‘Yes,’ I said doubtfully. Too late to pretend it was a wrong number. I’d announced my name.
‘Hello. I’m ringing to entice you down to the wilds of Dulwich.’ Dulwich? ‘Tina’s longing to meet you.’ Tina? ‘Mind you, I’d better be careful. I know what you’re like around women. I’ve never forgiven you for Florrie.’ He laughed loudly.
Florrie. Of course. Not Lottie. Florrie Hopkins, the sister of Anthony Hopkins. Andrew. Whatever his name was. I remembered, in the bookshop, the way he had said ‘litigation’, his mouth stretched out to the side, the click of his teeth.
‘Great,’ I said, thinking, Shit. ‘Lovely.’
‘How about this weekend? Saturday? A grateful client has just sent me a rather nice case of wine – thought it was a shame not to share it with friends. Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 2009. Tina was going to do her signature slow-cooked lamb. Moroccan.’
I’m not proud of myself. When you are on your own living hand to mouth, you make judgements: the cost and inconvenience of trekking to the wastes of south-east London versus the possible rewards of doing so. A good meal, a decent glass of French wine, they added up. Connections, too, are something to be alert to. I was about to be homeless and you never know who might prove useful. Also: exactly how rich was he? I thought about the cut of his suit, the way it had fitted so snugly over his shoulders, the softness of his palm as he’d shaken my hand. I was curious to see his house.
The cheese sandwich of curling Mother’s Pride stared balefully. ‘Saturday,’ I said. ‘Hang on. Yes. I’m away in New York next week but Saturday’s OK. Saturday I can do.’
‘Fantastic.’ He gave me the details and we disconnected.
I sat in the chair for a while longer, stroking the cat.
His address led me to a wide tree-lined street in the further reaches of Dulwich, a good ten-minute hike from the nearest station: Herne Hill, on the same line out of Victoria as Michael’s gaff in Beckenham where I often went for Sunday lunch. This was a very different kind of banlieue; less pinched and harried. It was where my tosser of an agent lived, and it figured. Here the roads were wide and self-confident. Even the trees seemed pleased with themselves.
Andrew’s house was a large, detached, late-Victorian villa, with a gabled roof and an arc of drive in which three cars were parked at awkward angles. Most of the front was covered in creeper, an abandoned bird’s nest in the crook of a drainpipe. The slatted blinds were open in the front bay and, between the wood, lights glowed, shapes drifted, a fire flickered.
I stood back, behind the hedge, and tried to light a cigarette. It was windy, coming in gusts, and it took several matches. Under my arm was a bottle of wine I’d bought at the shop by the station. A Chilean Sauvignon Blanc: £4.99. The blue tissue paper, wet from condensation, was beginning to disintegrate.
A large car drove slowly past, indulging its suspension over the speed bumps. Three teenagers ambled along on the opposite pavement, lugging musical instruments. They paused under a street lamp and stared at me; one of them whispered and the others laughed. This was the kind of place where a single man without a family, or a dog, or a Volvo 4x4, or a bloody cello, stood out. I turned my face away, back to the privet. Tangled in some twigs at eye level was a stray piece of silver tinsel. Cigarette dangling from my mouth, I pulled and brought out a Christmas bauble – red, decorated with a snowflake in white frosting. I slipped it into my coat pocket. Then I took one last deep suck, threw the cigarette to the ground and stamped it out.
It’s odd to think that, at this point, I could still have walked away, turned on my heel and headed back to the train station with my Christmas bauble, a fag butt the only evidence that I had ever been there.
I thought I had the wrong house at first. The door was answered by a woman with hazel eyes, a wide, open face and thick, curly hair which she had tried to tame with a green silk scarf: surely too bohemian to be Andrew’s wife. I held my arms out at each side, brandishing the wine in one hand: here I am.
The woman appraised me for a moment and then said: ‘You must be Paul Morris. We’ve been waiting for you. Come in, come in. I’m Tina.’
I put out my spare hand and she shook it, drawing me into the hall, where a large glass chandelier shot the light into pieces; small lozenge-shaped fragments across the floor and walls. Dark bannisters curved up a sweeping staircase. I removed my tweed coat and she opened a large French armoire and hung it up. I felt exposed, my chest tightening, as she opened the door to a drawing room where a group of strangers standing by a piano turned to stare. A fire flickering in sequence. An overly sweet smell of burning candle. Elaborately framed photographs on every surface of children in swimwear and salopettes.
A memory stirred, sediment at the bottom of a well. A tea-date with a boy from school. The suit my mother had put me in; the glance the boy’s mother had exchanged with her son. I swallowed hard.
Andrew came towards me. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said. ‘So glad you could fit us in before New York.’
‘New York?’ I said. ‘Oh yes, a work trip. Lightning. I’ll be back before I know it.’
I held out the wine and Andrew took it, his eyes on mine, cradling my £4.99 Isla Negra with its neck in his palm, and the base in the inside of his elbow, like a sommelier. Tiny shaving pimples dotted his neck. ‘Come and meet everyone!’
I was wearing my best suit, no tie, and a white shirt with the top three buttons undone. I was overdressed. Every person there was in jeans, with polo shirts for the men and flowery tunic tops for the women. I took a deep breath, adjusted my cuffs and stretched my mouth into a smile, the kind of smile I knew women loved.
‘This is Paul, the old university friend I was telling you about.’ Andrew led me to the piano and ran through a list of names: Rupert and Tom, Susie and Izzy – a blur of chins and sharp noses and thin legs, cashmere, dangly earrings. ‘Oh, and Boo,’ he said, delivering the name of a short, chubby woman he had almost forgotten.
A cold flute of champagne was pressed into my hand and I found myself the centre of attention. I felt my anxiety ease – I often blossom in such circumstances – and before long, I was leaning against the piano, hamming up the arduous adventure of my journey. The Tube, the train, the bloody walk. I turned to berate Andrew. ‘No one else was on foot. It was like being in LA. I had to flag down a car to ask directions. Twice.’ Andrew laughed loudly. ‘Paul’s a novelist,’ he said.
‘You’re a novelist?’ Susie said.
‘Yes.’
‘You were – what? Twenty-two when you wrote Annotations?’ Andrew said.
I smiled modestly. ‘Twenty-one. My last year in Cambridge. I was twenty-two when it was published. It was number nine on the Sunday Times bestseller list.’
How clean and innocent the words. I was aware of them landing on fresh turf and taking root – seedlings of hope, new shoots.
‘How exciting. Have you written anything since?’ asked Susie.
I felt my smile harden. ‘Bits and bobs . . . a couple of shorter novels you might not have heard of.’
‘Is it true everyone has one novel in them?’ a voice said, behind me.
It’s an annoying cliché. I turned my head to see who had uttered it. In the doorway stood a slim, slight woman, with shoulder-length blond hair, wearing an apron splattered with flour.
She stepped forward and put out her hand. Silver bracelets jangled. She had a small pointy chin and her mouth was lopsided, painted in a pale pink lipstick that didn’t suit her. There was something child-like about her, despite her obvious age. Nothing special, but more attractive at least than any of the other specimens on offer. ‘I’m Alice,’ she said. ‘We’ve met.’
She did look vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place her. ‘Have we?’
She put her head to one side, her hand still out. ‘Alice Mackenzie?’
Andrew pushed himself off from the piano. ‘Paul – you remember Alice? I’m sure you’ve met before, not least that night in Greece.’ He laughed.
&nbs
p; A chasm yawned beneath me. I didn’t like thinking about Greece. I decided to ignore her outstretched hand and bent to kiss her cheek. ‘Of course,’ I said.
She didn’t move – her face still crooked towards mine. ‘You’ve been smoking. I can smell it.’
I put my hands up in a gesture of surrender.
She leant even closer, bringing her hands up to the collar of my shirt, touching the fabric, and breathed in deeply, wafting the air near my mouth towards her nose. ‘Don’t apologise. It’s delicious. Right. Back to the kitchen. I’m needed.’
She disappeared again through the door. Andrew watched her go.
‘Alice is amazing.’ Boo had moved closer. ‘A real force of nature.’
‘Oh, really?’ She had seemed quite ordinary to me.
‘Yes. She is quite incredible.’ She raised her voice: ‘Alice was how old, Andrew? When she lost her husband?’
Andrew spun round. He closed his eyes. ‘Um. Ten years now since Harry died, so yes, early thirties. Their kids were still little.’
‘Unlucky,’ I said. ‘Cancer?’
‘Adrenal,’ Boo said. ‘It’s terribly rare. He had stomach pains, which they thought was appendicitis. By that stage it had already spread and he was dead within three months. But she was so strong; she kept it together for the children.’ Her tone was both reverential and self-satisfied, as if by reporting the saintliness of this Alice she was conferring some of it upon herself.
‘Alice is a wonderful mother,’ Andrew said. ‘And an extraordinary lawyer. She’s not a money-grabbing corporate shark like me.’ He paused, allowing room for silent demurral. ‘Alice works for Talbot & Co – you know, the famous legal aid company in Stockwell. She mainly represents asylum seekers.’
‘And battered wives,’ Boo said.
‘She is closely involved in Women Against Sexual Violence, Women for Women’s Rights, Women for Refugee Women . . . the list goes on.’
‘She launched the Finding Jasmine campaign,’ Boo said, as if I knew what the fuck she was talking about.
‘You have met before,’ Andrew said. ‘That night on Pyros – we were all having dinner together down in the harbour when we saw you. Do you remember?’
I dug my hand into the back of a chair and leant back. ‘I probably wasn’t at my best that night,’ I said carefully.
‘You were a bit the worse for wear, old chap. A little out of control.’
I scratched my head, aiming for comedy. ‘Sunstroke.’
Andrew made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Retsina.’
I glanced at Boo. ‘Haven’t drunk retsina since. Aversion therapy.’
Two deep dimples dented Boo’s cheeks. I’d dismissed her as too fat and posh for my tastes, but now I looked at her properly I saw she was quite pretty: white-skinned and blue-eyed. The way she was standing was sexy, too: shoulders back to show off her ample cleavage, her short plump legs tapered in their optimistic skinny jeans, her toes turned out, like a ballet dancer.
I smiled at her, avoiding Andrew’s eyes.
‘It was a long time ago,’ he said.
‘Dinner is served!’ Tina was standing at the door, brandishing a wooden spoon. Tendrils of wiry auburn hair had flown loose from the bandana, and her cheeks were flushed.
I was the first to leave the room, and I followed her along a corridor into an enormous white and cream kitchen. An island, containing a sink, where Alice was washing lettuce, divided the space. Stainless steel pans dangled from a metal contraption hung from the ceiling and at the far end huge glass doors led on to the garden. A small section of patio was lit by the glow of the kitchen; the rest disappeared in layers into the darkness.
The others were coming in behind us. A male voice said: ‘It’s the parking I’m worried about.’ The table, shiny mahogany, was elaborately laid. Andrew started lighting candles, using a long elegant contraption, black with ‘Diptyque’ written along the side. Click. Click. Tina, with a scrappy piece of paper in her hand, was telling people where to sit – embarrassed, pretending to find her writing hard to read.
I stood by my allotted seat, my back to the kitchen, facing three large paintings which covered the wall. They were hideous: semi-abstract seascapes in bright clashing colours – turquoise and orange, a liberal use of white. Not my thing at all. I prefer a nude.
‘They’re mine,’ Tina said, over my shoulder. ‘So don’t be rude.’
‘I wasn’t going to be. They are so . . . vibrant. I love how you’ve caught the light.’
‘They’re Greece actually. Pyros where . . . where you’ve been. The view from Circe’s House. We go every year – thanks to Alice.’
We both looked round. Alice, who was still fiddling about at the sink, looked up at her name and smiled at us vaguely.
Tina turned back. ‘It’s coming to an end, though, sadly.’
‘What is?’ Andrew had taken his seat at the head of the table.
‘Pyros.’
‘Terrible shame.’ He raised his voice. ‘Poor Alice. End of an era, isn’t it?’
‘What, Greece?’ she said, bringing a steaming bowl of tagine to the table. ‘Yes. My lease has come to an end and the fucking freeholder wrote to me in January to say he’s selling the land to developers. The tossers who built the Delfinos resort. Still, at least we have a stay of execution in the house if not the land – you’re coming to Circe’s this summer, Tina and Andrew, aren’t you? One last hoorah.’
‘Of course.’ Andrew got up again to make space for Tina to squeeze past his chair. ‘The kids would kill us if we didn’t. We’d literally be dead.’
‘Literally?’ I said.
‘Good.’ Alice sat down opposite him at the far end. She made a small dramatic gesture with her napkin, flapping it on to her lap. ‘Eat up, everyone.’
I looked at her for a moment, and then at Andrew, and at Tina, who was sitting somewhere in the middle of the table. Anyone would think Alice was the hostess here. Was it, in fact, her signature Moroccan lamb, not Tina’s at all? I helped myself to a spoonful and then realised I should probably have served my neighbours – Susie, on one side, Izzy on the other. ‘Sorry,’ I said, offering it. ‘I’ve got no manners. You can tell I went to boarding school – the panic at mealtimes, every boy for himself.’
‘Boarding school? Which one?’ the balder of the two men asked.
I told him where I had spent my formative years, and I could see he was surprised. The school has an academic reputation and I dropped a hint about my scholarship, too, mentioning I had been in the scholars’ house. Tina picked up on this. ‘Clever old you,’ she said. ‘Not just a pretty face.’
‘Oh, did you know Sebastian Potter?’ Izzy said. ‘He must be about your age.’
‘No,’ I said too quickly, and then: ‘I recognise the name. I think he might have been a couple of years above me.’
‘Oh, OK,’ she said. ‘Big school.’ She shrugged, her top slipping forward over the bones in her neck, the feathers in one of her earrings tangling in her hair. (Of course I knew Sebastian Potter. He was one of the bastards who made my life a misery.)
I turned my attention to the food. It was delicious, actually – the sauce tasted of orange flower water and saffron; the meat was wonderfully tender. Whether it was Tina who made it, or Alice, frankly for this alone it was worth the trip. Andrew had poured the wine, too, from a glass decanter – presumably the 2009 Châteauneuf as promised. It slipped down smoothly: no complaints there.
Around me the conversation wound on drably, past Tina’s wool shop, Ripping Yarns, to plans for the velodrome, to the school where people at the table appeared to have children. A new head of sixth form had just been appointed but the old head was missed; one of the science teachers wasn’t up to scratch; Boo’s daughter hadn’t got on to the Duke of Edinburgh scheme. It was over-subscribed and names had, of all things, been pulled from a hat. So unfair. Boo’s husband, who was away for work, was going to go straight in the moment he was back.
‘Do you
have kids?’ Susie asked me.
‘No.’
‘This must be so dull for you then.’
‘Not at all,’ I said.
‘We should watch what we say,’ Alice added. ‘He’s probably making mental notes for his next novel.’
It was another predictable comment. I’d lost count of the number of times people had said it. Alice was still wearing the apron, dotted now with gravy as well as flour. She’d applied a fresh layer of that hideous lipstick; it was smudged on the edge of her glass.
I felt a sudden desperate need for a cigarette. My legs jangled. I made my excuses, pushed my chair back, and walked over to the expanse of glass, where I fumbled until I found a mechanism that would slide it open. I slipped through a crack, quietly sealing the door again behind me.
The garden was in shadow – a long, wide lawn, edged with shrubs. At the end, skeleton trees against the sky and an expanse of dark nothing: a playing field. A brown smell of earth and damp.
The house, lit up behind me, was exposed – the candles on the table, the glint of cutlery: every detail visible to anyone who might be lurking down there. A shout of laughter, a scrape of chair. Boo’s voice shrieking, ‘No!’
I moved out of sight. An ironwork bench lurked on the grass, hidden from the kitchen by shrubs. I perched on the edge of it, trying not to get my trousers damp. A climbing frame and a trampoline with tall black sides, hulked like convict ships on the Kent marshes. The moon came out, dappling the grass, and disappeared again. An aeroplane crossed overhead – an angry snarl on the wind.
I lit my fag easily enough this time. It was cold. I should have gone to get my coat. I wondered how quickly I could go home. The evening had been fine – I’d managed – but, now I had eaten, there was nothing here for me. No women. No work. No whiff of a house-sit. I inhaled deeply, drawing the nicotine into my blood.
A sudden loud burst of conversation, a shot of warmth – immediately sliced off. I turned. Alice was standing on the terrace. I kept still in case she decided to go back in, but she took a couple of steps across the lawn and saw me.
Lie With Me Page 2