by Lily Morton
“You’re so popular, Mags.”
“That’s not my name, and why do you make being popular sound like I’ve got a dose of the clap?”
“It’s far worse,” I say.
He laughs as we leave the house and slide into the waiting taxi.
“When you’re popular,” I say, “you have to deal with people all the time.”
“I’m sensing you are not a people person,” he murmurs, settling back into his seat after giving the driver our address.
“Not really. I like them, but only in small doses.”
He shakes his head. “I bet you have a small circle of friends and rarely go to parties.”
“How did you know?”
“You’re too straightforward for social chit-chat, Laurie. I watched you tonight. You only really came alive when we were discussing politics. You’re not interested in celebrity romances or fashion.” His lip twitches. “You’re patently not interested in fashion.”
“Ouch. I dressed up tonight.”
“Yes, I notice the lack of holes in your clothes. It was quite startling.”
“Do you think how I behaved was wrong?” I ask impetuously. I’m not sure why, but his opinion matters to me. “Should I be better in company? More lighthearted? I was lighthearted before…” I trail off, unable to believe that I was going to mention the accident and the aftermath.
He watches me for a long second, his face cast in shadows. “Are you a good friend?” he finally asks.
I blink at the change in subject. “Yes. I love my friends.”
“Well, I wouldn’t worry, then,” he says, his no-nonsense tone soothing me. “You’re obviously not a recluse.”
I think I’m more of one than I used to be, because being alone has been easier than facing my family’s anxious questions. But I say nothing, and we lapse into a silence that lasts through the journey and up in the lift. It’s why I’m so surprised when he stops outside his door and asks, “You coming in?”
I eye him warily. “Why?”
“So I can eat your liver with a nice shot of vodka.”
“Not chianti?”
“Ack no. It’s vodka all the way. I’m starving too. Your sister never serves food in human portions. I’d only be full if I were a leprechaun.”
I laugh. “She’s terrible. Especially as she didn’t even cook the fucking meal.”
“A fact I’m very relieved about. I once ate a bite of a cake she’d made. I had to hide the rest of the piece in a plant pot.”
“Poor plant,” I say with feeling.
“It looked like a survivor of Chernobyl after an hour. I don’t want to think what she did while baking.” He smiles at me. “I’ve got a bottle of Absolut Crystal vodka in the freezer. Coming in?”
I whistle. “That costs a fortune.”
“It was a present. I’ve got some caviar to go with it.”
“Oh my God, really? I’m starving.”
He laughs. “It’s like you’re Hansel or Gretel.”
“I’d never have gone for chocolate or sweets.”
“No?”
“I’m a rare man,” I say flippantly as he watches me with those clear brown eyes.
“I think that’s probably more true than you know,” he says before vanishing into his flat, leaving the door open behind him.
I eye the door. I should run away. Back to my flat and the solitude that I’d told myself I needed in order to make some difficult decisions. What is between Mags and me is not anything I recognise, but I can feel that it’s getting stronger even if I can’t put a name to it. I’ve thought about him all week despite not talking to him, and I’ve found myself thinking of things I want to tell him. I sigh loudly before following him in and shutting the door behind me.
Chapter Six
Laurie
I haven’t had a chance to nose around Mags’s flat yet, so when he rushes off to the kitchen, I take my time to walk through the space. The open-plan layout is the same as Luke’s, but that’s where the similarity ends. Mags’s place is scrupulously clean. A huge dining table that could easily seat twelve people sits in front of floor-to-ceiling windows with a view of the sparkling lights of London and the River Thames. The whole place screams modern and minimalistic.
Banging comes from behind the counter in the kitchen, so I make my way over to the enormous central island. Shiny cabinets and stainless steel counters gleam elegantly under glowing lights. I peek over to find Mags crouched in front of a cupboard.
“No Aquavit, Mags? I haven’t had that since I was last in Copenhagen.”
He looks up at me, his ash-brown hair falling over those clear, beautiful eyes. Beautiful? Ugh. I want to slap myself.
“I prefer to drink that when I’m over there. It doesn’t taste the same here. You’ve been to Copenhagen?” I nod. “What did you think?” he asks, continuing to rummage through cabinets.
“It’s a beautiful city.”
I pull off my suit jacket and throw it over one of the white leather barstools. He places a cut-glass bottle in front of me that shoots little rainbows across the counter when it catches the light. Two shot glasses follow, the glass frosted from being in the freezer. He removes a brightly coloured tin from the fridge and a packet of blinis.
“I spent a couple of months there fulfilling some commissions,” I say, watching as he pours vodka into the glasses.
“I bet you painted Oscar Nielsen,” he says, naming a model who’d been famous in the seventies.
I gape at him. “How did you know?”
“He’s completely in love with his reflection. If he can’t find a mirror, he’s going to need a picture of himself.”
“He did seem very passionate about the painting,” I say diplomatically. He shoots me a look, and I laugh despite myself.
His mouth quirks. “Help yourself,” he says, nodding to the plate of food. He takes off his suit jacket and tie and then undoes the top button of his shirt. The opening reveals a hint of brown chest hair shot through with silver. I drag my eyes away and tuck into the food.
“God, that’s good,” I groan through a mouthful. I glance up to find him staring at me, his eyes darker than usual. He quickly looks away, and his strange expression vanishes.
“It is good,” he says. He grabs the plates and nods his head at the bottle and glasses. “Bring those, and we can relax on the sofa.”
I obey and follow him to the lounge area. There’s a huge cream sectional sofa and two big leather chairs grouped around a low coffee table that looks as if it was carved from driftwood. On one wall is a massive television, and brightly coloured artwork is hung everywhere. I recognise some more of his mother’s work. The whole effect is one of modern comfort and warmth. And money. Lots of money.
“It’s so tidy,” I say in an awed voice.
“Yes, I can see that it’s an alien concept to you.”
I grimace at him and wander over to a sleek entertainment centre where there’s an expensive stereo. “You’ve got a record player and a cassette recorder,” I say in a wondering voice.
“It’s Bang and Olufsen.”
“It’s a dinosaur in a record cabinet.”
He laughs.
“You like vinyl?” I ask, eyeing the record player.
He helps himself to another blini. “I’ve always loved it. There’s nothing like the crackle when you put the needle down. The sound isn’t so good, but the music seems more real somehow. I used to spend hours poring over the artwork on the albums.”
“Me too,” I say fervently.
“Put something on,” he says. “The records are in the cabinet over there.”
I open the door of the long cupboard and whistle at the shelves of records. “You weren’t kidding.”
“I rarely do.” I roll my eyes, and he grins. “Pick something.”
I run my fingers along the shelves, tracing the album spines. Then I grin and draw one out.
He groans. “All of that music, and that’s what you pick.”
“I
can’t believe you’ve got Now That’s What I Call Music.”
“It was one of the first albums I ever bought.”
“I think mine was U2’s The Joshua Tree.”
His face is alive with interest, and it’s obvious that he’s a music buff. “That was a great album. I used to haunt a record shop on the Kings Road every Saturday. As soon as I received my allowance, I spent most of it in there immediately.”
“Oh my God. Flynn’s?” He nods, and I smile. “Me too. We were probably there at the same time.”
“I’m sure I was far too cool to spend time with you, Laurie.”
“I doubt it. I was a very attractive teenager.”
“Rubbish. I bet you had a mullet.”
“Didn’t everyone?”
He shakes his head. “Not me.”
I put the record on the deck, flicking a switch until the stylus lowers, and the sound of Heaven 17’s “Temptation” comes through the speakers.
“What number Now Music are they on now?” I say, looking at the back of the album cover.
“Probably Now That’s What I Call Music Five Billion,” he says gloomily.
I wander over to sit next to him. “The kids call it Now Music. Not that mouthful. You’re not down with them.”
“If I got down, I’d never get back up again. My knee tends to lock.”
“Yesterday, one of my nieces referred to the nineties as ‘the old days’.”
He groans. “I think I have reached the age where everything I am is retro.”
I laugh and take the blini he hands me. “What’s this for?”
“I want you to paint me a picture with it.”
I laugh, but he nods at the food. “Eat it,” he says. “You ate nothing at the dinner.”
“You noticed?”
He says nothing and just looks at me, so I cram it into my mouth.
When I’ve finished it, I show him my hands. “Look, Mum. All gone.”
“If I were your mother, Laurie, I would probably be on heavy doses of Valium.”
“If you were my mother, I’d probably join you.”
He chuckles, but a crackle of awareness arcs between us. When his laughter fades away, his eyes are dark, and we stare at each other for a far too long moment.
Then, as if by mutual accord, we step back from that particular abyss.
“What was the first single you bought?” I ask, settling into the sofa. It’s wonderfully comfortable. I take a sip of my drink, enjoying the burn in my throat and the warmth that spreads through my chest.
He considers. “‘Tom Hark’ by the Piranhas.”
“God, I remember that one. Luke had it. Mine was ‘Baggy Trousers’ by Madness.”
He takes another blini, loading it with caviar. “You have no idea how nice it is to discuss music with a man without having to explain everything.”
“Goodness, are your beribboned twinks not performing correctly?”
He rolls his eyes. “One of them thought the Human League was a commission to investigate space travel.”
I choke on my food and roar with laughter. “Oh my God, that’s brilliant.”
Kajagoogoo’s “Too Shy” comes on, and I smile at him as he refills my glass. I didn’t realise that I’d finished it. I throw the vodka back and gasp. “Bloody hell, that’s strong. I’ll suffer for this tomorrow.”
“It’s worth it.”
“Probably. I wish I’d relished the early years of my twenties when I had an extremely high alcohol tolerance level and the ability to drink until five in the morning and still function the next day. I thought those days would last forever.”
“I know.” He sighs. “I never got hangovers, and then once I was over forty-five—bam! I only have to sniff alcohol, and I get a headache.”
“You seem to be persevering,” I say, watching him throw his shot back.
“What can I say? I am courageous.”
“And modest.”
He smiles. “I’ve never been that.” He refills his glass and nods at me to drink mine. “I’m Danish. This is the only way to drink.”
The next song comes on—“Down Under” by Men at Work. “I’m pretty sure this was on a mixtape that my first boyfriend made for me,” I say idly.
“Good grief, I remember those.” He rolls his head on the back of the sofa to look at me. “Ridiculous things.”
“You didn’t make one, then?”
“Certainly not,” he says in a revolted voice. “Why on earth would I have done such a thing?”
“The song choices sent messages to your loved one.” I slide down farther into the sofa and listen to the song. “I’m not sure what message this one was meant to convey to me at the age of fifteen.” I think hard and shake my head as realisation dawns. “Bloody hell. I’m shocked now I think of the title. Darren was obviously a lot more risqué than I ever knew.”
“What did you think he was saying with a song called ‘Down Under’, then?”
“I thought he wanted to take me to Australia.”
He roars with laughter. “I’ll leave that sort of thing to you. I don’t believe many songs adequately convey my message of ‘please leave my bed now and fuck off.’”
I laugh. “No, that is a bit of a niche market.” I eye him curiously. “Have you ever been in a relationship?”
He shakes his head. “Never.”
“Really?”
“Why do you sound so astonished?”
“Because I am, Mags. Most people have been in some form of a relationship by the time they get to our age.”
He considers my words of wisdom with a wry look on his face. “I’ve had a few arrangements that lasted a couple of months. That’s about as far as I go.”
“Goodness. Are the men okay? How much did their mental health suffer?”
He chuckles and pours us another shot. “I suppose you have a string of very serious relationships behind you where you quoted Proust to each other and haggled over the price of expensive bedlinen.”
I turn my head to stare at him. “You have very bizarre ideas about relationships.” He keeps looking at me in query, and I remember his question. “I’m actually the same as you.” He makes a disbelieving sound, and I laugh. “It’s true. I’ve had a few relationships, but nothing ever lasted, because they couldn’t compete with my work.” I purse my lips. “That sounds so fucking pretentious, but it’s true. I always cared more about painting than I did having someone to eat dinner with.”
“It’s not pretentious at all. It would be arrogant to squander your talent.” He throws his drink back and winces. “I suppose I am the same. My work has always been the most important thing in my life.” He shrugs. “My parents’ relationship was volatile, to say the least. They had an open relationship, so there were always different partners around the house. It also seems that they both had different versions of what ‘open’ actually meant, so there were rather a lot of screaming rows between very scantily clad people. It made me very popular at school because everyone wanted to come to my house, but it didn’t exactly leave me with any strong desire to do a relationship myself.”
I settle back into the sofa, raising my legs and stretching out. “When did you come to England?”
“You’re rather chatty tonight.” I watch him silently, letting the moment stretch, and he rolls his eyes. “My parents divorced when I was ten. When I was thirteen, my mother sent me to England to live with my father. She wanted to paint, and I was starting to cramp her style.”
“How?”
He shoots me a mischievous look. “I began to be critical about her love life.”
“Didn’t you want her to have one?”
“One would have been fine. It was the volume I was talking about.”
I start to laugh, and he gives me a wry smile, a strand of silky hair falling over his forehead. He stands up and wanders over to the stereo to replace the record. “All My Love” by Led Zeppelin comes on.
“I love this song,” he says, settling back
onto the sofa and retrieving his glass.
“I was never a Led Zeppelin fan, but I like this one.”
“I first smoked dope when listening to this,” he says in a nostalgic tone.
“You and twenty billion others, Mags. Did your parents catch you? Mine did when I was smoking it with Lennie. We were grounded for three months.”
“That’s quite harsh. Were they very anti-drug?”
“Have you met my stepfather? He’s anti everything that brings joy.” He laughs, and I carry on. “No, it wasn’t so much the drug as the fact that when they caught Lennie and me, I threw the joint away in a panic, and it set fire to the garden shed.”
He coughs over his drink and breaks into deep raucous laughter. “That is rather unfortunate. In direct contrast, my mother would have been thrilled with you. She was always very worried that I was too bourgeois and law-abiding.”
“So, no getting caught by your parents. Excellent.”
He shoots me a confused look. “No. They smoked it with me.”
I’m shocked, and I don’t know why. Everything about his childhood sounds so uber-bohemian that it would send other bohemians off to church clutching their pearls.
I wonder how he must’ve felt when he was transplanted to a strange country to live with a parent who was probably more of a stranger than a father.
For a few moments I consider his relaxed, but powerful, demeanour. He’d probably been the same as a child and took it all in his stride. No one would dare bully Mags. He has a very impervious air to him. An attitude of doing what he wants and damning the consequences and not giving a shit about other people’s opinions. Those sort of people are tough to cow.
He smiles at me wickedly, and I shove him. It’s a gentle push, but my fingers register the heat of his skin underneath the thin material of his shirt. I curl the traitorous digits into a fist. “Okay. We’ve covered childhood and music and—”
“Hold on. We haven’t covered yours, Laurie. We’d better do that because it’s patently obvious that I never listened to Lennie’s stories and now I’m afraid she might test me on the subject of the Gentry family.” I laugh and he twists to face me. “How did you end up with the judge for a parent?”
“Bad luck,” I offer, and he chuckles. I throw my drink back and wince. “Not really. He loves my mum, and he took all of us children on.”
