‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m serious. They were going to.’
‘Jesus,’ she says. She looks genuinely shocked. Cathy has never been in debt, always pays her credit card off each month. She never even gets the ticket gate beeping at her because her Oyster card’s run out. That’s how organised she is. ‘I didn’t realise it was that bad.’ Then she asks awkwardly, ‘How did it – er, how did it get to that stage then?’
‘I know how it got to that stage,’ I say. I gesture to the one chair and give her a plate and fork. ‘I’ve been a fool. Sit down. Eat some of your food.’ I pour her a glass of apple juice into a navy chipped mug that says ‘Tower Hamlets Business Seminars’. ‘Drink.’
Cathy cuts some of the quiche away with her fork. ‘It’s been a hard time for you though, Nat.’
‘Maybe, but it’s my fault. I haven’t been doing it properly,’ I say simply. ‘And I’m fucked as a result. If Granny knew she’d be horrified – she was so proud of me. Man alive.’ I shake my head when I think about Granny now, I think about her in the diary, her impatience with Miranda, her daughter, as though she knew she was a bad seed. Did she know?
No. I shake my head. I have to stop these thoughts, at least till I know more. ‘If she’d had any idea I’d be leaving her funeral early to come back for a business meeting to stop me being taken to court by the bank . . . if she knew how much I’ve screwed it up . . .’ I think of her and how much she loved me, how I felt that love all through my childhood. It’s hard to admit it but I plough on. ‘She’d be so disappointed.’
Cathy is concentrating on her quiche on the plate. She says after a pause, ‘I don’t think she would be.’
I laugh. ‘Bless you. But I think she would. She was really proud I did fine art at uni. She was so disappointed when I didn’t become an artist, and she was OK with the jeweller thing because she thought it was arty. She didn’t expect me to go bankrupt, did she.’
‘I think you’re being too hard on yourself. It’s really tough out there at the moment, apart from anything else,’ Cathy says. She swallows and clears her throat. ‘Not to be rude, but you know, I always thought . . .’ She stops. ‘Actually, forget it.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
I’m laughing. ‘Come on, Cathy! What?’
‘I always thought she was pretty hard on you too, if you want me to be honest.’
‘Who?’ I don’t understand her. ‘Your granny, Nat.’
I scoff, it’s so unlikely. ‘No, she wasn’t!’
Cathy says slowly, ‘I just remember, when we went to Summercove, the summer after we’d finished our A levels before you went off to college, she’d make you paint instead of coming down to the sea with me and Jay, and then she’d critique you. When she hadn’t painted herself for like thirty years, and you were only eighteen!’ She winces, as though she doesn’t like the taste of what she’s saying. ‘I think it was unfair. Like she wanted you to be something your mum wasn’t. Or Archie wasn’t. You know?’
That’s so outlandish I goggle at her. ‘Cathy, it really wasn’t like that!’ My voice is rising. ‘I wanted to learn from her.’
‘I know, I’m sorry.’ Cathy is a bit red. ‘I just think sometimes she was using you to make up for disappointments in her own life. Please, I didn’t mean anything by it. Forget it. I’m just glad you’ve sorted it out. You have, haven’t you?’
I think of my already huge credit card bill; I’ve been putting things for the business on that, too, of late, instead of putting them through the account. I am going to be very poor. These last couple of weeks without Oli to split the bills for food and cabs and toilet rolls have already taken their toll. I nod. ‘I have. It’s going to be tight, but I think I have.’ I touch the ring around my neck. I’m going to start sketching tonight. I take another sip of apple juice and lean forward, patting her arm. I am perched above her on the stool, she is in a low chair, so this is more difficult than it might be. ‘I’m sick of talking about me, though. How’s tricks? Tell me. I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘Oh, OK.’ Cathy shrugs, so that the shoulder pads in her suit jacket shoot up, almost to her ears. ‘Had another date with Jonathan on Friday.’ I raise my eyebrows.
‘Hey, how was it?’
Just then the door opens and a thick head of hair pokes round. ‘Nat?’
‘Ben!’ I stand up. ‘Hey, come and have some food.’
The hair advances into the room, followed by its owner, my neighbour. He looks quizzically at the meagre quiche, half-eaten, on the table, and the small salad next to it. ‘No, thanks. I’m on my way out anyway,’ he says, scratching his head. ‘Hi, Cathy. I just came to see how you were doing, Nat.’ He hugs himself. ‘It’s freaking freezing in here.’
Ben is wearing his usual uniform, which is a large woollen sweater. He has an endless supply of them, mostly bought from junk shops or markets, and they are all extremely thick. His hair is curly and long. It bounces when he’s enthusiastic about something. I am glad to see him, as ever. I’m sure I have a Pavlovian response to Ben, because he represents company of some sort during the day, so it’s normally lovely to see him. I’m sure if we went on holiday we’d fall out on the first evening. ‘It’ll warm up soon, hopefully,’ I say. ‘Hey, man. Stay and have a cup of tea.’
‘I won’t,’ he says. ‘Just popped by to say hi.’ He looks at me. ‘So you’re doing OK?’
‘I’ll come by later,’ I say. ‘It was quite something.’
‘The funeral? Or the meeting?’
‘Oh – both.’
Ben nods. ‘Well, I’ve got a shoot this afternoon, but I’m not sure when. Knock me up, chuck.’
‘OK.’
‘Nice to see you, Cathy,’ he says. ‘Nat – see you later. I want to hear about it.’
I nod, and turn back to Cathy as the door closes. ‘I’m sorry about that. Blithely inviting him in when you’re in the middle of telling me about Jonathan. Go on.’
‘He’s so lovely.’ Cathy gazes at the shut door. ‘Who, Ben? He’s got a girlfriend,’ I say. ‘I don’t mean like that.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘No, I don’t. He’s just lovely.’ She sighs. ‘Why can’t all men be like him, eh? I don’t get it.’
I think about Ben, who I’ve known vaguely for years because of Jay, and his floppy hair and thick jumpers. I’ve never really thought about him in that way. ‘He’s adorable. But he’s a bit like a big sheep, don’t you think?’
‘What?’ Cathy laughs. ‘You’re insane. I think he’s really cute. Those big brown eyes. That smile. He’s got a lovely smile. If he had his hair cut . . . Wow, he’d be absolutely gorgeous. Pow.’
She mimes an explosion with her hands. I sigh. Cathy has such weird taste in men. ‘Come on. Tell me. I’m sorry. You and Jonathan.’
‘Yes.’ She sighs. ‘It was odd. I don’t get it.’
‘OK, so what happened?’
‘OK. We had a good dinner. Good conversation.’
‘Where did you go?’
‘Kettner’s. I don’t like it there now though, since the makeover. They’ve done it up like a whore’s boudoir. It used to be so great.’
I nod, a shiver running down my body. Kettner’s, in Soho, was our favourite place. Oli and I, I mean: we used to meet there all the time when we lived on opposite sides of the city. Cheap beautiful pizzas and a lovely champagne bar. Chintzy, seaside-hotel decor, old-fashioned service and a pianist playing jazz standards. Now it’s been ‘done up’, the menu’s been changed, and I think it looks awful.
Oli and I went there in November, and had a bad evening. Terrible, in fact. It was our first night out for a while and, to cut a long story short, it began when, during a conversation about the merits of our flat, I used the phrase, ‘because we might want a bigger place some day, if we have children’, and it ended with me leaving the restaurant and taking a very expensive cab all the way home on my own. Oli wasn’t ready for the ‘if we have children’ conversation, you see. Apparently, being
married for two years doesn’t mean you’re ready to even talk about it.
‘Kettner’s did used to be so great. But anyway. Did anything happen?’ Ah, did anything happen, possibly the most-asked question in London.
‘Sort of.’
‘Like what?’
Cathy shifts in her low chair, looking down at the ground, so I can’t see her face. She is bad at the details. ‘Well, I mean, it was unsatisfactory.’
‘How?’
‘Well, we had quite a lot to drink. And we kissed, outside Kettner’s. And he lives in Clapham too, so we got a cab home. But it was odd.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘We got to his and he could have asked me in, and we’re in the back of the cab, you know –’ she mouths the word snogging – ‘and we’re kind of –’ again, she mouths what I think is doing stuff under each other’s clothes, but I don’t want to check and interrupt the flow – ‘And he chucks a twenty-pound note at me and says, Oh, thanks for a lovely evening, and then gets out!’ She’s practically squeaking in outrage at this.
‘He chucked a twenner at you?’ I say. ‘Like you’re a prostitute and he’s paying you in cash for letting him feel you up?’
‘Exactly!’ she shouts. ‘I mean, I think it was for the cab, but you know – wow, way to make me feel cheap!’
‘Who paid for dinner?’
‘We split.’ There’s a silence. ‘I don’t think that means anything though.’
‘Me neither. What does he do?’
‘He’s a . . . well. He’s a dancer.’
‘He’s a what?’
She takes a bite of her quiche. ‘He’s a dancer.’
‘What kind of a dancer?’
‘He’s in The Lion King.’
‘He’s a dancer in The Lion King,’ I say. ‘You snogged a dancer in The Lion King.’ I’m nodding. ‘What part does he play in The Lion King?’
Cathy still isn’t looking at me. Her voice is shaking. ‘I think he’s a giraffe.’
We both collapse with laughter, and my stool rocks alarmingly. I steady myself with one hand.
‘And you don’t think he’s . . .’
‘He’s not gay!’ Cathy says in indignation. ‘He’s bloody not! He says that’s really irritating, that everyone always assumes he must be, and that it’d be much easier for him if he was!’ She pauses. ‘Apart from with his parents. They’d disown him.’
‘Why? What’s with his parents?’
‘They’re very strict Baptists. They think homosexuality is a sin.’ Cathy shakes her head. ‘They sound kind of awful. Very repressive. He grew up in Rickmansworth,’ she adds, as if the two are connected.
‘Right,’ I say, though I now have severe doubts about Jonathan the dancing giraffe from Rickmansworth with the repressive Baptist parents. ‘Well, maybe he’s just shy . . .’ I trail off. ‘How was the snogging?’
Cathy looks around again. ‘It was OK. You know? Sometimes it’s just not that great. And we were quite drunk.’
‘But you like him?’
She stares into space. ‘Yeah, I do. He’s really funny. And we have nothing in common. I like that. He’s different from me.’ She shifts in her chair again. ‘Everyone at work’s just like me. Always in suits. Serious. Reads the FT.’ She pushes her lips out. ‘That’s why I liked his profile, and when we were emailing. He just sounded really fun.’ She stops. Her voice is soft. ‘I just want to meet someone, you know? And it’s hard.’
I remember the last date I went on before I ran into Oli. A man with a signet ring and fat, sausage-like fingers, talking about himself all evening and how his friends thought he was ‘completely crazy, up for anything, me!’ Yellowish blond thin hair, red face like a baby, eyes that looked anywhere but into mine, and I sat there in silence and thought to myself, Perhaps he’ll do, perhaps I’m being too picky, that’s what everyone says.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know it’s hard.’
‘Ha.’ Cathy looks at me. ‘Like you’d know.’
‘Oi,’ I say. She claps her hand over her mouth. ‘Shit, Nat, I’m really sorry!’ Red stains her white cheeks. ‘That’s so tactless of me!’
I lean forward on my stool and pat her head, which is all I can reach. ‘It’s fine! Honestly, don’t worry. I wouldn’t know, anyway. I haven’t been out there for ages.’
‘Do you think you will be, soon, then?’
‘Don’t know,’ I say, stretching my fingers out in front of me. ‘We need to talk. He keeps calling, he wants to meet up again. I just haven’t wanted to see him.’
‘He wants to come back, doesn’t he?’ Cathy asks. I nod. ‘Of course he does!’ she says, relieved. ‘You and Oli – you’re together for ever! I mean, you can’t split up!’
‘He slept with someone else,’ I say. ‘Don’t you think that’s a big deal?’
Cathy knits her hands together. Normally so sure of herself, she looks around. ‘Yes, of course it is. But if you’re asking me if it’s something to end your marriage over . . . I don’t know. I’m not in it.’ She smiles, knowing it’s a bad answer. ‘I can’t make that judgement.’
‘Well, I am in it, and I have made that judgement,’ I say. ‘I just don’t know if I can be with him again.’
‘Wow.’ Cathy opens and shuts her mouth. ‘Seriously? But your life – together.’
‘I know.’ My throat is dry. ‘Weren’t you going to start trying for a baby soon, too?’ Now I am knitting my fingers together. I can’t look at her, I don’t want to lose it. I push down the sound I want to make, push it back down somewhere at the back of my throat. ‘No.’
‘Oh. I thought you were.’
‘Well, we’re not. He doesn’t want to. He said he wasn’t ready.’
Cathy flicks a look at me from under her lashes, and doesn’t pursue this. Instead she says, ‘Do you think he’s sorry?’
‘Oh, yes,’ I say. ‘I think he’s very sorry he’s been chucked out of his nice flat with the big TV and all his DVDs and crap and someone who knows how he likes his coffee in the morning. I think he misses that a lot.’
‘Come on,’ Cathy says. ‘It’s more than that.’
I’m not sure it is for him, and I can’t blame him either. Your relationship is in your home. Your home is where the two of you are for the most part. And your home is where you have your stuff and where you chill out after a bad day. Even after everything that’s happened, our flat is still our flat. It’s where I have my books, where my clothes hang in cupboards, where I keep the letters Granny wrote me, the postcards Jay sent me, the Zabar’s mug I bought in New York with Cathy. I liked having space to put stuff, letting our things mingle together. In Bryant Court, Mum and I improvised almost everything. Her chest of drawers was the trunk she had at boarding school and our clothes hung on a wire rack she bought at a fair; the shelves in the kitchen were too narrow to store anything other than small spice jars, which was ironic as neither of us ever cooked and we lived on takeout or ready-meals and occasionally pasta. So our plates and glasses and mugs were all stacked in a corner, the cutlery in a large patterned glass jar she’d got in Italy.
‘It’s a marriage, not just a home,’ Cathy says sternly. ‘For both of you.’
We had a home together, the two of us, until Oli went and ruined it. But the thing is, I think I want that home, I want us to be together. I don’t want to be out there again. I think I do still love him. That’s the trouble.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After Cathy leaves, I do some tidying up and sorting out. I put things away, I arrange my tools in my drawer under the workbench. I update my contacts folder on my laptop (a new state-of-the-art Mac, which I convinced myself – helped by Oli, it’s true – I had to have for work, when any old computer would basically have done). I email a few shops, some friends who are fellow jewellers to find if they’ll be at the next trade fair, in ExCel in May, and I get an application form from Tower Hamlets for a grant. Though even this feels wrong; I don’t think I deserve the money.
What I need to do, I know, i
s keep on like this. Keep doing things. Keep coming to the studio and actually making stuff, having a plan, having tea with the others, instead of using this place as an escape from the lonely, echoing flat, filled with Oli’s stuff. I open the unopened letters from the bank, putting them in a pile. I make a list of things to do. And as I stand up and stretch, slinging my bag over my shoulder, I put my sketchbook in the centre of the table, so it’ll be the first thing I see when I come in tomorrow. Feeling suddenly hopeful, I close the door behind me.
As I walk past Ben’s studio I’m about to knock, but I can hear him and Tania talking so I pause, listening for a second.
I can tell by the tone of their voices – slightly louder and higher than usual – that it’s not the kind of conversation you want to interrupt. Normally I’d knock anyway, or call out ‘Bye’ but perhaps I need to stop hanging out with them instead of going home. Yes, I’m going home.
I say goodnight to Jamie and as I have my hand on the door I open my bag, quickly, just checking. Yes, Cecily diary’s still there, nestling at the top of my things, folded up inside my sketchbook.
One of the weirdest things about my ‘situation’ at the moment is the labelling of it. Do I still say ‘we’ when I’m talking about where ‘we’ live or how long ago ‘we’ bought the new flat-screen TV? It feels so odd, yet to say ‘my status-TBC-husband and I’ is also weird. ‘We’ live on Princelet Street, off Brick Lane, a couple of minutes’ walk from my studio.
When I first left college I worked for two years on a stall in Camden Market and lived in West Norwood, so I know what a long commute is like. I was only there in the mornings, too – in the afternoons I’d do my own stuff – so it was nearly three hours of travelling for three hours of work, not a good exchange system. I had about fifty pence a week left to play with, if that.
We moved here after much negotiation. Oli flatly refused to cross the river, especially not to live that far out. He wanted to stay in North London. We compromised on East London, and it was one of our better decisions, because I can’t imagine living anywhere else now. I have lived in West, East and South and worked in North London, and this is where we both wanted to be. I don’t know what ‘we’ think about that any more, but I love it here, and though East London isn’t everyone’s favourite biscuit, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I know where I want to be. Until a decade ago or so round here, Spitalfields, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, all of it was a real no-man’s-land, abandoned since the days of Jack the Ripper, but now it is quite hilariously trendy. The slums they cleared people out of in the sixties, moving them into new-builds, are now Georgian terraces selling for half a million quid.
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