by Claire Peate
Didn’t he want to ask me about last night? Didn’t he want to know anything about the mysterious man at the door, the one who had kissed me violently? Or why I was called out so late and where I went until three in the morning? Wasn’t he at least curious? Couldn’t he see I was positively exploding in my desire to tell someone all about it?
“Bran flakes?” I said, in my best woe-is-me voice.
I stood aside and let him pass. Great I thought as I paced the empty kitchen. I was being upstaged by J Sainsbury.
“ROBERT!” I pelted down the knot garden and threw myself at the windscreen of his Beetle. “Sorry! I forgot to ask, what happened to the potatoes? Did the gardener’s wife get a full roast dinner?”
He grinned and started up the engine. “They had their roast potatoes.”
“Well, thank God for that!” I stood back to let him go, suddenly deliriously happy for no good reason, waving him off down the road before walking back into the house.
“Ah, young love!” Babs sighed, phlegmily, from her doorway.
“Afternoon, Babs.”
“Are yer free darlin’?”
“Ye-es…?”
“Fancy a cuppa?”
I did a double take. “Wh— in your house?”
Babs snorted. “Well we can ’ave it in the street if yer want to darlin’. But I’d like yer to meet someone.” The last words were said in a hoarse whisper.
I glanced down the street towards Fox Estates, in case Eustace was buffing the silver chains on his bay trees and watching the goings on in Brockley with his beady eyes. There was no one about: the coast was clear. “Sure.”
Babs led me to a front room that looked as though a chintz explosion had taken place: any surface that took fabric was covered in a vomit of florals. And, once my eyes had become accustomed to it all, I noticed a disaffected youth lounging with intent amid the blossoms on a squashy sofa. He licked the edge of a cigarette paper and completed what I presumed was an enormous spliff.
“Hi,” I said, trying for cool but not getting even remotely close to it.
“’S up.” He said and lit the spliff.
We looked at each other for a moment. I tried to conjure up my inner fire and militant personality so as to at least not feel completely square. “You must be Tyrone.”
He gave a slight, disaffected, nod.
“Here we are, here we are,” with a fag clamped between her lips Babs shuffled into the room carrying an Eternal Beau tray laden with a tea pot, cups, saucers and plates all in matching Eternal Beau. “So you’ve now met my ’Roney. My little Notorious Baron ain’t yer? Tea, Edda? Milk? Sugar? Digested biscuit, darlin’?”
She gestured for me to take a seat on the rose-covered sofa opposite Da Notorious Baron.
What would Eustace Fox – just metres down the road in his office – give to sit where I was sitting right now, in front of Enemy Number One.
“So, ’Roney loved what yer did on the stencil, didn’t yer darling?” she patted the knee of her drug-smoking grandson. “Thought it was the dog’s bollocks that’s what yer said, wasn’t it?”
“It was all right. Yeah.” He looked over to me. “You got trainin’ in art and stuff?”
“No. Well A-level, you know. Not art school. Erm.”
“It was good. Yeah.” He flicked ash into an Eternal Beau ashtray. “It was still mine, though. It was still my work and, like, my ideas and shit but you gave it that edge. Y’know?”
“Yes. Absolutely.” I nodded profusely.
“It was as good as anything he would—” Babs began.
“Nan! You know we ain’t talkin’ about ’im!”
“I was only sayin’,” Babs held up a hand, “That it’s as good as what he does.” Tyrone glared at his nan and then relit his spliff. While he was occupied with the lighter Babs looked over to me, winked, and mouthed, Banksy.
The room was filling with the thin coils of smoke and I was starting to feel odd. “Well I’m glad you liked it,” I said. “And it’s really nice to meet you, Tyrone, but I ought to—”
“I’ve got more.” Tyrone leant forward towards me, for the first time, looking straight at me. “An’ I was wonderin’ if you want to cut ’em? I ain’t got no patience to cut ’em, and Nan ain’t got no skill.”
“Oh ’Roney!”
“Well you ain’t, Nan,” he said, and then added, “but yer make a good roast dinner.”
“Ah, me boy.” She patted his knee again. “Yer like yer roast beef an’ all the trimmin’s eh?”
“So, do yer wanna do it?” Tyrone looked at me, as did Babs.
Oh God. I sat on my floral sofa and squirmed. How do you turn down someone like Tyrone? And what would Babs say if I didn’t agree to help her grandson? She’d assume I had gone over to the other side and was a close personal friend of Eustace Fox, even though I kept denying it. There would be frosty stares across the garden wall…
But then – as the thoughts raced around in my head – it occurred to me that maybe it wasn’t such a very terrible thing to be doing after all. Da Notorious Baron’s graffiti was going to be around Brockley whether I helped out or not. And it was very, very bad. But by helping out I might actually make it easier on the eye: didn’t Eustace say he wasn’t against graffiti per se, but wanted to improve it? So, really, if I did do this I would be helping Eustace out. In a very indirect, warped-logic sort of a way…
I left Babs and Tyrone with a muddled head and a handful of plastic-coated sheets of paper roughly drawn with future graffiti destined for the wider neighbourhood. Bolting around the front garden gates, in case Eustace was lurking, I dashed through my knot garden and into my house. If Eustace ever discovered I was connected to Da Notorious Baron, goodness knows what would happen. I put the sheets on the kitchen table and spread them out to see the tasks ahead. “Oh bloody hell.” I sank down onto the bar stool, my head in my hands. Somehow I had craft-knifed my way into the criminal underworld.
Fifteen
“Oh my God and everything! This is so bad.”
Amanda and I were in John Lewis and Amanda was cornered like a wild animal, trapped between a rail of pink tweed suits and a rail of lemon twin-sets. She tried to make a dash towards the Warehouse concession, but I grabbed her and pinned her to a rail of belted pea-green coats.
“OK,” I said, soothingly, leading her out of the Jaeger section, “we might have got a bit lost, this isn’t quite what we’re looking for.”
“Well thank fuck for that, then.” She clung to me, still looking terrified by the mother-of-the-bride collections around her. “Like, at what point in your life do you start dressing like the Queen? Bleurgh!”
“Actually, I quite like that dress,” I said, following her horrified expression. “But then I am very old.”
“You’re not as old as Max.” She released her grip as we passed the Whistles rails. “He’s fifty-four can you believe that? I can’t believe I’m seeing a man who’s fifty-four. But he’s really fit. ’Cause I thought he’d be all wrinkled down there…” and so it went on, as it had been going on all morning in the office and now after work in the shops on Oxford Street. But I didn’t mind: not in the least, because Amanda was positively glowing with happiness. The last guy she’d dated had been a twenty-two year old joiner from Lewisham who had a tattoo of a urinating bulldog on his arm. He drank lager and punched people in the face late at night. Max, on the other hand, had taken her to see his friends acting at the Criterion, wined and dined her and introduced her to the art of strolling through London parks on Sunday afternoons.
“So, how does he want you to dress?” I asked her as we stopped at the Jigsaw rails. “What did he say?”
“Nothing.” She looked slightly non-plussed by the question.
“Oh. So…”
“It’s me. I want to look different.”
“Why? Don’t you think he likes you how you are?”
“Oh God, yeah! He’s always saying how like amazing I look and stuff. But, like, all the people
in the restaurants or in the cafés or wherever we are, they all look different to me and they look at me, like, urgh and everything and, if I have to be honest, I don’t hate what they’re wearing. Some of them. So, if I could just look a little bit less like urgh and a bit more classy then that might be good. But there is, like, no way I’m doing the full Buckingham-Palace and wearing pastel suits.”
Two hours later, exhausted, we stumbled into Browns.
“Come on then, what star sign is he?” In between ordering and the food arriving Amanda had whipped out a handbag sized Cosmo.
“Who?”
“That artist bloke you’re shagging! The one you’ve been telling me about.”
“What, Guy? I have no idea what his star sign is.”
“OK, so when’s his birthday? We can like work his star sign out. Then we can see if you two are compatible.”
“It’s not that sort of relationship. It’s not serious or anything. It’s just a bit of fun.”
“So it’s, like, totally casual.” She said, returning the magazine to her handbag with a look of disappointment.
“Very.”
“And you’re happy with that?”
“Ye-es…” Should I not be?
“Be careful of the rebound… Haven’t you read any of the articles I left for you? I mean, like, at your age don’t you need—”
“Excuse me,” I held up a hand, “I don’t think you are at all qualified to discuss age with me any more, seeing as you’re dating someone who’ll be almost a pensioner before you’re my age.”
“Max Willoughby!” She yelped and clapped her hands together. “Isn’t it incredible? Anyway,” she settled herself down and took another sip of her wine, “Let’s focus on your bloke, because that sounds very exciting. You at least know his surname, yeah?”
“Newhouse.”
“There then! You’re like a proper married couple and everything. What’s his job? Oh artist – yeah you’ve told me. Do you know where he lives?”
“No. Somewhere in Brockley.”
“And you’ve not checked his address out on the Council database at work because…?”
“Because that’s creepy and stalking,” I said. And then added, “Actually it’s because I didn’t think of it.”
“So no phone number either?”
“No.”
“Email address?”
I considered it for a moment. “Sort of. I can get in touch with him online, but it’s a forum that everyone can see.”
“So how do you get in touch with him when you want some action?”
“It’s not all about getting some action,” I said. “We’re part of a group, so I see him when I see them.”
“Jeez that is, like, totally casual! Has he got a girlfriend already or something? Is there a reason he’s keeping you at arm’s length?”
“He’s – he’s not…”
Her words knocked the stuffing out of me. Maybe he had got a girlfriend! Here was I thinking that, hey, it was casual, but he was an artist and artists were like that. Probably. And besides that it was just the start of something much more. Wasn’t it?
But now, being served my rocket and prosciutto pizza, I got the uncomfortable feeling that maybe this was it. I was a bit on the side. And there was someone else who had a relationship with him. So what we had – if we had anything – would never amount to more than this. Because I was just a bit on the side. The bastard. The next dig was in a week’s time at Hilly Fields at the south end of Brockley. Guy was supposed to be calling for me: should I bring up the girlfriend subject then? Should I nip this thing in the bud straight away?
“So Robert’s, like, totally happy living with you.” Amanda blew on her forkful of lasagne. “You getting on OK, then?”
“Great. Smashing.” I answered, and then forced myself to focus on what I was saying and not dwell on the thought of being nothing but Guy’s bit on the side. “My cat Finley has adopted him. He doesn’t want to know me any more.”
“Shit. You keep getting abandoned don’t you?” Amanda said absentmindedly.
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Oh, no I’m only joking! So does Robert mention me? Does he say anything about his dad?” she played it cool but I could tell she was dying of curiosity.
“To be honest, Amanda, it’s sort of a subject we avoid. Sorry,” I added, seeing her disappointment.
“OK. Well, it’s probably, like, for the best and everything. Anyway, I bought this magazine because of you.” She made room on the table and brought the magazine out again. “OK, so we don’t know much more than like his name so we can’t do star signs, but here’s a quiz to see if you and your bloke are properly in love or not.”
“Oh I hate those quizzes. They always tell me I’m a complete failure.”
Amanda ploughed on regardless. “‘What would you most like people to say about you both? A. you look great together, B. you are great together, or C. you’re so cool together.’”
“Well we’re sort of secret. So we don’t want anyone to know we’re together. Is there an option for ‘none of the above’?”
“Why don’t you want anyone to know?”
“It’s not that sort of circle of friends.”
“Hmm. OK, next question: ‘would you feel the same about him if he lost all his hair? A. it would be over, B. it wouldn’t change a thing, C. what hair, he’s bald and toothless and I love him.’”
“‘A’. That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“You shouldn’t be predicting the results. OK, next one, ‘If he were to dump you tomorrow, would you A. feel cross that you’d wasted a chunk of your life dating him, B. go into mourning for the remembrance of him or C. pursue him relentlessly with every fibre of your being.’”
“Can we have a ‘D’ in there? I think I’m more of a D.”
“There is no D, Edda.”
“Well there is now. ‘D, we’re not official so it’s easy come easy go. I’d be cool about it, I think.’”
“Yeah. Whatever. Next question, ‘When you’re together for a long amount of time, like a long weekend, do you A. drive each other nuts, B. enjoy every moment, C. get upset that it’s going to come to an end?’”
“D. We aren’t together for long periods of time.”
“Edda, you cannot have D! There is no D!”
“I can. I am empowered and I create my own path. Look here,” I snatched the magazine off her and held it aloft like a weighty tome, “Mostly D’s: you’re casual and in control of a hot one. He’s definitely not seeing anyone else and you’re both very happy. Well done.”
“Max said, like, you’re a comedian and everything.” Amanda pointed her butter knife at me. “He said you look like someone who would seek solace in comedy, but that’s not always the way out you know. You have to face up to things. You so have to be serious.”
“Oh who cares about that? Here, smell my flower button-hole.”
It was quarter to one in the morning and I didn’t feel like seeking solace in comedy one bit. Because I was trapped. Trapped upstairs on the first floor of my house with no prospect of escape.
Dressed head to toe in black with a scruffy up-do and vampy smoky eyes I was all set to go but couldn’t get to the front door. The way was blocked. I’d spent the entire evening fretting about Guy: did he have a girlfriend, was I just a bit on the side … but now my bit-on-the-side fretting was being cast aside in favour of fretting that I wasn’t actually going to make it out at all. Who cared if Guy already had a girlfriend? I was an enforced Miss Havisham on the first floor, unable to leave.
Crouched low on the landing floor I peered through the banisters, down towards the kitchen. Below me was my captor – Robert – keeping me captive by making himself toast.
Inching forward to the top stair I watched as he fumbled the loaf, made several attempts to post the slices into the toaster slots and then staggered round the kitchen in search of a spread. He had been out all evening at the pub with his mates and it showed.
I had to stop myself laughing, clamping a hand to my mouth, as I watched him wrench open the jar of malt and attempt to spread it on his blackened toast.
“What the fuck…” he stared at the goopy brown stuff dripping from his knife where he’d expected to see the firm paste of chocolate spread. He tried it. He liked it. Then he set about enthusiastically malting all the toast, his plate and the table before pulling up a chair and tucking in.
I checked my watch, angling the face of it to catch the light from the kitchen below. It was almost 1am. Guy would be here any minute. The thought of him sent my pulse racing, picturing him striding through the dark streets towards me, glossy black hair streaming from his handsome face. The twinkle in his eyes when he first catches sight of me, walking arm to arm, the feel of his body beside mine...
I had to get out! How was I going to get out of the house? Robert was between me and the front door. And the back door. There was no escape without passing through the kitchen and confronting him and what reason would I give for looking like I did and going out?
“You know,” Robert called up from the kitchen, making me jump. “I may be the worse for wear, Edda, but I can see you hiding up there!” He hiccupped and looked straight at me, raising his dripping malty toast in a salute.
“Oh.” I stood up and descended the stairs with as much dignity as I could muster. “I didn’t want to surprise you.”
Robert stopped mid-bite as I approached. “Oh my God, you look beautiful! Sorry! Sorry I’m drunk! Ignore me! You look nice. Just nice. Very nice. Have you been out? Did you decide to go out? Where did you go?” Red-faced he focused on his dripping toast.
“I thought I might go out now.”
“Now?” he squinted at the clock. “Now? But it’s – it’s half – it’s quarter half past, half to … it’s late.”
“I— ”
There was a soft knock on the front door.
“I have to go,” I threw on my coat and grabbed the front door key. “Don’t wait up.”
“You look good,” Guy said as I closed the door behind me, “Good enough to eat. And I like the hair. Funky.”
