‘Hardly.’ He looked around. ‘But if I think too much about it I get the heebie-jeebies. A visit from you will drive them away.’
Claire felt herself blush with pleasure. She was afraid to take a seat in the easy chair until she was invited but Toby motioned her toward it. ‘I love the book,’ she said as if that justified her seat. ‘I thought I might try a biography of Nancy or the family.’
‘Oh, not Nancy. Far too sad. Loved one inappropriate man after the other – but haven’t we all?’ Claire nodded. ‘There’s a good book about the whole lot of them,’ Toby told her. ‘And then Diana Mosley wrote a strange little memoir. Oh, strike that. But you might want Nancy’s letters. She wrote a lot to Waugh and they’re brittle but awfully funny. Actually, The Pursuit of Love might be best. It’s a novel, you know. But shows her family at their absolute maddest. I think I have a couple of copies.’
He wandered off down an aisle. ‘At the very least,’ he said, raising his voice so she could hear him, ‘it will show you a bit of how jolly England was when we had a ruling class.’ He returned with a pretty leather book bound in blue. ‘That is, of course, if you were a member of the ruling class. Otherwise, a bit grim I’m afraid. Still, nothing about Nancy was much in touch with reality. Just enjoy it.’
Claire reached for her purse. The idea of putting this pretty little book with her others delighted her. Why had she been satisfied with nothing but paperbacks and library editions in New York? The book was marked five pounds and when Toby began to insist he could give it to her for less, she insisted he take the five-pound note she pushed at him. ‘I’m paying you not just to be my bookseller but my literary advisor,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘Perhaps I could make more money at that.’ He tucked the note into his pocket. ‘But aside from your custom, for which I am very grateful, I have news and I didn’t know where to get in touch with you.
‘I may have found you somewhere to live,’ Toby continued. ‘My friend, Imogen, has a little place in South Ken. Anyway, she’s looking for a few extra quid – Im is spendy. Makes almost nothing as an editor of just the worst kind of stuff. How to Decorate Your Uterine Wall in Ten Days. Clay Pots Made Simple. Absolutely lives in Harvey Nicks. Anyway, I asked if she knew anyone who might share their place and she offered her box room.’
‘What’s a box room?’ Claire asked, not that she cared. South Kensington was a wonderful area. The knitting shop was there. Her spirits fell; it would probably be far too expensive.
‘What’s a box room? What does it sound like? It’s a place where you store boxes, or luggage, or put the baby if you’re a breeder. Anyway, it’s not quite a bedroom but it does have a window and Im says that – well, I’ll let you speak to her.’ He lifted the phone beside his elbow and punched in a number. Then he paused and put the phone down. ‘She’s actually a bit of a … climber,’ he said in an undertone. ‘But after all it’s the national sport. Rather like a dog enthusiast – collects people for their pedigree. Always thought Crufts was just the middle class yearning to prove their dogs were aristocrats. But there you have it. Fun to watch. Has a boyfriend. Nice enough chap. Can’t think why she’s marrying him except because of his connections. Don’t know what she’ll think of you. Either we make you a cousin to the Hilton twins or an impoverished Vanderbilt.’
If it were a small room perhaps it would be cheaper, but … ‘Do I have to lie?’
Toby smiled. ‘Well, of course the Bilsop family is one of the oldest in America.’ He made a little moue and lifted his eyebrows.
‘Well, perhaps they are actually. My father was always going on about them but I’m not sure how much was true and how much was wishful thinking.’
Toby smiled brightly. ‘Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. Assume Best in Show at Crufts.’ He picked up the phone again and punched in the number.
There was a brief silence while someone spoke to Toby. ‘Well, never mind all that,’ he said. ‘I have that lovely girl here, the one I told you about. Very quiet and neat. Perfect for a box room. But an old family. Given a land grant by George III and popped over to our colonies donkey’s years ago.’ He winked at Claire who had to smile. ‘Anyway, she’s just peachy.’ Claire held her breath while Imogen must have said something. ‘Oh, quite,’ Toby told her. ‘Would you like to speak with her?’
Apparently Imogen did, because Toby handed the phone over to Claire.
‘Hello. I’m Claire Bilsop,’ she said.
‘I’m Imogen Faulkner. Toby says we should meet. But I don’t want you to get your hopes up. The spare room is quite small and it’s a bit of a tip, really. I don’t know if it would do for you.’
‘Oh, I’m sure it would,’ Claire said.
‘When would you like to come over?’
Claire thought of Mrs Patel. She really couldn’t be late, and it was unlikely that Imogen would want to see her after ten. ‘Could you meet me tomorrow morning?’ she asked. ‘I work in the evenings.’
‘Morning? If it’s after ten? Could you do later?’
‘Sure. Eleven?’
‘Brilliant,’ Imogen said. ‘By the way, it would be so much more convenient if you weren’t around between six-ish and midnight.’ Imogen lowered her voice. ‘It’s when I do my entertaining: I’m engaged to be married,’ she giggled. ‘Toby has my address and all of that. And tell him I don’t want any of his bloody books. He inherited them, I didn’t. He ought to keep them to himself.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ Claire promised. ‘Tomorrow, then, at eleven.’
‘Brilliant,’ Imogen said once more and hung up.
THIRTY-NINE
The next morning Claire took the underground to South Kensington station and walked from there to the address she had marked on her map. Kensington was a very different world from Camden. Here in Kensington, none of the terraces seemed to be broken by the unattractive modern buildings. Each row of houses curved and smiled as evenly as actors’ teeth, without a gap or an ugly modern bridge anywhere.
Claire had arrived early, Mrs Patel having given her the day off. ‘Not that you’ll get paid,’ she had cautioned. Claire smiled, remembering her fierce expression. She was beginning to realize that Mrs Patel was a softy, trying to keep her better nature under wraps as her sari protectively covered her child-to-be. Claire was beginning to think she had made a true friend.
All around her the houses were bedecked with thriving window boxes and pots of topiary. Wrought-iron fences separated the immaculate sidewalk from the equally immaculate front gardens. Claire couldn’t think of a section of New York that was this charming. Perhaps they existed, but Claire had never been there.
She turned a corner and was on Imogen’s street. It was only ten-thirty so she walked past number nineteen – to her delight a cream painted three-storey house with a pretty bow window – and continued to look around the neighborhood.
Just two blocks away there were a pub, a convenience store and one of the ubiquitous estate agent’s shops. Claire couldn’t believe how many real-estate offices there were. People must buy and sell their homes every week to keep so many agents in business. She spent a few minutes looking at the tempting pictures of interiors and marveling over the forbidding prices. She ducked into the Crown and Slipper and it seemed, though very quiet at that time of day, inviting enough. There didn’t seem to be a breakfast place nearby but perhaps, if Imogen accepted her as a flatmate, she could cook her own. Even if she couldn’t, she wouldn’t care as long as she could take baths freely. She walked back to number nineteen, walked up the stairs to the front door and pressed the button over ‘Faulkner’.
When she was buzzed in she found herself in an elegant vestibule with a black and white marble floor, a gilded mirror on the wall and two doors before her. She hadn’t a clue which one to knock on and stood for a moment in the pretty little space. Both doors were painted with a faux Turkish tile design. She had stepped into The Arabian Nights, but didn’t know which entrance she should address with ‘Open sesame.’ And if those weren’
t the magic words, she hoped she could find the ones that would make this Imogen take her in. She couldn’t believe that she might be lucky enough to live in such an elegant neighborhood in such an adorable building. She paused and took a deep breath, then superstitiously crossed her fingers and knocked on the door on her right.
She had barely lowered her hand when the door was thrown open and Imogen – she guessed it was Imogen – stood revealed before her. Revealed was the right word because Imogen was in pantyhose and make-up but very little else.
‘Hello,’ she said in the same intonation that Toby used. The word dipped in the front and lifted at the end the way a sailboat moved through a swell.
Claire, always modest, felt her face suffuse with color, but tried to keep her eyes only on Imogen’s round face and wide round blue eyes. Her hair was a honey-blond halo, and her skin was the most perfect, poreless surface that Claire had ever seen. ‘You must be Claire,’ Imogen said. ‘Come on up. I hope you don’t mind that I’m just in my smalls.’ Claire shook her head but Imogen had already turned, revealing the back of her ‘knickers’ and the stairway in front of them. She galloped up two flights of stairs and Claire followed, wondering if panties were knickers and smalls and a dozen other words in this country.
But as she reached the top of the stairs she had to stop to take a breath. The flat opened before her, a white, sunlit space with big windows in the front as well as a skylight overhead. There was a large sofa facing a small fireplace, a lot of gray wall-to-wall carpet and not much else except piles of papers on the floor, on the counters and on the end tables. ‘Would you like a drink?’ Imogen asked. ‘Coffee? Sherry? I’m having a sherry.’
Claire nodded and then remembered Imogen still had her back to her. ‘Sherry would be nice,’ she said and was relieved when Imogen returned not only with the sherries but also wrapped in a cotton robe. She couldn’t imagine being interviewed by a woman in her underwear.
‘Sit down,’ Imogen invited Claire as she moved a stack of papers from a chair. ‘I’m an editor at Sofer & Laughton. Rather fun, really, but lots of paperwork I’m afraid.’ Claire sat at the other end of the sofa. ‘God, I haven’t seen Toby in months. Is he keeping well?’ Claire wasn’t sure if that was an inquiry as to Toby’s health or his aging process, but she nodded. ‘We were at university together. Good boy is our Toby. How do you know him?’
It was a natural enough question, but Claire hadn’t prepared for it. If she told the truth would she seem a transient, undependable and unknown? If she lied, what could she possibly invent and how would she ask Toby to cover for her? ‘From the bookstore,’ she told Imogen.
‘Oh, are you in the book trade? I always think it was awfully lucky that Toby’s uncle died. Great Warwickshire family, but penniless, of course. The business suits him right down to the ground, though it’s hardly a business, is it? He’d be hopeless in the City. We always knew that, couldn’t imagine what he’d do, and then Sir Frederick conveniently died and there you have it. Not that Toby inherited the title, you understand. Just the shop and the flat. Can’t think what he lives on, but he manages, doesn’t he? Maybe good Uncle Frederick left him some money as well.’
Claire didn’t know what to say. She thought the English had the reputation of being reserved but Imogen didn’t seem to fit the mold. Claire surreptitiously looked around. The place was wonderful, all emptiness and light. She desperately wanted to be asked to stay on.
‘Now, where are you from?’ Imogen asked.
‘New York, actually.’ Claire heard herself imitating Imogen’s intonation and told herself to stop. ‘I worked on Wall Street.’ Well, both of those statements were true.
‘Oh, and are you in the City now? That’s where Malcolm works – my boyfriend. He’s from Edinburgh and a chartered accountant. Dead boring, actually, but as it’s in numbers he could easily move.’ Imogen leaned back and finished her sherry. She lowered her voice. ‘Malcolm is actually a second cousin to the Queen. Not that it would do us any good if we got married. He does have a tea service from Sandringham, but I doubt we’d even get a wedding present.’ Then she smiled. ‘If we had children they’d be about three hundred and twenty-seventh in line to the succession. So I wouldn’t expect to be a Queen Mum.’
Claire wasn’t following everything, but she could see what Toby meant about ‘climbing’. She worried about how she could present her resumé. An unemployed tourist didn’t measure up to glamorous editor, not to mention a cousin by marriage to the Queen. Before Claire could get her thoughts organized, Imogen stood up. ‘Would you like to see the room?’ she asked. ‘It isn’t much, I’m afraid. If it were an annex to the bedroom I’d use it as a dressing room. But it does have windows. And as the bathroom is not en suite, I think we could manage.’
She walked through the living room and to a tiny kitchen with Claire trailing behind her. ‘The money would come in handy, but it’s just as important that someone be here. I spend some time at Malcolm’s and then most weekends we’re in the country. He has a place in Kent and my parents’ country house is in Essex – I know, an Essex girl!’
Claire had no idea what an Essex girl was, but it must be good. So she nodded and smiled. It seemed that Toby’s recommendation was all she needed – except, of course, for the money. Then they stepped into the little ‘box room’ and Claire was transfixed. ‘I know it’s quite tiny, and the mahogany washstand is absolutely hideous,’ Imogen said. ‘I hate Victoriana, though it is coming back. Once I’m married I’ll be getting some family furniture – Georgian, you know. And then Malcolm’s family has pots of stuff.’
The room was certainly small, perhaps ten by ten. But that was part of its charm. It looked as if it was something from a doll’s house. There were two windows on one side looking out over the gardens in the back, the walls were a lovely light lilac and the woodwork was linen white, though quite dusty. Claire compared it to the dingy room at Mrs Watson’s, the peeling wallpaper and the rug that had seen the soles of far too many feet. There, she felt like the Little Match Girl. Here she would feel like … well, as small but as lovely as Thumbelina. There was a small bed built into the far wall with drawers under it. ‘There isn’t any linen. You’ll have to provide your own, but there is a washing machine.’ The Victorian washstand had a white marble top and was far from hideous. To Claire, in fact, it was charming. So were the bureau and the tiny chintz-upholstered chair.
‘There are no curtains, I’m afraid,’ Imogen said, ‘and the bed is just a single. No wardrobe, either, but you could use the hall cupboard. Does it seem as if it might do?’
Claire nodded, then forced herself to speak. She felt her heart would break if she didn’t get to stay here. It was the most inviting room she had ever seen. But could she manage to pay for it? ‘What would it cost?’ she asked, feeling as if her heart were literally in her throat. Something was, because she could barely manage to swallow.
‘Well, you know, my uncle owns the building.’ Imogen laughed. ‘We do seem to have a lot of uncles around, don’t we? Anyway, I don’t pay much. Do you think you could manage three hundred pounds a month?’
Claire quickly did ‘the maths’ as Safta would say. She couldn’t believe it! The room was almost half the price of what she was paying now. That couldn’t be right, but Claire didn’t care. She’d do whatever she had to, to get to keep this adorable bower. ‘I’ll take it,’ she said. And she left clutching a set of keys, Imogen having said she could move in right away.
Trying to get to the tube she got confused and her map didn’t seem to help. What she needed was a much better one that had all the small streets named and drawn more carefully. She took a turn to the left, walked down a darling little street and then took a turn to the right. On her map it looked as if it would be a busy road but instead she was on a slightly grander lane with detached houses, lovely gardens and old trees.
When she got to the end of the lane she saw that it led into the busy street she was looking for. But that wasn’t the surpri
se. On her right side she saw the kitty corner door she knew. Surely there weren’t two like that.
She crossed the lane and found herself in front of Knitting Kitting. Claire blinked once or twice. Here she was, just a few blocks away from her new home and beside her favorite – well, not counting Toby’s or Mrs Patel’s – shop in London. She had almost finished her second glove but realized that she couldn’t go in for more wool. A polite sign said, SORRY. WE ARE CLOSED. PLEASE COME AGAIN. And the hours of the shop were posted below it. Claire realized the place was only open on weekdays and Saturday mornings nine to twelve. Rather silly when you thought about it, since most women would shop after work or on the weekends. Still, Claire took the proximity as a very good omen. And perhaps she could get a job if she offered to extend the hours. It was worth a try and after all the success she had had, she was beginning to believe the adage ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’.
FORTY
‘But why do they call it prime?’ Safta asked.
As the oldest, Safta seemed to take everything quite seriously, from supervising her two younger siblings to achieving the best possible grades in school. Her eyebrows were such exact copies of her mother’s, that if anyone had doubted Mendel’s theory of genetics they would have only to look at Mrs Patel and Safta to see the power of DNA.
One could also see the power of environment. Instead of arching her brow in the gesture of questioning contempt that her mother routinely used, Safta made a little pucker just at the bottom of her forehead, slightly to the right of her nose. The pucker in her brow indicated worry, confusion, dissatisfaction and all the other negative emotions that Safta the elegant perfectionist was forced to live with.
Claire smiled at her and looked down at the textbook. ‘They’re prime numbers because they can’t be evenly divided by any other number.’
‘Well, what’s so prime about that? It makes them irregular or unevenly divisible, or annoying. I don’t see why it makes them prime.’
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