by Jane Fallon
‘Can’t you just commission yourself?’ People are always asking her this. As if it’s that simple. She screws up her face in what, she hopes, is an appealing fashion.
‘Even if that didn’t look totally dodgy I wouldn’t be the right person. Honestly, there’s no art in these illustrations. They just have to be accurate. Factual.’
She tells him then about her personal project. The trolls in their netherworld. She shows him some pictures on her phone and she can tell he’s impressed.
‘These are beautiful. Surely someone would want to publish them?’
‘Not so far. I was hoping Georgia might show them to her editor …’ She gives a little half-laugh.
‘Oh. Well, I’m sure she would …’
‘I think she thinks it would be a bit awkward, maybe. I don’t know …’ What she really wants to say is that perhaps Georgia feels threatened. That she’s so insecure in her own success that she daren’t jinx it. But she leaves him to draw his own conclusions.
‘Well, someone will snap them up at some point. They’re incredible.’
She basks in the praise. Can feel it warming her body as if he’s given her a hug. Waves a hand at the waiter, indicating one more round.
‘I think she’s jealous of you,’ Nick says when he calls me from the taxi on the way home. I’ve spent the evening pacing around, unable to settle to anything. I tried, half-heartedly, to do some work – Bibi sent another email today. Hi, Georgia, how are you getting on? Not sure if you got my note yesterday but maybe we could have a follow-up chat? I’ve ignored it so far; head in the sand, I don’t know what to say. Instead, I did a few sketches of Igor.
‘That’s ridiculous. No way. I mean, a bit envious maybe …’
‘I’ll try and remember everything she said. Present my case when I get home.’
‘Are you going to stop at Dom’s and collect your stuff?’ All Nick’s work clothes are still at Dom’s. I want to know he’s fully back, dirty washing and all.
‘Yeah. I’ll keep the cab running. He’s packed it all up for me.’
‘That was nice of him,’ I say begrudgingly. ‘You should invite him over one night, so we can say thanks properly.’
Nick laughs. ‘It’s OK. I won’t subject you.’
When he arrives at the house I’ve already got the wine open. Nick grimaces when he sees it. ‘I think I’ll pass. I’ve had three pints already.’ I flick the kettle on instead. He talks me through the whole evening, trying to remember every detail.
‘Wait, when she went to the loo I made notes,’ he says, poking at his phone. ‘Oh yes. “You have to move on some time.” She said that when I talked about renting a flat. “You need to start thinking about you.” And then she basically said she didn’t think you wanted to listen to anything I had to say because she’d tried and you weren’t having it.’
‘I probably have said I don’t want to talk to you about it any more, to be fair …’
‘But has she put my case across? That’s what she was saying.’
‘Definitely not. None of this explains why you think she’s jealous, though. Tea or coffee?’
‘Sod it, I will have a drink,’ he says, reaching for the wine and filling up the two glasses I’d got ready. ‘Nothing concrete but she’s very bitter about her career not taking off. She talked about people who didn’t deserve it getting commissions. I don’t know … It was just a feeling I got. Maybe I’m wrong. She’s offered to help me find a flat; how am I going to get out of that one?’
‘Let’s find you some places to look at.’ I pull the laptop over to my side. Bring up Rightmove. ‘Where do you want your fantasy home to be?’
‘Here?’
‘Idiot,’ I say, although his comment makes me want to cry happy tears.
He moves round to the seat next to me, drapes an arm around my shoulders and plants a kiss on the top of my head. ‘I’ve really missed you.’
‘Me too. I’m sorry.’
‘Stop saying you’re sorry. It’s fine.’
‘I am though,’ I say.
‘I know. You’ve told me five million times. Jesus.’
I look at him and he cracks a smile. He can never hide when he’s joking. He’s too pleased with himself. I marvel again at how quick he is to forgive. How much I could have thrown away.
‘OK, I’m not then. Right, where were we?’
‘Finding me a bachelor pad. How about Chelsea or Knightsbridge,’ he says with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Somewhere to suit my suave man-about-town status.’
‘Somers Town. Near Dom.’
‘Can you at least find things to look at where I won’t get stabbed on the way there?’
‘Beggars can’t be choosers. Divorce is very expensive. You won’t be able to afford much. And you need to make sure it definitely looks as if you’re going to live there on your own, not like somewhere you’re setting up your happy new life. And then see what she reports back to me.’
‘Do I actually have to go and see them? It feels like such a massive waste of time.’
‘Just the outside. Just so she knows what you’re after.’
‘Here, look,’ he says, pointing at the screen. ‘King’s Cross. Near my office. Affordable. Slight shithole by the looks of it. How about that?’
I scrutinize the listed price. ‘Perfect. Download the details.’
We find a couple of others in the same area and he fires off a text to Lydia. Have found a couple of flats. Was thinking maybe tomorrow night. I might check out the area. Are you still up for coming along?
We both stare at his phone, waiting for an answer.
Of course! Let me know when and where. I’ll treat you to a pint after x.
‘That was quick,’ I say.
‘Shit,’ Nick says. ‘Am I really doing this?’
CHAPTER 34
I can’t keep my head buried in the sand ignoring Bibi’s emails forever. I take myself and my laptop up to the office in an effort to be professional. I open up a document where I’ve been noting all my ideas for book seven (Hammer and nails and a bucket of snails, it says. Knee-high boots and some champagne flutes. No! I’ve written beside that one. I don’t want to write books for three-year-olds who already know what champagne flutes are! How about ‘two bandicoots’? or ‘an owl that hoots’?). It’s uninspiring to say the least, especially in the light of Bibi’s notes. I stare at the screen for a while. Nothing.
I start to sketch Igor sleeping. His comedy proportions make it easy to capture him. Big ears. Big feet. Big everything. I fill in the background behind him, everything just a little too small. I add layers of detail and give him a tiny girl companion. I base her on Edie when she was about four or five, with long straggly hair and a self-curated outfit of multi-coloured stripy leggings with a frilly purple tutu skirt over the top. Tiny Doc-Marten-style boots. I work on giving her expression attitude. It occurs to me that maybe Igor would make a good book character? Mummy, Why Is That Dog So Big? A kid literally said that to her mother on Primrose Hill the other day when she saw him. I told her it was because he ate all the other dogs’ food when they weren’t looking.
There’s a ping to tell me I have a new email. I curse myself for not turning the notifications off, but I’m powerless not to check who it’s from.
Shit. Bibi.
I almost don’t open it, but I know I have to face up to my responsibilities sometime.
I click on her name.
The email is entitled Wow!
Confused, I read the text.
Your friend’s book is stunning! The illustrations are superb. Does she have an agent? If not could you let me have her details?
P.S. We still need to have a chat about the next Wilbur. Could you call me today? Thanks.
Fuck.
‘Listen … don’t be upset but Nick is looking for a flat to rent.’
I nearly didn’t answer. Bibi’s email has thrown me, and I’m not sure I can trust myself not to blurt out what I’ve just read.
; ‘Oh,’ I say carefully. ‘Do you mean with her?’
There’s a pause. ‘I think so. I offered to go and look at some with him so I’ll get a better idea. I’m so sorry, George.’
I remember waking up this morning, Nick still sleeping beside me, Igor on his back between us. The absolute wave of love I felt when I looked at them. The complete certainty that we were OK.
‘Shit.’
‘I know. I hate being the one to have to tell you …’
Yes, of course you do, I think, surprising myself with the thought. Is Nick right? Is she jealous of my success and wanting to hurt me?
‘When … um … do you know?’
She sighs theatrically. ‘He’s looking at a couple tonight. I get the impression he wants to get it sorted soon.’
‘I wonder why he’s not taking her to view them with him,’ I say because I can’t resist.
‘Oh,’ she says, momentarily caught out. ‘Maybe she’s busy. Or maybe it’s because I just announced I was going too so he feels he can’t bring her along.’
‘He didn’t ask you to?’
‘No,’ she says with a fake laugh. ‘I was very forceful. You’d have been proud of me.’
Of course I don’t call Bibi all day, I’m so thrown by her response to Lydia’s book. I don’t even reply to her email until about five to six in the hope that she’ll be rushing to leave for home and notice that I’ve been in touch but decide not to even bother reading my response till tomorrow. I’ve been torturing myself all day with what I should say. This could be a fantastic in for Lydia. Not a certainty by any means, but a chance. But Lydia is not Lydia any more. She’s an alien. A replicant. A stranger.
Possibly even an enemy.
Sorry I missed you when I called today, I say, a bare-faced lie. All going well with the new Wilbur. That’s great that you like Lydia’s book! She doesn’t have an agent but I’m giving her your details so she can get in touch.
I’m not. Obviously. Not until I find out what’s going on.
CHAPTER 35
The area is a bit rough: there’s no getting away from it. She walked from the tube with her head down, and now she’s pretty much cowering in the doorway of the three-storey, three-apartment terraced house, bag clutched to her chest, preparing to do battle with anyone who tries to take her on. She hopes he doesn’t end up moving here; she’s not sure she could bring herself to visit however much she might want to. She’s been picturing herself helping him make a flat a home, adding personal touches and a few creature comforts. Throws and candles. A carefully placed lamp. Maybe framing a couple of her drawings for him to put on the wall. She can’t quite imagine doing that in this bleak side street with its discarded cans and charred tinfoil crowding the pavements and the smashed windows of the empty shop opposite.
She jumps as she hears a voice. ‘Jesus, they should put scratch and sniff on the photos. We could have saved ourselves a lot of time.’ Nick emerges from the gloom, smiling at her, her knight in shining armour.
‘You can’t live here,’ she says as he kisses her on the cheek and her heart races. He’s in the same wool coat, beanie hat pulled low.
‘No, probably not.’ He has a pile of papers in his hand. Rips one up theatrically. ‘Right, that’s that one off the list.’
‘Good.’
He takes his gloves off and blows on his hands to warm them up. ‘I should have met you somewhere else. Sorry you’ve had to hang round here.’
‘It’s fine. It gave me an adrenaline rush. Fear of imminent death and all that.’ She gives a little laugh, her breath white as she exhales.
‘Is this a stupid idea, walking round looking at the outside of places?’
‘Not at all,’ she says, although it is a bit. She’d much rather be sitting somewhere warm.
‘I just thought it would save time later. I don’t know this area very well but it’s near work so …’
‘It’s a nice night,’ she says, and it is. Crisp and clear.
‘OK, next one is just round the corner …’ He shows her the printout. A small, clean, anonymous box of a flat. It actually looks tiny.
‘Is it big enough? I mean …’
They turn a corner into a small square of Georgian terraced houses. On one side is a pub, a tiny food store and a pizza takeaway. Outside a teenage boy flips his skateboard over and over again.
‘I just need somewhere to sleep and eat. That’s it. It’s hardly going to be a place for entertaining.’
‘No, right …’
He refers to the papers again. ‘It’s this one. Number eighteen. Second floor.’ They stop and look. ‘This looks OK.’
She laughs. ‘You do need to see inside, you know. You can’t trust the pictures.’
He gets out his phone and takes a photo of the building. ‘I know. But in all honesty I’m not that fussy. I’ll phone up about it tomorrow.’
‘You need at least one more, for comparison. I’m not going to let you take the first place you see. Let’s have a look.’ He hands her the documents. There are three more flats, all close by. The boy flips the skateboard. ‘And you need to find out if he’s local because that would drive you insane in a couple of days.’
She’s gratified to see Nick smile at that. ‘I’m used to living with noisy kids,’ he says.
‘That would be more like living near an angry woodpecker. OK, this one is right over there. Let’s just look for the sake of it as we’re here.’
They head around the square. She considers suggesting they walk through it but it looks a bit forbidding. Not exactly the place for picnics but handy if you want to smoke crack. There’s a small side street of similar houses next to the pub.
‘What number?’
He peers at the details. ‘It doesn’t say. This one, look …’
She checks the photos. The street is short, maybe ten houses each side. ‘UPVC windows, black window boxes on the first floor …’ They walk up one side and down the other. There’s only one house that fits the bill.
‘Top floor,’ he says. They stand and gaze up. ‘Looks OK. I’ll make an appointment to see those two.’
He snaps a photo of the outside. Lydia loves how Nick’s way of remembering anything is to take a photo of it. Phone numbers, restaurants he likes the look of, book reviews he thinks sound interesting. His phone is a perfect map of his life.
‘Can I help you?’ The front door opens just as he’s getting ready to take a close-up of the upper-storey windows. It’s a woman in a slightly shiny suit. Late thirties, smart bob. Lydia shivers in her many layers just looking at her. Maybe she has thermals on underneath.
‘Sorry,’ Nick says. ‘We were just …’ He waves the details at her. ‘The top floor is for rent …’
‘I’m the agent,’ the woman says, holding out a hand for them to shake one after the other. Her hands are incongruously warm. She looks at Lydia. Smiles. ‘Katherine Carver. I could give you a quick tour now. I just popped in to turn the heating up. Awful, isn’t it?’
‘Freezing,’ Lydia says. ‘That’s really kind of you. We might as well, mightn’t we? As we’re here …?’
‘Oh,’ Nick says. ‘No, I don’t want to put you out. I’ll make an appointment …’
Lydia rolls her eyes comically at the agent. ‘Don’t be silly. We’re here now … we’d love to have a look. Thanks.’
They follow Katherine Carver back into the musty hall. ‘I should just take some details,’ she says. ‘Name?’ She looks at Lydia expectantly.
‘Lydia Somers, but I’m not … The flat’s for Nick …’
‘The couple who just moved out loved it here,’ Katherine says, not listening. She starts up the stairs slowly, huffing after every step so that Lydia almost trips over her. She has to resist the urge to overtake.
‘We’re not …’ Nick says. ‘The flat is just for me …’
‘Oh, sorry,’ Katherine says, stepping on to the first half-landing and wheezing as if she’s just conquered Everest. ‘I just assumed … I�
�m usually pretty intuitive about stuff like that …’
‘Can you believe she thought we were an item!’ Lydia laughs as they wave goodbye to Katherine. She wants to relive the moment. Plant the idea in Nick’s head as a possibility.
He shrugs. ‘Easy mistake to make, I guess. What a shithole.’
‘Ghastly.’
‘We could try that pub,’ he says and her heart soars. They walk round to the square and peer hesitantly into the local. A couple of old men glare back at them from their seats at the bar like a pair of elderly gunslingers. The only other customers are locked in an intense game of darts.
‘How about Russell Square?’ she says. She can’t really imagine their intimacy blossoming here.
‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I’ll be popping in there after work every night.’
‘Let’s head to that hotel.’ She likes the idea of them having a regular haunt. Their place.
‘Great.’
He walks slowly so she can keep up in her heels. He’s always been considerate. Not just to her but to everyone. One of those people to whom it comes naturally. It’s not an effort. Not a conceit. Not done to impress others.
She steels herself, fakes a slip and makes a grab for his arm.
‘Oh my God, sorry. It’s so icy again.’ She laughs as if she’s embarrassed. Leaves her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow.
The table they sat at the last time is free and she heads straight for it. They’re building a foundation. Things that are just about the two of them. Our bar, our table. ‘This’ll have to be your local,’ she says, slipping off her coat. They order drinks. They both want red wine, so she suggests a bottle.
‘How do you feel about it, getting a flat?’ she asks once the waiter has poured them each a glass.
