La Place Velma serves enormous cakes. Christian opts for the no-holds-barred full fruit stall on a cream doughnut affair. My children eat like horses and look like stick insects too. It isn’t fair, is it? I plump for the more sedate strawberry tart and I think of my sister. Not because she’s a tart, but because she called me one, if you remember. And I think at this moment she might be right. Although I’m sure Christian isn’t trying to impress me, because he dives straight into his cake and pulls bits out with his fingers, something I’d go mental at if Elliott did it, and he has cream on the end of his nose and he must know but he seems entirely unconcerned. He eats with relish and is taking such joy in a simple cake that I can’t stop watching him. It makes me smile. A smile that comes from deep down inside my tummy.
“Where do you live?” Christian asks as he wipes his mouth.
“Richmond.”
“Nice. Big house?”
I shrug. “Yes. We bought it when property there cost an arm and just half a leg.” I’m horrified. I sound as if I’m talking to my bank manager, and can do nothing about it. “It was a wreck when we bought it. We’ve done a lot of work.”
“You and your husband?”
“Yes.”
“And you travel in to your design studio every day.”
“It’s not my studio. I just work there. But, yes, I travel in every day.” And the weird thing is, Ed works just down the road. Well, in Soho. His office is a stone’s throw from the Groucho Club. Very trendy address if you’re a media type. But, you know what? We never travel in together. Never. Well, once in a blue moon, but that’s all. Ed’s often out on location, I suppose, and he works later than I do, but it’s never occurred to us to meet up for lunch, and I always belt back the minute I finish to collect Elliott from his school, so a relaxed drink at the end of the day is out of the question. It seems such a waste. Maybe I’ll suggest it to him. I realize I’m drifting and turn my attention back to Christian. “What about you?”
“Notting Hill,” he says. “We get a great view of the carnival.”
“Expensive?”
“Yeah. Where isn’t?” He flushes slightly. “My parents still help me out. Until I get myself settled, of course.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll write down the address for you,” he says, scrabbling in his rucksack for a pen. And I wonder why on earth I’ll ever need to have his address. He grabs a business card from the holder on the table, crosses out the address for La Place Velma and scribbles his own on the back. His handwriting is languid and flowing, and even if you didn’t know, you’d probably guess it was an artist’s hand. “You might find yourself passing that way and want to drop by.”
I take it from him and politely study the card. “My sister has a dress shop near there. She sells vintage clothes.”
“Cool.”
“Cool,” I echo with a laugh, and suddenly Christian looks shy. He can only be twenty-two or twenty-three and here am I, thirty-eight, fast approaching thirty-nine. What are we doing here together?
“I’ve put my mobile number on there too.” He points it out. Even impoverished art students have the latest technology these days, just like fifteen-year-old daughters do.
“Thanks,” I say, but I’ve no idea why. I start to gather my belongings and my senses. “I’d better get back. Things to do.” Yeah, like typing and filing and a bit of staring out of the window.
“Can I see you again?”
“See me?” I resist the temptation to snort incredulously.
“I’d like to.”
“Why?”
“Ali!”
“I don’t know….” I chew my lip uncertainly, and there is the sweet lingering taste of strawberry on it.
“We can be just friends,” he insists. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“No.” I chew my lip some more.
He takes my hand and, I’ll tell you this for nothing, no other friend has ever sent a jolt through my fingers like that before.
CHAPTER 6
“I’m in love.” Christian doled the curry out of its carton and into a chipped Wedgwood serving dish that he put in the microwave. The gold edge had long worn off, and the dish no longer hissed and crackled viciously as it heated up.
Robbie looked up from the Metro paper that he’d picked up at the Tube station yesterday morning. “You said that last week.”
“I did not.”
Rebecca had her foot up on the table and was painting her toenails and wearing a painstaking expression. She was daubing them with lime-green varnish. “You did.”
“See?” Robbie returned to his paper.
“I did not.”
“You did,” Rebecca insisted. “It was that pasty girl from the late-night deli. You’d been going on about her for weeks. You said she’d got eyes like Michelle Pfeiffer.” Rebecca looked up. “Personally, I thought she’d got a squint.”
“It doesn’t matter when they’re closed in ecstasy,” Christian countered pleasantly as he arranged pilau rice as artistically as he could manage on three matching Wedgwood plates. “Besides, that wasn’t love. That was merely a boyish infatuation.”
“She blew you off when you asked her to go for a drink,” Robbie reminded him.
“Then more fool her,” Christian huffed. “Anyway, I shan’t tell you if you’re going to be pedantic about the whole thing.” The microwave pinged and Christian retrieved the bowl.
The kitchen was huge, fitted with stripped pine that had seen better days and was due a revamp before too long. An original terra-cotta tiled floor made the room sound echoey rather than cozy. The big refectory table was at one end and looked out through the French doors over an enclosed garden that had run wild due to lack of gardening knowledge or enthusiasm among its current residents. A Clematis Montana, the only thing in flower, rambled freely over the walls, threatening to engulf everything in its path. The other shrubs were fresh, green and burgeoning due to the extremely wet winter and equally sodden spring, and were in need of judicious pruning. A tumbledown shed with broken windows nestled at the bottom and hid from work-shy eyes the myriad of spider-laden tools that had lain unused for some considerable time. It was the sort of charming chaos that would probably win a prize at the Chelsea Flower Show. The three friends had been living here for nearly six months, and it still looked nothing like home.
Robbie folded his newspaper and brushed the crumbs from this morning’s toast from the place mats on the table. He ambled to the drawer and clattered about until he found three forks, which he plonked on the table while Christian dished out the curry.
Rebecca finished with her nail polish and slid it back into her handbag as she admired her handiwork. “Has your allowance come through yet, Christian?”
“Should be in the bank today if Pater and Mater haven’t disinherited me for some imagined misdemeanor.”
“Can you give me a sub? I’m a bit short.”
“Sure.” Christian brought the plates to the table. “I’m going to have to tap P and M for a tad more cash. This pittance just isn’t keeping us in the style to which we have become accustomed. I don’t make enough at the market to keep me in beer.”
“Speaking of which…” Robbie opened some Tiger Beers and passed the bottles round. Christian drank from his gratefully.
“The tourist season is just beginning,” Robbie said. “A couple more weeks and your earnings will soar.”
“Not quite to the levels my father would have hoped for in the city job he managed to wangle me.”
“Maybe you should have taken it, Chris.”
“I’m an artist, for heaven’s sake. Can you see me in an Armani suit, crunching numbers in front of a screen all day? No thanks, old man. My spirit would be crushed by the weight of responsibility within days.”
“You mean you’d have to get off your lazy arse and do some real work.”
“You’re beginning to sound like my father.” Christian flopped down. “How is life behind the counter of HMV?
”
“You’re a bastard.” Robbie laughed and Christian joined in. They clinked their beer bottles together.
“Here’s to being idle beggars all our lives!” Christian toasted enthusiastically.
“Have we had any more letters?” Robbie asked as he dug in.
“One from the electricity company, threatening disconnection.” Rebecca raised her eyebrows and teased round the edge of her food with her fork.
“Damn!”
“We’re going to have to do something about it, Christian,” Robbie said.
“I know. I know. I’m just not sure what.”
“Can’t we just pay it?”
“How can we do that?” Christian asked. “There must be someone we know who can sort it.”
“Pater and Mater,” Rebecca mimicked.
“They’ve rescued you more than once,” Christian reminded her. “These companies are all talk. They hardly ever disconnect anyone these days. They’d be sued for violating human rights, or something. We need you to get preggers, Becs. Then we could all get a council house together.”
Rebecca gave him a stony look. “Ha, ha.”
“Don’t worry,” Christian assured her. “We’ve probably got ages to get it sorted.”
“I hope you’re right,” Rebecca said, and finally swallowed a mouthful of food.
They all ate silently as the sun in its last throes moved over the garden, filling the kitchen with a warm, golden glow which brought out the best in it.
“So, who is it this time?” Robbie said.
“What?”
“Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Oh,” Christian said, happy to push away thoughts of unpaid electricity bills. “Her name’s Ali. Alicia.”
“Top totty?”
“More than top totty, my uncultured little friend. Destined to be the love of my life. I’m talking soul mate, Robert, my boy. Soul mate.”
“Ooo,” Robbie said. “This is a new departure.”
“I am a changed man,” Christian admitted.
“I’ve heard that before.”
“This is different.” Christian settled back in his chair and folded his arms contentedly across his chest. His eyes glazed slightly and his mouth turned up in a little smug smile of satisfaction. “She is beautiful. Stunning. Gorgeous. Beautiful.”
“You’ve said beautiful twice,” Robbie noted.
“Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.” Christian looked wistful. “I can’t say it enough.”
Rebecca put down her fork. “He’s off again.”
“I am not.”
“And where did you meet this many times beautiful woman?”
Christian put his hands behind his head. “Ali? I met her at the market. I drew her. I drew her for nothing, just because she was sitting there looking so beautiful.”
Robbie nearly choked on his beer. “You did something for free? It must be love!”
Christian smiled ecstatically. “It is.”
“Well, I for one can’t wait to meet her,” Robbie said.
“All in good time, Robert. All in good time.”
“And is this one over sixteen?” Rebecca asked.
Christian let his hands drop to the table, and his smile turned to a thoughtful pout. “I think you could safely say that,” he said.
CHAPTER 7
“It always takes an age to get served here.” Ed shook his head with resignation. “All the waiters seem to be bustling about, busy doing nothing.” He was sitting in the Groucho Club with Orla, and to prove him a liar a charming and efficient waiter came over straight away to take their order. “See what I mean?”
Orla laughed. It was a beautiful sound, made all the more startling because she did it so rarely. When she ordered a white wine spritzer, Ed confessed that he could never understand the joy of watering down wine. For himself, he ordered a beer, ignoring the desire of his taste buds for something infinitely stronger. Although the thought of diluted wine didn’t hold much appeal, the lure of neat whisky was becoming increasingly hard to resist at the end of a long working day.
The Groucho Club was overridingly black and scuffed. Very laid back in an overstated manner. The carpet was very night-clubby in a you-wouldn’t-want-to-see-it-during-the-day type of way. The club always had young, fashionable alternative comedians huddled into corners hoping no one would recognize or overhear them, and groups of brash, loud-talking, champagne-drinking nobodies hoping that someone would. It was the place where anyone who was anyone went to be ignored. Heaven knows why Wavelength held a membership, but it was only round the corner from their offices and it meant that the owner could stay in London in relatively cheap, convenient and trendy surroundings on his rare visits to the city. And you got a complimentary dish of peanuts with your media-type-priced drinks. What more could an exclusive club offer?
“You got finished on-time at Performing Power Tools?”
“Yes,” Ed said, stretching out and failing to add “just about.” Orla crossed her legs, but still sat bolt upright on the worn leather Chesterfield, despite it using all its guile to lull her down into its depths. She didn’t do relaxed well. Social chitchat seemed beyond her powers of comprehension, as if the whole thing was rather pointless, which it was but it certainly helped the day to go by. “The tape’s going into editing tomorrow. I’m sure they’ll be pleased with the results.”
“Good. Good.”
Their drinks arrived and Ed signed for them. He held his beer aloft. “Cheers,” he said.
“Cheers.” Orla sipped her wine. Ed wished she’d unbutton her jacket or do that “plain librarian” thing and loosen her hair and turn into a sexy vamp or do something to indicate that she wasn’t on duty now. But then, Orla always seemed to be in work mode. He sighed.
“Something wrong?” she asked.
“No.” He eased his neck against the sofa. “Just weary.” He wanted to curl up in a ball and go to sleep or be massaged with aromatic oils until his muscles let go of their seemingly permanent tension and softened to the point of helplessness.
“You look like you could do with a back rub,” Orla said, and Ed straightened up slightly, wondering if this frighteningly perceptive and astute woman could also read minds.
“I am due in Slough at some ungodly hour in the morning,” Ed supplied, “to film Digital Computers sales training.” And I really, really don’t want to go. “The thought of it is sending my spine into spasm already.”
“Did they decide on a presenter?”
“Jeremy Clarkson. Big budget,” he added with a trace of irony.
“Who?”
“Maybe he’s not made it on your side of the pond, but he’s very popular here. Except with car manufacturers. I think they would rather have Lucifer himself presenting their corporate videos.”
“Oh.”
“He’s good. Professional. We’ll get the job done quickly.” Unless the managing director decided to make a cameo appearance, as they so often did. Ed blamed Victor Kiam—he of “I liked the shaver so much I bought the company”—for an awful lot of tacky homegrown advertising videos. It could slow the whole thing down by a day if someone was particularly determined to make their screen debut. Still, the customer was always right. And, even if they weren’t, they paid the bill.
Orla leaned back and seductively unbuttoned her jacket, nearly causing Ed to spit his beer back in his glass. “Trevor was telling me that you started out in movies.”
“Yes.” Be casual, Edward. The words “Ford” and “Harrison” must not pass your lips or you will be the laughingstock of the postproduction suite.
“Ever miss it?”
Ed looked round. Was Trevor hiding behind the sofa ready to spring some Candid Camera–style joke on him? He turned back to Orla. “What?”
“The world of corporate videos is a little different from Hollywood.”
He was tempted to say “No? Really? I hadn’t noticed.” But then he remembered that Orla didn’t do irony either and said instead, “Ye
s, it is. A bit.”
Orla took a long, slow sip of her wine and fixed him with a stare, as she was prone to do. “I won’t be here for very much longer,” she said.
Ed chuckled. “It makes it sound like you’re dying.”
“I am,” she answered coolly, “in some ways. If not physically, then mentally. This just doesn’t get my juices flowing. I can feel them stagnating in my veins. This whole management thing desiccates the creative process. It’s not for me. I don’t know how you’ve managed to keep fresh for so long.”
“Er…” Ed said, realizing that Orla could have no idea of the size of his mortgage, which had been his prime motivating factor for an equally sizeable portion of his life.
“Don’t you feel the same way?”
“Er…” It was true to say that Ed’s juices had not recently been known for the quality of their flowing. But why did it matter to Orla? Had she suddenly found her small-talk button, or was this all being noted for a damning report about his future at Wave-length? He could see it now—“Edward Kingston, Managing Director. Creative juices all dried up. Desiccated. Recommend ‘izing’ in some way with large golden handshake.” But, no doubt, not large enough to allow him to retire in luxury to a deserted Caribbean island. Good night, Vienna, for poor old Ed, and back to scouring the job ads in Broadcast.
“You’re good, Ed,” she said flatly. “You’re good, but you could be better. You have some great ideas, which will never ever see the light of day as long as you stay at Wavelength.”
He wasn’t sure he liked the emphasis she placed on ever. “Er…”
“Can I be frank with you?”
When Orla was frank, it was usually quite painful. “Er…”
She leaned forward conspiratorially from her sofa toward the low occasional table that separated them. “When I go back to the States, I’m going to be heading up a small independent film company.”