The Woman at Number 24

by Juliet Ashton

  ‘But you’re in Venezuela!’ accused Sarah.

  Smart in a dark suit, Tom held out his hand to assist Zelda as she quit the cab with the elegance of a debutante.

  Deafened by the cheers – even the policemen and paps at the end of the road joined in – Sarah’s sudden tears blinded her. A group hug enveloped Zelda and carried her through the house, and into the garden, where music boomed, corks popped and Leo yelled, ‘I told you so!’

  ‘You’re free!’ Sarah hugged Zelda, hard, as if checking she was real.

  ‘Suspended sentence,’ said Zelda. ‘They really listened.’

  ‘I can’t take it in. You’re here. You’re here!’

  ‘Shush now.’ Zelda dabbed at Sarah’s eyes with a handkerchief. ‘You’re the strong one, remember? You’re the girl who saved my life.’

  ‘You did the same for me,’ sniffled Sarah.

  ‘I think,’ said Zelda, playful again after a year of stress, ‘that was somebody else’s doing.’

  ‘In here.’ Tom dragged Sarah into the shed. It was dark, and musty-smelling – the pong of life in all its dark and dirty glory. He put his lips to Sarah’s and she fell upwards, if such a thing is possible, into the kiss.

  Surfacing, they clung to each other.

  ‘You’re in Venezuela,’ said Sarah. ‘With no internet and crap-at-best phone coverage.’

  ‘I’m right here.’ Tom kissed her nose, daintily this time, as if she was poorly. ‘And I’m staying.’

  ‘The shoot doesn’t wrap for another month.’

  ‘I quit.’

  ‘You can’t do that! They’ll sue you. They’ll say things like you’ll never work in this town again.’

  ‘They’ve already said it, but who cares? Leave it to the lawyers.’ Tom’s smile created dimples deep enough to paddle in.

  ‘Wait, wait, wait.’ Sarah untangled herself from the cat’s cradle of his embrace. ‘You can’t give it up for me.’ She’d tried so hard to keep her loneliness to herself. Knowing Tom was fulfilling his most cherished fantasy, she’d kept the sighing to a bare minimum. But he knew. Anybody who loved Sarah the way Tom did would know.

  ‘I’m giving it up for us. I’d rather be here.’

  ‘We said we’d take the long view. We’d make it work. You’re an actor, Tom.’ Sometimes Sarah forgot her husband was famous. Then she’d spot his face three feet high on a bus. There was the Tom Royce who massaged her feet during Downton re-runs, and there was the Tom Royce who fought duels and kissed celebrated beauties and had a cameo in the most vulgar, witless, Hollywood buddy movie Sarah had ever seen.

  Sarah had been born in the moment she and Tom got together. Before that she’d been a floating dust mote; her histrionics over Leo seemed comic when she compared him to Tom. It wasn’t that Tom was ‘better’ than Leo – although he was – it was more that Tom was hers and she was Tom’s.

  Life had rolled out like a red carpet. Sarah relaxed into her career and into her friendships. She’d found the sweet spot in a cold bed; Sarah was doing the work she was born to do, alongside the man she was born to love.

  There’d been a wedding. A party not unlike this one, with Sarah and Tom in new clothes. Zelda made a speech; Keeley heckled; Jane filled out her maid-of-honour frock with the outlines of soon-to-be-born Ben. They’d retired at dawn for legal, rather sleepy, married sex in a new bed in Flat A.

  Something had happened between that fresh spring day and this high point of summer, and now the flat was chaotic with a second set of building works and Tom was never there.

  ‘It’s like the army,’ Jamie had commented when shown the filming schedules. On his agent’s advice, Tom had accepted back-to-back roles in two major projects; after years of fantasising about success, he was loath to say ‘no’ to opportunity.

  ‘I’ll pop home when I’m not needed on set,’ he’d promised.

  Jane had scoffed. ‘Pop home from Venezuela?’

  The small print was implacable. Before the four months in Venezuela, there’d been a month in upstate New York, pretending to be an English stockbroker who’d murdered his mistress.

  Zelda, who’d read the script and guessed the ending, counselled caution about coming home for the odd weekend. ‘You’ll be jet-lagged and distracted.’

  As so often, Zelda was right. Tom’s sporadic forty-eight hour stopovers had been disastrous. He snoozed; she woke him with a shove; he felt bad; she felt bad; he fell asleep over the dinner she’d made; he woke up at midnight just as she nodded off. Sarah had longed for Tom to say he was quitting and coming home, but now here he was, saying exactly that, and she was devastated.

  ‘Absolutely not.’ Sarah screwed up her face. ‘We can’t be that couple. The idiots who can’t be apart. We should be able to do this, Tom. I can’t scupper your career just because I get lonely at nights. I’ll get a cat. I’ll move Mikey in. I won’t let you abandon your dream for me.’

  ‘You’re the dream, stupid.’ Tom held her tight. ‘Listen. I’ve proved I can do this movie star lark. And I’ve proved I don’t like it. Whereas you . . .’ He smiled, the long slow smile that spoke straight to the red-hot centre of Sarah. ‘You I like. You I love. Living here is the dream.’ He folded her against his chest. ‘It’s not that you miss me, Sarah. That’s only half the story. I miss you.’

  ‘I could come with you.’ Sarah’s voice was muffled by his chest, a small price to pay for being up close to such a nice slab of flesh.

  ‘Come on, Sarah, you are your work. You need St Chad’s, and St Chad’s needs you. You can’t do it just anywhere. It’s only actors who are nomads. You’re the sensible one, remember?’

  ‘I don’t want to tie you down, Tom.’ Sarah knew that resentment was a ticking time bomb in the foundation of the most solid relationships. ‘I’ll deal with it. It’ll get easier.’ She only half believed that. Being this close to Tom filled up her senses, unleashed a lust that was part sexual, part emotional, all irresistible. Tom was her holy grail. He was her cream tea, her hot bath, her rodeo ride. ‘I’m greedy for you, Tom. That’s all.’

  ‘That’s all?’ laughed Tom. ‘I’ve waited my whole life for somebody to be greedy about me. Let’s give in! Let’s do what we want to do.’ Tom cleared a spot on a wooden box, and perched on the edge of it. ‘Sit.’ He patted his thighs.

  Obediently, Sarah sat. Thousands of Vile Bodies fans would swap places with her if they could. She remembered, with a pang, Camilla’s brave, wan face at the wedding. Perhaps he was right and they should make the most of each other.

  ‘I’m not giving up this shoot for you, OK?’ Tom was grave. ‘I’m giving it up for me, and for us. I don’t enjoy it. There.’ Tom shrugged. ‘I’ve said it.’ His head lolled back and he let out a deep growl.

  Sarah listened as Tom let it all out. How he’d tried to tell his agent that the high-profile films were sapping the life out of him. ‘I want to do some Stoppard, some Feydeau, but I’ve been offered a fart-joke comedy that’ll make millions on its opening weekend.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Sarah got comfortable on the bouncy castle of her husband’s lap. ‘Does this mean we have to stop laughing at fart jokes?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Tom earnestly. ‘Fart jokes are still very much on the agenda. But please don’t make me act in movies that rely on them.’ The last couple of weeks had been hard on Tom. He described insomniac nights in an opulent tree house wishing he were back in their attic love nest.

  Sarah leaned against Tom, liking the idea that their yearning hearts had met somewhere in the middle of the vast space between them. Now those hearts were close again and the sadness fell away.

  ‘Two days ago something clicked. Me and Sarah, I thought, we don’t need the big bucks. I can definitely get by without being interviewed by Hello! magazine. If success means getting what you really want, I already have it. Only problem was, what I really wanted was 5,000 miles away.’

  ‘Me!’

  ‘Yes, you. I was straight with my director and my costars, some o
f whom were great, one of whom tried to kill me with her shoe. It took a day to get to London.’ Tom grimaced. ‘We’ll be in a legal mess for a while, but hey, this house is used to that, isn’t it? The stakes won’t be so high this time. I already have another job.’

  ‘Loving me?’ said Sarah, hopefully.

  ‘No, well, I mean, yes, obviously.’ Tom laughed at Sarah’s half-serious outrage. ‘But apart from that, I’ve been asked to do a new play in the West End. Of London,’ he clarified, as she continued to look confused. ‘A commitment of six months, but I’ve said I’ll stay on if it’s a hit.’ He tightened his grip around her. ‘Work will be a Tube ride away. I’ll come home every night.’

  ‘Ooh.’ Sarah savoured that thought. It was cold champagne after weeks of room-temperature water. ‘What’s the play?’

  ‘You can read it later. Funny. Moving. Gritty. Incredible cast.’

  ‘You sound excited.’

  ‘I am.’

  Tom hadn’t sounded excited about Venezuela; he’d sounded incredulous, gobsmacked, as if he’d wanted to ask if they were sure they had the right guy.

  ‘So, Mr Royce, you’re home for good.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Royce, I am.’ Tom squeezed her until she gasped. ‘Let’s finally finish off our flat, OK?’

  ‘You’re a one-off, Tom Royce.’ Tom had seen through fame, rejected it, and taken back his destiny. ‘Suspended and sentence,’ said Sarah, as they rejoined the party, ‘aren’t interesting words in their own right, but if you put them together you come up with my new favourite phrase.’

  ‘It’s rather a relief,’ said Zelda, with the cut-glass understatement her readers relished. ‘Can you conceive my astonishment, Sarah, when this gorgeous chap appeared in the courtroom?’

  ‘I went straight there from the airport. I assumed it was the most likely place to find my wife, but Zelda was on her own.’

  ‘And regretting my martyrdom. I needed my darling Sarah after all.’ Zelda bowed her head at the vehement ‘See!’ from her left. ‘Poor me, I had to make do with a movie star. He’s made of strong stuff, your Tom. Finding his eye during those ghastly proceedings helped.’

  ‘Was Ramon there?’

  ‘No. Ramon was absent and that’s for the best.’ Ramon was in the throes of divorcing his dead wife; Zelda contested nothing, had given him all the money and property he thought he’d inherited, but Ramon hankered after blood. Zelda’s tone of voice made it clear that the subject was closed. ‘I feel like getting drunk.’

  ‘You hussy,’ said Tom. ‘Me too.’ He raised his fist. ‘To the booze!’

  Well ahead of them in this mission, Jane was performing a hybrid conga/tango of her own devising, alongside Helena, whose heels sank in the grass as she swayed. ‘Dance with me, bro!’ she ordered, strong-arming Tom away from the ladies.

  Depositing Zelda on a chair, Sarah went in search of wine. She found Una’s parents hovering by the array of drinks.

  Despite having married his ‘other woman’, Graham struggled to hide his jealousy of Lisa’s new boyfriend, a man he referred to as ‘the toy boy’ because he was two months younger than Lisa.

  ‘Is Una all right?’ asked Lisa over the rim of a plastic tumbler.

  ‘She’s dancing with Mikey.’ Sarah accepted the way they deferred to her as a nanny figure when they felt like it. The couple weren’t wildly likeable, with their petty grievances and their fondness for a scrap, but they were part of number twenty-four, and had to be embraced.

  ‘Did I tell you?’ Lisa grasped Sarah’s arm. ‘About my rent? It’s gone down. Rents never go down, do they?’

  ‘Well, yours has,’ said Sarah.

  ‘I feel secure,’ said Lisa, ‘for the first time in years.’

  ‘Is that a dig at me?’ Graham wanted to know, as he and Lisa wandered away, taking their endless rolling squabble to another part of the garden. Their departure revealed Leo, helping himself to Merlot.

  Spotting Sarah, he became furtive, as if the Merlot was contraband. Neither of them spoke as Sarah browsed the bottles, until eventually Leo said, ‘So. Well. You must be relieved. About Zelda.’

  ‘I can’t quite take it in, to be honest.’ Sarah and Leo never spoke. Sarah had cauterised the wound when she’d finally lopped him off.

  ‘You’re very close, you and Zelda. I guess she makes up for your mum not being around.’

  ‘My mum is around. We speak once a month. At least, I call her and she endures me.’

  Now that Sarah had finally accepted her mother’s theory that she was ‘just like’ her father, she was proud to share qualities with her dad. Bitterness evaporated as happiness wormed its way in. Sarah had ditched the perspective of a child and saw her parents as fellow adults. Her father had saved his own life – what little of it was left – by separating from her mother. He’d never relinquished his duties towards Sarah; it would have been so easy to belittle her mum, but instead he’d shored up the mother/daughter relationship.

  His counsel that she see the beauty in everybody had been his last gift. Even though the beauty in her mother was hard to find, Sarah did her best to seek it out. She owed it to her father.

  ‘Zelda’s no substitute,’ she told Leo. ‘Zelda’s my friend.’

  They stood, glasses in hand, their backs to the buffet table, like awkward wedding guests reaching for small talk.

  ‘I see Tom’s home,’ said Leo, nodding at where Tom danced with his sister, approximately in time to the music.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sarah. There was a pause long enough for her to wonder at the distance that can exist between two people who were once each other’s all in all. ‘How is she, Leo? Really?’

  ‘Not good.’ Leo looked at his sex-bomb wife, hips swinging, arms in the air, waterfall of hair covering her face. ‘I want to try again, but . . . Christ, you of all people, you don’t want to hear this, Sarah.’

  ‘I do.’ Sarah inched closer.

  ‘It’s nine months since she, since, you know.’ Leo and Helena had lost their daughter before she’d finished growing inside her mother. Leo was thinner these days, less of a dandy, his flamboyance dimmed. He, too, moved closer. ‘Some days we’re on the same page and we talk. Laugh even. Other days she’s flat and I can’t reach her. Then she’ll rally, but me? I’m down all of a sudden.’

  ‘You’re still together. That says a lot.’ The couple’s staying power had astonished Sarah. Other, sturdier, pairings collapsed under this sort of tragedy but Leo and Helena soldiered on. She’d assumed their bond was based on status and lust and tangible things.

  The green-eyed monster messed with my head.

  Love was what held the Harrisons together; nothing else is that durable. ‘She’s the one for you, Leo.’ As he glanced sharply at her, checking for sarcasm, Sarah said, ‘I once thought you only liked the beginnings of love, when everything’s new and shiny. You proved me wrong. And I’m glad.’

  Leo sank the rest of his glass. ‘My wife’s a hell of a woman. But she’s frightened of trying for another baby.’ He looked down at his body. ‘And I’m not getting any younger.’

  ‘Who is?’ A year ago this conversation would have burned off the top layer of Sarah’s skin. Now she could comfort Leo. ‘When the time’s right, it’ll happen. Or not. Just love her, Leo, and be kind. And don’t . . .’ She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘God, no, I wouldn’t, not now. Those days are gone.’ Leo sighed. ‘I couldn’t cheat on Helena.’

  It was an open goal, but Sarah didn’t add ‘again’. ‘The trip will help. Exotic destinations. Odd food. New faces.’

  ‘That’s the idea. Costing me a bloody fortune.’

  Sarah rolled her eyes; Leo hadn’t changed completely.

  Jamie, who wouldn’t know a strained atmosphere if it smacked him on the bottom, joined them with Ben in the crook of his beefy arm. ‘So, Leo, mate, when are you off on this round-the-world adventure?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ Leo stared hard at the baby.

  ‘The new people in your fl
at seem friendly enough. Hope you screwed them on the price.’ Jamie laughed and Ben stirred and Leo looked away, as if blinded by the baby’s reality.

  ‘They’re idiots,’ said Leo. ‘They’re going to change the layout, even though it was conceived by a famous interior designer.’ He turned to Sarah. ‘Aren’t you? Why not buy a bigger flat with your husband’s Hollywood cash instead of knocking together two floors in this old pile?’

  After looking half-heartedly at properties Jane showed them with stainless-steel kitchens, marble bathrooms, and utility rooms you could swing a lion in, Sarah had said, in a little girl voice she only ever used around Tom, ‘I don’t want to leave number twenty-four.’

  She was cemented in place, part of the structure. So long as Zelda was in the basement, Sarah couldn’t leave. It was duty, yes, but not only that; the house was full of love, stuffed with it, love leaking through its seams.

  ‘Think about it,’ she’d said to Tom, trying to convince him. ‘Two floors beneath us Jane has our nephew in her tummy. On the floor below that, Una’s chatting up a storm and Lisa relies on us all far more than she’d ever admit. And across the landing from those two is Zelda. She’ll need us when the dust settles. And I need her, in a thousand ways I can’t describe.’ She’d been exultant, not wheedling, when she’d declared, ‘We belong here!’

  Tom had agreed that it was good to belong, and they’d made an offer Leo couldn’t refuse.

  Now, in the garden, Sarah said to Leo, ‘Thanks for leaving that oh-so witty chandelier.’ She and Tom had been touched, even though it would look out of place in the bright, cheerful new duplex they had planned. Sarah had stipulated ‘No antiques’.

  When Jamie wandered away, showing off Ben to his eager fans, Leo said, ‘I’m sorry. About everything.’

  ‘Shut up,’ smiled Sarah. ‘It’s over. We both learned a lot.’ She pulled a wry face. ‘It wasn’t our finest hour.’

  ‘But we did have some. Fine hours, I mean.’

  ‘We did OK,’ agreed Sarah.

  ‘Le-o!’ Helena was done with dancing.

  ‘Time to go,’ said Leo.