V didn’t have to be at work until 9.30 a.m., so it was entirely feasible that when she moved in she would be able to have an extra half-hour in bed after I left. Or maybe she would go to the kitchen and use the coffee machine to make one of her beloved espressos, which she would take back to bed. I was glad I had hoovered, in case she wanted to stand by the back doors and look out over the garden while she sipped her coffee.
I hadn’t, I realised, cooked properly since I’d moved in and that was a shame as I liked cooking. I resolved to buy some ingredients on my way home that evening and christen the kitchen with a proper meal. I reasoned that might make it feel more like home.
Work was busy that day. We were in the middle of the Hector deal and the chairman had put me in charge. It should have been relatively simple, but some of their figures didn’t add up and no one was answering my questions in a way I thought to be adequate. I felt myself coming close to losing my temper a few times during the day, as I heard one excuse after another. And not just from the people at Hector, but also my own team. I think I might have spoken a bit harshly and I felt people glancing in at me as they passed my office. But I can’t believe I wasn’t fair. If people do a good enough job and give me the right answers, then all is good. I can’t stand incompetence. V says I expect too much from other people, which always used to make me laugh, as I was brought up to expect nothing at all.
I stopped at the deli on the High Street on my walk home from the tube. I had loaded up with wine and salads and was standing looking at the ridiculously priced vacuum-packed steaks when Kaitlyn walked in. I raised a hand in greeting, but inside my heart sank. She seemed to be behind me wherever I went and the feeling was unnerving. I turned back to the red meat, hoping she’d get what she needed and leave, but she came straight over.
‘What are you having?’ she asked. The basket hanging off her own arm was empty. ‘I’m starving but don’t know what I fancy eating.’
‘Steak,’ I said, keeping my eyes on the meat. ‘It’s Verity’s favourite.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m vegetarian.’
I turned to look at her and her deathlike appearance made a bit more sense. But I also realised something else. I couldn’t very well buy just one steak now I’d said that. I reached up and deposited two large steaks in my basket, trying hard not to hear Elaine’s voice telling me she could feed five people for a week on what they cost. When you are brought up in a foster home, excess never comes very easily, however much money you accrue.
Kaitlyn moved towards the next fridge and picked up some gourmet hummus and a fresh pasta sauce. Her hand hesitated over the wild mushroom or spinach and ricotta tortellini, but the wild mushroom won. She sighed. ‘I wish someone was cooking for me tonight.’
‘V and I take it in turns,’ I said. ‘Whichever one of us is back first.’
‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit lonely buying all these sorts of ready meals and eating them in front of the telly. It doesn’t make it any better just because you’ve paid ten times what you would in Tesco.’
I tried to smile, but an image of Kaitlyn doing just that almost knocked me off balance. I thought she probably changed into a tracksuit and scraped her hair off her face as soon as she got home. She probably let her dog eat the leftovers from her plate.
We stood in the queue next to each other, which took an annoyingly long time because a woman at the front was going through every ingredient of her vegan lasagna. Kaitlyn smiled wearily and I pretended to be interested in a non-existent message on my phone. We emerged into the evening together and walked up the hill until it was my turning, where we said an awkward goodnight. I realised as I walked down my road that I would be seeing Kaitlyn again in eight hours’ time and that it was perfectly possible that neither of us would speak to anyone else in the meantime.
I got changed myself when I got in, but not into a tracksuit, just some chinos and a T-shirt. I put on Oasis and turned on the oven. My plan was to flash fry one of the steaks in garlic and salt and then give it ten minutes in the oven, whilst I made a good dressing for my salad. But as I got the packets out of the bag I saw both had a sell-by date for the next twenty-four hours, which meant I would have to cook them both or waste one. I was hungry anyway, so I released both steaks into the air, rubbing them with garlic. Once they were in the oven I opened the bag of organic baby leaves and chopped an avocado and some baby plum tomatoes and made a mustardy dressing.
I had over-estimated and there was enough salad for two people. I put the bowl on the table and lit the candles which lived in glass hurricane lamps. They reflected nicely in the bifold doors and I saw the kitchen was well designed for supper parties or romantic dinners. V loved a nicely laid table and so I got two white napkins out along with the cutlery. Then I took down two wine glasses and put the bottle of red between the places. The steaks smelt ready and so I served them up. Two would have taken a whole plate and looked ridiculous. I carried both plates to the table and put them into their places. The meat was succulent and cooked to perfection, the hard brown skin yielding to the red, earthy flesh. And the salad was a perfect complement, crisp and light and benefitting from the blood on the plate. The wine had also been a good choice, full bodied and fruity, real coat-your-throat stuff.
As I sat, Liam began his mournful rendition of ‘Wonderwall’ and I had to put down my knife and fork for a minute to stop myself from choking. Because nobody does know you the way I do, V said, as the lyric sounded out, and I heard her words so clearly I had to remind myself that she wasn’t actually sitting opposite me.
‘Your favourite song, V,’ I said, raising a glass and catching sight of my reflection in the door.
For the record, I didn’t actually think V was sitting with me that night. But it gave me a wonderful glimpse of what our future held, of how we would be when she did finally come home to live with me.
If she had been there I would have spoken to her about the time we were in Ireland and I arranged for her to hold an eagle. At least, hold is the wrong word. She had to put on a long, thick leather glove which reached right up to her shoulder and stand very still, while the eagle’s handler attracted the bird with a dead mouse. We were standing in the grounds of an old castle, the sea whipping against the shore and the trees and grasses of the garden bent almost double by the wind. V’s hair was flying around her head, as if it was alive, and her eyes were fixed upwards. I followed her gaze and saw a speck of a bird high up in the slate-grey skies above our heads. It hovered for a few minutes, surveying us, and in those moments I wanted to rush to V and rip the glove off her hand, to pull her away and cover her with my body. Because as the eagle started to descend it was obvious it saw only the prey, obvious it cared nothing for us and our petty concerns. It whizzed over my head, so close I could feel the wind from its wings, and as it glided towards V I could see the meanness of its talons, the damage they could do. Don’t touch her, I wanted to shout, but it was landing before I could move, with a weight that made V’s arm buckle so the handler had to grab it and hold it upright and she laughed. The eagle picked at the mouse in her hand and V stared at it as though it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. But then the handler moved behind the bird and put a tiny black mask over the eagle’s eyes, making it look like an executioner. He then transferred the bird on to his own gloved hand and V dropped her arm, reaching out to stroke the top of the eagle’s head. ‘Thank you so much,’ she was saying by the time I reached them.
She turned to me and her eyes were sparking. ‘That’s the best present anyone’s ever given me,’ she said.
Angus might be able to buy her more diamonds than I could, but I doubted very much he was as thoughtful as I am. I doubted very much that he even knew her well enough to be as thoughtful as I am.
The days I spent at work were becoming unusually hard and I felt like we were wading through mud towards the finish line. Not completing the deal simply wasn’t an option and I made sure everyone in my team knew as much
. Kaitlyn put her head round the door at the end of the day and I looked up and realised most people had gone home already. I glanced at the clock on the computer and was surprised to see it was nearly eight.
‘I’m just about to head off,’ Kaitlyn said. ‘Wondered if you fancied a drink on the way home?’
I opened my mouth to deliver a ready excuse, but was struck by the length of the evening ahead of me. All I would do if I went straight home was stop again at the deli and eat on my own, and the thought seemed suddenly desolate. And Kaitlyn was fine, nice even. ‘OK. Give me ten minutes.’
We took the tube to Clapham and went into a pub on the High Street. Kaitlyn sat at a table and I went to the bar to get us both a pint.
‘Thanks,’ she said, as I sat back down opposite her. I raised my glass to her in mock salute. ‘So, how’s Hector going?’
I rubbed my hands across my face. ‘Slower than I expected.’
‘Yes, I heard you weren’t happy.’
I looked up at her. ‘What do you mean you heard?’
She coloured. ‘Oh, nothing. You’ve just looked quite stressed.’
‘Have I? I haven’t felt that stressed.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s OK not to be Mr Super Cool all the time, you know.’
I gulped at my drink and felt the alcohol releasing into my blood stream.
‘Where are you from, Mike?’ Kaitlyn’s eyes were fixed on me.
‘You mean where was I brought up?’ She nodded. ‘Well, all over really.’ I nearly stopped myself from saying any more, but Kaitlyn was smiling and sometimes it felt good to talk, as the adverts always say. ‘I was born in Luton, but I was taken into care at ten and I didn’t get a permanent home until I was twelve. That was in Aylesbury.’
Kaitlyn’s smile had fallen. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
I shrugged. ‘Why would you?’
‘Why were you taken into care?’
I drained my glass. ‘Usual story. Alcoholic mother, abusive boyfriend, absent father.’
‘That’s awful. I had no idea.’
I laughed because why on earth would she have any idea. I am not the sort of person you would look at and think they had been in care. ‘Would you like another?’ I held up my empty glass.
Hers was half full but she stood up. ‘My turn, let me.’ I watched her go to the bar and order our drinks. I noticed that she took one of her feet out of their killer heels and let it rest on the cool metal footrest.
When she came back she had recovered her smile. ‘So, you were adopted at twelve. Who by?’
I shook my head. ‘Not adopted. But I went into permanent foster care. A really nice couple called Elaine and Barry. They were great.’ And as I said Elaine’s name I could have been sitting at the kitchen table with one of her stews in front of me. It was funny to think of her like that, out of context, and it made me feel like I had a hole in my stomach.
‘So do you still see them then?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what about your mum?’
‘Oh God, no, not for years.’
‘Well, they must have done a pretty good job, your foster parents. I mean, you’ve turned out well, haven’t you?’ She laughed lightly.
I knew my hand was tight around my pint. ‘It was Elaine who made me realise I was good with numbers,’ I said. ‘I was really struggling before I went to live with her but she put everything into perspective for me.’ The atmosphere in the pub had become very close, almost as though we were underwater and running out of air. I knew I had heard that phrase ‘putting everything into perspective’ before, but I couldn’t quite place it and I couldn’t work out why it made me feel so uneasy. And I also couldn’t quite remember what Elaine had done or what I had struggled with before.
I have always had pockets of unsettling memories which I can’t be entirely sure are connected to me – the open mouths of shouting adults near my face, kicking heels, blood on the ground, pain in my chest. I pulled a breath into my stomach and concentrated instead on the feel of Elaine’s hand on top of my own, Barry’s cheer as I scored a garden goal, the warmth of the fire in their front room. I heard her say to me as if she was right by my ear again, ‘You just need to channel it, Mike. You’re good with numbers, why not see what you can do with them?’
‘Are you OK?’ Kaitlyn asked and I was almost surprised to see her sitting opposite me.
‘Yes, fine.’ I checked my watch. ‘But I should probably get going.’
‘I’m sorry if I asked too much,’ she said, her face as pale as the moon.
‘No, no, not at all.’
‘We’re quite alike actually, Mike. I mean, I wasn’t adopted or fostered or anything. But we’re both outsiders.’
‘Outsiders?’ The word felt hot in my head.
‘Yes. Haven’t you noticed what an old boy’s club it still is at work? How it’s all don’t you know so and so and where did you go to school? People like you and me need to stick together. They don’t naturally like us.’
‘Don’t they?’ The thought was both ghastly and new to me.
But she just laughed. ‘It’s not as bad as it used to be, but we still have to watch our backs.’
I resisted the urge to turn around. ‘Thanks for the advice,’ I said, standing up. ‘But I really should be going. Verity will be wondering where I am.’
She stood up with me. ‘Oh yes, of course.’
Kaitlyn went to the toilet and said I should go on without her, so I strode up the hill to my road with her words churning inside me. I hadn’t realised I was an outsider at work and it made me wonder what else I hadn’t noticed. V would have warned me about all of that. She knew all the codes and what everything meant. She could have even told me what to say, or at least why I shouldn’t care about it.
I turned on to my street and the loneliness hit me again like a gust of wind. I had nowhere else to go other than back to my dark, empty house, but at that moment it was about the most unappealing place in the world to me.
I took to walking home from work most nights, especially as the days were long and the warmth stayed late in the air. The Hector deal went through and the chairman said I could expect a large bonus. I wondered how much houses were in Sussex – for weekends of course. Walking via Kensington wasn’t that much of a detour, in fact it was pleasant, looking at the palace and the park, crossing over the Serpentine and looking at the birds and the boats. I didn’t walk down Elizabeth Road every evening, only sometimes, only when I felt like V wanted me to.
In the end I got what I had been half waiting for, half dreading, when a taxi pulled up outside number 24 and V and Angus got out. She was wearing a pair of loose white trousers and a pale blue shirt, with white, slightly heeled sandals on her feet. Her hair was tied in a loose bun at the nape of her neck and she had a grey bag slung across her body. Her skin looked tanned and I thought she had lost a little bit of weight; her collarbones certainly looked more defined than when I’d last seen her. She waited on the pavement while Angus paid the driver, checking something on her phone, which made her smile. When he turned to her she held the phone out to him and he looked and laughed, putting his arm round her and kissing the side of her head. Angus was dressed more smartly, in a crumpled blue suit with an open-necked shirt. I tried to work out what they’d been doing as I watched them climb the steps to their front door. It was nine thirty; maybe they’d met after work for an early supper. Or been to the cinema.
V unlocked the front door and they went inside, closing the door behind them. I waited, but no one went into the drawing room. I thought it likely that the kitchen was in the basement and so I crossed the road and walked towards the black railings, taking hold of them and looking downwards. I had no idea what I would say if V saw me, but at that moment it didn’t matter. I could see a sink in the window and the lights were on, but the view was infuriatingly oblique.
There were some old stone steps running from the road to the well in front of the basement, which was d
ark and in shadow. I pushed the gate at the top of the stairs and it yielded. I checked the street, which was empty, and then walked inside. I kept my body flat against the wall, sliding down the mossy bricks. I didn’t look into the window until I was at the bottom of the stairs, tucked behind a bend in the wall. And then I wished I hadn’t.
The room was illuminated like a screen, bright and inviting, a huge kitchen stretching on out into a dining area with a large table. V was sitting at an island in the centre of the room on a high stool, sipping from a glass of wine. Angus was cutting something on a board on the opposite side of the island and something he was saying was making her laugh. Occasionally he would hold out a piece of cheese or meat, or whatever it was, and she would take it and nod and lick her fingers. But then he stopped chopping and leant back against the wall of ovens behind him. He said something else and she looked up at him and I thought I might be sick because her eyes were wide and shining and trained only on him. And I knew that feeling too well, knew what it was to have V look only at you.
She stood then and circled the island, walking towards him, where he pulled her into him so there was no air at all between their bodies. She laid her head against his chest with her face turned out towards me, a generous smile on her lips.
I wanted to run up the stairs and into the evening, but of course that was impossible. I had to watch V turn her face to Angus and the long, slow kiss they gave each other. I had to watch him take her by the hand and lead her from the room. They switched off the light as they left the room and so I was able to stumble up the stairs without worrying too much about being seen. I felt woozy when I reached the street and slightly unconnected to what I was doing, so I kept on having to remind myself that it was necessary for me to get myself home.
Our Kind of Cruelty Page 5