s a rebirth.’ She found Sarah and said, in her direction, ‘I’ve felt trapped in this house. I’ve longed to get away. We all of us feel that way sometimes.’

  Sarah nodded, her head on Tom’s shoulder.

  Zelda winked. It was unexpected from such an aristocratic individual. ‘But my chains aren’t chains at all. They’re ribbons. I could break them easily, but I find I don’t want to. If you’ll have me, I would love to stay on at number twenty-four.’

  ‘Of course we’ll have you!’ shouted Jane over the cheers.

  ‘Don’t worry, Zelda,’ said Una. ‘Me and Mikey will visit you in prison.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Notting Hill, W11

  UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT

  Thursday 24th August, 2017

  A LITTLE FRAGRANCE CLINGS TO THE HAND THAT GIVES ROSES

  Notting Hill prepares for carnival every year with the same gusto, the same combination of practicality and joie de vivre. Draped with bunting, number twenty-four fitted right in, but the flourishes were nothing to do with the carnival.

  ‘Is this too much glitter?’ Sarah held up a sign that said ‘Congratulations!’ She and Una had collaborated and she regretted giving the child a free hand.

  ‘There’s no such thing as too much glitter.’ Jane was folding a stack of paper napkins at Sarah’s kitchen table, hampered a little by the baby strapped to her front in a jersey sling. Now four months old, Ben had arrived early, with maximum stress and drama, but had been forgiven everything just for being Ben. Sarah reached out to take one of his waxy little fingers; he looked enough like his Uncle Tom to make her want to laugh and cry at the same time.

  You’re all I’ve got of him, she thought, lapsing into melodrama. The baby gazed steadily back, already an old soul in his Petit Bateau onesie.

  ‘Sarah, take him while I make a call.’

  Bundled into Sarah’s arms, Ben was just as happy there as he was with his mother, who turned her back to say, ‘Hi is that Newsnight?’ The saying goes that it takes a village to raise a child; it took a house to rear this one. The camaraderie triggered by Zelda’s arrest one year a
go still held strong; the residents were a team.

  Of sorts; Jane and Graham would never see eye to eye on anything, and Sarah hated to be left alone with Leo, but Una roamed from flat to flat like a free-range hen and they all pulled together when necessary, such as Zelda needing practical support with her court case or Ben needing a babysitter.

  ‘Let’s sit down while your mummy makes her big important phone call.’ Sarah’s flat had changed shape. The layout had altered, but the air of mild apocalypse had returned, with different holes in different walls.

  It’s defying my attempts to finish it.

  Sarah had entertained daydreams of herself and Tom on matching ladders, splashing paint about and breaking off to make boisterous love on the floor. Things rarely work out the way we imagine; which is why Sarah’s mind hopped like a nervous bird looking for a comfortable branch on this momentous day.

  What’ll I do if Zelda goes to prison?

  That, Sarah knew, was selfish; the real victim would be Zelda. Sending her to jail would be like keeping an orchid in a coal hole.

  The women relied on each other. The void left by Sarah’s mother was partly filled by Zelda; Sarah wasn’t sure what deficiency she helped ease in the older woman’s life but she knew that Zelda needed her, and it was nice to be needed.

  Una barged in. ‘Mummy sent me.’ She made a beeline for Ben.

  Mummy often sent her; Lisa’s new romance was a fragile entity, not helped by Una’s non-stop yammering.

  One day, maybe, Sarah would disclose to Lisa that the landlord who’d rewired, replumbed, and redecorated Flat D was her nearest neighbour. Mavis had enjoyed listening to Lisa’s complaints about the damp and the disintegrating carpet, while never revealing that she herself was the good-for-nothing landlord. Zelda had anonymously brought the property up to scratch.

  ‘Let’s plait your hair, Una.’

  ‘Yes!’ Una clapped. ‘Zelda likes my plaits, doesn’t she?’

  ‘She sure does.’ Sarah had noticed this compulsion to end each statement with a question mark. To ensure she’s answered. The silence was over, but its aftermath would last a lifetime. Nobody knew that better than Sarah. She thought about Albie and hoped his day was going OK. He was having the first supervised contact with his father round about now; the child had high hopes, but the father was slippery. I’ll ring his mum later. Later . . . when she knew Zelda’s fate.

  ‘Will the judge let Zelda go?’ asked Una.

  ‘We hope so.’ With Ben slumped like a warm doughnut on her lap, Sarah braided Una’s hair. Against everybody’s wishes, Zelda had gone alone to the last day of her trial, and number twenty-four was on a news lockdown; they would hear the verdict from Zelda’s own lips.

  Or from her lawyer, if Zelda was given a custodial sentence. Sarah shied from that image, like a pony refusing a gate.

  A male voice said, ‘Don’t get your hopes up, ladies,’ and Jamie stepped through a massive puncture in the wall. ‘I keep warning you. Prepare yourselves.’

  ‘I say this with love,’ said Jane, setting down her phone. ‘But shut up, darling.’ She was holding herself together with hope and party planning.

  Zelda was number twenty-four’s pet, mascot, and queen rolled into one. Super-fan Jane had appointed herself guard dog. She curated the website committed to telling Zelda’s side of the story, and fielded the myriad interview requests for the novelist turned cause célèbre. ‘Newsnight want to talk to Zelda after the verdict.’

  ‘If she’s set free,’ said Jamie, who saw everything in black and white. The untidiness of civilian life baffled him; he was the only estate agent Sarah knew of who could take out a terrorist with an L85A2 5.56mm rifle. Jane’s advance publicity had led Sarah to expect a superhero: witty; handsome; stunning. In the flesh Jamie was forgettable; until, that is, you realised what a talent he had for loving.

  Jamie loved Jane with every inch of his ordinary body, and now he loved his son that way, too. There was plenty left over for his wife’s friends, so Sarah and Zelda were invited into ordinary old Jamie’s extraordinary heart. Sarah felt safe with him in the house, especially when she was looking around her decimated flat and missing Tom.

  Success has its price. There was nothing 9–5 about Tom’s new career. When he waved goodbye to Sarah he could be gone for a week, a month, or longer. Right now, making a movie with two of his heroes, Tom was far away in all senses of the word; Venezuela might as well be a different planet. Mobile phone coverage was, as you might expect, patchy in the Amazon. Sarah dreamed some nights that they had a long, cosy phone chat and would wake up disappointed that it was all in her imagination.

  ‘We all know that Zelda’s judge is infamously hard-line on fraud cases.’ Jamie filched a tartlet from a tray. Sarah had seen the long list of chores assigned to Jamie; they all involved moving cutesy items – jam jars full of flowers/fairy lights/tissue paper pompoms – from the house to the garden. He’d been up and down the stairs countless times; he’d muttered that he’d rather do an army assault course. ‘We must face facts.’

  ‘We mustn’t,’ said Jane. ‘Facts can get lost.’ She swept up Ben, kissing the top of Una’s head as she did so. ‘Zelda got off last time. On the assisted suicide charge.’

  ‘No, love, she didn’t get off. The CPS decided it wasn’t in the public interest to prosecute.’ Jamie clocked the baby’s gurn. ‘Uh-oh. That’s his poo face.’

  ‘So it is.’ Sarah held Ben out to Jamie. Jamie folded his arms. The stand-off stretched until Jamie said, with sarcasm as heavy as his son’s nappy, ‘Oh. OK. I’ll change him, shall I?’

  ‘Try and change him for a baby who doesn’t poo his own weight every couple of hours,’ said Jane, handing him over.

  ‘This waiting is horrible.’ Sarah primped the bow at the end of Una’s plait; the child was fussy. And vocal. ‘I should be in court with Zelda.’

  ‘You heard her. She was adamant.’ Jane looked out at the garden below them. ‘Helena’s setting the table all wrong.’

  ‘Let her.’ If Zelda didn’t come home, the table settings wouldn’t matter. A year ago, Sarah had been jubilant when Zelda announced her decision to stay on at number twenty-four. A few weeks later, Tom had pulled out of buying the flat in Chiswick, and said he was staying, too. He’d bought out Leo and moved into the attic with Sarah. Now he was absent more than he was at home.

  The basement had been remodelled in its owner’s image. Workmen had crawled over it like ants, transforming it in weeks, putting Sarah’s never-ending refurbishment to shame. Now Flat E was a five-star oasis of seagrass flooring, hand-blocked wallpaper, and serious artwork.

  One detail didn’t change. The chipped, wobbly table where Mavis had eaten her lonely meal, stood in the midst of the glamour. ‘It has a story to tell,’ Zelda had said, stroking its pockmarked surface. ‘This is where my sister and I made our plans. And where I served you our weekly meal, Sarah.’ The table would remain as all around it changed. ‘To remind me of my incredible second chance.’

  Many times Zelda had told Sarah she was calm at the prospect of a prison sentence. It was, she said, ‘a risk I had to run’.

  There was support from the wider world. People warmed to her courage, her vulnerability, her eloquence. Many old friends had forgiven Zelda and turned up, eager to help; others stayed away and wrote damning articles. Ramon was especially prolific: not a week passed without his photogenic features above a few paragraphs of astringent newsprint.

  Zelda had leaned on Sarah throughout the separate investigations of both Mavis’s suicide and the resulting identity fraud; the publication of Our Meeting Place was Midnight; and the emergence of saviours and foes. Their friendship had ripened, as Sarah, in her turn, leaned on Zelda on the days when missing Tom got too much for her.

  Days like today. Sarah willed her phone to ring, or her computer to chirrup, but there was only echoing silence. Her man was deep in a jungle; mercifully, he was only pretending to be a soldier, but the big-budget movie kept them apart
as surely as a war.

  Sarah followed Jane down the stairs, their arms full of party doodahs. Una plodded carefully ahead, placing both feet on each step, carrying her own contribution of misshapen jam tarts, some garnished with cat hair. ‘Did you call the publishers about pre-orders, Jane?’

  ‘They’re through the roof!’ Zelda’s new semi-autobiographical novel, The Basement, was due for release after the bank holiday. All profits would go to a frontotemporal dementia charity, proving, perhaps, that even the darkest of clouds have a silver lining.

  It was all hands on deck as the table was tweaked, and lanterns were fixed to trees, and buckets were filled with ice. Not as ardent as the previous summer, August did its best, but a storm lay in wait at the fringes of the day; Sarah saw how Jane ignored the brief insistent blasts of cautionary cold. The other residents were in a defiant, this-is-fun mood. Over-laughing at pale jokes, over-praising the home-made food, number twenty-four staved off the moment of truth. Graham hoisted Una onto his shoulders as Lisa placed a sleepy Mikey on a cushion of leaves. Leo handed out wine. Helena shadowed Jane around the table, reinstating each change she made. A jug of sunflowers, slightly droopy, took centre stage.

  Off to one side, Jamie was lost in Ben, their noses close, when his head jerked back. ‘D’you hear that?’ he called out.

  A toot-toot, bold in the still afternoon, turned all heads towards the house. Police had cordoned off Merrion Road; supposedly for the carnival preparations, but actually to keep paparazzi away from the gate. Some loyal and well-placed chum of Zelda’s had the power to do this.

  ‘Keep calm.’ Jamie switched to officer mode. ‘It could be a neighbour coming through, so let’s just take it slowly.’

  Nobody took the slightest bit of notice. A stampede coursed through the house.

  A black cab was at the kerb. Sarah pounded to the gate. Ready for the worst, she stood impassively as the others caught up, bracing herself to see Zelda’s lawyer. The back door of the cab opened, and out stepped Tom.