City of Friends

by Joanna Trollope

  ‘Tom – Tom changed his name.’

  ‘I know. He told me about it. In fact, I would describe his telling me as being more like announcing. And then he gets to know them all better, and what do you know? What looks like some kind of idyll turns out to be same old same old.’

  ‘I never thought of that,’ Melissa said slowly. ‘I never thought of the repercussions.’ She stopped and then she said, ‘Oh God.’

  ‘He’ll be OK,’ Mr Robshaw said. ‘He has two parents who love him, after all. And he has a peer supporter here, in year twelve, who I know he has spoken to. But parental support is key.’

  ‘Even if they’re not together?’

  ‘Doesn’t do,’ Mr Robshaw said, ‘to fetishize convention.’

  ‘You’re not at all as I thought you’d be,’ she said, almost shyly.

  He looked at her. ‘Nor are you.’

  She picked up her bag. ‘I should go.’

  ‘I’ll walk you out.’

  ‘No, really,’ she said, ‘I know the way, I’ll be fine.’

  He walked across to the door and opened it. Then he indicated with his head that she should walk through. He said, quite calmly, ‘I insist.’

  She went past him into the corridor beyond and waited for him to close the door behind him. Then she said, beginning to walk again, ‘I can’t shake off the feeling that I’m responsible for Tom’s happiness or unhappiness.’

  Mr Robshaw fell into step beside her. ‘Then you’ve both got a bit of learning to do. He’s got to grow up and you’ve got to let go.’

  She found slightly to her surprise that she didn’t feel offended.

  ‘He adores you,’ Mr Robshaw said, matter-of-factly, ‘and he wants to please his father, and he hasn’t worked out how to compromise, yet.’

  ‘But you don’t think he’s wretched?’

  Mr Robshaw stretched forward to open the swing doors ahead of them. ‘It’s pretty wretched being fifteen anyway, if you ask me. But he isn’t worryingly unhappy. He’s confused, yes, and he’s disappointed, but he’s fed up about that rather than destroyed.’

  On the far side of the swing doors, Melissa said, almost hesitantly, ‘Do you think I’m making a fuss about nothing?’

  Mr Robshaw looked directly at her. She suddenly felt unaccountably unsteady.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘In fact . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d like to get you off school premises, actually, before I ask you this, as it doesn’t seem quite proper . . .’ He stopped.

  Melissa wondered if her own eagerness was plain in her face and decided, an instant later, that she didn’t care if it was. ‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Yes?’

  ‘I wondered,’ said Mr Robshaw, as unremarkably as if he were ordering his daily coffee, ‘if you would like to have a drink with me?’

  ——

  On the way to the mews the next day, Donna rang her. Melissa put her phone to her ear. ‘Morning! Shall I get milk?’

  ‘Sorry to sound so weird,’ Donna whispered into her phone, ‘but I’m in the loo and I don’t want her to hear me. Claire’s here.’

  ‘Claire?’

  ‘She was waiting on the doorstep when I got here. She won’t go away. She says she has to see you. I thought I’d better warn you.’

  ‘Goodness,’ Melissa said. ‘Claire. What can she want?’

  ‘She won’t say,’ Donna said. ‘I’m too lowly to tell anything to, anyway.’

  ‘I’ll be two minutes. Put her upstairs.’

  ‘Oh,’ Donna said, her voice ripe with sarcasm, ‘she’s up there already.’

  Claire was sitting on the sofa, her legs nonchalantly crossed, reading the copy of City A.M. that Donna brought in every morning. She lowered it as Melissa came up the stairs.

  ‘Surprise, surprise,’ she said, as if she had practised it.

  ‘Well,’ Melissa said. ‘It is rather.’

  Claire looked round her. ‘Nice office. I’ve never been here before.’

  ‘I don’t think,’ Melissa said with exaggerated courtesy, ‘that I have ever asked you.’

  Claire tossed the paper aside. ‘Gaby won’t see me, I don’t really know Stacey – or, let’s say, she has taken care not to know me – so I have to ask you.’

  Melissa put her laptop case down on her desk and began to unzip it. ‘Ask me what?’

  ‘What’s going on with Wilkes Street?’

  Melissa took her laptop out and opened it. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You must have.’

  ‘Claire,’ Melissa repeated, ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘So you don’t know that it’s on the market.’

  Melissa touched the cursor pad to find her emails. ‘As it’s on Buxton’s website for all to see, yes, I know that.’

  Claire twisted round to face her fully. ‘What is Beth playing at?’

  Melissa shrugged and said nothing.

  ‘It’s half my house, too,’ Claire said. ‘I have a legal right to know what’s going on, you know.’

  Melissa said, ‘You wanted it sold.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘And it is on the market.’

  ‘But I haven’t been consulted!’ Claire cried. ‘I don’t think that’s the right agency, and I’m not even sure about the price. I need to talk to Beth.’

  Melissa closed her laptop. ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘But you knew, Beth must have told you – Beth tells you guys everything.’

  ‘If I knew anything,’ Melissa said, ‘I wouldn’t tell you.’

  Claire stood up. ‘So you won’t tell me anything about Switzerland, either, will you? I’ve been told she’s talking to Lausanne, that they’re setting up a new department for her.’

  Melissa stood quite still, her hands resting on her closed laptop. Donna had put flowers on her desk, she noticed, dark purple-blue anemones. They had the effect of softening everything around them.

  ‘You don’t like me, do you?’ Claire said, angrily. ‘Any more than Gaby does.’

  Melissa looked at her flowers. ‘I don’t trust you, Claire. That’s all.’

  Claire stooped to pick up her bag. She looked as if she was bursting to say something but was restraining herself with difficulty. Melissa heard her go down the stairs, say some kind of goodbye to Donna and then slam the outer door behind her. Melissa followed more slowly.

  Donna stopped typing. ‘Phew.’

  ‘I know,’ Melissa said. ‘What a start to the day.’

  ‘And it was looking so good up to then.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Donna said. She was grinning. ‘Your flowers.’

  ‘They’re lovely,’ Melissa said with sudden warmth. ‘Really lovely. Thank you.’

  Donna grinned wider. ‘They weren’t from me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They were from a man. He was waiting by the arch when I came in, before I got distracted by Claire and all her nonsense. Oh, Melissa, look at your face!’

  Melissa had her hands up against her cheeks. ‘Was he . . . ?’

  ‘He said his name was Marcus. He said you’d seen each other last night at Tom’s school. Right?’

  Melissa nodded. She said, faintly, ‘Right.’

  ‘He just said – leave these on her desk. No note or message, he said. Just leave them. Romantic or what?’

  Melissa slid her hands round to cover her eyes. ‘Oh, Donna . . .’

  ‘I could hardly tell him,’ Donna said teasingly, ‘that you only liked white flowers, could I? Or perhaps you’ll make an exception for blue, from the right person?’

  Melissa took her hands away. ‘Stop it!’

  ‘Goodness,’ Donna said, genuinely startled. ‘I’ve never seen you blush before.’

  ‘He’s at least a decade younger than me. And shorter. And a schoolmaster. Tom’s schoolmaster.’

  Donna leaned back in her chair. She put her fingertips together. ‘So?’ she said.

 
; ——

  ‘There’s nobody here,’ Taylor said. She stood holding the front door slightly – but not welcomingly – open. She was barefoot, in black leggings and a giant sweater whose sleeves she had pulled down over her knuckles, the edges as frayed as if she had been chewing them.

  ‘Well, you are,’ Melissa said. ‘And is Claudia?’

  Taylor shifted onto her other foot. Only the nails of one foot had been painted, in navy blue. The varnish, Melissa couldn’t help noticing, was chipping off.

  ‘Claud’s doing prep. As usual. Claud is always doing her prep.’

  ‘Taylor,’ Melissa said. ‘Can I come in?’

  Taylor looked truly startled, her russet eyebrows shooting up towards her hairline. But she stepped back, pulling the door open as she did so. ‘Course.’

  Melissa looked round her. The hall looked as Gaby’s hall always looked: disordered in the manner of houses inhabited by people who have more interesting preoccupations than tidying up. In the last week or two, since Marcus Robshaw had taken her to a folk gig in a pub where a friend of his was performing, and to watch the school eights practising on the river down at Putney, Melissa had been conscious of a certain – and not attractive – inhibition in her own life and the way she lived it. She took in the scattered shoes and boots, the clothes on the ghost chairs, the violin with its curling sticky note still attached, lying on the console table.

  Taylor said, ‘It’s a bit of a mess everywhere, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Actually,’ Melissa said, ‘I was rather admiring it.’

  ‘Mum would pass out if she heard you saying that.’

  Melissa glanced at her. Taylor had dragged her sweater sleeves right over her fists, and seemed to be gnawing at one of them.

  ‘You can change, you know,’ Melissa said gently. ‘If you want to. I might be naturally tidier than Mum, but I wouldn’t want to let my tidiness become – this is my new word – a fetish.’

  Taylor lowered her fist and grinned at her. ‘Good word.’

  ‘Are you going to make me some tea?’ Melissa said.

  Taylor nodded. ‘If you like.’

  ‘I do like.’

  ‘Claud’s in the kitchen.’

  ‘Good,’ Melissa said. ‘That’s exactly who I want to talk to.’

  Claudia was perched on a stool, her books and iPad open on the kitchen counter in front of her. She was still in the checked skirt and navy blue sweater of her school uniform, and she had her spectacles on. She looked up when Melissa came into the room, and immediately got off her stool and came running over with every appearance of unselfconsciousness.

  ‘Oh, hi!’ she said. She was smiling.

  Melissa put her arms round her. She felt as slight as a small child. ‘Hi, Claudia.’

  ‘Mum’s not back yet.’

  ‘I already told her!’ Taylor called.

  ‘I didn’t come to see Mum,’ Melissa said, smiling back at Claudia, ‘I came to see you.’

  Taylor was filling the kettle. She said, over her shoulder, ‘What has she gone and done now?’

  ‘I expect it’s about Tom,’ Claudia said, with perfect composure.

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘What kind of tea?’ Taylor said.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Claudia in a determined tone, ‘want to be ticked off.’

  ‘I have no intention of ticking you off.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I thought you’d want to give me a hard time,’ Claudia said, going back to her stool.

  Melissa took a stool beside her. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘If you aren’t interested,’ Taylor said, opening cupboards, ‘I’ll just make builders’ tea.’

  ‘Because,’ Claudia said calmly, ‘you and Mum want to make a big deal out of something that was never anything much to begin with.’

  ‘But you said on your Facebook profile . . .’

  ‘People don’t tell the truth on Facebook,’ Claudia said. ‘Anyway, no one cares about Facebook any more.’

  ‘Can I join in?’ Taylor called. ‘Or is this a private conversation?’

  Melissa turned on her stool. ‘Of course you can join in. Claud?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could you look at me a moment?’

  Claudia sighed. She looked down at her screen and then, very slowly, she turned to look at Melissa. ‘I’m looking.’

  ‘I came,’ Melissa said, ‘to say sorry.’

  ‘Wow,’ Taylor said.

  Claudia’s expression softened a little. She said, uncertainly, ‘To me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Melissa said. ‘To you.’

  Taylor brought two mugs of tea across the room and dumped them on the counter.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I thought badly of Claudia and I shouldn’t have. I thought she had dumped Tom and made him suffer and I was angry about that.’

  Taylor leaned against the counter. She said, ‘She did dump him.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘He didn’t mind,’ Claudia said. ‘Not really. We were just having a laugh.’

  ‘I believed you,’ Taylor said crossly. ‘It was true.’

  ‘A bit,’ Claudia said.

  Melissa regarded her. ‘Enough to wind Mum and me up, anyway.’

  Claudia nodded. She said, ‘And Ned, in my class at school.’

  ‘Was that the aim? To make this Ned person jealous?’

  Claudia sighed again. Taylor said, ‘Can you imagine what it’s like having someone like her for a sister?’

  ‘So it was all a game?’ Melissa said to Claudia.

  ‘I didn’t plan it.’

  ‘But it turned out that way. As a game?’

  Claudia took her glasses off. Her eyes, without them, were huge and blue, like Gaby’s, and no doubt dazzling to Ned at school.

  Melissa said, not unkindly, ‘I think you’re a bit of a minx.’

  Taylor reached for Claudia’s mug of tea. ‘Is Tom OK?’

  ‘That’s mine,’ Claudia said indignantly.

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Melissa said. ‘Is he OK?’

  Claudia lunged for the tea mug and Taylor skipped nimbly out of reach. From the far side of the kitchen, she said, ‘Well, he’s got what he thought he wanted, hasn’t he? Family life and all the dramas and unfairness of it.’ She raised the mug above her head. ‘Get off, Claud! Make your own fucking tea!’

  Melissa said automatically, ‘No need to say fucking, Taylor.’

  They both stopped and stared at her. Then they began to laugh, and in her head, Melissa could hear herself saying to Marcus later – ruefully, of course – ‘Well, I walked into that one, didn’t I!’

  ——

  ‘You’re avoiding me,’ Will said. He was standing waiting for her on the steps of the house in Holland Street. She had been on a Saturday morning errand to collect the dry cleaning, and when she saw him by her front door, her first thought was that something had happened to Tom.

  She stood on the path below the steps, her arms full of sliding plastic and clothes. ‘Is Tom all right?’

  ‘Of course he’s all right,’ Will said. ‘Why shouldn’t he be all right? He’s in the park, teaching Ben to rollerblade.’

  Melissa didn’t move. She swallowed in relief. ‘OK.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  He came down the steps towards her. He looked weary and drawn, and his hair needed cutting. He said, ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Lissa,’ he said, trying to take some of the dry cleaning from her, ‘what have I done to make you change tack so completely?’

  She gripped the plastic bags more tightly. ‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m fine holding it.’

  ‘Well, you certainly look fine,’ he said. ‘But I can’t make head or tail of how you’re behaving.’

  She raised her chin slightly. ‘Yes, you ca
n.’

  He spread his hands. ‘Search me.’

  ‘Leave me alone, Will,’ Melissa said. ‘Go home and appreciate what you’ve got.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Go.’

  ‘I know you had a bit of a dust-up with Sarah. And she’s not wrong, Lissa, and I’m not wrong, reading the signs—’

  ‘You are wrong,’ Melissa said loudly, interrupting. ‘There’s nothing for you, except as Tom’s father. Nothing.’

  Will looked at her for some moments and then he said, as if suddenly understanding something, ‘There’s someone else. Isn’t there?’

  Melissa said nothing.

  ‘Isn’t there?’ Will said again, insisting.

  She glared at him. ‘No,’ she said.

  He waited. Then he took a step back. ‘I’ll take that as a yes, then,’ he said.

  ——

  It was an impulse, a complete impulse. She had been at a meeting in the City – a meeting which was not, she deduced, going to end in a commission for Hathaway’s services, unless the surprisingly weak chairman could be persuaded – and, with almost an hour spare, realized that she was hardly a mile away from the warehouse in Farringdon where Stacey was going to establish her charity. Melissa felt very wholehearted about Stacey’s charity; it was, if she was honest with herself, such a conscience-salving antidote to her shopping habits. They were habits which she already had a strong impulse to moderate after a few weeks in Marcus Robshaw’s company because although he evidently didn’t disapprove, he equally plainly couldn’t see the point. The point, for him, was sharing. He wanted to share, on a scale she had never encountered before. And if that sharing took place while dressed to the nines or wearing bin bags, it was of no consequence to him at all.

  Melissa considered telephoning Stacey and alerting her to an impending visit. Then it occurred to her that she would rather surprise Stacey and just turn up, out of the blue, bearing coffee and enthusiasm. She bought two cappuccinos in a cardboard tray and carried them to Greville Street. It was evident, from the strong smell of paint emanating from the first-floor windows, that decorating was going on, and, taking advantage of a young man in overalls coming out of the main door, Melissa slipped inside and climbed the stairs.

  The door to what would be the reception area for Peg’s Project was wedged open with a sliver of timber. The walls beyond were newly, gleamingly, white. Stacey said that there were so many whites now on the market to choose from that she had opted just for plain old white in the end – brilliant white, eggshell finish. With a pale wooden floor and green sofas and plants. Lots of plants. And lamps. Overhead lighting in the dressing area but lamps in reception, didn’t Melissa agree?