“These what? Poshos? Were you about to say ‘You know what these Poshos are like’?” Caz gave me her most disdainful look.
The lift stopped, she flung the cage door to the left, turned to the right, stalked up to a door and pressed an almost invisible bell beside it.
The door opened almost immediately, and Anthony Taylor, wearing a pair of dark jeans, a grey t shirt that managed to look simultaneously lived in and vastly expensive, and a grin that paled as he panned over Caz’s head and settled on me, filled the door.
“Well hello,” he said, though the warmth in the greeting diffused markedly as he moved from Caz to me.
“Hello Anthony,” Caz said. “May we come in.”
Taylor looked confused, then shrugged, and stepped aside, ushering us into his apartment.
The hallway – as Spartan as I’d expected, considering he’d returned only a few days ago – lead into an opulent living room.
Here, the parquet floors were partially covered in thick rugs. Two leather chesterfields filled one wall, and a couple of matching leather armchairs filled the corners. A diptyque candle scented, I supposed, with money and arrogance, burned on a low marquetry-covered table.
To our right as we entered the room was a long low sideboard, on which a selection of framed pictures huddled.
The place was like a theme park if the theme was 30’s decadence.
“Sorry it’s such a mess,” Taylor said, running a hand through his dark curly hair, and smiling somewhat nervously, it seemed, at both of us.
I looked round the room. Unless he’d just stuffed Dora Carrington behind the sofa, the place was immaculate.
“And we’re sorry to bother you,” I said, as he gestured to us to sit.
“Would you like some tea?” He asked, gesturing vaguely behind him. “I think I have tea.”
“I’m OK,” I said, as Caz nodded and said that she’d love a cup.
Taylor turned and left to, I supposed, head to the kitchen, at which point I turned to Caz.
“Since when do you drink tea?”
“I drink tea,” she said. “Sometimes.”
“Yeah, when there’s a Zed in the month. What are you up to?”
“That,” Caz nodded at the sideboard as she shrugged her handbag on to one of the sofas. “Check if there’s any mangled copies of Tatlers in it. I’ll keep him busy.”
And, undoing her top button, she left the room.
I glanced at the pictures – A young couple, the woman still wearing a wedding veil; a shot of a tanned and seemingly rather drunk Anthony nuzzling into the neck of an only marginally less wasted Olivia; a picture of a blonde girl, tall and willowy, and leaning against a brick wall somewhere sunny, her gap toothed smile capped with a squint against the sunshine.
I slid open the first drawer.
Empty.
My eyes strolled along the line to a shot of a young Anthony in a school uniform standing next to a less grey version of James Kane, the latter presenting the boy with some sort of trophy, a group shot of four or five Lycra clad, mud spattered cyclists, squinting into a low wintry sun with smiles that spoke of steep gradients conquered. I wondered, fleetingly, as I slid the next drawer open, who they were.
This was the motherload. The last time I’d seen so much red ink was when I’d been round my Aunt Marlene’s explaining how the electric didn’t just flow through the ether.
Taylor was in trouble with Visa, Mastercard, AmEx and National Westminster Bank, though, on the plus side, Tesco had send him four quid off a ninety quid shop, though – clearly – he’d have to pay cash.
“Here we are,” Taylor’s voice called as he entered the room, a tray held before him.
I slammed the drawer shut, knocking over one of the framed photos, and turned around.
“What a fabulous place you have,” I called in the way that only someone who’s almost been caught rifling through the paperwork of a stranger can.
“It’s alright,” he said, placing a tray on the coffee table. “Rented, but I’ll figure out something more permanent soon. Sure you won’t have a cup?”
I straightened the picture that had fallen and glanced at it. A black and white portrait of Anthony Taylor and a squat man in kitchen whites, both of them standing in front of a wall of white glazed tiles, their arms crossed over their chests, their smiles seeming to suggest the future was theirs.
“Family?” I asked, apropos of nothing.
“Almost,” Taylor gently lifted the picture from my grasp and, having looked at it a moment, as though seeing it for the first time, made to place it gently back on the sideboard, but stopped, and lifted it back to stare at it.
“That’s Jack and me.”
“Jack Everett?” Caz, who’d actually been sitting on the sofa drinking tea slammed her cup into her sofa. “I’d forgotten you knew Jack Everett.”
“Yes,” Taylor smiled at her, “Did you know him?”
“Barely.”
“Such a talent,” Taylor turned back to the framed picture, and stroked it absently. “Such a loss.”
“Related to Desmond Everett?” I asked.
Caz nodded. “Jack was one of the YBC’s. The young British chefs?” She watched me expectantly. “Well, you’d have heard of them if you ever read the right magazines.”
Taylor smiled. “Jack and I had a restaurant: Gambera. We had a Michelin star. First ever Michelin for a Trattoria in this country. But, in the end, it wasn’t enough. Neither of us had a head for business. We wanted a restaurant that our friends would want to live in, so Nick made every mouthful as perfect as he could, and I spent a fortune on PR and parties. And it worked: we were the hottest restaurant in London for a while, but, despite everything we did, the debts outstripped the income.”
It seemed that Taylor still hadn’t learned how to live within his means. “What happened?” I nodded at the frame, still held almost absentmindedly in Taylor’s hand.
“He died,” Caz announced, for my benefit. “Drowned.”
Taylor put the picture down. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘Regret is a useless emotion’?” he asked. “It went down as misadventure. But it wasn’t. I killed him.”
“Tony!” Caz gasped.
“Oh, not literally. I let him make the kitchen he wanted, produce the food he dreamed of, and I kept the finance side from him. Which wouldn’t have mattered if I’d been managing the finances; but I wasn’t. The money poured out twice as fast as it came in, and by the time he found out, we were, basically, ruined. Or, he was: I had grandma, only she wouldn’t cover his half of the debt.”
“You can’t say you pushed him,” Caz insisted.
“Good as. You asked if these were family,” Taylor addressed me. “I call them my sideboard of shame. Everyone here, I’ve fucked up in some way or another. My mother, Olivia – she never recovered when I was sent away. I was her only friend after the accident, and she forgave me again and again; only I was too busy trying to be the playboy I felt sure my dad would have wanted me to be.
“Then I met Clarissa,” he gestured at the gap toothed girl. “The sweetest girl. The most beautiful soul.”
He fixed me with a look of what seemed genuine sadness. “And I corrupted her. And killed her too.”
“She O.D.’ed,” Caz said quietly.
He nodded. “On smack I bought.” He sighed “And that was – I thought – me finished. But I carried on trying to – I don’t know, kill the pain? Kill myself? Instead, I killed her,” he gestured at the girl in the middle of the group of cyclists.
“No excuses, no mistakes, no people are responsible for their own actions this time. I got drunk, I drove a car, and I ran her over, as she was cycling home from work.”
He picked up the photo, stared at it for a long time, then said, “She was a PA in a bank. A smart girl by all accounts. Her only failure was that she was in such a rush to get home that she forgot to wear her Hi-Viz jacket. And Grandma’s lawyers made the most of that.
“But it
was the final straw for Grandma. So: off to Australia with me, via three months in rehab. I haven’t drunk since I got on the plane.”
“So why come back now?” I asked.
“Because Grandma’s dead,” he answered. “You didn’t know her, but when Lady Margaret instructed you to leave the country and never come back, you did so. And because it’s time to make amends.”
“And the performance at her funeral? That was making amends?”
He considered the question momentarily and then shrugged his broad shoulders. “No. You’re right. That was more entertainment. I’m willing to stand up and admit my failings. Hey: you know what? I’m willing to bet that my failings are worse than most of the people in that room.
“But the sanctimony pissed me off. Always did. Oh, Tony’s the black sheep. And, by implication, the rest of them are whiter than white? Well, that aint so, my friend. But I don’t really care. I’m not back to make amends to most of those people.” He gestured at the sideboard. “I’m back to make amends to these people.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“Are You OK?”
“I’m thinking,” I said, summoning myself from my reverie.
“You didn’t say a word all the way home.” Caz gave me a worried look, and glugged half a bottle of olive oil into a huge bowl filled with chopped up pita breads, ground cumin, cinnamon and salt.
I shrugged. “That’s ‘cos I was thinking. Here, you’re better of using your hands,” I said, showing her how to mix and massage the oil and the spices together into the bread.
That done, I went back to preparing my hummus.
“What about?”
“Hmmm?”
“What were you thinking about?
“Nothing. It’s silly. You don’t want to know.”
“No,” she said, running her hands under a tap and drying them on a tea towel. “We’re a partnership. Like Butch and Sundance. Laurel and Hardy. Gin and Tonic. Spill, Mister.”
“He went to kiss you,” I said “Anthony Taylor moved towards you. As we were leaving. The loom; you know the loom. The one where their arm comes up and they lean in. Only you sort of bristled.’
“Bristled.” Caz shrugged, hoisting up the bowl of spiced pitta chips. “Is the oven hot enough yet?”
I glanced at the thermo, opened the door, and slid out the first baking sheet.
Caz tipped the bowl and the glistening spicy bread poured onto the sheet, hissing and singing, the spice mix scenting the air.
“Of course I bristled. I’m not used to people doing the loom. Especially people I hardly know.”
I slid the top sheet back into the oven, pulled out the lower one and watched as the pour and hiss was repeated.
“But you do know him,” I said. “You told me you used to run with Taylor’s crowd when you were young.”
“Er, Danny. Younger, I’m not quite geriatric yet.”
“So why the bristle? An old friend moves to give you a peck on the cheek?”
“I told you. Because we haven’t been old friends for ages.”
“How did you escape all the lunacy,” I asked, as she bustled across the kitchen to wash the bowl up, “And since when did you start washing as you go?”
“Lunacy?” Caz squirted washing up liquid into the bowl along with the stream of hot water, and almost immediately an explosion of suds filled the sink.
“Everyone Taylor touched seemed to die, go mad, bankrupt, or all three. How come you didn’t?”
“Luck,” she said, her back to me. “And stubbornness. I never let myself get too close to him, never gave myself entirely to the cult of Tony Taylor. So, when he disappointed me, I wasn’t as heartbroken as some others were.”
I took a deep breath. “Are you sleeping with him?”
She stiffened. “Sleeping with him? Why would you say that?
“Because he went to kiss you , like it was perfectly normal – this person who you say you were never really that friendly with – and because you shook your head – a tiny motion, but you definitely did, like you were warning him off, and because, since he got back, you’ve been acting oddly. The mysterious friend with the bad face lift, the early night that left you exhausted the next morning, like you’d been up all night.”
“There’s a heatwave,” she said, still not turning to look at me. “Nobody’s sleeping well. You’re not sleeping well.”
And then I knew. “Oh my God. You are. You’re sleeping with him.”
Caz said nothing.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“No, I’m as sane as ever,” she finally turned to face me. “And I’m a grown woman of,” she paused, “an age old enough to have my own mind. And he’s changed. Something inside has really calmed down. It’s like he’s finally grown up”
“I thought you didn’t know him all that well? You sound like you knew him intimately before.”
She hesitated, weighing up her response. “Look. Tony and I went out a few times back before he got sent away.”
“What? Back when he was running over schoolgirls and bankrupting suckers? Back then?”
“He’s not a monster, Danny.”
I shook my head at her. “He’s a one-man disaster zone, Caz. Everywhere he goes, he leaves misery.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Danny. I’m shagging him, not proposing him for the Nobel peace prize.”
“And when were you going to tell me?”
“I – I wasn’t. Not yet. It’s a bit of fun, Danny; it’ll fizzle out, and then-”
“And then I’ll never need to know, is that it?
“No,” she shook her head, “Listen, you’ve got enough going on with Nick, without me waving my happiness in front of you.”
“Happiness? A minute ago, he was just a shag? Now he sounds like marriage material.”
“He’s a very good shag,” she smiled, but I wasn’t having it.
“I don’t know you,” I said.
Caz stood too, holding her hands out to me. “Oh, Danny, don’t be so dramatic. He’s moved on. I have too, and he’s good for me.”
“Well if he’s that good for you, how come you couldn’t bring yourself to tell me about him?”
“Why should I? I’m entitled to a private life?”
“You lied, Caz. You lied to me.”
“Oh grow up, Daniel! It’s only a lie if you intend to hurt.”
I laughed bitterly. “Is that the logic they teach you at finishing school these days? You lied ‘cos you were embarrassed, and you were embarrassed ‘cos you know that he’s a slimy piece of work. What did you think you were doing? If it’s not lying, what is it?”
“How about protecting?” She snapped back. “You broke up with Nick the day after I met Anthony for the first time in almost a decade. What? You wanted me to thank you for telling me your heart was breaking, but guess what: I’m sleeping with my ex?”
“Your ex? You said you went out a few times.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes,” I stepped away, headed for the door, “It does. I’m sick of being lied to. Robert, Nick, you. I thought there was more to you than that.”
“More to me? Danny, I’ve been shallower than anyone on earth for as long as you’ve known me.”
“No.” I shook my head. “You’ve been good at acting shallow; at pretending you didn’t care about much, that you weren’t really bothered by the difference between right and wrong. But underneath, you were always honest. Inside, you always knew what was right. I don’t know when you became so selfish.”
“And I don’t know when you became such a judgemental prig.”
We stared at each other, a growing darkness seeming to fill the room.
“Are we done?” I asked, finally.
She dropped her hands – I hadn’t even noticed that they’d stayed out in a silent plea. “We’re done,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
I spent half the night lying on top of my bed, trying to avoid thinking, let alone
voicing the phrase “Why does this always happen to me?”
Instead, I tried to analyse how I felt, what it was that had hurt me so much? I mean, I’d been honest and open with each of them. Well, maybe not so much with Nick; with him, I’d been keeping our relationship at arm’s length, trying not to let him get too close, in case – like Robert before him – he turned out to be a bastard.
And, instead of cheating on me with someone else, he’d been cheating with me.
But Caz was different, surely: She was supposed to be my best mate. Mates are not supposed to have secrets from each other. They’re definitely not supposed to be having romantic entanglements without the other one knowing.
And then, as sleep slowly crept up on me, an idea began to form.
One which I determined to test out next morning.
It was mid-morning before I could get away from The Marq, and I spent most of the first few hours of the day giving evasive answers to Ali’s questions as to Caz’s whereabouts.
“I s’pose her ladyship’s gone to the country seat to avoid the city ‘umours” she’d sniffed when I asked her to cube up some Chorizo for the Paella I was making for the Spanish day she’d inflicted upon the staff and regulars.
“Themes is popular, Danny,” Ali had announced, when she’d kicked the concept off with a Saint Patrick’s Day that consisted of discounted Guinness and Jameson's, Cabbage and Bacon individual pot pies, a Corrs Tribute band who went by the moniker The Cause, and a Michael Flatley tribute act that had proceeded to put his foot through the floorboards in the snug, and punch one of the Victorian frosted glass lamp shades so hard he lacerated his fist. The whole event had been overseen by the crew cut Bar Manager dressed as a demented leprechaun – complete with orange spray died fuzz, a stick on beard, and a light-up shillelagh that played: “Danny Boy.”
Some of the regulars were still receiving therapy for that night, so the thought of a Spanish Fiesta complete with Ali in Flamenco costume, my authentic(ish) Paella alongside cheap San Miguel (actually San Migel and sourced, via Yog Stopidorous, from a brewery in Rotherham) and discounted Spanish wines (which, amazingly, had come from Spain, but unsurprisingly had not been VAT registered) and all overseen by an incongruous Piñata that looked, even more incongruously, like Cheryl Cole, hadn’t exactly filled anyone with joy. Then Ali had announced that the ASBO twins would be dressed as topless Matadors, and the cabaret would be a Sylvia (of “Y Viva Espana” fame) tribute act, at which point pre-bookings for what Ali was billing as the “Fiesta Di Paella” had rocketed.
Death Of A Nobody Page 18
