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Chapter 2
Above my head, the shining face of Big Ben lights up against the dusky sky, reminding me that as of 5.09 p.m. on a muggy Friday in July, I am now unemployed. A busker croons by the Westminster tube entrance, but I’m not sure his upbeat Ed Sheeran covers are going to cut it tonight. I don’t need castles on hills or to sing at the top of my lungs. The exhilaration of leaving the office is beginning to wear off, so I need food and drink and the company of a good friend to help unravel the humiliated knot in my stomach.
When I finally stop and take stock, I realise that I am absolutely, bottom of the well without a ladder terrified. I could barely afford to live in London on my wage, let alone without it. Sure, I’ve got some savings stashed away, but they won’t last forever. Hell, they probably won’t last until the change of seasons.
A summer breeze tickles the backs of my wobbly legs as I hoist my messenger bag higher on my shoulder and scramble to stop my small box of junk cascading out of my arms and onto the pavement. It’s not like it’s an Aladdin’s cave of treasure, but it is mine and I’d rather keep it that way. I jab at the pedestrian crossing, once, twice, three times in quick succession while my mind runs over the last excruciating thirty minutes of my life.
‘Hurry up!’
The woman next to me glares at me with all the patience of a lottery winner waiting on a cheque. Ironic, really. She probably wouldn’t be too excited if she were me, though I don’t say that aloud. In a pocket I can’t reach, my phone continues to vibrate. It has since my heels hit the street.
A Hop-On Hop-Off bus rolls over Westminster Bridge and through the intersection, the flash of camera phones turns the top deck into a mobile disco. It’s joined by a swarm of Deliveroo cyclists trying to beat everyone through the intersection. As they pass, the last of them chiming wildly on their bell, the lights change, and I join the throng as we pull each other across the street. It’s a regular Friday evening synchronised swim.
I muddle my way through the crowd. It’s not as simple as it looks when everyone’s clambering up and down the steps for the tube and I’m not. I find myself unusually irritated with the slow movers and the tourists who bottleneck because they need to work out the best vantage point for just one more photo of Big Ben.
I get it, I really do, but he’s under scaffolding and I need to be somewhere. Leave him (and me) in peace.
Slipping through all that, I turn into Parliament and head for the Red Lion. With its dark façade of railway tiles, glittering signage, and bushels of flowers, it brings a bit of old-world charm into every Friday evening. I glance in the windows quickly as I approach.
‘Hungry, miss? Table for one? Two?’ A waiter catches my eye.
‘Two, thank you.’ I smile politely. By the time he pulls his notepad from the pocket of his apron, I’m already pointing out Lainey, who’s perched at a bench for two in the back window.
With an arm outstretched, he lets me wind my own way through the maze of diners to where my friend sits, already looking cosy with a bottle of white.
I’ve known Lainey going on sixteen years now. Outside my family, she’s the longest, dearest friendship I’ve had. We met one fly-riddled, sticky afternoon after an all you could handle beer and pizza bender organised by the student union. I’d sat myself down on a grassy hill and peeled off my shoes and socks just to feel something cool under my feet and photograph some of the boxy modern architecture.
With a harrumph, she flopped down beside me and shook out a bag of liquorice while muttering about boys who couldn’t take a hint and how, under no circumstance, did she want to go and look at the Def Leppard plaque at the spoon factory. When I chimed in about how it reminded me of a boyfriend I’d recently broken up with, it set us on the start of our long trajectory of broken hearts and happily ever afters.
After university, she decamped to London, heading straight from undergraduate into working for a smaller gallery. I stayed in Sheffield to complete my master’s before landing an assistant role at Webster Fine Art. When a position in my office opened up a few months later, I sent her the job ad, she applied, and we’d worked together ever since.
Tonight, even with her day off, she looks like the poster child for corporate office perfection, whereas I’m sure I left the office looking like the love child of Beetlejuice and Alice Cooper.
Her smile slips as she takes one look at the box in my arms. It registers that tonight is not one of those happy endings we like to celebrate. Mugs, tattered diaries, pictures and old Cup-a-Soup boxes are the office worker’s walk of shame.
‘What the hell have you done?’ She gawps as she reaches across the table to fill my glass while I busy myself with hanging my bag and coat over the back of my chair.
‘This is what happens when you have a day off,’ I titter with a wave of the finger. ‘I might have quit.’
She gasps, recoiling slightly. ‘You did not.’
‘Oh, but I did.’
‘What the fu …’ she says waspishly. ‘What happened? Are you okay?’
‘I’m okay,’ I lie with a huff as I collapse into my seat. Having confessed to someone makes things seem suddenly more real. I just quit my fucking job.
‘As it turns out, the meeting with Roland this afternoon was to tell me that, although I’m amazing and our investors love me, someone else was getting his job. I might have had a brain snap and decided enough was enough. I’m sick of being passed over in favour of less skilled men.’
‘Oh, what?’ She bashes down on the table. A symphony of stainless-steel clatter joins her outrage. I love how passionate she is about anything involving her friends and family, even if it occasionally draws the ire of surrounding diners. Where I’d spent the last thirty minutes trying to tamp down an ‘it’s not fair’ tantrum, her outrage bubbles forth freely and it reminds me of why I love her so in the first place. ‘Who got it?’
I rub my face and flip the menu over as if I’m ever going to order anything other than fish and chips, mushy peas and curry sauce. ‘Bloody Foot Fetish Steve.’
Now, I’m not one to spill secrets, but he got that nickname after an especially rowdy office party that involved him walking off into the night with a woman who charged by the hour. Not that there’s any shame in that, but let’s just say the stories that filtered back in the ‘Don’t tell anyone, but …’ game of telephone were a riot. Hence, an office nickname was born.
‘Penis.’ Lainey tips her glass in my direction. ‘That’s what it is. It’s the sausage factory churning them out again. You’re perfectly capable. I mean, sure, you don’t have the sailboat for weekends with the boys, and you have to sit down to wee, but does it matter?’
‘I know how to do this job. I have lived art for years,’ I press, hands jazzed out by the side of my head. When I raise my eyes to meet Lainey’s, hers crinkle and laughter bubbles up between us. ‘And I do sit down to wee.’
A waiter appears beside us, a cautious bounce in his step and an unsure smile. I order my regular fish and chip dinner and the longest Long Island Iced Tea they’ll legally pour me.
‘You know what, I should be on the Vimtos.’ Lainey pokes the air. ‘But I’ll have what she’s having.’
‘Why the Vimtos?’ I ask as our waiter departs.
‘Wedding tosh tomorrow.’ She waves a hand. ‘Tell me more about this meeting.’
‘Somewhere in the mix I’m sure he said they were moving in a more contemporary direction,’ I continue. ‘Can’t quite remember.’
‘What has that got to do with anything?’ Lainey asks. ‘You studied art, not just classical art. You fucking photograph it too, in case they forgot. If I sliced you with this knife you’d probably bleed out like a Jackson Pollock.’
‘Maybe, but I haven’t taken a decent photo in years,’ I grumble. ‘Yours today notwithstanding, the most I can manage is a Polaroid that reads like a Bond movie … for my eyes only.’
Life has been too busy for me to even consider photography. All right, I could if I forced myself but, after working long hours, finding time to socialise, and life in general, I must admit that it’s one of my life’s failings.
‘Plenty of time for that now,’ she jokes.
‘What I don’t understand is that Roland made sure to tell me how much the investors loved my knowledge of classic art.’ I look at her. ‘Do you think that might be it?’
‘That sounds like a rubbish excuse.’ She refocuses her attention on me and folds her arms across the table. ‘They’re not just going to dump the Italian bloody Renaissance in favour of an exclusive run of modern art. They know what brings visitors in and doing a complete switch into a new direction will only be a bad thing. Katharine, you were the best of all of us, you know that. Let’s not even get into the workaholic tendencies.’
I roll my eyes. ‘For what that was worth.’
Her mouth flatlines. ‘What are you going to do now?’
‘I have zero idea.’ I draw my fingers through my dark hair, tugging it out of the French knot I always style it in. An instant tingling relief crawls across my scalp. ‘Anyway, going on about it won’t fix it, will it? Talk to me about you. What’s happening on Planet Lainey and Frank? How did your job interview this morning go?’
‘I think I’m in with a shot.’ She does a hair toss. ‘Soho tech start-up, another ten thousand a year, don’t mind if I do. Can start immediately post honeymoon.’
‘Great,’ I enthuse. ‘That’s brilliant. I’ll keep everything crossed. What about wedding plans?’
She lights up immediately, the whimsical, breezy look of a bride in love floats across her face and softens her features. Reaching into a handbag the size of her torso, she produces a glossy ream of magazine. It lands on the table with such a thud the tealight candle flickers and cutlery clatters again. I push the candle aside to get a better look. I’m not keen on setting fire to the table; an arson charge never looks good on a résumé.
As we eat, we pore over pages of shimmering gowns, sharp suits, perfectly styled place settings, car hire companies, and every other painstaking detail a bride and her groom could possibly need to think about on their way to the altar. It’s an exciting time, and I couldn’t be happier for my friends. Lainey and Frank are two halves of a walnut, perfectly snug in their world, cocoon-like in the way they protect, love, and look out for each other. In my softest moments, it made me a teensy bit jealous.
They’d been engaged for eighteen months now, the sparkling black-tie party held at Sky Garden. Now, it was a matter of planning things at the pointy end. Wedding invites were recently posted, and the RSVPs had begun trickling in. It was now down to picking suits, final dress fittings, and searching out the perfect pair of shoes.
‘You know, I have to ask, because I’m a qualified panic merchant.’ Lainey downs the last of her drink and fixes me with a nervous look.
‘Shoot.’
‘Are you sure you’re okay with not being maid of honour?’ she asks, her face cinched as if waiting for the fallout.
‘Are you kidding?’ Glass held to my mouth, I let out an amused snort. ‘I think it’s great. I love you, but hell if I want to traipse around under layers of warpaint and three-inch heels all day.’
She breathes a sigh of relief. ‘Gosh, I love you. It’s just, my sister would go spare if she weren’t involved. My mother would book the seventh circle of hell as a honeymoon destination, and Frank and I already agreed on having a maid of honour and best man only. Did I tell you they tag-teamed me into giving her the role? I got puppy dog eyes and “your sister is desperate to be a part of your big day” at ten paces. The little shit is making life difficult though.’
‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ I shake my head and peel apart a flaky piece of fish. I’m not sure if it’s the most amazing meal I’ve had, or if the alcohol’s helping, but the fish is smooth and buttery, and I could easily eat a tonne of these chips. ‘I will be there with bells on. Helping with the invites and place cards is more than enough involvement for me.’
In the last few years, I’d found calligraphy a great way to unwind and put my failing skills to the test. I think it has something to do with the fact I was better at writing than producing anything photographic. Smooth strokes of a pen always seemed more finite, more foolproof than selecting just the right f-stop or lens. I also didn’t need a darkroom to see the final results. Working on wedding stationery had been a fun way to stretch my artistic muscle while still being part of something magical.
‘Speaking of, what are you doing Sunday? Frank’s heading for a round of golf with the boys if you want to come over. We can drown your work sorrows and my wedding woes and watch cheesy rom-coms with biscuits and coffee and maybe work on place cards?’
‘Sounds great,’ I say around a mouthful. ‘I have all the time in the world right now.’
‘You know, you still haven’t told me who you’re bringing as your plus one,’ Lainey says in a way that tells me she’s casting a long line and fishing for information. ‘John, maybe?’
‘I’ll ask, though last time he said no.’
‘You mean to tell me he hasn’t realised yet that you are the most amazing woman he’s ever clapped eyes on, and that he needs to wife you immediately?’ Lainey watches me with her huge green eyes, mozzarella dangling towards her mouth from a height that implied I might have been looking at Michelangelo’s Creation of Lainey. Well, pizza is life, isn’t it?
‘No.’ I shake my head with embarrassed laughter. ‘Probably not.’
My other New Year’s revolution was to sort out my love life. As it turns out, that’s not going entirely to plan, either. My not-quite boyfriend, John Harrison, started as a one-night stand that has spiralled out of control. It’s lasted way longer than I expected and now feels like I’ve been living on the precipice of something more for months.
I wasn’t asking for a gigantic rock that caught my sweater like a doorknob, although I was sure he could probably afford one on his lawyer’s salary. All I wanted to know was where I stood. Girlfriend? Fly-by-night shag? Was it too much to ask him to help define what we were? Contrary to what Pink Floyd wants you to believe, suspended animation is not a state of bliss. We were allegedly exclusive, though had never really talked about it. Are we dating? Are we not dating? Maybe we should do the whole family introductions thing. After all, it had been nine months.
Not knowing where I stand makes me feel like I’m somebody’s dirty little secret. Lately, that’s begun chipping away and exposing my soft fleshy underbelly for what it was: tragically romantic.
‘When are you going to nip that in the bud?’ Lainey asks. ‘Hey?’
‘Not tonight.’ I drain the last of my glass and look at her, locking that romantic daydream away. ‘If anything, he’ll be a nice distraction.’
She tuts and sighs, though I’m not entirely sure she disagrees with me.
‘I know.’ I hold my hands up defensively and her eyes widen with laughter. ‘Let me have my small mercies. Please. All I’m asking for tonight is an orgasm. At least then something good will have happened today.’
‘I know you say you’re not dating—’
‘We aren’t officially dating.’ I wipe a napkin across the smile on my face. ‘We are simply exploring each other’s naked forms. It’s art.’
‘It’s all art, darling.’ Lainey laughs. ‘Speaking of dating though, this Friday night dinner is becoming a regular date for us. One that I enthusiastically support.’
Had life become so routine that the biggest night of my social calendar is a cheeky feed in the back corner of a 600-year-old pub? While it’s nice to have close friends and regular catch-ups, it was obvious this pub had more of a life than I did. Outside of Lainey, the friend who keeps me grounded, there’s John, the man I call after a few too many drinks or, on a night like tonight, when I need to lose myself in someone else.
And that’s exactly what I do at the end of the night, not more than two minutes after my bus deposits me near my Camberwell block of flats. The dial tone and the sound of background traffic is my company as I start walking. When I think it’s going to ring out, he answers.
‘Katharine,’ he says matter-of-factly.
‘Hello.’ I try but can’t help the silly grin that threatens to light up the darkened street.
‘Hello, you.’ His voice dips and is now warm, familiar, and exactly what I want to hear. ‘What are you up to at this time of night?’
‘I’m almost home,’ I say, listening to him mutter about how late it is. ‘Late dinner with Lainey.’
‘Late nights with Lainey sounds like a local radio show.’
‘I know, I know.’ I spin on the spot, randomly checking over my shoulder. A couple with their arms linked and heads dipped towards each other disappear into the shadows of a side street. When my box slips, I hoist it higher under my arm. ‘What are you doing right now?’
‘I have just walked through my front door after a fascinating phone call about a breach of contract case. In a few moments, I may pour myself a cheap whisky, and sit myself down on my sofa and watch the Thames pass by. Now, I think I’ll tug seductively on my silk tie.’
I smile, worrying my bottom lip. ‘Why don’t you bring yourself, and that tie, around to mine? You can poke holes in my deposition?’
He snorts, and I can hear him untwisting a bottle cap. ‘Poke holes in your deposition?’
‘You like it? It’s the only lawyer joke I know.’
‘I am … yep, never going to hear that word the same way again.’ He tries and fails at sounding disgusted.
‘So, are you coming around to interrogate me, or what?’ I try.
‘Katharine, it’s just gone ten thirty,’ he whines. ‘You can’t come here?’
As much as I love the plush fittings and oversized shower at John’s Pimlico flat, I tap my access card against the door lock and shuffle into my building. The box of belongings I’ve been lugging around all night gets dribbled along the floor and into the lift. ‘It’s been a long day. I’ve just got home. I’m going to head inside, then into my shower where I will endeavour to prepare more bad law puns for you. You’ve got twenty minutes.’
‘It’ll take me at least thirty on the bus.’
‘I can clean my place up in thirty minutes, sure.’
John groans. ‘You’re gonna make me get up, aren’t you?’
‘I will get you up, yes.’ I giggle, then thank the late night I’m the only one in the lift. ‘Come on. I’m offering you no strings sex.’
‘Let’s clarify something,’ he says through a chuckle. ‘All of your sex is no strings, so this is just Malibu Stacy with a new hat.’
‘Have you got a problem with that?’ Though I say that, it pinches at something uncomfortable, a tight reminder of what I’m not getting out of this.
‘On the contrary,’ he mumbles. ‘It’s my favourite kind.’
‘See you in thirty?’ The elevator arrives on my floor and my reflection disappears as the doors slide open.
‘Make it twenty.’ He hangs up and dead air fills my ear.
Chapter 3
I roll over and reach for my bedside table, fumbling about for my phone and coming up with a pile of photos wedged beneath an instant camera. The first one is of John, taken only a few hours earlier in the grey and dusty morning light.
Across the hall, I can hear the shower running. It’s odd in that it means he’s stayed the night and hasn’t left me a ‘Dear Katharine’ text like he often does. I wonder if I should pounce and ask what it means, whether these increased overnight stays signal something bigger about to happen, but I’m quite enjoying being snuggled in bed, listening to the sound of his humming occasionally floating above the water.
I twiddle the white-rimmed photo between my fingers. He’s smiling out at me, face half obscured by a pillow that still smells of aftershave, black hair dangling in his eyes where his fringe is getting too long. I joke about him not getting his hair cut, when the truth is, I adore it this length. His left eye is open only enough to show me that immutable spark that hides behind his eyes for everyone but me and his mouth is perfectly carved into a tired smile.
Barely moments after taking the photo, the flash still casting shadows on the wall, he threw a languid arm around my waist. Our limbs were still heavy and warm with sleep as he pulled me underneath him as we greeted the morning the best way we knew how.
Evidence of his stay is spread across the room, slacks crumpled beside the bed, shirt somehow hanging from the doorknob, and his tie is knotted around the bedhead for reasons I’d never speak aloud.
A crash in the kitchen steals my attention. It’s not the cymbal-like clash of pots and pans of someone making breakfast, but the muted clunk of ceramic that doesn’t quite bounce on tiles. My skin prickles because, unless John has grown tentacles in the last few hours, it means that there are now two people other than myself in my flat. Realisation hits me in a cold sweat.
Only one other person has a key to my flat: my brother. I sit up straighter and chew on a hangnail while I consider exactly how I’m going to get out of this. Hint: I won’t.
Adam is thirty-eight, three years older than me, and lives with his wife Sophie in a bigger, brighter, and far more expensive flat in Gladstone House, where I’m certain the minimum dress code for some of the cafés is suit and tie. Bonus points for a horsehair wig.
I pull on the first pair of jeans I see, sniff test a loose T-shirt and take a deep breath. Sweat tickles down my spine as I step out of the bedroom.
When people ask me to describe my flat, I find it easier asking them to imagine a small but cosy hotel room. In fact, I’ve often wondered if this building wasn’t a hotel built and discarded by some huge conglomerate. I have a bedroom, small living room, bathroom, laundry in a cupboard, and a kitchenette, which is where I find Adam. His mousy brown hair protrudes from the horizon of my kitchen counter like a shark fin in the ocean.
‘And a very good morning to you.’ I slip my hands into my pockets and rock on the balls of my feet.
He grumbles, still hunched over the floor, still mopping up his accident.
‘You okay?’ I lean over the counter to see more of him. He barely registers a glance over his shoulder.
‘Dropped a bloody mug, didn’t I?’ He stands, tossing a limp brown bundle of kitchen towel into the sink. ‘Anyway, I thought you were in the shower.’
‘Ah, no,’ I say. ‘That’s not me.’
He nods in the direction of a bouquet of flowers on the white stone bench; dusty pink peonies and roses, sweet peas and ivy wrapped in brown paper and held together with twine. ‘Got anything to do with these?’
What is it about older brothers that makes younger sisters feel like they’ve done something to be embarrassed about? The moment a brother meets a boyfriend is always destined to be a little awkward, but this feels like it’s about to get a whole lot worse.
I dig about my messenger bag for my phone and slip it on charge, surprised to find a barrage of messages from colleagues. Correction: past colleagues. Shaking that from my mind, because I do not want to talk about it, I busy myself searching for a vase. Digging the card out from between the foliage, I smile and feel heat bloom in my cheeks.
Here’s to stolen moments – J x
As much as John and I couldn’t decide what we were, I loved that he bought me the occasional bouquet. Especially when it involved opening my front door last night to find him in his suit and tie looking like he’d just stepped out of the courtroom. I’d already stripped down to my pyjamas and drunk the first glass from a bottle of wine, which is enough to tell you how different we are as people. As he tried hiding behind the oversized bloom of foliage, I’d clutched a fistful of waistcoat and pulled him through the door.