Chapter Ten
Leo lived in a typical London street. In Bermondsey. A street with tightly-packed terraced houses, lots of them. Georgian affairs, that had mostly been converted to provide a couple of one- or two-bedroomed flats on each floor. Leo shared the top floor of one. It was small, but rather nice. The cute, perfectly-proportioned Eva Longoria of apartments. He’d got a bit of a roof terrace, which would look lovely if he ever got round to doing anything with it. As it stood, there was a rusting old bike up there and not a lot else. Emma, who watched a lot of gardening programmes, kept threatening to turn it into a lush tropical hideaway with nothing more than a few tree ferns and a couple of terracotta pots from B&Q. Which would be truly marvellous. Might give the neighbours a fright to see Leo out there in his shorts though. But Emma probably wouldn’t be doing that now.
The road was always jammed with parked cars. Nightmare. You had to get a resident’s parking permit and, of course, Leo kept forgetting to do so. He could have bought a modest holiday home in the Bahamas for the amount he’d spent on paying parking fines to the London Borough of Southwark. Plus he was just inside the Congestion Zone – which sounded like a terminal illness to Leo – and he constantly forgot to pay for that too. Unintentionally, Leo Harper was a one-man civil disorder.
The beauty of this street was that it was lined with magnificent purply-coloured trees – loads of them, all tall and proud. They were a sight to behold, even if it did mean that Leo’s car was permanently covered in bird poo. He could forgive them that though, as the birds indiscriminately plopped on the parking wardens too.
Leo was feeling slightly awkward as he wasn’t used to having a strange woman attached to his arm. He didn’t know if this was a good idea and the organ that he called his brain was refusing to go into thinking mode. Its cells were probably still sodden with champagne and were having a lie-down. Leo didn’t blame them. All the time he was desperately trying to think, to reason this through, yet they just kept getting inextricably nearer to his flat without him really having any idea of what was going on.
It wasn’t a terribly long walk from Tower Bridge to Leo’s place – something he’d worried inordinately about when Emma first moved into Shad Thames. Even though they’d been together for three years by then. Leo thought it might be a tad too close for comfort, but his fears were unfounded. He and his girlfriend had co-existed in near neighbourly companionship for over two years now. Emma had her space; Leo had his. And they’d both have a lot more of it after tonight.
Surprisingly, despite the longevity of their relationship, Emma and Leo had never discussed living together. He thought it was more than likely something Emma dreaded him raising, and as he completely avoided all difficult conversations, he had never dared to raise it. Besides, Leo probably would have very soon found himself swiftly murdered if Emma had ever moved in with him. His girlfriend was the tidiest person on this small planet, whereas Leo was not. Emma went to bed early so that she could enjoy eight hours of sleep. Leo stayed up all hours of the night watching rubbish on the telly as he largely viewed sleep as a waste of time. Sometimes he wondered if Emma was right when she stated, time and time again, that they weren’t compatible.
Leo and his newly-acquired companion walked down Tooley Street which was dead at this time of night, save for a few hopeful taxis, and then carried on past the scrubby green expanse of Potters Fields. The woman didn’t talk to him at all. She somehow seemed to know that he was deep in thought. Or as deep as Leo managed to get. He felt as if he should chat to her, find out her reasons for wanting to jump off a bridge, but – for once – he had no idea what to say.
The woman pulled her cloak around her and shivered slightly. The trees responded by rustling in the breeze as they walked under them. Leo thought that her cloak wasn’t a great look. It gave her the air of a left-over from the worst sartorial excesses of the 1960s. Emma wouldn’t be seen dead wearing something like that. Leo was sure. Which meant, if things ran true to form, she’d probably turn up at his flat next week wearing one because it was the latest thing. Except Emma wouldn’t turn up at his flat next week because she didn’t love him any more. And, although Leo didn’t yet realise this, things weren’t going to run true to form for quite some time.
Because they hadn’t talked much, Leo decided that the woman was in a state of shock after her abandoned suicide attempt. He hoped that it wasn’t every day that she tried to throw herself off a bridge – otherwise she was seriously unhinged and Leo was in big trouble. The truth was that he rather liked to be walking along with this quiet woman. Emma would have been moaning like mad by now. About everything. Leo would be top of a very long list, followed by the Labour government, uneven pavements (for which the Labour government would be blamed), speed cameras (Labour government), the litter everywhere (Labour government) and the price of fish (definitely Labour government).
‘Well.’ Leo stopped outside his humble abode. ‘Here we are.’
Leo usually left a spare key under a plant pot outside the front door in case he ever lost his own key. As he had lost his own key, he now hoped that he’d remembered to put his spare key under the pot. Leo had keys cut in bulk at Lose Your Key? – key-cutters to the terminally forgetful. He got a great discount for buying two dozen at a time and a Christmas card from the buxom lady behind the counter who had developed a soft spot for him.
Leo reached down and, thank heavens, his spare key was there. All of Leo’s neighbours held keys to his house, but they tended to get upset if he knocked on their doors in the wee small hours begging to be let in. Although he did have the sense to realise that it wasn’t a good security measure to dish out the keys to your flat to all your neighbours, and it was especially not a good idea to also put them under a plant pot at your front door. This was the sort of thing that was popular in the 1950s in Britain when burglary was a remote possibility, but now it should have been eschewed as sheer madness. It was the very first place a burglar would look – unless they were particularly stupid. But if you were a particularly stupid householder, as Leo was, then you had to resort to desperate measures. Leo had never been burgled but expected to be any day now. It was long overdue. When all of his emergency key resources had been exhausted, Leo was often forced to sleep in dear old Ethel, except for the times when he had abandoned his car at an unknown location. Somewhere in London there were two other cars that belonged to Leo, but he’d never been able to find them, despite extensive searches when sober.
‘That’s my flat.’ They both looked up at his window.
‘So it is.’
‘Look,’ Leo said with a sigh, ‘are you sure you want to do this?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I can call you a taxi and we can say goodnight here.’
She smiled at him and Leo thought that it was a very pretty little smile. His toes suddenly felt very warm and Leo wasn’t normally a person who was overly aware of his extremities. ‘I don’t think that will be necessary.’
‘I could be an axe murderer.’ Leo seemed to think it was best to point this out.
‘But you’re not.’
‘No.’
The trees trembled deliciously above them. ‘Take me inside,’ the woman said with a shiver, even though it was a balmy night. ‘I’m cold.’
Leo took her hand and they went inside.
Chapter Eleven
Leo felt that his apartment was looking rather too much like the bachelor pad it was. Although he hadn’t actually planned on bringing anyone back here, in his defence. Not even Emma.
‘This is nice,’ the woman said.
It wasn’t. Quite categorically, it wasn’t. Pizza had been consumed for last night’s supper and the box was still on the floor. Not good. Especially when combined with the plates, cups and lager cans from earlier in the week. Leo had been terribly busy. No time to tidy up the mags or books or DVDs either. Perhaps, he hoped, it would make him look like an intellectual. And then he spied Becky’s Big Night Out on the coffee-ta
ble. The page three model’s breasts were, as usual, bared. Perhaps not. With a few ill-placed mammaries, Leo kissed his intellectual aspirations goodbye. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s home.’
Kicking the empty pizza box under the sofa, he hoped the woman hadn’t noticed and might think him charming and urbane. Actually, in spite of the mess, Leo’s flat was very nice. Mainly because Emma had made him have it all decorated professionally. He’d been given a great bonus last year – due entirely to work done by Grant and Lard and not his good self – but, at least, he was aware of that. Leo always made sure that he split his annual bonus with his friends three ways because, to be honest, they were the only reason Leo managed to get one in the first place. And if he didn’t get a bonus every year, he would be out on his ear before you could say ‘surplus to requirements’. Thornton Jones had no concept of loyalty, whereas Leo considered it to be one of the very few virtues he had. The remaining third of Leo’s bonus share-out, of course, had gone to Emma’s designated interior designer.
He had found it a very weird experience to have a woman ask him whether he would prefer florals or checks. Leo had no idea. Leo, to be honest, simply didn’t care. He had told her, with a winning smile, to do whatever she liked. And she had.
He’d ended up with black, grey, steel and some red. Not much in the way of florals or checks. But it had all been very acceptable to him. Blown-up images from comic books hung on the walls. Leo couldn’t imagine why she’d chosen those for him – Emma made him hide his comics – but they looked fab. With his unexpected guest standing there, he vowed to try to keep the place more tidy in future. Squalor was a bad, bad bloke thing.
The woman shrugged off the hood of her cloak, revealing hair that was the colour of raven’s feathers, all black and glossy. It tumbled freely over her shoulders. Leo, for some reason, felt breathless.
‘My word.’ She was quite enchanting. Her face was tiny, perfectly-shaped and pale. Leo started to feel flustered. And then he worried that it might not have been a good idea to bring this strange, suicidal, 1960s’ throwback woman to his flat without a formal introduction, even though the aforementioned woman was utterly gorgeous.
‘Look,’ he said uncomfortably, ‘I might seem like a bit of a man about town, a bit of a Jack the lad . . . a bit of a guy . . .’ he punched her lightly and playfully on the arm, ‘but you see . . . I haven’t done this sort of thing for ages. I’ve been with my girlfriend, Emma, for years. Years and years. I don’t do other women. Always been rubbish at it. Since a teenager. Desperately shy with the opposite sex. I’m hopelessly out of practice. I’ve only been single for an hour or so. No time to sharpen up my social skills yet.’
‘Shall I go and make myself comfortable?’
‘Oh. Yes. Comfortable. Yes. That’s fine.’ He knew he was babbling like someone’s mother. His mother probably. ‘Bathroom-type comfortable?’
Now it was the woman’s turn for confusion. ‘Is there any other type?’ she asked.
Leo shrugged, nonplussed. He had no idea what a woman needed to make herself comfortable. Emma was the only woman of whom Leo had had recent intimate knowledge, and comfort for Emma generally meant a hot-water bottle, those dreadful baggy socks that you only ever saw in re-runs of Fame and copious amounts of chocolate. Perhaps he should offer this woman a Mars Bar?
‘The bathroom’s through there,’ he said, running a hand through his ruffled hair. Leo hoped that he hadn’t left the seat up and that there were no unpleasant ‘survivors’ in the loo. That would be too dreadful to contemplate. For him and for the woman. He promised himself that he must get a cleaning person as soon as humanly possible. The woman went towards the door.
Leo suddenly laughed out loud at what he saw as the absurdity of this situation. ‘This is madness,’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about you. Other than that you have a great line in party tricks.’
She turned and he blinked at her. Her eyes were stunning and they twinkled with mischief. Despite the cloak, she was quite the most beautiful woman Leo had seen in a long time. And he did sometimes buy magazines with very beautiful women in them.
‘What do you want to know?’
Leo shrugged. ‘I don’t know your name, your age . . .’
‘I’m Isobel and I’m four hundred and sixty-three.’
He laughed again. ‘Four hundred and sixty-three?’
She nodded.
Quite mad, he decided. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you look very good on it.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’m Leo, by the way.’ He nearly held out his hand for her to shake it, but quickly figured that they were past that stage.
‘I know.’ She turned away and left the room, heading into the bathroom.
Leo gave her a tentative wave and tried to look nonchalant but thought, quite rightly, that he failed. As soon as Isobel was out of the room, he ran round in a panic. Plumping cushions. Pushing dirty plates, cups, beer cans under handy plumped cushions. Turning on side lamps for more seductive lighting. Hiding dubious DVDs. Rifling through his CD collection. Which were all dodgy. Leo threw the unsatisfactory ones on the floor. Meatloaf. Bon Jovi. Queen. Bruce Springsteen. Air Guitar Greatest Hits. Although he did stop and briefly consider this one. Everyone likes air guitar, he reasoned, and practised a stroke with his own air guitar. Kerrang!
‘No. No.’ He threw it to the floor with the other CDs. ‘No. No. No.’ Kaiser Chiefs’ CD? More Kerrang, but reasonably modern Kerrang. ‘No.’
Leo consigned it to the floor with the rest of the noisy tunes. He continued his search. ‘Whitney Houston. Flipping awful. Must be Emma’s.’ Leo rubbed his hands in glee. ‘This will do nicely.’
He put Whitney in the CD player. ‘I Believe in You and Me’. ‘Shit,’ he muttered. ‘Emma’s favourite.’ Even Leo realised that this was a bad time to be thinking about his girlfriend. He tried to blank his memory – something he usually had no trouble with at all. He leaned on the wall trying to look casual. ‘No. All wrong.’ Leo tried the sofa. ‘Too forward.’ It would make him look like he was expecting a shag, so he tried a different pose. One hand on head. One hand on hip. ‘Too gay.’
Isobel came out of the bathroom and Leo shot upright in surprise as if he hadn’t expected to see her standing there. He was glad that her Gandalf cloak had gone but was worried when he saw that she was, indeed, just wearing her lingerie. It looked all sort of shimmery and transparent. Even though it worried him, he also rather liked it.
‘Oh, my word.’
‘Shall we go to bed?’ she said.
‘Er . . .’ Leo held up Whitney Houston. ‘Whitney?’
Isobel smiled and held out her hand. ‘Come, Leo.’
And Leo thought he just might.
Chapter Twelve
I allow my mother to fuss around me, force-feeding me an enormous, yet health-giving breakfast of fresh strawberries, yoghurt and wholemeal toast. Mummy has even squeezed me some fresh orange juice instead of just pouring out the carton variety. It’s nice being spoiled again. And it’s infinitely better than the polystyrene cup of Starbucks coffee that I usually drink on the hoof as I totter from my flat across a few cobbled courtyards to the rather pretentious and, naturally, over-priced art gallery where I work.
Now I feel rather over-dressed and slightly seedy in last night’s silk party dress and strappy shoes. It’s a long time since I’ve stayed overnight at my parents’ house and the stash of clothes I used to keep there for emergencies such as this has long since dripped into my own flat. I’d taken the hint about moving out of home when my parents had eventually bought the flat in Shad Thames, encouraged me to use it as my own and had enthusiastically helped me to pack. After that amazing conversation with my mother last night about my father’s sexual prowess, I now know that the real reason why they wanted me out was that they’re still keen to be at it like teenagers all over the house. The thought makes me sigh inwardly. Is there anyone out there who might want to live with me out of choice?
I st
are out of the window at the vast expanse of my parents’ garden – an oasis in the middle of the city. The bright, plastic swings and slides of my childhood are long gone, replaced by terracotta urns and weathered teak furniture. The borders are fit to burst with a profusion of flowers – all my mother’s work. Take away the ambulance sirens, the overhead planes and the general thrum of traffic and you could be anywhere in rural Britain. The washed-out clouds hang gloomily over the garden and I shiver at the thought of the chilly morning temperature that will, no doubt, be waiting outside despite it being the height of our supposed summer.
‘Will you be all right, darling?’
‘I’m fine, Mummy.’ I phoned Leo’s flat first thing – primarily to remind him to get up for work – but the call went straight to answerphone. Which either means that Leo has, miraculously, heard his alarm clock and is already at work or, more likely, he’s slept through it again and is still snuggled down in his bed.
‘Do let Daddy drive you home.’
‘No, I’m fine. I’ll get the bus. It will give me time to think.’ If I’m stuck in the car with my father it will give him far too good an opportunity to lecture me about Leo’s shortcomings, yet again.
It’s depressing that all of my relatives – with the possible exception of my mother – regard Leo as something of a clown, albeit an affable one. What has gone wrong in my world? I’ve always been such a high achiever in every area, yet when it comes to love I’ve managed to fall for the least reliable and least romantic man that God created. Life seldom turns out as you expect. I can hear myself grinding my teeth on my toast.
It’s a Kind of Magic Page 5
