And still—astonishingly—no one appeared. How unexpected. Andrei and she had arranged that she call at eight-thirty and here she was now, ten to nine.
Was she expected to knock again? A third time? Seriously?
She considered simply flouncing away down the stairs. She was wearing a good skirt for it. But a flounce was no good if there was no man to suffer from seeing you do it.
She rapped once more, quite angrily this time, enough to hurt her little knuckles—and the seconds ticked by and the door remained impassive. This was entirely unacceptable. Rosie Draper was not the kind of girl you left standing outside an unanswered door.
This wasn’t a deliberate snub; Andrei had the total dotes for her. Something must have happened with his job or the van or that cretin Jan to derail his plans. Nevertheless, if Andrei couldn’t organize his life adequately, in order to fulfill his obligations to her, a price had to be paid.
Already she was planning how to punish him. She might cry; that just about killed him. Or she could go the icy route. Do tell me, she would say with frightening froideur, why no text arrived to advise me of the change in plans?
No matter which way she went, she would make it very clear that this slight had added several more weeks to the endurance period before—indeed, if—she went to bed with him. Already his longing for her had him unraveling with despair, and to tighten the screws further would be fun . . .
Gosh, she was still outside the door and it still hadn’t been answered. It seemed that he actually really wasn’t here. She could phone him. But she would not. She, Rosemary Draper, making calls, trying to track down a man? I don’t think so!
On the floor below, she heard the Fionn hunk going into his flat and calling out, “I’m back.” Then came the sound of frenzied barking and shouting. “Shag off, you mad bastard of a dog!”
Fionn must have had his fill of star-gazing.
A dreamboat, no one could deny it, one of the most handsome men
she’d ever seen. Quite full of himself, though.
But he’d asked for her number, and Andrei had seriously blotted his copy book and Rosie was a great believer in safety nets, Plans B and contingency arrangements.
She reached into her handbag and fetched out a pretty little notebook, the pale yellow pages patterned with buttercups. With the matching yellow pen, she wrote:
Dear Andrei,
I called at your fl at like we arranged but you’re not here. I can’t understand what I have done to you that you would need to humiliate me so badly.
She considered adding, “I have only ever tried to be good to you,” but suspected that might topple things into overkill. Less is more. Sometimes.
She tore the page out and shoved it under the door, then skipped down a flight of stairs and reached once again for her notebook. Neatly, she printed her name and work number, eased the page out carefully, folded it tidily and slid it smoothly under Fionn’s door.
Day 36 . . .
They lay in each other’s arms, Lydia’s head on Andrei’s buff chest, his fingers tangled in her springy curls.
“I do not understand,” Andrei said thoughtfully, “I dislike you very much.”
“Mmmm, and I hate you.”
“You have these bad manners.”
“And you’ve no sense of humor.”
“So can you explain me why did this happen?”
“Haven’t a clue.”
“What?”
She sighed. “Probably because your girlfriend is a professional virgin and this flat’s too small.”
The spell was wearing off.
She clambered from the bed and gathered up her clothes from the four corners of the room and stopped at the door. She refused to cover herself. Let him look. In fairness, he wasn’t covering himself either. He lay on the bed, the duvet flung to the floor, an arm behind his head, his hard muscular body fully on show. “Never again,” she said. “D’you hear? If this happens again I’m moving out. Outtttt,” she emphasized. “You’ll have to get a new flatmate and think of how hard it was the last time. You’ll have to put an ad in Midget Times.”
He shrugged. “Never again is okay with me.”
Day 34
Katie stuck her head around the sitting-room door. “Hi, Dad.”
Energized by the sight of her, Robert Richmond dusted the newspaper off his lap and on to the fireside rug. “How’s Miss Havisham?”
“. . . Do you mean . . . me?”
“Ah Katie, Katie, what were you at? He arrives in the middle of the night, jarred by all accounts, gets down on one knee and you think he means it?”
Silently, Katie cursed herself for having told anyone about Conall’s middle-of-the-night visit. Especially bloody Naomi! Naomi—even though she professed to hate their mum—told her everything. In the Richmond house, there were never any private places in which to lick your wounds.
“I didn’t think he meant it.” She worked hard to keep her voice steady. “I didn’t say yes.”
“I hear he has his eye on some young one now,” Robert said, almost cheerfully. “Naomi said he sent her flowers. And you’re all upset.”
In a sick, strange way, Dad’s cruelty was a form of concern. Robert and Penny Richmond had worked hard to instill a powerful value system in their children: getting ideas above your station could only end in tears; hubris would always be punished. Low expectations were the key to happiness.
Penny darted in from the kitchen, a vision of domesticity in a Simpsons apron. Clearly, she’d been listening. “You should never have gone near him.”
“Why not?”
Katie’s mother stretched her neck to ten times its normal length and reared back in shock. “Are you raising your voice at me?”
Robert, never one to miss an opportunity to take offense, rose halfway out of his chair. “Are you raising your voice at your mother? In her own house? While she’s cooking you Sunday lunch?”
A long, tense stand-off ensued. From the kitchen Katie heard Naomi ask, “What’s going on in there?”
Nine-year-old Nita answered, “I think Auntie Katie raised her voice at Granny.”
And Ralph’s voice said, “Oh Christ, Naomi, your family. Where’s the wine?”
Penny glared at Katie, her mouth trembling with woundedness. Her neck was still abnormally long and her chin was tucked into her chest so she looked like an aggrieved goose.
“Why shouldn’t I have gone near him?” Katie heard her voice quiver. Then she answered her own question. “Because I wasn’t good enough.”
“I don’t know what’s got into you.” Penny stared at Katie.
“Don’t mind her, love,” Robert urged his wife. “Just get on with the lunch.”
Rain beat against the windows and the only sound throughout lunch was the clinking of cutlery on plates. Penny Richmond maintained her martyred air for over an hour and even Naomi’s kids, Nita and Percy, were silenced by the toxic atmosphere. The lone bottle of wine disappeared in seconds and when Katie realized that there wasn’t any more, silent tears began to course down her face and plop onto her plate.
“Why are you crying, Auntie Katie?” Nita asked.
“Because all the wine is gone.”
Nita patted her knee.
As soon as the torturous meal ended, Naomi pulled her out into the garden.
“I told you not to tell her,” Katie said.
Naomi made an apologetic face, but they both knew that when Penny Richmond sensed a story, no one could withstand the interrogation.
“You could kill that thing with the taxi-driver girl with one call,” Naomi said.
“Why would I do that?” What would be achieved? In her heart of hearts, Katie had known she shouldn’t ever have taken Conall’s 5 a.m. proposal seriously. She’d tried to talk herself into believing it. She’d manipulated her friends into convincing her it was real, but she’d always known. Nevertheless . . .
“. . . Why did he have to pick someone where I live?”
; Naomi sucked her teeth and narrowed her eyes. “He’s one vicious bastard.” She waved a lit cigarette at Katie.
“He’s just clueless. But it’s all gone so messy. In the beginning it was a neat surgical strike, now the wound has become infected.”
“You do love a medical analogy. So what you need is a painkiller.” Naomi thrust the cigarette again. “Take this, would you? I’m after lighting it for you.”
“For a clever man he can be really stupid—Would you stop with that thing? I don’t smoke.”
“You do today.”
Katie accepted the cigarette. TLC at the Richmonds? This was as good as it got.
“Don’t let her see us,” Naomi said.
“You’re forty-two.” Katie inhaled. A bad idea. She’d been feeling sick anyway, now she was sure she was going to throw up. “What age do you have to be before your mum will let you smoke?”
In silence, they sat on wet garden chairs and listened to the raindrops dripping from the branches.
“Death by Sunday lunch,” Naomi said moodily.
“Fecking torture.”
“How does Charlie get out of having to come to these bloody things?”
Katie paused, afraid that the secret about Charlie would just tumble out of her mouth, then she carried on. “He’s got a stronger sense of survival than either of us. He knows Mum will make him feel like shit, so he won’t put himself through it.”
“Yeah.”
“I hate her,” Katie said suddenly. “I hate them both. Why couldn’t we have had parents who told us we were great?”
“Well, you choose them.”
“Excuse me?”
“This book I’m reading. It’s one of yours, actually. Louise L. Hay. I took it off your shelf the night of your birthday. It says we choose everything we get in life. Even our own parents.”
“We choose our own parents? Before we’re born?”
“Before we’re conceived, actually.”
“But how could we do that? That’s just . . . shit.”
“I know. They’re all shit, all those books. I’m only saying.”
Day 33
Maeve’s phone rang. “Emerald Hotels reservations, Maeve Geary speaking, how may I help you today?” She had to say the full mouthful every time she answered. Sometimes they monitored her calls and unpleasantness could ensue if they found out that she was cutting corners on her intro.
“Maeve, it’s Jenna.”
“Oh. Jenna. Hi.” Why would Matt’s brother’s fiancée be ringing her? She liked Jenna but they weren’t what you might call close. This must be hen night-related, Maeve realized. Oh cripes!
“Sorry for ringing you at work.”
“It’s okay,” Maeve said cautiously.
“I just wanted to talk to you about something a little . . . delicate.”
“Okay.” No!
“Your honeymoon . . .”
“My honeymoon?”
“Am I right in thinking Hilary and Walter paid for it?”
“Yes, it was their wedding present to us.”
“Well, it’s the same with Alex and me, they’re paying for ours.”
“Where . . .?”
“Antigua.”
“Oh right, I knew that.”
“The thing is, Maeve, that they’re insisting on paying for business-class flights and Alex and I, well, we don’t know if we should accept, it just seems a bit . . . you know, lavish. But if they paid for business-class flights for you and Matt, then it’s appropriate that we accept.”
Maeve gave a little laugh. “Sorry, Jenna, it was cattle-class for myself and Matt. But take the nice flights, for the love of God. Why not? Go on, if they’ve offered.”
“Yes, but . . .” Jenna was in a knot of anguish, desperate to do the right thing.
“Matt and I won’t mind, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“I see, well, I’ll talk to Alex, and we’ll have a think, and thanks, you know.”
“No probs. See you soon.”
Maeve hung up and for a moment she felt awash with sparkling, crystal light. It had been a while since she’d thought about her honeymoon, the most glorious fortnight of her life. A sybaritic fourteen days and nights in a lush-gardened, all-inclusive Malaysian resort, with air conditioning and Evian ice cubes and obliging staff and private, dark-wood, thatched-roofed dwellings. So different from the kind of holidays Maeve used to go on before she’d met Matt, when she’d go off the beaten track, hitching lifts with locals, eating from street stalls and getting the outlandish diarrhea that was the badge of the authentic traveler.
When she’d first arrived at the honeymoon resort (which seemed to have been entirely and intricately carved out of teak), she’d felt slightly like a sell-out—but the guilt had lasted just as long as it took to wipe her travel-stained brow with the deliciously icy-cold, lemongrass-scented cloth that was presented to her by a smiling man in an embroidered dress: she’d taken to a life of luxury with unexpected ease.
The beauty of everything—the triumphant yellow morning light, the flashes of intense color from the exotic flowers, the luminous blue water, twinkling silver in the sun. She and Matt had passed their days lying on indecently comfortable sun loungers and having massages and ringing for room service and sleeping and swimming and, above all, having sex. Every afternoon, while Maeve had rocked gently in a hammock in the shade of their own personal trees, eating sliced mango and humming happily to herself, Matt had read aloud to her from his new James Bond book, the kind of thing Maeve would normally have no interest in, but, with Matt doing accents and voices and music, she’d been enthralled.
Every night after dinner, they’d tumble back into their adorable little house, where some invisible, lovely person would have lit dozens of candles and created a heart-shape with rose petals on their enormous bed.
It had been wonderful.
Day 33 . . .
“You mean you were there all the time?” Rosie asked. “In your flat? While I stood outside knocking for hours?”
“But you did not ring buzzer. Buzzer is loud. Knocking with your little hands is not loud. I did not hear.”
Andrei was distraught. He had completely forgotten about his darling Rosie; all thoughts of anything had been annihilated by the force that was Lydia.
When he’d found that fragrant yellow note in the hall . . .! The shame had cut him like knives, flaying him bare, right down to the bone.
It was days before Rosie would speak to him and even then it was a humble whisper. “Obviously, I mean nothing to you, Andrei. I just wish you could have told me. But I want you to be happy. I hope you meet a really nice girl, who cares for you as much as I did.”
He’d had to launch a full-on apology offensive, involving countless texts and phone calls. He’d had two or three Rosie-style girlfriends in Poland and he knew the precise price you paid for this sort of misstep. Flowers, obviously. But they could only be roses and they could only be red and they had to number twelve. No more, no less. A dozen red roses—any variation in the formula could actually make the situation worse. Then a piece of jewelry. But this was not the time for an engagement ring, because the girl would cry and say, “Whenever I’ll think of us getting engaged, it’ll bring back unhappy memories of me standing outside that door like a . . . like a . . .” Words would become incoherent, then cease as the storm of weeping disabled her entirely.
A charm for her charm bracelet, a little gold and ruby heart, would be just the thing. Finally, a promise of a weekend away, when no one would be left waiting outside any doors.
Andrei knew Rosie was milking it somewhat, but he wanted to go along with it. Rules were rules and restoration was necessary.
But Jesus Christ and all the angels! If Rosie only knew what he’d been up to while she’d been standing a few short meters away. He kept having moments when his head reeled and his skin became drenched as he remembered his act—acts—of betrayal. He’d be driving the van, or taking the back off a PC, and th
e next thing the horror would sweep over him and he would want to fall to his knees and pray for forgiveness.
He cared for Rosie. He thought he might actually love her. So what was he doing with Lydia?
Day 32 (very early in the morning)
They all looked the same, those tall, posh Georgian houses. Lydia parked outside number eleven and reached for her mobile. She refused to get out of the car and ring the doorbell because it was drizzling and she had her hair to think of. “Taxi for Eilish Hessard.” Lydia left a message on the mobile contact. “I’m waiting outside.”
Over the years she’d discovered that there was no pattern to where she could be taken by the forces that governed taxis. She might never have visited a road and then she could find herself driving there five times in the one week . . .
... so to find herself picking up on Wellington Road could be a meaningless coincidence.
But she didn’t really believe it. Not after those bloody flowers. And it wasn’t much of a surprise when the passenger door was wrenched open and the rich old guy, whatever his name was, jumped in beside her. “Morning, Lydia!”
“Out,” she said. “This is Eilish Hessard’s car.”
“She’s my assistant. Subterfuge. I booked you. Did you get the flowers?”
“How did you track me down?”
“I thought at the very least I’d get a call thanking me for the flowers.”
“I didn’t ask for them. There should be a law against sending things to people that they don’t want. So how did you book me?”
“Very easy. Luckily, there aren’t many girls who drive taxis. Eilish rang all the taxi companies.”
“You got your assistant to ring?”
“Because she’s a woman. I didn’t think your controllers would be too keen to hook you up with a man.”
They were nothing like as noble as that, Lydia thought.