by Karen Swan
Her eyes met Anouk’s fleetingly as she handed over the cup of coffee, but that was all it took for Cassie to know Anouk had already guessed at their fight. ‘Smells good,’ was all she said.
‘You must have been up while it was still dark to get over here,’ Cassie said, changing the subject and walking the four paces across the small, glossy white Ikea kitchen and heaving the recycling box of empties out of the way. She opened the back door, letting in the riotous birdsong that was only ten feet away, and they all settled themselves on the various steps of the fire escape, both Cassie and Bas automatically leaving the prized upturned bucket for Anouk. ‘I’m assuming you came in from Paris together?’
She looked at Bas, who had rested his head against the whitewashed wall and was enjoying the feel of the sun on his face – his favourite feeling, in fact. ‘Couture runthroughs. Finished yesterday. Almost killed me.’ He looked at Cassie through one open eye. ‘Plenty of gossip. Want to hear it?’
‘I don’t know. Do I?’
Bas regarded her for a moment – pale, puffy eyes – and shook his head. ‘Later maybe. Now’s not the time. We all know you’re not the best in the mornings.’
She swatted his arm playfully, but wondered what he had to share with her. She had walked through his world for only a short time in that brief, exciting ‘gap year’, as her friends called it, when her marriage to Gil had blown up in her face and she’d lived in each of their cities for a season. Kelly had looked after her in New York, introducing her to Bas and giving her a job at her fashion PR firm, which hadn’t gone that well, but there had been flashes of fun and first dabs of happiness again on her vastly altered landscape. She had tasted freedom and independence, been made over in the image of the butter-blonde, ultra-toned Manhattanite and fallen madly in lust, conducting a highly inappropriate affair that was off plan and out of character – and exactly what she’d needed.
She blinked the thoughts away. She never let herself think about him anymore. The way things had ended . . . it had felt almost more toxic than the end of her marriage.
Anouk had lit up and was staring out over her neighbours’ gardens with slitted, interested eyes and Cassie wondered whether the German man at number 24 was gardening nude again.
‘How’s Guillaume?’
Anouk sucked a little harder on her cigarette. ‘Didn’t you ask me that yesterday?’
‘Yes, but that was on the phone. This is face to face. Now you have to give me a proper answer.’
‘I think you would much rather hear about Bas’s divertissement with his new man.’
Cassie frowned, her curiosity really piqued now. ‘I do, of course, want to hear about that, everything. All the gory details,’ she said, squeezing Bas’s skinny calf. ‘But I was asking about you. What’s happened? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing is wrong.’ She paused before giving a weary sigh. ‘Everything is right. That is the problem.’
Cassie’s face fell, understanding the problem immediately. Men just fell too deeply in love with her, which was a problem for a woman who craved a little danger. ‘You’re bored.’
‘It’s not his fault.’
‘No, of course not,’ Cassie said loyally; she had always liked Guillaume.
‘And it’s not mine either.’ Anouk was typically unapologetic, frank about what she did and didn’t want. In some ways, Cassie was surprised they had lasted as long as they had, although Anouk had been so bruised by the end of her long-term great love affair it had been no surprise that even she had needed to retreat to a place of safety for a while.
‘Have you met someone else?’
‘Not yet.’
‘But you’ll tell him before it gets to that.’
‘Bien sûr. I am very fond of him.’
Bas met Cassie’s eyes and she gave a small shrug. Her friend’s Gallic insouciance could be hard to relate to sometimes, and she knew Bas’s soft-heartedness often translated it as coldness.
A sound behind made them all turn and Cassie bit her lip anxiously as she heard the sound of keys being dropped onto the kitchen counter. Henry came and stood in the doorway, a surprised look and then a bemused smile growing on his lips. He looked like a fallen angel, all stubble and piercing eyes that seemed to see more than anyone else. ‘Well, well, well, what’s this? The naughty kids sneaking fags on the stairs and spying on the neighbours?’
He bent down to Anouk – his eyes well away from Cassie – and she kissed him on the cheek, her cigarette held away from her. ‘That man down there – his ass is disgusting,’ she said, shaking her head despairingly and sitting back on the bucket again.
‘I know. We’ve tried everything – pea-shooters, accidentally on purpose watering him instead of the herbs . . .’ Henry said, his tone jokey, but he was pale beneath his tan and Cassie could tell he hadn’t slept much either.
‘How’s Archie?’ Anouk asked, intensity in her eyes, and Cassie felt a rush of love for the emotionally cool friend who had still dropped everything to be here.
‘A lot better. Stable at last. They’re moving him to a general ward later today.’
Cassie’s mouth opened with happy surprise and she clapped her hands together, keeping her steepled fingers by her mouth, but still Henry didn’t look at her. Her heart rate began to rev. How long was he going to be able to keep this up for – the happy-go-lucky routine while cold-shouldering her?
‘Now that’s the news we’ve been waiting for,’ Bas said with a grin as he held up his hand for a fist-bump and the two men affectionately shoulder-barged. It was like watching puppies wrestle.
‘He’ll be made up to see you guys. I can’t believe you came,’ Henry said, his hands on his hips, finally running out of people to greet. Except her.
Their eyes met – apology, sorrow and so many other things besides in his grey-blue eyes. He was making light of the strain of the past couple of days for their friends’ benefit, but Cassie could clearly see the toll it had taken on him: he hadn’t shaved for days, and his cheeks were drawn – she realized she hadn’t seen him eat for two days. For the first time in their history together, he’d fallen apart. Without a word she got up and threw her arms around him, nuzzling her face in his neck as she felt the heat of his palm across her back.
‘Wow. Really? Only a night apart?’ Bas chuckled, reaching over for a drag on Anouk’s cigarette. ‘True love’s dream.’
Henry clasped her head in his hands, pulling back to gaze down at her. ‘I’m a stupid arse.’
‘Maybe. But you’re my stupid arse.’
‘Your arse is gorgeous,’ he grinned, grabbing a handful of her bottom and squeezing it hard.
‘I think it’s an English thing,’ they heard Bas whisper below them.
He kissed her lightly. ‘You know Arch won’t be allowed the macaroons?’
‘I know. Bas has already enlightened me – and scoffed half of them.’
His finger traced her cheek. ‘It was deeply adorable of you, though, to make them for him.’
‘You think?’
He nodded, before kissing her again.
‘Oh Jeez,’ Bas sighed, closing his eyes and topping up his tan.
Walking down Sloane Street with Anouk was like dragging a toddler to the dentist and taking a shortcut via Disneyworld. She wanted to look at everything – the dress on this mannequin, the shoes just beyond that door, the flowers framing the windows at Cartier, just a few minutes to chat to her friends (and colleagues of sorts) at Dior, for as one of the most sought-after and elusive jewellers in Paris she had collaborated with their couture atelier for almost a decade now.
Cassie was patient. So long as Henry remained in eyeshot, his straight back and easy, long-legged stride within view as he marched with Bas down the famous shopping street, she didn’t care. Her eyes were feasting on him, anticipating already the make-up sex they’d be having the second they dropped Bas and Nooks back at their hotel. The foreplay had already begun in fact. He had swooped on her from behind a beech tree
earlier in Cadogan Square – today was an open day for all the usually private and locked garden squares of London – his hands all over her, the hunger in his eyes leaving her breathless as Nooks and Bas got teas for them all from the café. The horror of last night was gone already, it was a blip, an anomaly that didn’t count. They were back to their best.
She turned, realizing she was alone again and saw she had lost Anouk to the Marni window display. ‘Ugh, Nooks!’ she scolded, marching back fifty steps and dragging her away.
‘But the bag. Do you see the bag?’ Anouk protested, arms thrown in the direction of the window as Cassie began leading her down the street.
‘You have thousands of bags,’ Cassie said, grabbing the small ocelot-printed, across-the-body pouch she was currently sporting. ‘See? That’s new isn’t it?’
‘Jerome Dreyfuss.’ Anouk winked.
‘Incorrigible. Henry and I would need to move house if I had as many bags as you.’
‘You need to move house anyway. I cannot spend another night eating dinner on that yellow bucket.’
Cassie laughed, throwing her head back and feeling the sun on her face as they walked. She loved the yellow bucket. When it was just her and Henry, eating supper on the fire escape, watching the birds and their naked German neighbour, he always gave her the bucket. It was one of his many, small signs of chivalry that she loved – along with walking on the road-side of the kerb and having a bath ready for her when she came in from jobs.
‘Come on missy, faster. Look, the boys are almost out of sight.’
‘They should not walk so fast. They are too tall, that is the problem. Who can keep up with their legs?’
‘Well, they’re on a mission, aren’t they? Bas is clearly going to go into shock if he doesn’t have black pudding and brown sauce immediately.’ She looped her arm through Anouk’s and they picked up the pace.
The street was alive with colour, glossy black and gilded Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea flower-boxes filled with heavy-headed tulips that nodded as the buses passed by; women in silk playsuits and linen dresses looking lean and tanned and very rich as they made five-metre dashes to Gucci, Prada, and Dolce and Gabbana, for something to wear that night.
Anouk’s phone rang and she pulled it from her pocket, eyeing it carelessly before replacing it, unanswered.
‘You’re not taking it?’ Cassie asked. She had glimpsed the caller ID.
Anouk didn’t reply but her small sideways glance was dismissive enough.
There was a small pause as they stopped at the lights on Pont Street. ‘You won’t break his heart, will you?’ Cassie asked. But it was more of a statement than a question.
‘It won’t come to that. He already knows we are fading. Besides, I have a new friend I think he would like. I plan to introduce them soon.’
Cassie tutted. She would never understand her friend’s mindset on this. Anouk genuinely believed love was like a game of musical chairs: you just had to make sure you were never left without a seat; that way, you were still in the game. It never seemed to occur to her that her men wanted her and only her, not just ‘any woman’.
‘How about you? Are you going to break Henry’s?’ Anouk batted back quietly as she squeezed Cassie’s arm tighter. The lights changed and they began to cross the road.
‘Of course not!’ Cassie gasped, so horrified by the suggestion that she forgot to walk and Anouk had to drag her onwards.
‘So then what was the fight about – or can I guess?’
They had reached the other side and Cassie stopped again. ‘You’re just about the only person who understands, Nooks,’ she said in a low voice. ‘You actually remember that I was married for ten years before this. Half the time I feel like people have forgotten that I’ve already spent a third of my life in a marriage. But I love how our life is now. Everything’s just perfect. Why change?’
‘You are preaching to the converted, mon amie.’ Anouk prompted them into a walk again.
‘There’s just so much pressure, you know? The same questions, all the time . . . Sometimes I think they must all be right and I’m wrong. Like maybe I’m mad.’
‘Hey, you think that’s bad? Try telling people you don’t want kids. Then they look at you like you’re disgusting, not just half woman, but half human.’
Cassie patted her arm sympathetically. She couldn’t begin to imagine the grief her friend received on that score. Rejecting marriage was one thing, rejecting having kids was a whole new level of taboo.
‘It’s the way they’re all so superior about it that drives me mad – as though I’ll come to my senses,’ Cassie muttered, giving full rein to her indignation and getting into her stride now.
‘And you will. You want to marry Henry, just in your own time, right?’
‘ . . . Exactly.’
They were at the lower end of Sloane Street now, where the labels were younger, cooler and edgier. Anouk’s antennae started twitching again as they passed the Stella McCartney boutique and Cassie tightened her hold on her friend. She could see Bas just ahead on the corner of Sloane Square. He appeared to be standing there alone.
‘Hey. Where’s Henry?’ Cassie asked.
‘He said he just had to get something. He’ll only be a minute.’ He held out his arms and she smiled, walking into his friendly embrace.
‘So, tell me, how long have I got you for?’ she asked as he looped one of his long Mr Spaghetti arms around her shoulders and squeezed.
‘Only till tomorrow. I’m flying back in the morning.’
‘Oh Bas.’ She pouted sadly, gently smacking his chest in protest. ‘Would you have even come to see me if you hadn’t heard about Arch?’
‘I would have wanted to come to see you,’ Bas grinned.
‘But he wouldn’t have been able to tear himself away from Luis,’ Anouk said mischievously. ‘It has been hard enough for me to see him and we have been in the same city. I think it is love.’
‘Luis? That’s his name?’ Cassie asked, stepping back to look and talk to him properly. Come to think of it, he did seem a little different – he’d lost a bit of weight from his already lean frame, and his eyes had a brightness that was usually dimmed by crazy working hours and too many international flights.
‘Luis Rodolfo,’ Bas said, his fingers reaching for her hair and checking for split ends. He couldn’t help himself. ‘He’s the manager of the Jerome Dreyfuss boutique in Saint-Germain.’
‘Oh. So then he gives good . . . bag,’ Cassie said wickedly.
Bas laughed, delighted to be on his favourite subject. ‘Exactly.’
‘Well have you got a pic of the fellow? I get to vet anyone who lasts longer than a weekend, remember. If I think he looks mean or –’
Bas showed her a photo on his phone: Bas was head-to-head with a dark-haired, olive-skinned man with ultra-white, even teeth, and straight black hair that was undercut-shaved below the ears, the longer upper sections pulled back in a short ponytail. The happiness was evident in both their faces.
‘Oh Bas,’ Cassie said, her hand above her heart. ‘It really is love.’
Bas shrugged; he was famously unlucky in matters of the heart, always falling for the unavailable or the un-gay. ‘We’ll see,’ was all he said, but Cassie could see by the way he lingered on the image a second, before closing down his phone, that he had already fallen hard.
‘When are you seeing him next?’
‘He’s coming out to New York next month.’
Cassie nodded but her heart filled with dread. How many people could sustain long-distance relationships, especially after such a short ‘courtship’?
‘So out with it then, how did you meet?’ Cassie asked, wanting all the gossip.
‘I was doing the Isabel Marant show,’ he said. ‘And obviously Jerome Dreyfuss is Isabel Marant’s partner so he was around at the castings and stuff.’
‘I want to meet him.’
‘You will.’
‘Henry and I could come over one
weekend.’
‘Great.’ Bas frowned suddenly as his tummy rumbled loudly. ‘Hey, now where’d Nooks go? Don’t tell me we’ve lost her too. I’ll never get fed at this rate.’
Anouk, left unattended for half a minute, had already wandered off again. Cassie saw her peering into one of the Tiffany’s windows behind them.
‘Honestly, Nooks!’ Cassie said, walking over with Bas and joining her. Thick sprays of white orchids were arranged in each window, every one of which was enclosed like a tiny, private theatre with jet backdrops and pinprick cones of light. The scene for this display seemed to be an enchanted forest as animal silhouettes were cut out from the pages of books and diamonds twinkled like dew in the grass or stars in the night sky.
‘I love that bracelet, you see it?’ Anouk murmured, pointing to a floral diamond design draped over the branches of a tree.
But Cassie didn’t see it. She straightened up, realizing where they were. She and Henry had history with Tiffany’s. They had form. He’d bought her engagement ring here . . . ‘Hang on. Where did Henry have to get something from?’ she asked, feeling suddenly chilly in the sunshine.
‘In here,’ Bas said, jerking his head towards the vast girder-strapped Art Deco building that was the Tiffany flagship in London. ‘Why?’ Bas asked.
Cassie felt her heart drop to her feet. No. No no no.
She rushed over to the door, standing between the two potted bays and the security guards flanking them like a matching pair. Henry was standing within, in profile to her, smiling as he chatted to the sales assistant at the desk and she handed him a receipt. Oh God. Cassie felt gripped by sudden panic. Had he . . . had he misconstrued their make up? Had he taken their reconciliation as evidence of her capitulation on the issue?
Everything felt wobbly suddenly. Her legs, her heart, her future. He was moving too fast. Why couldn’t they just be?