by Clare Naylor
“Cool.” Louis had unzipped his coat all the way and stood beside an old pitchfork, nodding approvingly.
“Would you like a bit of a tour?” she asked. “It doesn’t take long.”
“I’d love one.” Louis looked around and around the room, and Kate noticed she’d left a sketch pad on her bed with very poor drawings of Jake in the nude on it. She ushered him toward the bathroom, scooping up the book as she went.
“The woodlice are very good neighbors, and I have a very sophisticated garden shovel alarm system in case of break-ins.
“The shower’s actually pretty great,” she went on proudly, because Louis, despite his silence, was making her feel as though she were showing him around the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. She could tell he thought this place was the greatest.
“Fantastic,” he muttered when he stepped behind her bamboo shower curtain. “Did you do this yourself?”
“I did actually,” Kate replied.
“I love it,” Louis proclaimed and made his way around her, steering about six feet clear, and out into the main part of the shed, where he was confronted with the overwhelming choice of sitting on the bed or sitting on the floor. “And I know that you think that I’m hiring you out of some sense of loyalty or something, but you’re wrong. You know how much I’ve always loved your work.”
“Really?”
“I nearly bought Arthur at the Appleyard gallery.” He nodded. “But I was broke.”
“You liked Arthur?” Kate was surprised. It was the one achievement that she was actually proud of. She’d won a competition a few years ago with a painting of her dad’s dog Arthur. Her dad had been determined to live out his cancer long enough to make it to the opening of the exhibition but had died only three days before. Kate had never been sure whether the work was actually good or whether she was just sentimentally attached to the piece because her dad loved it so much.
“It had huge range and freedom of movement.” Louis was almost spinning in circles in the middle of the room.
“But they’re animals, Louis. It’s not exactly art.”
“It’s completely art. Compared to so much of the stuff I see it is.” He didn’t look at her, he looked at the canvases in the corner and, without asking, as most people did, began flipping through them, stopping at some and staring as though trying to commit every stroke to memory. Kate kept quiet. She always pretended she didn’t notice people were looking at her work. It was too embarrassing.
“Kate, you’ve got so much better. Not that I ever doubted your talent. But this stuff’s great.” Louis was standing at arm’s length from a picture of a stallion that she’d done in the style of an old Stubbs. “He’s so beautiful.” He moved his head slowly from side to side, taking in the glossy oils, the horse’s sinewy flanks and gleaming coat.
“His name was Aeneas. He belonged to Leonard actually. I keep meaning to get it framed and give it to him for a present but I always forget.” Kate stole a glance at Louis from the side. He looked quite formidable as he continued to gaze at Aeneas, but maybe it was just because he was looking at her work that she felt vulnerable.
“So the polar bear?” She coughed lightly. She really had to get back to Bébé soon, and she wasn’t convinced that Louis could really be serious.
“Oh God, yeah. That.” Louis broke off and began pacing a little across the shed floor. He had his sleeves pulled far down over his hands and was looking at the worn carpet, which Kate wished he wouldn’t because it hadn’t seen a vacuum cleaner ever and was covered not only in snail slime but also, she imagined, hairballs of hers and maybe a few of Jake’s toenail clippings.
“Thing is, like I said, I’m doing this piece and that’s why I was at the zoo. To check out the polar bears. And as you know I can’t paint for toffee so I want to hire you.” He returned to the canvases and stroked the top of one of them absentmindedly. “To paint. For me. Please.” He stopped and took a breath.
“Great,” Kate agreed.
“Great, well, I’ll call you in the next day or two. I’ve got to go now. I’ve got a meeting. Thanks, Kate, you’re a star.” With which he threw a kiss on her cheek and practically bolted out of the shed door. She watched through the window as he hared through the side gate and vanished.
Chapter Nine
Later, as she meticulously applied her birthday lip gloss, Kate wondered what Jake would get her for her birthday. He always bought her great gifts—certainly not great by Mirri’s standards, but Kate always treasured them. He’d once bought her a great little gramophone player from the sixties, which was impeccable and shiny despite its years. And with it were a bunch of old 45s. And when she played them she could hear the faint crackle of dust and age. Another time he’d bought her an antique Chinese wedding coat that he’d found somewhere at the top of Portobello Road. Kate had worn it until one of the sleeves hung off; it was still sitting under her bed waiting to be repaired, she thought guiltily. Kate was interrupted as her phone vibrated in her pocket. She flipped it open.
“What are you wearing?” Tanya demanded from the other end.
“Cream frothy skirt and a tank top,” Kate replied as she fastened her gold sandals.
“Perfect.” Tanya, who always restricted herself to sugared-almond-colored cashmere sweaters and a pair of pants that perfectly displayed her impeccable bottom, approved.
“Oh, and darling?” Kate knew something was up because usually Tanya didn’t really care a whit what Kate wore. “If you’re going to tell me off about Jake then don’t. We’re back together and despite what might have happened you’re not allowed to be rude. He’s my boyfriend and he’s coming tonight. Okay?” When Kate had called Tanya earlier and filled her in on the date hate with Joss and told her about creeping back to Jake’s afterward, Tanya hadn’t been able to disapprove, because Kate had made her feel so terrible about setting her best friend up with a whingeing teetotaling misogynist.
“Chippy.” Tanya laughed.
“Just defending my corner. That’s all.”
“Actually, Robbie asked if you’d do him a favor.”
“Robbie did?” What Kate could possibly do for Robbie was a mystery to her. Fabulous handsome businessman with pots of money asks pitiful artist with patchy love life for favor. Implausible.
“He wondered if you’d invite Mirri along tonight.”
“Oh, he did not.”
“You know he loves her and I told him how much you hate but hate her. But he said it’d mean the world to him. Make his week. Or something.”
“Well, it is Robbie. And I do love him. But wouldn’t a different favor do? A little bloodletting? Put my eye out with a knitting needle?”
“Okay, don’t worry. I’ll tell him she couldn’t make it.” Tanya didn’t care either way.
“Oh, I’m kidding. She’s coming anyway because she booked the table and she’s actually not in my worst books today. That place is reserved for Joss. So I’ll make sure Robbie gets to sit next to her,” Kate said, before adding, “But I won’t be held responsible if she ends up shagging the waiter in full view of the restaurant before the main course has been served. Okay?”
“Fine. See you there.” Tanya hung up and Kate filed the nail on her ring finger and wondered what Mirri’s diamond, or one very similar to it anyway, would look like on her hand. The answer was actually plain ridiculous with her dirty nails and too-long fingers, but she wasn’t going to let that put her off dreaming of Jake and a padded box.
Kate had hoped that at the last minute Mirri would develop other plans for tonight that might include aiding and abetting Shagger Sinclair with his latest foray into adultery. But when she arrived at the house she felt guilty for ever letting this cross her mind because Mirri had not only dressed up specially for Kate’s birthday, but also shouted “Bonne anniversaire” out of the window at the top of the house and ran down to the kitchen, where she squealed and kissed Kate on the cheek and become all warm and sweet about friendship and family. Kate, thinking that her mot
her would have probably told her if she was adopted, and if she was, it wasn’t likely that she was the love child of a famous French movie star—and besides, she didn’t have Mirri’s boobs—decided that this was simply Continental overfamiliarity and smiled magnanimously, genuinely pleased that a twenty-ninth birthday could make anyone so disproportionately happy.
While Mirri whizzed off to settle Bébé down for the night, Kate turned to Leonard, who was just finishing up on a business call. “That was odd,” she said with a frown.
“What, the fact that she was happy to be invited to your birthday party?” Leonard replaced the receiver and stretched his arms out in front of him.
“Yeah. I mean my sketches of Bébé this afternoon were fine but they weren’t that good,” Kate said suspiciously.
“She likes you, Kate. And she’s a very generous woman. You’re the only one who can’t seem to see that.”
“Oh, Leonard, do me a favor. She walked into my life, told me I had bad taste in men, then proceeded to call me repressed and frigid, implied that I didn’t get enough sex, that when I did it was very poor quality, and that I dressed badly and would never find a husband even though she couldn’t understand why I’d want one anyway because they were passé and made you cook pasta.” Kate drew breath. “How can you possibly imagine that she likes me?”
“She does. But she’s just being honest.”
“Are you saying that you agree with her?” Kate’s voice was growing more shrill by the second. “That all those things are true?”
“I’m saying that Mirri isn’t unkind. She’s just very very different from you. And despite what you think, she is very fond of you.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t see how she can be, because she barely knows me, and I think she’s just coming along tonight so she can score herself a date. And so she won’t have to stay in and watch television on her own.”
“Darlings, I am ready,” Mirri called down merrily from the upstairs landing. “Shall we go?” And with that, Kate and Leonard shut up and simply marveled as she glided down the stairs in her Pucci caftan. She then hooked one arm through Kate’s and one through Leonard’s, and led them out into the garden. Kate winced guiltily and prayed she hadn’t overheard.
London had that magical feeling that happens only a few evenings a year. Summer had arrived and the air smelled as though it had been steeped all day in jasmine and roses and sunshine. Everywhere people displayed as much warm, pink skin as they could get away with. The shops were closing up but the owners lingered on the pavement chatting to one another. Occasionally a car would thud by with its bass-pumping music and its windows open.
“London isn’t so bad,” Mirri proclaimed above the ecstatic birdsong on Primrose Hill. As they took a shortcut over the nettles and grass, Kate looked across and saw the Post Office Tower on the other side of the city, then caught sight of the London Eye, imperceptibly turning as the tourists and natives within its seemingly minuscule glass carriages marveled at the clear evening views across the river. This hill was probably the best place to see the whole of London unfolding before you, and it seemed only a hop, skip, and jump across town to the overbooked restaurants in the West End where girls in flimsy dresses were spreading foie gras onto toast as they talked unashamedly about shoes and not politics. To the right the painfully style-conscious inhabitants of Notting Hill would be behind their stuccoed housefronts, carefully considering their shabbiness and lack of grooming before stepping out to a pub to meet friends who were drinking Guinness standing on the pavement. Meanwhile in Soho crowds of gonnabe filmmakers and young features editors would be crammed into the stifling clubs, where even though the windows were open they would fail to catch a breeze.
“London’s great,” Kate agreed. The trio walked arm in arm, looking forward to the first glass of chardonnay.
Kate and her unlikely crew were ushered to a long wooden table by the windows, which had been thrown open all day—pointlessly, it seemed, as there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze. The waiters distributed bottles of wine across the table and small plates of olives flecked with bitter herbs.
“To Kate,” Mirri toasted as she sloshed wine into three large glasses.
Leonard raised his glass and seconded the motion: “To my dear Kate.”
“Cheers.” Kate raised her glass, which was duly clinked on either side by the others. And no sooner had they taken their first sips than Tanya and Robbie walked through the door, hand in hand. Robbie, as always, commanded the attention of most of the room. It may have had something to do with his well-scrubbed blond good looks and rangy frame, but it was also due to the fact that he was manna to the gossip columns and society magazines that everyone pretended not to read but devoured in the dentist’s waiting room. He was instantly recognizable, at least to the media-savvy clientele of Lemonia.
Robbie’s father, who had died five years ago, had been a charming, fantastically wealthy industrialist who had a series of ever-more beautiful and tragic wives, and even more mistresses. The press were much given to speculation that Robbie might go the same way as his father—something that Kate considered well-nigh impossible. Robbie Hirst would rather have his teeth pulled than cheat on Tanya with one of the saucy young eco-babes who made it their business in life to try to lead him astray.
“Happy birthday, Katie.” Robbie leaned toward Kate and kissed her cheek as she stood to greet her guests. He also gave her an unnecessarily large hug and handed her a small box.
“I love tall men with small boxes,” Kate giggled flirtatiously, as most people in the restaurant, except for the really smitten women, stopped staring and went back to their supper.
“And we love you,” Robbie reassured her, before casting his eyes over Kate’s shoulder to catch a glimpse of Mirabelle Moncur.
“Tanya and Robbie Hirst, this is Mirabelle Moncur. And you’ve both met Leonard before.” There was a general shaking of hands and kissing of cheeks and Mirri, who was almost telepathically programmed to pick out a fan in a crowd of thousands, presented Robbie with exactly what he wanted. He wanted Mirabelle Moncur and he got her—pout, hair, and smoldering eyes.
“So good to meet you.” Robbie rose to the occasion and kissed Mirri’s hand.
“Oh, but my goodness, it is you,” Mirri said with surprise.
“I’m sorry?” Robbie began to blush.
“Peter Hirst’s son?” Mirri asked with a look of pure delight on her face.
“You knew my father?” Robbie was thrilled.
“Oh, I’ll bet she did,” Tanya said under her breath to Kate. Kate and Tanya exchanged a brief look of oh-how-predictable before giving in to laughter. Kate picked up her present from Robbie and Tanya and the large one that Leonard had given her earlier and wondered whether she ought to open them or wait to find out from Mirri just how well she had known Robbie’s father. But the pair were already deeply engrossed in conversation and wine, so she sat back down and looked at her watch. She was used to Jake being the last one to arrive. He’d doubtless stroll in just as they were all cursing him because it was rude to order before he arrived, but he was forty-five minutes late and everyone was starving. And then he’d be forgiven by all and sundry because he’d regale them with a tale of how he got caught talking to a couple of East End gangsters in a betting shop and they’d given him a tip on a horse who had romped home, so the champagne was on him. Jake had charm, and style, there was no denying that.
“He’ll be held up on some harebrained scheme or other. I promise.” Leonard caught the look of anxiety that must have flashed across Kate’s face.
“Oh, I know he will.” Kate smiled, aware that everyone was now looking at the birthday girl to see if she was going to open her presents. “Typical Jake.”
“I’m not even hungry anyway.” Tanya took off her cardigan and put it over the back of her chair. “It’s far too hot to eat.”
“I’ll open my presents in a bit,” Kate said. Which everyone correctly interpreted as I’ll open my presents whe
n Jake gets here.
But sometime later, as Leonard poured the last drops of yet another bottle of wine into Tanya’s glass, it became miserably apparent that Jake probably wasn’t waylaid. He simply wasn’t going to turn up. Kate, who was checking her phone for a blinking red light an average of once every seventeen seconds, was beginning to feel sick to her stomach.
“I think we should all order.” Kate tried to put on a brave face. She motioned to the waiter to come over to their table.
“I’ll have the fish, please. And potatoes.” She smiled and then, when everyone else was ordering, stole away from the table and out onto the street to call Jake. Her friends politely pretended not to notice and nobody exchanged sympathetic glances. Her hand was shaking as she dialed. How on earth could she be here. Again? And on her birthday.
“Hi this is Jake. Leave a message.” His phone went directly to voice mail. Kate snapped it shut and took a few breaths of the balmy evening air. The sky was a vivid cobalt blue, and the sun had only just set. As she leaned her back against a lamppost and contemplated kicking a nearby car wheel in bitter frustration, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“He is not coming?” It was Mirri. Kate instinctively thrust the phone into her pocket and plastered a smile to her face.
“No, he can’t make it.” She looked Mirri in the eye and defied her to be nice. “Which is a shame but never mind, the party must go on.”
“You’re right, a girl gets only one birthday a year,” Mirri said softly. And as Kate positively flounced back into the restaurant with a determination that ought to have won her a medal of honor, Mirri watched her and looked sad. She really had been there, she really had done that. And she knew how painful it was.
Kate’s fish was on the bone, which made life even more awful. Every time she took a mouthful she was skewered in the windpipe by a sharp sliver. She gave up and dallied halfheartedly with her potatoes.
“You know this waiter we have?” Mirri leaned into the assembled company and asked in a theatrical whisper. Everyone except Kate looked at the waiter and nodded. “Well, he looks exactly like a man I knew when I was younger.” Kate wiped butter off her lips with her napkin and looked one more time at her phone. The nasty bastard. She barely had words harsh enough for Jake right now, but she knew, simply knew, that this time it had to be over. Someone had once told her that the areas of the brain that govern pain and love are right next to one another and sometimes the signals get crossed. Kate certainly knew that there was a fine line between the two—but she had truly crossed over into masochistic territory now, and unless she ditched Jake once and for all, really walked away, she would quite literally have to go and have her head examined. And she couldn’t afford a shrink so she’d have to just quit now.
