Before I Knew You

by Amanda Brookfield

  ‘Oh, and that nice policeman phoned,’ she chattered on, ‘the one with no hair, you saw him too. He says they’ve now got enough to take that horrible boy to court. We don’t have to do another thing.’

  ‘That is indeed brilliant news.’

  ‘And Gareth has asked me to cover for someone tomorrow morning – an hour of Shakespeare at ten pounds more than it used to be. And he says a tutor is about to go on maternity leave so there’s heaps of work if I want it.’

  ‘Wow – fantastic. I’ll hand in my notice this afternoon.’

  Sophie giggled. ‘Well, that might have to wait a few months yet, but it does feel good, I must say. By the way, Milly has offered to play waitress for us tonight – for a fee, of course. She’s saving for the tour, she said, which is so sweet, don’t you think?’

  Andrew spent what remained of the lunch hour organizing a rescheduling of the Brahms for the following term, writing up a list of extra singing rehearsals, forwarding various parents’ niggling queries to the correct quarters and scrawling some elaborate red-biro comments on a patchy attempt of Olivia’s to highlight the musical influences of the Baroque.

  By the time he returned to Ann’s email, only five minutes remained until he was due in a classroom.

  Dearest Ann,

  Thank you so much for your email and all those positive responses on every front. I await further reports with interest. (If you think you’ve got a challenge on your hands, you should teleport yourself into one of my rehearsals!)

  Please pass my best wishes on to the whole crew – pit and stalls. You might tell them, confidentially, that England still rather palls after the splendid time we had together. I arrived in New York thinking I wanted a rest (well, I did want one, of course) but actually what I really needed – I see now – was to start to love music again. Forgive me if this sounds dramatic, Ann, but that’s where you helped me more than you could possibly know.

  So THANK YOU. (Don’t worry about Geoff – he loves being a cantankerous old sod, but I’ll drop a line anyway to cheer him up.)

  The sun is shining here, which is more – if my Internet browsing is correct – than can be said for your neck of the woods. But, as it happens, I’ve never been one to mind the rain …

  In haste and with love,

  Andrew

  11

  Email to: Stapletonw@latouchedawson.com

  25 September

  From: alfie1234@sky.net.co.uk

  Hey dad, I am ok at school and good except that george trod on my glasses and I tried superglue which didn work so we are using tape till I can get to the optician. Its still really hot here. Sorry for not writing much but with school I am busy. Jake came for tea yesterday and we played Mario which you know is my favourite. Miss u dad ps hows the pool coming along here is my plan for the shape of it so we can fit a diving board in.

  Pps I asked harry to write to u like u said but hes not said definitely he is driving mum mental cos of his drums but I think hes quite good.

  William peered round the side of his computer screen to scan the office for people he wished to talk to or avoid. After three hours of trading the markets were still sticky, nervous, unreadable, edging down and bobbing back up again, defying pattern and sense as they had so often since the start of the global recession. It seemed incredible that only a little over a year before he had sprawled in the same swivel chair watching the same screen with the confidence of a conjuror in possession of a deep hat. It was a jungle in comparison now – a jungle without a compass.

  The atmosphere in his wing of the asset-management team had altered too. The banter, the camaraderie, the gallows humour were still strong, but beneath it some openness had been lost. It didn’t help that the close arrangement of desks still sported empty terminals from the frenzy of redundancies that had followed the official confirmation of the downturn twelve months before. No great sense of luck or even survival guilt had built up among those who remained; instead an unacknowledged caginess stalked the corridors, a watch-your-back strategy of self-protection, not sharing the best knowledge or the best tips, as had once always been the case over matters of obvious common interest.

  As the end of the calendar year approached there was also the customary growing bubble of tension with regard to bonuses, a dirty word now in many quarters beyond Wall Street, but still of obsessive interest to those whose annual incomes they defined. For fund managers like William, it was already clear that the usual cut of annual profits on the trading of specific accounts would be virtually non-existent, but the company had made money in some areas, a percentage of which, traditionally, was shared out across the board. And there was always the third component of any bonus package – the performance reward, recognition of another twelve months’ hard slog. It would obviously be down on previous years, but William fell asleep thinking about it most nights now, performing sleepy calculations as to what would be left over once the credit cards had been paid and monthly allocations taken out for his mortgage, a fixed-rate product, which had looked so sensible upon signing but which, in the new world of slashed interest rates, had been increasingly – ball-breakingly – high.

  ‘What’s your crystal ball saying this morning, Bill?’

  ‘Cloudy – best advised to take an early lunch.’ William shot a grin at his neighbour, a swarthy dynamo of a young man called Walt, who liked to boast of the pounds he could lift and the number of women he laid. Surpassing William on energy but not experience, his bonus – in the two years they had spent sitting next to each other – had traditionally trailed William’s by a few thousand or so. Kurt, on the other hand, the German who sat on his left, normally managed to keep his nose ahead of William’s. No numbers were ever discussed outright, but somehow the broad facts of expectations versus delivery would seep out anyway, during the course of conversations at odd quiet moments – after Europe had closed, say, or over a few beers on a Friday. Not this year, however. This year, so far, all speculation had been private. No one was giving away a thing.

  ‘And it’s really getting to me,’ William confessed to Geoff, over their plates of sushi at lunch. ‘I mean, who’s good, who’s bad, who’s in, who’s out, I just don’t know any more. I keep my clients happy – well, as happy as any client can expect in the current climate – my performance is no better or worse than anyone else’s and yet, with profits down, there is just no certainty.’ He slammed down his water glass, rattling the little dishes of sauce. His companion had ordered a large white wine. William had felt envious, but was holding out.

  ‘That’s the good thing about divorce,’ replied Geoff, glibly, dipping his nose over the rim of the glass before sipping his wine. ‘It never goes out of fashion and it always costs ten times as much as the participants imagine.’ He posted a sausage of rice and gingered prawn into his mouth, emitting a hum of appreciation as he chewed. ‘But to turn to happier matters …’ he continued, perhaps glimpsing genuine distress in William’s usually cheerful, rugged face ‘… I hope my house-swap scheme was as much of a success for you as it was for Sophie and Andrew.’ He paused to pinion a cube of raw tuna between his chopsticks. ‘Those two ended up having such a great time I thought they might never leave.’

  ‘Oh, yes, like I said on the phone, it went really well for Beth and me too, thanks … Wonderful to see so much of my boys, as you might imagine …’ William faltered, his stomach twisting at the thought of Harry. Five weeks now and there had still been no communication. Phone, text, email, Alfie – he had tried every avenue he could think of. Not even the enticement of a job in Manhattan had worked, although this was just as well since none of the feelers William had put out had yet come up with anything. Susan, during the course of recent phone calls, had sounded as desperate as he had ever known her. Harry came and went, she said, refusing most of the time to say where.

  To confess such a sorry state of affairs over their delicate dishes of Japanese food felt impossible. Geoff was really only a friend of a friend after all – a warm
enough guy, but primarily one of those eager, tireless Manhattan networkers, incapable of conversing without a competitive spirit wheedling its way into the dialogue. The daughter, William knew, was high-powered – Harvard, something medical. He quailed at the thought of bringing the hapless Harry up against such a paragon; Harry, who, until so recently, had been such a paragon himself. ‘Although you know how it is with trips home,’ he pressed on, swallowing the uprush of anxiety, ‘there’s all that obligation to visit family – if one’s not careful one ends up tearing around England trying to keep everyone happy.’

  Geoff rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, boy, yes. It took Ann and me a few years before we learnt how to stop playing those games. Mercifully, we don’t have much cause to cross the water, these days, not with Katherine, our daughter, up the road. No roots left.’ He grinned. ‘We’re Yankees through and through.’

  William smiled back but with less conviction. He pointed at Geoff’s glass. ‘I think I might have one of those after all.’

  ‘Good man …’ Geoff signalled at the waiter. ‘But there was the sorry business of the cat, wasn’t there? It hasn’t turned up, I suppose?’

  William shook his head. ‘Afraid not. The Chapmans have offered to pay for a replacement.’

  ‘I would expect no less.’ Geoff stabbed the air with his chopsticks. ‘They were mortified about that animal disappearing – mortified.’

  William took a swig of the wine, which was delicious – dry and ice cold. ‘Yes, so our neighbours said. And it’s a kind offer, but we’re not going to accept.’ He twirled the stem of his glass, watching the lemony fluid sway. Beth had not liked the idea of a new kitten, not even a Persian. It was a guilt trip, she had claimed, a cheap way for the Chapmans to make themselves feel better. Animals, like humans, could not be ‘replaced’, she had added, her eyes brimming with tears. William, a little surprised by the vehemence of the refusal, had been happy to go along with it, not just because he could take or leave having a pet but because of a hazy recollection that cats and foetuses weren’t an ideal mix. He remembered Susan, who had turned a stray from their doorstep shortly after falling pregnant with Alfie, explaining to their two disappointed toddlers that cats carried an invisible bug with a long name that was capable of making unborn children very sick.

  When the bill came William accepted, with a sinking heart, that it was his job to offer to settle it. Geoff might have been the one to suggest the lunch, but he had brokered the holiday. Nonetheless, seeing the cost of their six glasses of wine, foolishly ordered individually rather than as a bottle, he dithered, hoping his companion would intervene. Geoff was loaded, after all – the bespoke silk suit, the soft leather wallet, the suede loafers: it oozed out of every pore. As he had boasted, divorce never went out of fashion.

  Geoff, however, embarked on a tactful scrutiny of his BlackBerry, leaving William to perform a quick mental recap as to which of his cards currently bore the lightest load.

  In fact, apart from a nod of thanks, his companion didn’t speak until they were out in the street, tugging up their collars against the wind, which felt damp in spite of the happy absence of rain. ‘He’s coming back over, by the way.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Andrew Chapman. He’s bringing some choir from that fancy school of his for a pre-Christmas tour in New York. Ann is like a pig in clover. She’s organizing the venues, you see.’ Geoff grimaced. ‘And there’s nothing my wife loves more than having a project. Hey, if he does come, we could all meet up – Beth, you, me, Ann and Andrew. How about that? I’ll call you,’ he promised, miming a phone at his ear as he walked away.

  Or not, William had mused, chuckling darkly at Beth’s likely reaction to such a prospect. The whole Dido business had made her so anti the Chapmans he couldn’t imagine her wanting ever to meet them. That said, she seemed to be happily back into her stride on other fronts – running, taking new classes, including Pilates and one on painting in watercolour: a very passable seascape was already propped on top of the piano, inspired apparently by a group outing to Pear Tree Point.

  Her support about Harry continued to be heartwarming too. Seeing his gloom after Susan’s call the night before, she had even offered to try and make contact with Harry herself, venturing that there might be a residue of trust left from her and her stepson’s mini-allegiance in August. William had been deeply touched, and also impressed, since the offer cleverly took the last trace of a sting out of what had, after all, been one of the worst rows of their marriage. He had turned the idea down – on the grounds that it might work against them for Harry to feel too ‘bombarded’ – but the result had been a resurgence of all their old natural closeness. They had spent the rest of the evening cuddling on the sofa in front of the TV, as relaxed and happy as they had ever been; and then – as if that wasn’t wonderful enough – once they were upstairs preparing for bed, Beth had suddenly tugged open her bedside drawer and flung her pill packets into the wastepaper basket.

  ‘That’s my “yes”,’ she had murmured, keeping her eyes fixed on William’s gaze of delighted astonishment as she started to peel off her clothes. She stopped at her bra and pants – an eye-catching set of cream and black lace that he didn’t remember seeing before – then crawled towards him across the duvet, her hair swinging across her cheeks, her lips parted with an intensity of intention that had made every worry in his life, financial or otherwise, dissolve into insignificance.

  *

  Sophie was sitting at her desk in the sprawling comfort of the WFC staff room, a sitting room by original design, with an elegant, corniced high ceiling and a large bay window, when she spotted Olivia hovering by the gate, her messily clipped hair spilling over her shoulders and her school skirt hoicked unevenly to a level that succeeded in revealing most of her thighs. Sophie rapped on the window and hurried to the front door. ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah, fine. Were you working?’

  ‘No, I’ve finished, but I need a moment to sort out some paperwork with Gareth.’

  ‘I’ll stay out here, then.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Come and wait in the staff room. There’s no one there.’ Sophie ushered her daughter along the carpeted hall, amused to see how gingerly she peered about her, clutching her schoolbag, as if expecting a teacher to leap out and deliver a scolding. ‘Given the afternoon off, were you?’

  Olivia wrinkled her nose in a show of offence. ‘Friday from lunch I have free periods this year, remember? And don’t worry, I’ve signed out.’ She flopped onto the padded bench that ran under the bay window. ‘I didn’t have my keys and Dad was teaching, and I remembered you said you’d be here. I tried calling but you were turned off.’

  ‘Good. Right. Well, I won’t be long.’ Sophie hurried up to the first floor, which housed several tutorial rooms and Gareth’s office, a handsome library of a room decorated in Wedgwood blue and white, overlooking the back garden. Bookshelves covered three of its four walls, the highest served by a sliding mahogany ladder on brass wheels. Her employer’s vast rosewood desk dominated the remaining space, along with three elaborate gold-framed oil paintings, apparently of his ancestors. Like the house itself, the pictures had belonged to the wealthy spinster aunt who had adored Gareth enough to make him the sole beneficiary of her will and alienate, posthumously, every other surviving member of her family. It was a story Sophie had heard several times and which Gareth told well, invariably underplaying the acumen and determination it had taken then to convert the inheritance into a thriving business. The classic but homely feel of the college reassured parents and students alike, but it was the results that kept the numbers up, results that depended on finding good tutors and keeping them. The woman going on maternity leave had been a bad call, Gareth had confided earlier that day, well advanced in her condition when she applied, but keeping quiet about it until he had signed her up.

  ‘Hah, my favourite freelancer,’ he exclaimed, peeling off his wire-rimmed spectacles as Sophie appeared round the door. ‘Shakespearean
tragedy and gormless eighteen-year-olds – do you reckon you earned your extra tenner?’

  ‘Every penny,’ Sophie countered, laughing. The tutorial had worn her out, but had been tremendous fun. Keeping youngsters interested, teaching, she had forgotten the buzz of it. ‘King Lear – I forced them to empty their rucksacks so I could see how many were cheating with summarized notes. They hated me.’

  ‘Good girl. And next week you’ve got Keats and Plath and Steinbeck by way of further cover for my pregnant, mendacious Corpus graduate with a first. No plans for the next three years, she said … Give me a girl who dropped out of university to be a model any day … if she’s up to it, that is?’ Gareth eyed Sophie carefully, pulling back the page of times and dates he had been holding out to her across the desk. ‘Are you sure you’re ready for all this, my dear?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Sophie met the gaze of his watery blue eyes, unjustly small, she had always thought, for so warmhearted a man, and faintly reptilian too, thanks to lashes that were the same washed-out shade as his thinning grey hair.

  ‘So what was it, then, that you’re so absolutely better from?’

  ‘I told you – exhaustion … and generally being stressed out. But I’m fine now, Gareth, honestly.’

  ‘Good. We shall proceed, in that case.’ He handed the piece of paper to her. ‘That’s just an outline. I’ve emailed more details, reports and so on. It’s the same group in each class, apart from the last – a one-on-one with the Spanish boy I told you about. Nice kid, anxious parents. That’ll be more a language-teaching session than anything.’

  ‘This looks great, thanks.’ Sophie cast a quick eye over the schedule, her mind skipping to Olivia, waiting downstairs, and the dinner party, its ingredients still in various packages and bags scattered round the kitchen. ‘See you at eight, then?’

  ‘Indeed, you shall. Black tie – I’ve told Lewis.’