The Love of Her Life

HARRIET EVANS

Darling Kate,

I’m sorry.

Perhaps one day, when you’re grown-up, you’ll understand why I’ve done it. Relationships are complicated, that’s the truth. Darling, I love you, and your father loves you. You mustn’t blame yourself. You are our little girl, and we’re both very proud of you.

You must come and see me soon,

Lots and lots of love,

Mummy

xxx

PS Happy belated fourteenth birthday, darling. I do hope you like the telescope, is it the one you wanted? Zoe helped me choose it, so I do hope so. Lots of love xxxxx

It’s not love. It’s just where I live. Nora Ephron, Moving On

Set me a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thinearm; for love is stronger than death.

Song of Solomon, ch VIII , v6

Contents

Title Page Epigraph Part One Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Part Two Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Part Three Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Part Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Preview Acknowledgements About the Author Praise By The Same Author Copyright About The Publisher

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

New York, 2007

Her father wasn’t well. They kept saying she shouldn’t worry too much, but she should still come back to London. He had had an operation – emergency kidney transplant, he’d been bumped right up the list. He was lucky to get one, considering his lifestyle, his age, everything. They kept saying that, too. Earlier, before it was an emergency, Kate had even been tested, to see if she could be a donor. She couldn’t, which made her feel like a bad daughter.

It all happened so suddenly. It was Monday afternoon when she got the call telling her it had happened, the previous day, after a kidney miraculously became available. He’d been unwell for a few years now, the diabetes and the drinking; and the stress of his new life, he was busier than ever – but how had it got to this, got so far? Apparently he had collapsed; the next day he’d been put at the top of the transplant list; and that afternoon, Daniel was given a new kidney. Kate’s stepmother Lisa had rung the following day to let her know.

‘I think he’d very much like to see you.’ Lisa’s rather nasal voice was not improved by the tinny phone line.

‘Of – of course,’ Kate said. She cast around for something to say. ‘Oh god. How … how is he now?’

‘He’s alive, Kate. It was very sudden. But he’s got much much worse these last few months. So he’s not that well. And he’d like to see you. Like I say. He misses you.’

‘Yes,’ said Kate. Her throat was dry, her heart was pounding. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

‘He’s going to be in intensive care for a few days, you know. Can you come next week? You can get the time off at the office, I presume.’ Lisa made no other comment, but a variety of the comments she could make hung in the air, and rushing in next to them came millions of other guilty thoughts, all jostling for attention in front of Kate till she couldn’t see anything. She rubbed her eyes with one hand as she cradled the phone on her shoulder. Her darling dad, and she hadn’t seen him for eighteen months, hadn’t been back to London in nearly three years. How the hell … was this emergency, his rapid decline, was it her fault? No, of course it wasn’t, but still, Kate couldn’t escape the thought that she had made him ill herself, as certainly as if she had stuck a knife into him.

Out of the window, Manhattan looked calm and still, the grey monolithic buildings giving no clue to the arctic weather, the noise, the hustle, the sweet crazy smell of toasted sugar and tar that hit you every time you went outside, the city she had grown used to, fallen in love with, the city that had long ago replaced London in her affections. Kate looked round the office of the literary agency where she worked. It was a small place, only four full-time members of staff. Bruce Perry, the boss, was in his office, talking on the phone. Kate could see his head bobbing up and down as he violently agreed with someone and what they were saying. Doris, the malevolent old bookkeeper from Queens, who openly hated Kate, was pretending to type but in reality listening to Kate’s conversation, trying to work out what was going on. Megan, the junior agent, was in the far corner, tapping a pencil against her keyboard.

‘Kate?’ said Lisa, breaking into Kate’s thoughts. ‘Look, I can’t force you to come back, but …’ She cleared her throat, and Kate could hear the sound echo in the cavernous basement kitchen of her father and Lisa’s flashy new home in Notting Hill.

‘Of course I’ll come,’ Kate heard herself say, and she crouched into herself, flushed with shame, hoping Doris hadn’t heard her.

‘You will?’ Lisa said, and Kate could hear incredulity and something else, yes – pleading in her voice, and she was horrified at herself, at how cold she was capable of being to Lisa. Her father was ill, for god’s sake. Dad.

It was time to get a grip and go back home. And so Kate put the phone down, booked a flight for Saturday evening, getting into London on Sunday morning. Then she went into Bruce Perry’s office to ask for two weeks off. No more. She wasn’t staying there any longer than she had to.

Bruce had grimaced a bit, but he’d been fine about giving her the time off. Perry and Co was not exactly the fast-paced business unit it might have been, which is why Kate had got her job as assistant there in the first place. In fact, to the outside eye, but for one author it would seem to be a mystery that they managed to stay in business, employing as they did five people, and with no books sold to any major publisher, no scripts sold to any studio, for years and years, so it would seem.

But one day, seventeen years ago, a middle-aged lady called Anne Graves had arrived in Bruce’s office with the idea for a crime series set in her hometown in Ohio. And that day Bruce had got lucky, very lucky. It was Anne Graves who kept them afloat, Anne Graves who paid their salaries, for the lunches, for the midtown offices a block or two from the Rockefeller Plaza. Anne Graves, and her creation Jimmy Potomac and his dog, Thomas. Jimmy and Thomas lived in Ravenna, Ohio, and solved crimes together. A flagpole goes missing. The local sheriff loses his golden wedding anniversary present. Some kids make a little disturbance. That kind of thing. The books had sold one hundred million copies, and the NBC series, Jimmy Potomac, now in its third season, pulled in sixteen million viewers a week. When the dog playing Thomas had died, the studio had received five thousand letters of sympathy.

Kate had been the office assistant at Perry and Co now for over two years. She had yet to meet a single person who’d read a Jimmy Potomac book.

‘Where will you stay?’ Bruce asked. ‘Will you go to your dad?’

‘No,’ said Kate firmly. ‘I’ve – I’ve actually got a place there.’ Bruce raised his eyebrows, and Kate could see Doris put down her ledger and look up, intrigued.

‘Your own place?’

‘It’s … kind of,’ Kate told him. She cleared her throat. ‘I part own it. I was renting it out, but they’ve just left. Last month.’

‘Good timing,’ said Bruce, pleased. ‘That’s great!’

‘Yes,’ said Kate. She wasn’t sure it was that good timing, the ending of Gemma’s rental lease coinciding with her father’s emergency kidney transplant, but still, look for the silver lining, as her mother was always telling her. She shook her head, still trying to come to terms with it. ‘Wow,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m going back to London. Wow.’ She bit her thumb. ‘I’d better see if I can get hold of Dad, Lisa said he’d be awake in a little while …’

‘Well, what will we do without you,’ Bruce said, more for effect than sounding like he meant it. He stood up languidly. ‘Hurry back now!’

‘I will,’ said Kate, although she was kind of sure she could simply not ever appear again and all they’d need to do after a few weeks would be to hire a temp to filter through the fan letters to Anne Graves. ‘I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch like this –’

‘Oh honey,’ Doris said, standing up and coming over. She patted Kate’s arm. Kate reared back in horror, since usually Doris wore an expression of murderous hate every time she came near Kate. ‘Don’t you worry about that. My niece, Lorraine, she can cover for you. She’ll do a real good job too, you know it, Bruce.’

‘Great idea!’ Bruce said happily.

Kate nodded. It made sense. Lorraine had temped for her before, when Kate and her friend Betty had driven across the States the previous summer. She had put all the files back in extraordinary places, none of Kate’s messages had been checked, nor her emails, but she had, during the handover session they’d had, managed to walk behind Bruce, murmuring, ‘Oh, excuse me, Mr Perry,’ brushing her enormous breasts against his back and that, not her shorthand skills, was the reason she’d be welcomed back at Perry and Co anytime. That, plus she was the kind of girl who made herself genial, asking questions about folks, smiling brightly at people, even when on the phone.

‘That OK with you?’ said Bruce, as if it were up to Kate, and he’d ring up a temping agency right away if she vetoed Lorraine. He rubbed his hands together.

‘Oh sure, sure,’ said Kate. ‘That’s cool, and you know, I’ll be –’

‘I’ll call her now,’ said Doris, waddling back to her desk, and smiling gleefully down at her own monstrous nails. ‘Say, Bruce! Lorraine did say to tell you hi last week anyway. She’ll be thrilled, you know!’

‘I’m thrilled too, Doris,’ Bruce said, solemnly. ‘Real thrilled.’ He went back into his office, whistling, as Kate swung back around to face her computer. She bit her lip, not sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

Kate walked home that night, the twenty-odd blocks that took her back to her mother and Oscar’s apartment, a feeling of slight unease hanging over her about the task that lay ahead, and the conversation she would have to have with her mother and stepfather. It was a milder March night than it had been thus far that year, and though it was dark, and the clocks wouldn’t go forward till Sunday, there was still a sense that spring was in the air. She walked up Broadway, following its slicing path through her beloved Manhattan. She didn’t try to think about anything, just walked her usual walk, drinking it all in. This was her home. Here she could walk the streets and be part of the glorious, jostling mass of humanity, anonymous even if she wore a pink wig and rode a giraffe. No one here cared, no one here recognized her, knew her. Here she bumped into no old school friends, ex-work colleagues, here she saw no ghosts getting in her way. Just the wide stretch of the road, leaving mid-town behind, heading up past the Lincoln Center, the lights getting dimmer, a little cosier, people out running, walking their dogs, living their lives in the thick of the metropolis – that was what she loved best about New York.

She knew she was nearly home when she got to Zabar’s. The huge, cheery, famous deli was as busy as ever. Families doing late-night shopping, solitary coffee drinkers hunched over a paper in the café. Warmth, light, colour, bursting out of every window and door. Kate stared in. They were advertising gefilte fish for Passover, only a few weeks away in mid-April. I’ll be back by then, she thought. Only a couple of weeks. Really, that’s all it is.

He’s going to be fine, she told herself, as the traffic purred beside her and she looked around wildly, wondering where she was for a moment. She thought about him for the moment, wondering with terrified fascination what it would be like to see him again. Her father, so tall, so commanding, so handsome and charismatic, always the centre of the room – what would he be like now, what would his life be like after this operation? What if the kidney didn’t work? How had it come to this, that she could push down the love she had for him, push it down so far inside her she had been able to pretend, for a while, that it was all OK?

But she knew the answer. She’d become an expert at the answer since she’d left London.

Deep inside her came a stabbing pain at the top of her breast bone. Kate gently rubbed her collarbone; her eyes filled with painful tears. But she could not cry, not here, not now. If she started, she might never stop. Come on, she told herself. She carried on walking, turned the corner.

I’ll go back, see Dad, make sure he’s OK, check on the flat, try and find a new tenant.

And I’ll see Zoe.

At the thought of seeing her best friend after all this time, the hairs on Kate’s neck stood up, and though the memory of what had happened still sliced at her she smiled, a small smile, until she realized she was grinning through the window at a rather bewildered old man with thick white hair, who was trying to read his paper in peace. Kate blushed, and hurried on.

It was Oscar’s sixtieth birthday in a few weeks’ time, and Venetia had given him his present – a brand-new baby grand piano – early, back in January. As Kate arrived at the apartment building, on the corner of Riverside Drive, the window of Venetia and Oscar’s apartment was open, and the sound of the piano came floating down to her on the sidewalk.

‘Hello there, Kate!’ Maurice the doorman called happily, opening the door for her into the small marbled foyer. He pushed the button for the elevator. Kate smiled at him, a little wearily.

‘How are you, Maurice?’ she said.

‘I’m just fine,’ said Maurice. ‘I’m pretty good. That spray you told me to get, for my back – well, I bought it yesterday, I meant to say. And it’s done a lot of good.’

‘Really?’ said Kate, pleased. ‘That’s great, Maurice. I’m so glad.’

‘I owe you Kate, that’s for sure. It just went away after I used that spray.’

Kate got into the lift. ‘Good-o. That’s brilliant.’

‘Hold the elevator!’ came a querulous voice, and Mrs Cohen, still elegant, tall, refined in a powder-blue suit, shuffled into the lobby. ‘Kate, dear, hold the elevator! Hello Maurice. Would you be a dear, and –’

‘I’ll get the bags from the cab,’ said Maurice, nodding. ‘You wait here.’

There were times when the geriatric street theatre of the apartment block made Kate’s day; there were other times when she would have given fifty dollars to see someone her own age in the lift. Just once. When they were installed in the lift, bags and all, and when Kate had helped Mrs Cohen to her door, and put her bags in her hallway, she climbed the last flight up to her mother’s apartment, hearing the sound of the piano again, as she reached the sixth floor.

Venetia was born to be a New Yorker; it was hard to believe she’d ever lived anywhere else. Of course, Kate could remember her in London, but it seemed rather unreal, now. The mother she’d had until the age of fourteen when, the day after Kate’s birthday, Venetia had left, was like a character Kate remembered watching in a film, not her actual, own mother. She had to remind herself that it was Venetia who’d picked her up from school every day, Venetia who’d smoothed her hair back when she’d been sick after some scrambled eggs when she was eight, Venetia who’d collected her from the Brownie camp in the New Forest a day early after Kate had cried all night for her. The idea that she and Kate’s father had lived together no longer had any substance. That Venetia had taken Kate to the Proms to watch Daniel play, had entertained myriad friends of Daniel’s in their cluttered basement in the tall house in Kentish Town, had wiped down tables, collected up wine bottles, fielded calls from agents and journalists and critics and young, lithe music students: that Venetia had long disappeared. She was a New Yorker now, and more importantly, Kate thought, she was the star of her own show.

Venetia and Oscar’s apartment was straight out of Annie Hall, from the framed Saul Steinberg prints and posters of the Guys and Dolls revival that Oscar had done a couple of years ago, to the copies of The New Yorker on the coffee table, and the view over Riverside Drive from the long, low room that served as sitting room, dining room, den and Oscar’s office (he worked at home mostly; he was an arranger, a composer, and a conductor).

There were also pictures of Kate in silver frames that she always found hugely embarrassing: her as a baby, sucking her toes, sitting on a lawn somewhere (Kate never knew where; there was no lawn in the Kentish Town house); smiling rather rigidly outside her college after getting her degree; with her mother, the first time she came to New York to visit, when Kate was fifteen, just after Venetia had married Oscar. And there was one she always wanted to take down, just because: Kate, beaming, holding the first issue of Venus, the magazine she’d worked on in London. There had been other photos, other remnants of Kate’s life. They had been taken down – no one wanted to see them, now.

As Kate opened the door to the apartment, a smell of onions, something warming, hit her. Her mother was in the tiny galley kitchen singing; ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ was being played in the long room.

‘Hi!’ she called, injecting a note of jollity into her voice. ‘Something smells nice.’

‘Hello darling!’ Venetia appeared in the corridor, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I’m making risotto, it’s going to be lovely.’ She kissed her daughter. ‘Thanks for calling. It’ll be ready in about fifteen minutes. How was your day? Did you get hold of Betty? She rang earlier. She was wondering if you wanted to meet for a drink on Friday.’

Kate disentangled herself from her scarf, and from her mother, backing away towards the door to hang her things up. She pulled her long dark blonde hair out from her coat, and turned to her mother, chewing a lock of hair as she did.

‘I’m starving,’ she said indistinctly. ‘I’ll give her a call in a minute. Mum –’

Oscar called from the long room. ‘Hello, Katy! Come and say hi!’

Kate poked her head around the door. ‘Hi, Oscar,’ she said. ‘How was your day?’

‘Honey, I’m home!’ Oscar said joyously, launching into a ragtime version of ‘Luck Be A Lady’. ‘I’ve been home all day!’

Oscar made this joke roughly three times a week. Kate smiled affectionately at him.

‘What a lovely evening,’ she said, staring out over the Hudson, at the purple, grey sunset. ‘I had such a nice walk back.’

Oscar was only half listening. ‘That’s good, dear,’ he said. ‘Would you like a drink? Venetia, can I get you another drink, darling?’

Venetia appeared, carrying her gin and tonic. ‘I’m fine with this one, thanks, darling,’ she said, carelessly caressing the back of her husband’s neck as she passed by. ‘I’d better lay the table – darling, did I mention that I saw Kathy today? And she and Don can’t make it to your party?’

‘Dad’s ill,’ Kate said, suddenly. Her voice was louder than she’d meant. The room was suddenly deadly silent.

‘What?’ Venetia turned to look at her daughter. ‘What did you say?’

Kate gripped the side of the sofa. ‘Dad’s really ill. He’s had a kidney transplant. He’s in intensive care.’

‘Oh, my god,’ Oscar said, looking towards his wife. ‘That’s – well, that’s awful.’

‘I’m going home,’ said Kate. ‘On Saturday. To see him.’

‘Back to London?’ her mother said. Her face was white.

‘Yes,’ said Kate, shaking her head very slightly, willing her mother to do the right thing.

‘My god,’ said Oscar. He chewed at a cuticle, nervously. ‘Will he be – OK?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Kate, wanting to reassure them. ‘I mean – it’s dangerous, but he’s very lucky. I hope so –’ She swallowed, as black dots danced in front of her eyes, and a wave of panic swept over her at the thought of it, her poor darling dad. ‘Yes, Lisa thinks he will be …’

Lisa’s name dropped like a stone between them. It was Venetia who broke the silence. ‘You’re going back Saturday? What time’s your flight?’

‘Nine. In the evening.’

‘Right.’ Venetia put her drink down; she patted her collar bone, her slim white fingers stroking her skin. ‘We’ll drive you. Oh, darling. How long are you going for?’

‘Two weeks, probably,’ said Kate, coming towards her. She wanted her reassurance, for her mother to tell her it was going to be OK, not just Dad, but everything to do with it. ‘I’ll be back for Oscar’s party, of course I will – I’m just going to make sure he’s OK.’

‘Course you do!’ said Venetia. She put her arm around her daughter, squeezed her shoulders. ‘Darling, it’s just – well. It’ll be hard for you. That’s all.’

There was silence again in the room, as Oscar looked from his wife to his stepdaughter. Kate gazed out of the window. The sunset was almost over; it was nearly dark.

‘Yep,’ Kate said. ‘It will be hard.’ It felt strange; it felt alien here, suddenly. She hated that feeling. ‘I had to go back sometime,’ she added, and Oscar nodded and sat back down at the piano. ‘Just wish it wasn’t for this, that’s all.’

CHAPTER TWO

Kate had lived with Oscar and Venetia since she came to New York. She was always just about to start looking for an apartment of her own – or a studio, more likely, since renting in New York was still staggeringly expensive, even with the rental money she had from her flat in London. Still, it was ridiculous, being thirty, living with your mother and stepfather and when she’d moved to New York she’d thought it would only be a temporary measure, that she’d be moving out soon. But the right time never seemed to happen.

She and Betty often talked about getting a place together, but Betty’s love life was erratic to say the least, and whenever Kate was at her most desperate to move out, move on, move away from her domestic situation, coincided exactly with Betty and her latest five-star full-on love affair being at its height, whereupon Betty would say ‘… I think we’re getting married … or at least, moving in together … in a couple of months I’d say, so no Kate, sorry … I can’t!’ Then they would break up, awfully, and Betty would be too heartbroken to contemplate anything, and Kate would have to soothe her back to sanity with a variety of cocktails all over the SoHo area, and Betty would gradually perk up and say, ‘We should really look for a place soon!’ and Kate would say, ‘Yes!’ and then, without fail, the next day, Betty would go to a gallery opening, and there she would meet Charles (public schoolboy with nappy fetish) or Johan (Norwegian bike courier) or Elrond (poet with long hair), and the whole apartment thing would go quiet for a while … and Kate would tell herself to wait a little longer.

So the weeks turned into months, and the months turned into years. To her surprise. And still she didn’t move, still she stayed in Riverside Drive.

On Friday evening, Venetia and Oscar gave Kate a farewell supper. It was early, because Kate was going out to meet Betty, and Venetia and Oscar were off to a drinks party at Alvin and Carol DaCosta’s on the third floor. Venetia made quiche, Oscar made a beautiful mesclun and pomegranate seed salad. They drank a toast to Daniel, said bon voyage to Kate.

The last few days seemed to have flown by; how could it be Friday already, Kate wondered? Escaping their ministrations – ‘Remember to take an adaptor.’ ‘Did you collect your drycleaning?’ she excused herself, and shut the door of her bedroom slowly and sank down on the bed, wondering when she should pack.

Now she was alone, she wished, as she had done these past few days, she was going tonight, that she was already there, even though Lisa had told her there was no point in coming over till Daniel was out of intensive care; but still, Kate wished she was there, even if he didn’t realize it. ‘It’ll give you time to sort your stuff out, before you come,’ Lisa had said. Kate supposed she meant it kindly.

The truth was, really, that she didn’t have that much stuff anyway. Clothes, yes, but all her books, her old things from her old life – they were all in storage in the basement of her flat in London, like her old self, trapped in aspic, while the new self gazed longingly into the window of Pottery Barn or Bed Bath and Beyond, picking out covers for imaginary cushions, towels to hang on illusory rails. She’d bought a new duvet and pillow set for her room in the sales this year and she was still excited about it.

Kate shook her head, smiling. She realized now, with a start, that she’d lived for nearly three years with her mother and Oscar – because she enjoyed it. Not just because they were fun – Oscar wanted people to be happy in his presence, and he wanted Venetia to be happy more than anyone else and, therefore, her daughter by extension. The truth was, it was fun, living with them, especially for a girl like Kate who was, as Zoe had once pointed out, old before her time anyway, and more likely to enjoy an evening around the piano singing showtunes than queuing for ages to get into a loud, sweaty, pricey club (as she saw it).

But it was also nice because Kate had got to know her mother again, after years of never really seeing her, years of her name being persona non grata with almost all her father’s friends and family in London. Even Venetia’s sister, Jane, who was much more stiff-lipped than she, and lived a life of rigid, middle-England organization in Marlow, could barely tolerate any mention of her. It was fun, living with her mother again. Especially this happy version of her mother. She didn’t put any pressure on Kate to do anything she didn’t want to – she was just happy to have her living there.

Still, perhaps that’s why it’s a good thing I’m going back, Kate told herself as she climbed up on a stool to take down her big suitcase from on top of the wardrobe. It was dusty – when was the last time she’d used it? She couldn’t remember. Cars honked faintly outside: Kate looked at her watch. It was time to go. She pulled some slouchy boots on over her skinny jeans and ran out into the hall.

‘You look lovely, dear,’ Oscar called, spying her through the open doorway.

‘Thanks, dear,’ said Kate. ‘I won’t be too late.’

‘Stay out! Enjoy yourself!’ called her mother. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Downtown, near the West Village,’ said Kate, without great enthusiasm. She sighed. She wanted to see Betty, of course, but Betty was on a matchmaking drive and tonight, Kate feared, was to be the culmination of this. Since the last person Betty had set her up with turned out to be gay, and was only going along with Betty because he wanted her gallery to show his work, Kate didn’t hold out much hope.

‘So, will you stay in London?’ Betty wiped her fingers on the napkin and stared at Kate, who paused with a bowl of miso soup halfway to her lips. ‘I bet you will.’

‘Stay there?’ she said, in astonished tones. ‘Good god no, Bets. Are you mad? I’m going back to see Dad now he’s had the op, then I’ll wait till he’s on the mend ok, I’ll see Zoe and the kids and I’ll be back on the first plane that’ll take me. It’s Oscar’s sixtieth in three weeks, anyway. I can’t miss that. Can you imagine?’ Betty said nothing. ‘Come on.’

‘Hm,’ said Betty. ‘Well, I’m just saying, that’s all. It’s going to be weird. Three years!’ She turned to Andrew, who was next to her, and gestured at him. ‘What do you reckon?’

Kate and Betty had been friends since university, so Kate should have been used to her ways. Now she reminded herself, as she stole a glance at Andrew from under her lashes, that Betty – and Francesca, for that matter, so thank god she wasn’t here too – always said what they thought, always had done. It was funny, really. Most of the time. She blushed as Andrew suddenly met her gaze.

‘I hope she comes back,’ Andrew said. He coughed, awkwardly, and was silent again. Betty rolled her eyes significantly at Kate and made nudging motions at her. Kate ignored her. She was too astonished, and pleased, at what Andrew had said, for usually he said nothing, let alone anything conclusive.

Kate had known Andrew now for a couple of months purely because, since he’d moved into Betty’s building in January, Betty had wasted no time in throwing him into Kate’s path. This was made easier by Andrew’s eagerness to meet Kate when he heard she worked for a literary agency. For Andrew was that not-so-rare creature: the boy with a book inside him. Kate had met enough of them both in London, when she worked on various magazines, and in New York, working at Perry and Co, to recognize Andrew as conforming fairly typically to type: he was angry about a lot of things, not least the parlous state of the Great American Novel, and his novel was extremely difficult, both thematically and practically. He had thick hair he brushed back from his face a lot, mostly in anger. He hadn’t written more than a word since he had first started talking to Kate about it. He was ‘circling round the themes’, he had told her, when she’d asked.

‘Right,’ Kate had said, politely, when she first heard this. She had glanced at Betty, who was nodding hopefully as if, a mere few minutes after their first introduction, she expected Kate and Andrew to dive underneath the table and copulate.

‘Honestly, that’s not exactly true,’ Andrew had added with a rueful smile. He scratched his cheek. ‘Could also be that I’d rather be out having a few beers after work than writing.’ He smiled at her, and Kate had instantly liked him again.

She found that, over the following weeks, she alternated in the same way, not being sure whether she liked him or not. Sometimes he was really very funny, coruscatingly rude or charming about something. Other times – too many – he was moody, virtually silent, as if oppressed by the weight of matters on his mind. Betty was running out of excuses, of social events to ask him to. Sooner or later Kate was just going to have to make a move, she told her. Ask him out for coffee.

As Andrew got up to use the bathroom, Betty said this to Kate, in no uncertain terms.

Kate was horrified.

‘Ask him out? No, no way, Bets. I couldn’t. Get him to.’

‘He’s not going to,’ said Betty decisively. She looked around her, to make sure Andrew wasn’t on his way back and hissed across the table, ‘It has to be you. Come on. You’ve got to seize the moment. Otherwise it’ll be over, and – and then what? You could have missed the chance to get married. For ever. How would you feel then?’

‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘Relieved?’

Betty shook her head. ‘You are weird, did you know that?’

‘No I’m not,’ said Kate.

‘You’re like a metaphor for … argh. Intransigence.’

Betty worked in an art gallery in SoHo and was prone to remarks like this. Kate suppressed a smile.

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Damn.’

‘Don’t you want to get married?’ said Betty. She stabbed at a dumpling with a chopstick. ‘Is that what you want? Would you do that to me? To your mother?’

Kate stared at her in astonishment. ‘You’re from West Norwood, Betty. Stop talking like that. Anyway, I don’t want to get married.’

‘Why? Why don’t you?’ Betty said, but as she was saying it recognition flooded her face. ‘Oh my god. Kate, I’m sorry –’

Kate held up her hand and smiled, but underneath the table her foot beat a steady tattoo against the aluminium table leg. ‘It’s ok! It’s fine. Now –’ as Andrew came back to the table, ‘I kind of need to get an early night, I’m afraid, and I have to pack. Can I get out before you sit back down again?’ She shot up and scooted along the plastic bench.

‘Kate –’ Betty said.

Kate looked up at her.

‘Sure,’ Betty nodded. ‘Sure.’

‘Bye, Andrew,’ Kate said, turning to him as he stood next to her. They stood to one side against the table as a tiny Japanese waitress bustled past them, bearing a huge tray of sushi, and Kate felt the pressure of his arm against hers.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘It’s fine,’ Kate put her bag on her shoulder. ‘So I’ll see you when I get back …’

‘Let me walk you outside,’ Andrew said, in a loud, rather unnatural voice. He cleared his throat.

Outside on the crowded sidewalk, the heart of the tiny Japanese district on East 12th Street, Kate cast around to see if there was a cab.

‘I’ve got something to ask you,’ Andrew said, staring intently at her in the evening gloom.

‘So, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you when I’m back –’

‘Kate, Kate,’ Andrew said, rapidly. ‘I gotta say this now.’

‘Oh,’ said Kate, with a dreadful sense of foreboding. ‘No, I should walk to the –’

He gripped her arms. ‘Kate, let me finish.’

‘No, really,’ said Kate desperately, stupidly hoping that if she warded him off then what was about to happen might not happen.

Andrew stepped back. ‘Look,’ he said, crestfallen at her apparent horror. ‘I just wanted to ask you out when you get back. Maybe see if you wanted to go for a coffee, see a movie some time. But I guess – I guess that’s not such a great idea at the moment. With your dad, and all. I’m sorry.’

‘Ah,’ said Kate, feeling rotten that she was hiding behind her dad’s kidney transplant to get out of a date she didn’t want to go on. ‘You’re right. It’s – not a good time for me right now.’

God I sound American she thought. I really must go home.

‘Of course it’s not,’ Andrew nodded. ‘Hey. When you get back, if it is a good time – call me. OK?’

‘Sure,’ said Kate. ‘Sure.’

‘I promise not to talk about the novel,’ said Andrew. ‘Much.’

She looked at him, into his big brown eyes, as he smiled at her in the street, the lanterns from the bar next door swaying in the breeze behind him.

‘I just kind of like you, Kate,’ he said. ‘There’s – there’s something about you. You’re cool. I – I guess.’

He scuffed the pavement with his toe and she watched him, her heart pounding. It had been so long since someone had said anything like that to her and, to be honest, she had thought they never would again.

‘Oh,’ she said, and a lock of her dark blonde hair fell into her face. He looked at her, and pushed it off her cheek, his fingers stroking her skin. Kate met his gaze, shaking her head. Something was wrong.

‘Andrew,’ she said. ‘I –’

He bent his head and kissed her. His touch, his warm lips on hers, his hands on her ribs. Perhaps –

But she couldn’t. And the force of her response surprised her, for Kate pushed him away and said, breathlessly,

‘No. I’m sorry, no.’

She gave a huge, shuddering sigh.

Andrew stepped back, blinking uncertainly. He looked bewildered.

‘I’m – my god, I’m sorry.’

‘No,’ Kate said. She was almost backing away from him, she realized, trying to escape, like a cornered animal. ‘It’s not you. It’s me.’

He wiped his mouth with his hand, almost in disgust. She smiled. ‘No, really. I mean that. It’s the oldest cliché in the book – but in my case it’s totally true … it really is me.’

‘Right,’ said Andrew formally. He brushed something off his shirt. ‘I’m just – I’m sorry if I offended you. I thought –’

Kate held out both her hands, still keeping him at a distance. A couple walking down the sidewalk, who didn’t want to break their joint stride, bumped into her and she stumbled.

‘Look,’ she said, still breathing heavily, ‘I’m sorry, again. It really is me, Andrew, and I wish it wasn’t.’ She looked around, wildly, and he watched her.

‘Yeah,’ he said, after a while. ‘Betty said something.’

‘What?’ said Kate.

Andrew nodded, and looked at his feet. ‘Hey, it’s no big deal. She said some guy screwed you over. Something bad happened to you in London.’

She loved the way certain Americans always said the word ‘London’, investing it with a certain amount of reverence. ‘You could say that,’ she said. She winced, and looked up at him, not sure how he was taking all of this. ‘Hey –’ she began.

‘It’s no big deal,’ he said. ‘Really, it isn’t.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘You wanna cab?’

‘Sure,’ said Kate. ‘That’d be –’

Andrew whistled, and almost immediately, as if he were calling up the Batmobile, a cab zoomed around the corner. ‘So,’ he said. He held the door open. ‘See you around, I guess.’

‘Sure,’ said Kate. ‘Yeah. Upper West Side, Eightieth and Broadway. Thanks.’

The cab pulled off; through its greasy window she watched Andrew as he turned and walked off. Kate touched her fingers to her lips as the car sped through mid-town. She was shaking, and she didn’t know why.

The traffic was light, miraculously. Please go through Times Square, she willed the cab driver. Please, go on. Out of the window the lights of Broadway grew closer and they headed past Macy’s, and a sense of disgust came over her. Why had she let that happen with Andrew? Why couldn’t she just have kissed him and jumped into a cab? Maybe arranged to see him when she got back? Why did she have to behave like that? What was she going to say to him, to Betty?

I’m too good at running away, she said softly under her breath. She put her head against the glass, watching the reflection of her skin as the streets rushed by and they came to Times Square. Kate loved Times Square, much to Oscar and her mother’s horror. She couldn’t tell them why she loved it, quite, it never seemed to make sense. She loved the anonymity of it, the adrenaline that came with it. You could be wholly yourself, a unit of one, walking on its concrete, neon-lit stage. You could stand in the centre of the traffic all day and twirl around – and no one would look at you. She loved the contradiction of it – when she first came to see her mother, and went looking for Times Square, she had spent ages trying to find an actual square. She didn’t know now what she’d been picturing in her head: a stately square of London houses, with a garden in the centre, railings around the edge, perhaps? And when she’d realized this was it, this grey meeting of roads, stretched out over three or so blocks, she had laughed. It was unlike anything she’d ever seen before, it was utterly unlike London.

Twenty-four hours’ time, and she’d be on the plane. Twenty-four hours’ time, and her dad’s stay in hospital would nearly be over. Less than forty-eight hours till she saw him again. Till she was back there again … The lights of Manhattan flickered and flashed into Kate’s cab, the theatre signs, the road signs, the bars and restaurants and clubs, flickering on her face, keeping her alert, but then, suddenly, she was very tired.

CHAPTER THREE

There was a backlog at Heathrow, and Kate’s plane circled over London, coming in from the east, flying straight across the centre of the city. It was the perfect bird’s-eye view. Kate shifted in her window seat, her hands resting lightly on the stack of magazines she’d been reading, and stared down at the view, craning her neck in excitement. The huge jet followed the path of the Thames, its tiny black shadow flickering through the streets and places below. The river was bluer than she remembered. She’d forgotten how green it all was, how many open spaces there were. They flew over the Houses of Parliament, glowing gold in the early morning light, as the centre of the city stretched away in front of them. Kate twisted in her seat, following the path of Regent Street all the way up to Regent’s Park, the Telecom Tower, King’s Cross away to the side, as they headed west.

It looked like a toytown, Legoland, and she couldn’t reconcile it with what had gone on before. In those tiny streets below her, in that park there, in that tall building just beyond the river – yes, it was all still there.

The wheel on Kate’s trolley didn’t work. Of course it didn’t, they never did. It got stuck, and whirled around on its own, and consequently the trolley made a loud, juddering noise, like a goods train thundering through the night, which caused the other passengers and those waiting to greet them to look at Kate with a stare of disapproval, as if she personally was making the noise herself, had taken a large mallet to it and bashed it repeatedly, to cause maximum annoyance to others.

Kate never understood people who said airports were full of romance or love. Not only had no one ever met her at an airport (except her mother, and that hardly counted), she wouldn’t want them to meet her. Reunited with the love of your life under polystyrene ceiling tiles, strip lighting and grey upholstery? No thanks. She struggled with the trolley, flaring her elbows out to manoeuvre it around corners, trying not to let hopelessness and the strangeness of the situation overwhelm her. Taxi. She needed a taxi. A good old black London cab and she pushed on through to the arrivals hall, vaguely registering the expectant faces of people waiting as she went. Kate had learnt, now. She didn’t even bother to look around. She had long given up playing that game in her head.

It was a sunny day. Warm and fresh, with a cool little breeze whipping about. It smelled of spring, of something in the air, even there at the airport. Spring had come to London, and she felt it as she crossed the tarmac to the cab rank, as a man in a blue sou’wester waved her into a cab, and nodded politely as she said ‘thank you’. He helped her in with her bags, the cab driver tutted proprietorially over her and said, ‘Mind your head, love,’ as they both heaved the heavier of her suitcases into the back with her. She thought of JFK, of how fast it all was, how the director of the cab rank barked questions at you, of how fast the cab drivers went, manically swerving from lane to lane, talking wildly to their friends on an earpiece.

But although she kept expecting something dramatic to happen, for someone to leap at her and stop her, or yell at her, nothing did, and so the taxi moved off, gliding along smoothly. They reached the Heathrow roundabout, where the daffodils bobbed in the sunny breeze and the motorway opened up in front of her and they headed into London.

On a grey motorway, how prosaic, but there she was, and as the redbrick streets flew past she looked for the old familiar signs, like the old Lucozade sign, but that was gone; the blue and gold dome of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Fuller’s Brewery at the roundabout. She stopped trying to think and simply sat there, drinking it all in, wondering how she’d got there, and most of all, how her father was, and what would happen now.

And then suddenly they were there, turning off Maida Vale, into the long tree-lined boulevard, where the buds on the elms were just visible, and they were grinding to a halt outside the red-brick building, and the bin with the face painted onto the lid was still outside. Kate didn’t get out of the car. She looked around only as the cab driver pulled her bags out onto the pavement, puffing, and said,

‘Alright, love?’

He opened the door, regarding her curiously. She knew he was probably thinking, Uh-oh. Is she actually a bit … mad. Kate blinked at him, suddenly, as if he were speaking Martian.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Yes.’

‘Is this where you want?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate, stepping out onto the pavement, though actually what she really wanted to say was, I’ve changed my mind, can we go back to the airport? ‘Yes, it is.’

She gave him money and thanked him; he drove away, with a hand-wave out of the window. She felt like an alien, she couldn’t remember how to behave. She looked down at the paving slabs on the pavement. Rectangular, scratchy dark grey, slightly cracked. It was silly. She’d forgotten what they were like here.

Shoulders squared, Kate picked up the bags, and stood at the foot of the stairs up to the hallway of the flats. A bird called in a nearby tree, a large black car hummed next to her, its engine running, but otherwise it was silent.

It’s strange, the things that are stored in your brain, but that you haven’t thought about for years. The black front door of her old building was really heavy, on a spring. You had to wedge your body really firmly against the door to stop it clapping shut in your face; she forgot. It banged shut behind Kate, practically trapping her with its force, as she dragged her bags into the hallway and looked rather blankly around her, at the large, beige, sunny hall, quiet and dusty in the cool sunshine.

How she was going to get her huge suitcase upstairs? The thought of lugging it to the first floor, her body already bone-tired, made her feel rather blue. Impossible not to think about the first time she’d come here, with him, impossible not to think about how it had been, the day they’d moved in, over three years ago, in deepest winter. Then the pigeonholes had been over there; they’d moved around now. Kate peered inside the box marked Flat 4; two catalogues, five pizza delivery leaflets, four minicab cards, three Chinese takeaway menus, and a plethora of random letters addressed to assorted names she didn’t know, and some bills, addressed to her, greeted her. Flat 4’s pigeon-hole had obviously become the storage depot for everyone’s unwanted post; and Gemma the tenant had only moved out last week. Lovely.

Kate looked down at her bags, and decided she’d deal with the post later. She stuffed the letters back in their box and pulled her suitcases across the hall. She was not usually given to moments of girlish weakness, but she was suddenly overcome with fatigue. Up till now coming back to London had been anonymous, impersonal. The taxi driver, the man at customs, the lady on the passport desk; they didn’t know her. Now she was here and she was in the flat where people knew who she was. This was when it started to get … messy. Somewhere above her a door opened; she heard voices. Kate shrank back against the wall, like a prisoner on the run. Perhaps this was a mistake, a big mistake, perhaps she should just turn around and …

Suddenly there was a loud noise, a thudding sound, and boots on feet thumping across the landing, coming downstairs, several pairs of feet, she thought. Kate pushed her bag up into the nook by the bannisters and peered up. There was muffled cursing; they were obviously carrying something heavy, and she heard an old, familiar voice say,

‘Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll see you later then.’

Kate peered up through the bannisters. There was a coffin coming down the stairs. A coffin. She blinked, and to her alarm an hysterical, horrifying urge to laugh bubbled up inside her, before she swallowed it down, frantically scrabbling to push her suitcase out of the way.

‘Can you open the door, Fred?’

‘No mate,’ Fred answered. ‘You’ve got the front, you take it.’

‘It’s heavy, remember?’

They were turning the last corner, outside her own flat, just appearing at the top of the stairs, and Kate called up,

‘I’m down here. I’ll hold the door open.’

‘She’s down there,’ said the other man. ‘There’s someone down there.’

‘Thanks love,’ Fred said. ‘We’ve got a coffin here, you know.’

‘Yes, a coffin,’ the other man added.

‘Yes,’ said Kate gravely, wondering if she were being filmed as an extra in a hidden-camera Pinter play. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll stay here.’

She leant against the door, holding it flat open, and frowned at the driver, who had left the engine running, which always annoyed her. Questions ran through her head. Who was it? What did you say in the way of pleasantries to undertakers? And how did you tell someone to turn their engine off without sounding self-righteous? She caught the thought escaping into the dim recesses of her mind that she didn’t think like this in New York.

It was, indeed, a coffin, sleek and brown, borne gently by its bearers to the bottom of the stairs, held only at a slight diagonal angle. She stared at it as they reached the bottom step and gingerly readjusted their load.

‘Been on holiday?’ Fred said politely. He nodded at her suitcase as they walked towards the front door.

‘I’ve been away,’ said Kate vaguely. ‘Just got back, yes. This is – er – sad.’ She gestured pathetically at the coffin. ‘Who – who is it?’

‘Old lady who lived upstairs. Had a husband. Nice fellow.’ Fred jerked his head up, indicating where in the labyrinthine view they might live. Kate followed his gaze.

They passed through the front door and left her standing there on the threshold.

‘Second floor?’ said Kate, her voice faint.

‘Yep,’ said Fred, nodding kindly at her.

‘Mrs – not Mrs Allan?’

‘Yes, love,’ he answered her. ‘Sorry. Not the best welcome back for you, is it now?’

Kate loved him then for apologizing, as if he were personally responsible for Mrs Allan’s death. She smiled at him and shook her head, as if to say please, don’t worry. She followed them onto the pavement as they slid the coffin gently into the hearse – she hadn’t realized it was a hearse.

‘There he is,’ one of them said under his breath to the other. ‘Ah,’ and they looked up. There in the window, two floors above Kate’s, an old face looked out through the glass. She recognized him then, of course she did – it was Mr Allan. Mr Allan pressed a hand to the glass, looking down at the street, his face impassive. He was much older than she remembered.

The car drove off. Kate raised a hand in greeting to Mr Allan, not sure whether to smile or not. Once again, she wasn’t sure what to do, how to behave. What did you yell up to a neighbour in circumstances like this? ‘Hiya! How are you! Haven’t seen you for ages! I know, I moved to New York. So, what’s new with you? Apart from your wife dying?’

She hadn’t spoken to them since she’d left. They’d written to her in New York. Kind, sweet Mrs Allan had sent her newspaper clippings, articles she thought she might like, but Kate hadn’t written back, and the communication had dried up. Mr Allan’s face now looked down at her, grey and yellow through the sun on the glass, and she waved again, uncertainty flowering within her, and looked around to realize she was standing on the pavement alone. She pointed in, towards the flats, as if to say I’m back, and looked up – but he had gone.

‘I’ll –’ she started to say out loud. I’ll see you later. Climbing up the steps, she shut the front door behind her, picked up her heavy bag and dragged it upstairs.

CHAPTER FOUR

The lock that clicked in the door, the floorboard in the hall with the big hole in it, where you could see the Victorian pipes underneath; the sunny little sitting room down the corridor with the bay windows, the radiator in a fretwork covered box. The bookshelves, still filled with her books, gaps where he had taken his books away – all these things, stored somewhere in her memory, forgotten till now. She didn’t remember leaving her flat for the last time. She remembered scenes within it, though. She remembered coming here for the first time with Sean, the first Christmas here … waking up on a Sunday morning, in bed together, the papers, friends for lunch … as Kate stood in the living room, keys in her hand, and looked around, she smiled grimly. Every bloody couple cliché under the sun, like an advert for a sofa workshop or a kitchen sale.

The recent tenant, Gemma, was about her age, and while she’d left everything pretty much as it should have been, for a furnished flat, she’d moved the armchairs around. Frowning, Kate pushed them back to where she’d had them before, one next to the sofa, the other in front of the window. She leant against the window sill and breathed in, memory flooding over her with the smell of wood, of lavender, of something indefinable, dusty, earthy, cosy, the smell of her flat.

Funny that it should be so comforting to be back here. Funny. She put the keys quietly down on the table, almost as if she were afraid of disturbing someone, and took off her coat, putting it gingerly on an armchair. She went into the kitchen, noting with pleasure that the pots and pans hanging on the hooks she’d so lovingly put up a couple of months before she’d gone were still there. On the tiny little balcony that led off the kitchen door, no more than doormat-size, really, she could see the thyme and rosemary were still going strong. She opened the door, pulling it slightly, remembering how it always used to stick.

There were people walking on the street outside; families pushing buggies, people chatting outside the little row of shops down the road. Kate craned her neck to watch them, to look down, over the wide boulevard of redbrick apartments lined with trees that were sprinkled with fat, green little buds. Beyond the shops was Lord’s cricket ground, a ten-minute walk, then Regent’s Park, the Zoo, the canal … down Maida Vale, which she could just see, was Edgware Road, leading into the park, to Mayfair, into town. All just outside. She could go out now, could be in any of those places, which she’d dreamt of over the past three years with increasing frequency. She could do that, she was back.

A loud noise from the bedroom made her jump. Kate turned and ran, relishing the size of the space that was her own, now, and she saw that her suitcase, which she’d leant against the wall, had fallen over, bringing down with it her telescope. She smiled at the sight of it, memory leading her back down a path. Her telescope! She hurried over to the corner of the room, straightening it out, setting it right again. How she had loved that bloody thing when she was a teenager. While Zoe and most of her other friends had been standing outside Tube stations of an evening with their waistbands rolled up and over, to shorten their skirts, ponytails high on their heads, usually to one side, smoking Silk Cut Menthols and chipping their nail polish, Kate had been – where? Yes, at home, looking through her telescope, high up in her attic bedroom, or curled up on her ancient patchwork bedspread, reading Gone with the Wind, or Forever Amber, or some yellowing Victoria Holt novel.

‘Hello old thing,’ she said to the telescope, stroking it gently, brushing the light film of dust from its casing. It had been so long since she’d looked through it. She caught herself, and the memory of her teenage self, and smiled, grinning widely at how touchingly and unintentionally hilarious she had probably been. Poor Dad, she thought, gazing away into nothing. What he had had to put up with, on his own, looking after this strange, solitary teenager, who didn’t understand why her mother had gone, who blamed herself for it more than anyone. Still partly did, though it was more than half her lifetime ago. Kate’s hand flew to her collarbone.

The reverberations from the suitcase crash had toppled over some photos on her bedroom shelves. Her parents on their wedding day, in black and white, her mother in a dark velvet mini-dress, almost painfully young and thin, her beautiful hair swinging about her shoulders, her father, so pleased with himself – and with his wife. They were clutching hands, so tightly that even through the years and the monochrome, you could see the whiteness of her mother’s knuckles.

It was stuff like that that got in the way, Kate thought, putting the picture back carefully on the shelf. Nice of Gemma to leave it out for her, but it was best put away, along with the marriage itself, and the photos next to it – her twenty-first birthday, taken by Zoe, her and Steve and Sean, hilariously awkward in suits, for some reason and – a sop to her new family – her stepmother and Dani, at Dani’s christening, nearly four years ago, her half-sister resplendent in a little gown and white hat embroidered with fabric flowers that made her look like an entrant in an Esther Williams look-alike competition.

Kate turned away from the photos, frowning. She felt out of kilter once again, remembering why she was here, and she went into the sitting room and picked up the phone, calling Lisa again.

‘Yes?’ Lisa answered immediately. ‘Hi, Kate.’ She added, more warmly, ‘How are you? Good flight? Everything … OK?’

‘It’s fine. How’s Dad?’ Kate said, running her fingers along the bookcase in the corner of the room, staring out of the window.

‘He’s OK. He’s having a nap,’ said Lisa. ‘He can’t wait to see you.’

‘Oh –’ Kate pursed her lips, shaking her head and looking down at the floor. ‘Oh. I can’t wait to see him. Lisa, can you give him my love? Is it OK if I come over now?’

‘Give it an hour or so, if that’s alright,’ said Lisa. ‘He’s still quite weak, Kate.’

Kate turned and looked back at the picture of her parents on the shelf behind her, perfectly still. She had spent the last three years with her mother, making up for lost time; she had always known though that once she came back here, everything that she had neglected would hit her, hard. It struck her now, that she had almost become too good at what she did: shutting out a whole area of her life. She had crossed the ocean and simply closed the door behind her on her life in London. As if, for the most part, it didn’t exist. As if she could.

She needed to keep moving, keep busy here. She’d go and get Mr Allan some flowers. Yes. She turned away from the telescope and the photos, and went into the sitting room again. She grabbed her bag and left the flat, running down to the shops on the corner of the road, marvelling at the price of a pint of Rachel’s Dairy Milk. She got some flowers, daffodils, bought the papers and some Marmite and some hummus and crisps. The old corner shop now sold posh President butter and had its own orange juicing machine.

Back again, as she unlocked the front door to the building, she realized how quiet it was. She climbed the stairs slowly, listening for sounds. There was nothing from upstairs, and she didn’t know whether to go up now or wait till later. When had Mrs Allan died? Was it too soon?

The phone was ringing as she unlocked the door to her flat again; she ran for it, but missed the call and she couldn’t work out who it was. But it reminded her who else she was here to see, as if she could have forgotten. Kate picked up her mobile, fingers toying over the keypad, and after a minute she shook her head. No, it would be too weird to speak to Zoe right now, after so long, to hear her voice – she could still hear her voice – when she was going to see her later. She texted instead:

Hi. I’m back. Can’t wait to see you. Shall I come round about seven? K x

Almost immediately, so that it felt she had barely finished writing the message, her phone beeped back at her with the reply.

Seven is perfect. Can’t believe you’re back! Can’t wait! Lots of love Z x x x

She finished her unpacking, pottered around in the kitchen, still listening to the radio in an effort to cheer herself up, and then she sat on the sofa and read the newspapers for an hour, feeling like an alien, wondering who some people were, amazed that other people were still in the news. A car went past in the street now and then; the rustle of some tarpaulin sheeting, covering a balcony on the flats opposite, drifted over every now and then; a child called out in the street, but otherwise it was eerily, ominously quiet. Normal, unremarkable, mundane. God it was strange, like she’d never left.

As Kate reached for a hair tie on her dressing table, she looked up at herself in the mirror. She hadn’t seen herself in this mirror for years, and the effect was rather like coming back from holiday and seeing how tanned you’d got in the mirror you look into every day, after two weeks away. She looked – different. Older, probably. Thinner, but not in a good way. Mostly she looked tired. Her dark brown eyes were smudged underneath with circles, her dark blonde hair was longer. Had she always looked that serious? The hairbrush she’d been holding gently slid out of her hand and Kate stared at herself, silence echoing around her.

She shut her front door behind her, and as she did she remembered Mr Allan. She looked at her watch – she was expected at her dad’s. Tonight there was Zoe. She would go tomorrow. The thought crossed her mind as she slung her bag over her shoulder and tripped downstairs: what else would she do tomorrow, other than seeing her father again and seeing Mr Allan? But over the past couple of years, Kate had got very good at filling in hours of time, doing not very much, lying low, staying in the shadows.

It was getting late, and she glanced into her pigeonhole again, remembering too that she had meant to go through her post. The pile of letters was still there, undisturbed, but as she peered closer something in the compartment caught her eye and it was then that she saw the letter.

A new letter, at the top of the pile.

In handwriting she would never forget, as long as she lived.

Kate Miller

Flat 4

Howard Mansions

London W9

Kate’s hand froze in the air, the letter clutched in her fingers. Air trapped in her throat; she felt hot, boiling hot. How did Charly know she was back? And more importantly, why the hell was she writing to her?

CHAPTER FIVE

Daniel Miller had not been an ideal father to a teenage girl, in many ways. After Venetia left, his professional decline had been rapid: in 1990 The Times had said that his interpretation of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto was probably the best ever – yes, ever – yet by the time Kate was taking her A-Levels, four years later, he hadn’t had a proper solo recital for months. The gigs were starting to dry up, as Daniel was late for rehearsals, argued with conductors, cried in his dressing room, got drunk at lunchtimes and sometimes didn’t turn up at all. When he’d had a reputation as being one of the best, if not the best, he had been – for a musician, admittedly – modest about it. Now it was on the slide, he had turned into a prima donna, sulking in the house in Kentish Town, skulking angrily, smoking furiously, talking, always talking to friends, on the phone, around the kitchen table.

It wasn’t as if Venetia had been the world’s most regimented mother, either; but when she’d been around there had, at least, been some semblance of order, some idea that there might be food in the fridge or water in the boiler; now, Kate and Daniel simply got used to muddling through. Dinner times were sporadic, usually set by Kate; school parents’ evenings went unattended. Daniel never knew where he was going to be on any given day, or indeed where his daughter was: it was luck on his part that his only child was a shy girl, more likely to be in her room reading Jean Plaidy than out in London somewhere, raising Cain. Sometimes Kate would come home and find him talking to the postman, eagerly, angrily, about budget cuts, about society today. (The postman read Socialist Worker and was also angry about a lot of things.) Daniel remembered Kate’s birthdays, but only after he’d been reminded by others. But he forgot to ask about most other things: when her university interviews were, when she started her exams, how she might be feeling about everything.

In other ways though, for Kate, her father was the perfect father. Kate was tall and ungainly from her teens onwards, with long spindly legs that rarely did what she told them. She was thin, flat-chested; like a stick drawing. Later, of course, she would come to see that being tall and sticky wasn’t so bad; in fact lots of other girls wished they were like that. But being tall and sticky, with an always-too-long fringe, and short nails, bitten and chewed cuticles, and no social skills whatsoever, it was a long time before she could see it. She was not particularly sure of herself, much as she longed to be, much as she desperately wished she was like her charismatic father or her mesmerizing, much-missed mother, or the confident, smiling girls at school who hung around at the Tube station. She would gaze at them shyly from under her fringe as she passed them, going down the stairs to the platform, going back to her dad, to an evening of homework, of music, of conversation around the kitchen table with Russian composers, Italian singers, obtuse German conductors … and Daniel, directing the evening, shoving his floppy blond hair back with his hand when he got excited, as young Kate collected up the plates, dumped them in the sink, drinking the dregs of the wine quietly behind their backs, alternately fascinated and bored by their conversation, as only the wistful outsider can be.

She wished she could be one of them. Not necessarily the band gathered around her father, but the band of girls outside the Tube station, gossiping about ‘EastEnders’, about who Jon Walker liked best, about whether Angie really got fingered by Paul at Christa’s party on Saturday and did her dad know because he was really strict? Whether Doc Martens were just totally over or who was going to see Wet Wet Wet at Wembley? But she knew she never would be.

Kate thought about this, how much things had changed, as she came out of the Tube station and walked towards her father’s new house. New – well, not any more, she supposed. It was a long time since the days of the house in Kentish Town. And it was years now since Daniel Miller had found himself not only a new wife, but a new career, as a recording artist doing covers of ABBA and Barber’s ‘Adagio for Strings’, posing artfully with a loaned Strad (for the photoshoot only) in black and white, standing on a clifftop. He’d even been nominated for a Classic FM Award (and whether he had been outraged not to win or secretly relieved, Kate couldn’t be sure). Just before his health had declined a few months ago he had emailed Kate to announce that his next project was a cover album of Barry Manilow’s greatest hits.

She was proud of him – she was his daughter, how could she not be, having seen him at his lowest, and how he’d built himself up again? But Daniel Miller’s change of career had been greeted with absolute outrage in the more traditional musical world – an open letter to him in the Telegraph signed by the six biggest music critics, pleading with him to pull his album of Abba covers, offers of ‘proper’ work, third desk in the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, publicized far and wide, making Daniel a scapegoat, almost, for what the more puritanical elements of the classical music world saw as the selling out of genuine talent for big bucks. Daniel had stuck to his guns, though, and his bank manager thanked him for it, and the Hello! interviews started, as did the chats on the GMTV sofa orchestrated by Lisa, who was herself in PR. For Lisa was behind it all, it was Lisa whom Kate had to – reluctantly – credit with turning her father’s life around, even if Kate didn’t love her the way she felt she should …

Now Daniel and his new wife and daughter lived in Notting Hill, in a cream townhouse off Ladbroke Grove, with a huge, clean, neutrally coloured basement kitchen (not a chaotic, eclectic basement kitchen) leading through to a perfectly manicured garden, artfully designed, with an enormous communal garden at the back of it. A distressed chandelier hung in the hallway; aluminium window boxes with ferns adorned the window sills; the 4x4 stood outside. In its careful independence it was virtually indistinguishable from the other houses on its exclusive little road. Yes, times had changed for Daniel Miller: until now, for the better, as he had frequently told his eldest daughter, almost daring her to challenge him on it.

As Kate rang the doorbell of her father’s house, just after six o’clock that Sunday evening, she was shaking somewhat, though she tried to hide it. In her hands were some more daffodils – she wasn’t sure what to bring her father, not knowing what he would or wouldn’t be able to eat. And she couldn’t remember him, couldn’t remember what colours he liked, what present might cheer him up, what books he liked reading, these days, who was out of favour with him, who was in – though, conversely, she now knew all of those things about her mother.

The door was suddenly flung open. There, like an action heroine and her matching miniature doll, were Lisa, her stepmother, and Dani, her little sister, as if they’d been standing there, simply waiting for her to come along.

Lisa was standing with her hands on her hips, her tiny frame encased in an expensive brown velour tracksuit, chocolate Uggs on her feet, car keys jingling in her hand. Kate goggled at her rather stupidly, not knowing what to say. She stared at Lisa’s beautiful, unlined face, her skin moist and tanned, perfectly buffed and cleansed and possibly peeled by a team of high-tech beauticians, and just said, blankly,

‘Lisa!’

‘Kate, hi,’ said Lisa. Her expression was neutral. She pushed Danielle forward. ‘Dani, it’s your sister. Kate. Say hi.’

‘Hi-yerr,’ Dani spoke loudly.

‘Hi, Dani,’ Kate said and, bending down, kissed her.

‘Hey there! Hi!’ Dani said, showing her tiny teeth.

‘Why’ve you got an American accent?’ Kate said, peering at her half-sister as if she were an alien. Dani stared back at her, impassively, her curly blonde bunches bobbing slightly as she sucked her thumb.

‘Kate, she hasn’t got an American accent,’ said Lisa. She gave a tight smile. ‘Dani, we’re going to get you ready for bed in a minute, OK? Then you can come back and talk to Kate.’ She turned back to her stepdaughter. ‘Look, it’s lovely to see you.’

‘Oh, and you,’ said Kate. She held out the daffodils, and Lisa reached out for them. ‘Um, these are for Dad,’ Kate went on, as Lisa’s hands dropped like stones. ‘I mean, you know. Shall I show them to him?’

Lisa stared at her with something close to exasperation. ‘Whatever you want,’ she said. ‘He’s through there.’

She guided Kate with her hand on her elbow, pushing her down the cream-carpeted hallway to the sitting room, where she said,

‘Dan, darling? Kate’s here, and I’ll be back soon.’

Kate stood in the centre of the huge space and stared at the figure at the other end of the room.

‘Kate?’ came a low, raspy voice, from the sofa underneath the window, and Kate walked towards her father.

‘Hello, darling girl,’ he said, reaching up. Kate leaned over him and he put his hand around Kate’s neck, pulling her down to him as he lay on the sofa. ‘How’s my Katya? Look at your old dad, eh? Bit of a shambles, I’m afraid.’

Kate hugged her dad, kissed him awkwardly, still holding the flowers. She stuck her lower lip out, unintentionally mimicking her thoughts. She was totally, utterly knocked sideways by what she saw. His face was yellow, his hair colourless, the creases in his cheeks looked like folds, and now his hands were lifeless, crossed pathetically on his stomach, like an old lady waiting for a bus. Those hands, which once coaxed sounds of pure heaven from a three hundred-year-old wooden box, the hands that were insured for a million dollars when Kate was ten – they looked flat, deflated, like the rest of him. Where once his hair had been dark browny blond like his daughter’s, slippery and uncontrollable, his grey eyes snapping fire as he waved a fork at a friend, violently disagreeing about something, where once his tanned, healthy face smiled excitedly down at an adoring crowd, now did he smile gently at his daughter and pat the sofa.

‘Come and sit here, old lady, come and tell me how you are.’

‘God, Dad,’ said Kate. ‘I’m so sorry…’

She trailed off, and bit her lip. A tear rolled down her cheek. Daniel looked at her.

‘Oh darling,’ he said. ‘Come on,’ and he pulled her arm so she sat down next to him. ‘It’s a bit of a shock, isn’t it? But I’m having a bad day today, leaving hospital and all. I’ve been much better than this. You haven’t seen me for a while Kate, that’s all. Never mind, it’s over now isn’t it? I just have to concentrate on getting better.’

‘I didn’t realize,’ said Kate. She felt almost dizzy with sensation overpowering her. How could this have happened, how could she have known this was happening to her dad and not come sooner? Forget her mercurial, vague mother; he was, without doubt, the person she loved most in the world. How could she have shut herself off so completely? She stared at him frantically, and he looked at her.

As if reading her thoughts, her father said,

‘Lisa’s been amazing, you know. I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t –’

‘I know, Dad,’ said Kate. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner.’

‘She has been brilliant,’ her father persisted. He lay back on the sofa again. ‘And Dani – gosh, she’s quite different from you at that age. Very noisy!’

‘I bet,’ said Kate, smiling at him, holding his hands.

‘But it’s nice to have a young person around the house again. A little Katya.’ He blinked. ‘Ah, here she is!’

Danielle rushed into the room, in her pyjamas. ‘Daddeeee!’ she cried. ‘I’m here!’

Her pyjamas were pink; she had a glossy, huge teddy under her arm and slippers in the shape of bunny rabbits, and she looked very small and totally innocent, her chubby legs thumping across the carpet.

Kate bit her finger sharply, the pain flooding through her, calming her down, and she looked away from her father to her half-sister.

‘I like your pyjamas, Dani,’ she said. ‘Pink pyjamas, like the song.’

‘What song?’ said Dani, in an American accent.

‘“She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain”,’ said Kate. ‘Do you know it?’

‘No,’ said Dani. ‘You’re lying, man.’

‘I’m not lying,’ said Kate. She sang.

‘She’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes,

She’ll be wearing pink pyjamas when she comes,

Wearing pink pyjamas,

Wearing pink pyjamas,

Wearing pink pyjamas when she comes.’

‘Singing aye-aye ippy-ippy aye,’ Daniel boomed loudly, suddenly, from the sofa, and Kate jumped, and Dani laughed. ‘Singing aye-aye ippy-ippy aye,’ they sang together.

‘Aye-aye ippy

Aye-aye ippy,

Aye-aye ippy-ippy aye.’

Dani laughed again. ‘I like it,’ she said, jumping onto the sofa. She wiggled in between Kate and her father, her warm, hot little body writhing with excitement. Kate put her arm around her and hugged her, inhaling the scent of her damp hair. She looked over at her dad, watched him smiling down at his small daughter, then up at her, and she squeezed Dani a little tighter.

‘Sing it again,’ Dani said.

‘I’m tired now, darling,’ said Daniel. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘Daniel,’ came a clear voice from the door. ‘Is Dani giving you trouble? Is she being a bad girl?’

‘I’m not, Mom!’ Dani screeched in a slow, high voice. ‘Kate wouldn’t sing me another song and she promised!’

‘I’m sure she didn’t mean to,’ said Lisa.

‘I didn’t,’ said Kate, sounding totally unconvincing. Lisa walked into the centre of the room, and Dani ran towards her and clutched her leg, with the desperation of a man finding the last lifebelt on the Titanic. Lisa looked down at her daughter.

‘Ah, mum’s darling girl,’ she said. ‘Is she tired tonight?’

‘Yes,’ said Dani, sucking her thumb so loudly it echoed, the sound bouncing off the fake dove-grey antique French armoire all the way across the room. ‘Rilly, rilly tired. Night Dad.’

‘Say goodnight to Kate, darling,’ Daniel said, shifting on the sofa. ‘She’s come to see you too, you know.’

‘She should have come earlier,’ Dani said. ‘Mum told me.’

Silence, like a blanket, flung itself over the room, broken only by the noise of Dani sucking her thumb again.

‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Lisa, looking flustered for the first time in her life. She ran a hand over her forehead, the other resting on her daughter’s head. Kate thought how tired she looked, for a second.

‘Sshh, darling,’ said Lisa, looking at Daniel, who ignored his youngest daughter.

‘Lisa.’ Her husband’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘Why don’t you put Dani to bed, and Kate and I can catch up.’

‘See you in a minute, Kate,’ said Lisa, ushering Dani out of the room.

‘Bysie bye, pink pyjamas,’ cried Dani as she skipped out of the room, utterly unconcerned with the familial havoc she, the only person in the room related to everyone present, had wrought.

‘She didn’t mean it,’ Kate’s father said. ‘She’s got a lot on her plate at the moment.’

‘Dani?’ Kate said, smiling gently.

‘Hah,’ said Daniel. ‘Lisa. I’m not easy at the moment. She’s very … organized.’

She saw him now, in these new surroundings, and watched him as his hand scraped, pathetically, over the surface of the coffee table, as if searching for something to cling onto. The thought that this was the best thing you could find to say about your wife, for whom you had almost had to throw your daughter out, for whom you had worked yourself into the ground, moved houses, made new friends, gone on flashy, expensive holidays to ‘network’ with flashy, expensive people that you didn’t really like that much, for whom you had essentially reinvented yourself, struck Kate as singularly depressing. But she said,

‘I know. Yeah. She must be great to have around at a time like this.’

‘Oh sure,’ said her dad, and they both fell silent, the two of them sitting awkwardly in the pristine sitting room. Kate shifted on the sofa.

The letter from Charly was in her bag. She could feel it in there; humming with intent. She hadn’t opened it, she didn’t want to open it, knew she couldn’t. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thrown it away. But she hadn’t. Now, silent next to her father, she slid her hand into her bag again, to touch it for the umpteenth time since she had left the house.

The envelope was stiff; there was something inside it, more than just a piece of paper. What could it be? What was it? The postmark had said Mount Pleasant, the main London sorting office: that proved nothing at all.

‘What’s that?’ said her father curiously, his voice resonant in the stillness of the vast room.

‘Nothing.’ Kate thrust the envelope hurriedly into the darkest recesses of her bag, way out of sight. ‘Just something that was waiting for me. Post.’

‘You must have a lot to deal with,’ her father said. He shunted himself up slightly on the sofa, grimacing as he did so. ‘Sorting out the flat, and everything.’

‘Yes,’ said Kate.

Daniel looked up at the ceiling, then at the floor. ‘Um – while I think of it,’ he said, casually, ‘are you going to get a new tenant while you’re here? Approve them yourself?’

Before she left for New York, her father had bought half the flat, and as such he was entitled to half the rent. Kate skimmed her foot along the carpet. ‘Not sure yet,’ she said. ‘I might wait till I go back, get the letting agents to do it again. I need to think about it. I mean, Gemma leaving and me coming back – it was all quite sudden.’

‘Right,’ said Daniel. ‘Still.’ He coughed, Kate thought rather awkwardly. ‘We don’t want to lose rent on it, do we? You don’t, I mean.’ He cleared his throat extensively.

‘Two weeks, I’ll be here, Dad,’ Kate said gently. ‘You won’t lose that much rent, I promise. I’m sorry –’ she didn’t know what to say. ‘I’ll get onto it,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, wondering what else to say. A germ of an idea formed in her head; she rejected it, surely not. ‘Anyway, Dad, you mustn’t worry about that at the moment. It’s not important.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ her father said, quickly, loudly. ‘Eh? Isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate, realizing she had to appease him, not aggravate him. ‘Of course, Dad. I’ll get onto it.’

‘Hm,’ said her father. He breathed out, heavily, a sort of groan. ‘We don’t want it sitting idle. That’s all.’

‘I’m talking to the estate agents tomorrow,’ Kate said, mentally adding this to her list of things to do. Her father groaned again. ‘Dad, you OK?’ She put her hand on his, it was shaking.

‘Yes, yes,’ Daniel said, almost impatiently. He shifted slightly.

‘How long till they – till they know?’ Kate said. ‘Whether it’s taken, I mean?’

‘What’s taken?’ He shook his head, not understanding.

‘The kidney.’ It felt like a dirty word.

‘Oh, I see. I don’t know. If it hates me, it’ll tell me pretty soon; I’ll go into arrest and probably die,’ he said, smiling mordantly. ‘They’ve got me on enough different pills though; good grief, I could practically set up a fucking pharmacy.’

‘Dad.’ Kate put her hand on his, which was lying on his chest. Her hand was shaking.

‘Oh, Kate,’ he said. ‘God, it’s lovely to see you, darling. I miss you.’

She looked down at him; his eyes, blue, fierce, with a flicker of their old fire, locked with hers.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Kate, and she meant it. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘No need,’ said Daniel, mildly. ‘I could have come to see you more, you know. But you should have come back. Dani hardly knows who you are. And she’s your sister. You’ve only seen her once in the last three years.’

Kate had a childish, stupid impulse suddenly, to scream like Dani, but she merely tightened her grip on her father’s hand.

‘You know why I had to get out of here,’ she said instead.

‘You did the right thing,’ Daniel said. ‘It was right that you left, you know. I just think you’ve been gone too long.

That girl,’ he added, casually. ‘Charly. It was Charly, wasn’t it, the one you met in your first job?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate.

‘Well, I never liked her, I have to say.’

Since this was patently untrue, and Daniel had always had a crush on the long-legged, tousle-haired, foul-mouthed Charly, Kate said nothing, but she smiled at him, and he twinkled back at her. ‘Well,’ he said after a while. ‘Maybe just a bit.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘How’s your mother, then?’

‘She’s well. She sends her – well, she sends her love,’ Kate said, cursing herself for phrasing this so badly. What Venetia had actually said at the airport, hands clasped to chest, while Oscar struggled with the bags, was,

‘Oh my god. My darling Daniel. Tell him … God, what? You know, he’s a shit, but I still can’t help loving him.’

‘How’s that gay husband of hers?’

‘He’s not gay. He’s fine,’ Kate said automatically.

‘Hmm,’ said Daniel, flicking back his hair, in an unconscious gesture. ‘Do you or do you not remember your engagement party? When he told me he’d had a manicure specially for the party? My god.’ He shook his head.

‘Some men like manicures,’ Kate said defensively.

‘Not any men I know,’ said Daniel.

‘Dad!’ Kate said, hitting him gently on the arm. ‘You used to wear gloves in summer to protect your hands!’

‘That’s completely different,’ Daniel said crossly. ‘I was a musician, they were my tools.’

‘Well, so’s Oscar. He’s a musician.’

‘No, he’s a tool,’ Daniel said, chuckling to himself, coughing a little bit. He recovered. ‘And he’s not a musician. Arranging silly songs about farmers and cowmen is not being a musician.’

‘He doesn’t –’ Kate wasn’t going to get into the merits and demerits of Oklahoma! with Daniel, nor point out to him that actually it was probably the greatest musical ever written. She and her father had fallen out over this many times before. So she frowned at him, smiling too, but her frown quickly turned to alarm.

‘Dad, are you alright?’

‘I’m fine. Well, I’m not fine. Aarrpff.’

She looked at Daniel in panic rushing over her; perspiration covered his forehead, and he was terribly pale.

‘Lisa,’ she called, getting up. ‘Dad, I’m going to get Lisa,’ she told him, shaking free of her father’s frenzied grip.

‘No, don’t,’ he said, flashing a ghastly rictus grin at her. ‘I’ll be fine. When do you have to go, darling?’

Kate looked at her watch, she didn’t want to look at him. ‘I’m going to see Zoe, but it really doesn’t matter if I’m late.’

Lisa appeared in the doorway. ‘Dan? You OK?’ she said, bustling forward. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘He went a bit … funny,’ said Kate. She looked down at her father as Lisa put a hand on his forehead and checked his pulse.

‘Went a bit funny,’ Daniel repeated. ‘That’s the medical term for it, I’m sure.’ He closed his eyes. ‘God, I’m fucking tired. It really knocks you for six, this business. And I’m so bored. So bloody bored.’

He was a man of action, used to doing, speaking, thinking, striding around and yelling. Kate could see how much he hated this confinement. He needed constant distraction, attention, to keep him stable, otherwise … she remembered this much from her childhood. The consequences were awful.

‘I’m sure you are,’ said Kate, still standing, and watching him. Her eyes met Lisa’s. ‘Look Dad,’ she said, bending down, ‘I’m going to take off and let you get some rest, OK? But I’ll be back tomorrow.’

‘How great!’ said Lisa, smiling thinly. ‘That’ll be great for you, won’t it Dan?’

‘I look forward to it,’ Daniel said, slightly inclining his head, mock-formally. He took his daughter’s hand and kissed it. ‘Until tomorrow, my darling.’

‘Yes,’ said Kate, stroking his hair. ‘Bye Dad. I love you.’

‘It’s great to see you again,’ he said, clutching his heart in a dramatic way; a flash of the old Daniel Miller, the amateur dramatics that the crowds used to love. ‘So wonderful to have you back.’

She couldn’t speak; she shook her head, smiling at him, as her eyes filled with tears, and followed Lisa out into the hall. Lisa handed her her jacket with an air of polite efficiency.

‘So – are you getting a job while you’re over here?’ Lisa said suddenly. ‘How did you leave it with them?’

‘In New York? I said I wasn’t sure when I’d be back. They’ve got someone to cover for me, don’t worry. She’s really good.’

‘It’s not that hard to learn the skills though, is it.’

Uh-ho, Kate thought. She steeled herself for another blow.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked, trying to sound polite and friendly.

‘You’re the office assistant.’ Lisa sounded exasperated. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘Er – I –’ Kate didn’t know what to say.

‘I’m just surprised, that’s all,’ said Lisa. She drummed her fingers on the stone-coloured wall. ‘I never thought that’s what you’d end up doing.’

‘Right,’ said Kate, briskly. ‘OK, well, thanks, then, I’ll –’

She put her hand on the door frame, and pointed vaguely towards the street, but Lisa was not to be put off. She ran her forefinger lightly over the flawless skin on her cheek, stroking it.

‘It was such a shame, what happened, wasn’t it,’ she said, conversationally. ‘Because you know. You were doing so well on Venus. Your dad thought you’d be editor of the magazine in a few years. Or writing a novel, or something. He always said that. He’s a bit surprised, I think –’

Lisa’s eyes were bulging slightly; Kate realized, with a start, that she had been dying to have this conversation with her stepdaughter for some time. Her face loomed close to Kate’s, and Kate could see her pores, as Daniel coughed in the other room.

‘Right,’ said Kate again, nodding furiously. ‘Lisa, look, now’s not the time for –’

Lisa held up her hand, briefly. ‘I must say this –’ she began. Kate’s heart sank. ‘That’s all very well. But I don’t think you quite understand how much your dad worries about you now, Kate.’

‘I know he does.’

‘He feels very let down.’ Lisa looked at the floor.

Kate was angry, suddenly. Angry at herself for mismanaging this situation, angry with Lisa for her insinuations, her nasty barbed comments.

‘Look, I’m very tired, and so are you, much more so than me. I haven’t seen you for eighteen months, or Dad or Dani. Please, Lisa,’ she said, surprised at how scary she sounded, ‘Let’s not get into this.’ Being angry made her stronger, she realized. She wasn’t scared of Lisa anymore. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, is that OK?’

Lisa stared at her. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Look – I’m really tired,’ she whispered. ‘Sorry.’

‘I’m sorry, Lisa,’ said Kate, feeling really uncomfortable. ‘I should have been back more. To see him, and to see Dani. I can’t believe how much she’s grown.’

If she was expecting a more emotional moment on the doorstep, she wasn’t going to get it from Lisa. She nodded, as if the apology was what she was hanging out for, and then opened the door. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘She’s a great little kid,’ as if Dani were a neighbour’s child who lived down the street. ‘So then, see you tomorrow, and – yeah.’

That was not how Kate would have put it, but this was her cue to leave, clearly, so she did. She stepped into the front garden, and knocked on the sitting room window, peeping over the frosted glass so she could see her dad on the sofa again. He waved at her, his face lightening, and then shooed her away, blowing a kiss, as Lisa came back into the room and stood, watching her from a distance. Kate made her escape, hurrying down the path into the crisp March night.

CHAPTER SIX

‘I’m on my way.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘I know. Zoe, I need a drink. Put some wine in the freezer.’

‘Already in the fridge love. Got some Twiglets here too.’

‘Twiglets! Oh my God, when was the last time I had –’

‘I know, I know. Now stop wittering and get on the Tube. I’ll see you when I see you.’

‘Bye. Zoe –’

‘Yes love. Bye.’

Kate picked up her pace. She was going to see Zoe! Actually see her, look at her face, be in her presence. Sit at her kitchen table, see Harry, meet Flora for the first time! She was terrified, but she couldn’t wait. After seeing her father, nothing else seemed as bad as that, and it was with a curious lightness of heart that she stepped off the kerb, looking around her in the evening gloom.

Zoe, Henry and Flora lived in Kilburn. When they were first engaged, Zoe and Steve had bought a garden flat in a terrace house, moving from a spacious, airy flat in Muswell Hill because, as Zoe kept saying, Kilburn was the Next Place. The Next Place that was going to go stratospheric, the new Notting Hill/ Clapham/Shoreditch. By the end of the year, where there were roadworks and rubbish and old green Eighties council bins with white stick men on them miming ‘Don’t Litter’, where there were dealers and a WH Smiths with old livery, there would now be potted plants. Widened pavements, tapas restaurants, and all the shops apart from the Primark and the Tricycle Theatre would have gone, to be replaced by Space NK, Carluccio, and Strada. Zoe and Steve would stroll out of an evening, to sample the delightful new Italian and friends would say admiringly, ‘You live in Kilburn?’ much as one might say, ‘You live in Mayfair?’

Three years on, and everything else had changed. They’d bought the flat upstairs, when Harry was born. But Steve was gone now, Harry and Flora were here, yet Kilburn was still more commonly bracketed with Soweto, the Gorbals and South Central LA than Fulham or Battersea. But by then other things were, simply, much more important.

Kate realized, as she stumbled along in the dark, that she knew the route to Zoe’s house from the Tube so well she could have done it almost blindfold. The broken cracks in the paving stones; there was the parking ticket machine; there was the gate that half hung off its hinges. It was so unlike Daniel and Lisa’s house; it was more like Kentish Town, where she’d grown up. She ignored the lounging youth who sat on a wall two houses along from Zoe’s, staring balefully at her; she even smiled quite sweetly back at him, hammering on the door impatiently, all thought of fatigue gone.

And then darling Zoe opened the door. They didn’t say anything. Zoe just smiled at Kate, and held out her arms, and Kate remembered what she’d forgotten, that Zoe and Steve’s house was more of a home to her than anywhere she’d ever known, that she loved Zoe more than most people in the world, probably. Zoe looked exactly the same, like a little brunette imp, and as she stepped forward and hugged her best friend, Kate felt her heart hurting, physically hurting.

‘Missed you.’ Zoe’s silky thin brown hair muffled Kate’s voice; after about a minute they laughed, and stepped back, Zoe still gripping Kate’s elbows.

‘Look at you, lovely girl. You’re so grown-up. What’s happened to my Kate?’

‘Hardly,’ Kate laughed, and shook herself free. She crossed her arms. ‘Where are the children?’

‘In bed,’ said Zoe. ‘Sorry,’ she added. ‘I knew if I let them stay up to see you we’d never get rid of them. I told them if you came round at all it’d be very very late. And I told them you wouldn’t have had time to buy any presents yet, because there aren’t any in America.’

‘Ah.’ Kate followed her in, and shut the door behind her, looking round in pleasure at the long corridor, littered with small wellington boots, a bike with stabilizers and coats, hung on various things. A birdcage hung off the umbrella stand.

It was like being home again. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed this house. Zoe gazed around rather helplessly, then clapped her hands and said,

‘Right, let’s get some wine. Put your coat – er, there. That’s right.’

‘Thanks.’ Kate followed her through into the sitting room, piled high with brightly coloured videos, books, toys, cushions, and more cushions – Kate had forgotten this, that Zoe was incapable of entering one of those Cath Kidston-style lifestyle shops so beloved of her, the kind that stocked chipped enamel jugs and beautiful cups and saucers for the modern vintage home, without walking out with a cushion under her arm. She must have had about twenty. It made sitting on sofas in Zoe’s house extremely hard.

‘So how was –’

‘So how are –’

There was a constraint in the air all of a sudden; they broke off and laughed. ‘You go first,’ Kate said.

‘How’s your dad?’

‘Fine. Weak, bit shaky, but basically fine, for the moment. They won’t know if it’s been a success for a while.’

‘Must have been great to see him.’

‘Yeah.’ Kate couldn’t articulate it all. She scrunched up her nose, and nodded, and Zoe nodded back. She understood.

‘How was the flight?’ said Zoe, brushing the worn edge of the large blue sofa.

‘Good, good, thanks,’ said Kate.

‘How’s New York! I want to hear everything. How’s it going?’

‘How’s it going’ is one of the world’s most annoying questions. It is not a request for specific information, more a general ‘fill me in’ command. Kate didn’t know where to start. Trying not to sound churlish, she said,

‘What do you want to know about?’

‘You know!’ Zoe’s enthusiasm was loud, too loud. ‘How’s everything going, what’s it like in NYC, are you liking living there. What’s new?’

‘Um. Well, I saw Betty on Friday –’

‘Yeah? How’s she?’

‘She said she’d just spoken to you.’ Betty was an old friend of both of theirs.

‘Yeah, she rang last week, actually.’ Zoe cleared her throat. ‘Who’s Andrew?’

‘Andrew?’ Kate was blank for a moment, then she remembered. It seemed years ago. The drinks, the kiss, her running away … Andrew. She tried to picture his face, mortified, in the darkness. She felt her cheeks flame red; she raised her hand to her face. It was another life.

‘He’s – no-one, really,’ she said. ‘Someone Betty’s always trying to set me up with.’

‘Oh!’ Zoe said, too loudly again, like this was a jolly, great conversation between two normal friends. ‘Oh you!’

‘No,’ said Kate flatly. ‘I kissed him and then I felt sick and had to get into a cab and run away. If you want the truth.’

Zoe’s brow furrowed. ‘Right.’

‘Nothing really to talk about,’ Kate said. ‘Honestly.’

Zoe took the hint. ‘So, then. That’s – great. So, how’s the flat? Did the tenant leave it in a state?’

‘No, it’s fine actually,’ said Kate. ‘I’ve unpacked, it’s nice to be back there.’

‘Yes, it must be.’ Zoe ran into the kitchen, collecting the wine out of the fridge. ‘Is it – er, is there a lot of stuff in it still? From … before?’

‘Yep.’ Kate took the glass she handed her. ‘Most of it’s in the storage area in the basement. But quite a lot’s still in the cupboards in the hall. Just – you know. Books. Photos. Clothes I should have thrown away years ago. Joint stuff we had together.’

‘I’m the same,’ Zoe said. She waved her hands around. ‘Too much stuff of Steve’s around, still. It’s been a while now. Why can’t the bastard come and pick it all up eh?’ She smiled, her eyes filling with tears.

‘I know,’ Kate said, inadequately. She could feel her heart, hammering away in her throat, it seemed. This was it, now. ‘Look, Zo –’

‘Can I say something?’ Zoe interrupted her, her voice high, nervous. ‘Darling. Can we just – catch up, you know? Not have some long, awful, depressing conversation that leaves us both in tears and makes us feel hugely guilty?’

‘But –’ Kate had come expecting that; she deserved it, she was guilty. But Zoe put her hand on hers.

‘Look, Kate. Darling Kate.’ Her eyes were bright with tears. ‘Do you know how much I miss you?’

‘Zoe –’ Kate said, easy tears coming to her eyes. ‘I –’

Zoe interrupted her again. ‘This is what I mean. I miss you so much. There’s so much to say, and so much I want to know about. I don’t want to sit here having a maudlin conversation about all the shit that’s happened. It happened. You ran away.’

‘I did.’

‘But I’m the one who kicked you out.’

‘No, you weren’t.’

They were facing each other.

After a few moments, Zoe sighed, deflated. ‘It doesn’t matter. Oh Kate. I was furious with you, but now you’re back so, oh, please let’s not waste time being apologetic and wringing our hands about it all. I want to know how you are.’

She sat back on the sofa, and nodded her head solemnly.

‘But –’ There was so much Kate could say to this, and she fumbled for words.

‘I mean it,’ Zoe said, almost fiercely, and Kate saw that she was struggling with emotion, emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. Kate nodded back.

‘Right. Of course,’ she said.

‘Yep,’ said Zoe, recovering herself quickly. ‘Cheers, darling Kate. Cheers. Welcome back.’ She stood up, and Kate followed suit. ‘God, it’s good to see you again.’

Their glasses, clinking heavily together in the quiet room, made a harsh, clanging sound. After they’d each taken a large sip, they both sank into the sofa and looked at each other.

‘So really, how’s your dad?’ Zoe said first.

‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘He came out of hospital this morning. Um, he’s OK. Not great, actually.’

‘How is Loosa?’

This was the childish name she and Kate had given Lisa after her appearance on the scene, over six years ago. Loosa made them cackle for hours in the pub, at Kate’s flat, and so on. Even Charly tried to claim she’d thought of it. It was less of a joke when, after about nine months together, Loosa and her dad announced they were expecting a baby and were engaged. She was Lisa after that.

‘She was – er, fine,’ Kate said. ‘You know what she can be like.’

‘Was she mean?’

‘Noooo …’ Kate grimaced, remembering the conversation. She smiled, it had been so stupid. ‘Ahm, she told me I’ve wasted my life and I’m a disappointment to Dad.’ She nodded at Zoe’s outraged expression. ‘Oh, and then asked me about the rent, wanted to know when I was getting someone else into the flat and I needed to sort it out ASAP.’

‘What a bitch.’ Zoe’s dark eyes snapped fire. ‘Don’t worry about her. She’s always been a bitch, Kate. She’s a cliché – I thought they didn’t make them like her anymore. Evil stepmothers, I mean.’

‘Still…’ Kate was trying to be fair. She knew Lisa had it pretty tough. And as she thought about the huge, spotless house, perfect without and within, weirdly, she felt sorry for Lisa, and Dani, just a little, and desperately sorry for her dad.

There was silence; another awkward silence. Zoe cradled her glass of wine in her hand; there was a noise from upstairs, a creak, but then silence, and they looked back at each other and smiled.

‘Oh, by the way. I should have mentioned,’ Zoe said after a moment, ‘Mac’s back.’

Kate looked up sharply. ‘I thought he was living in Edinburgh again?’ she said.

‘No, he came back. He’s looking for somewhere to live. He wants to move up here, find a flat closer to us, actually.’ She looked curiously at Kate. ‘Hey! Maybe he should rent your flat when you go back!’

‘That’s a good idea,’ Kate said. She rummaged for some imaginary item in her bag, so Zoe couldn’t see her face.

‘He’d love to live in your flat, I bet. I always thought he had a bit of a crush on you.’

‘Did you!’ Kate waved her head around, as if this was hilarious.

Zoe nodded, her brown fringe bobbing up and down her forehead. ‘Yes, seriously, me and Steve used to talk about it.’ She looked at her friend curiously. ‘But … well, it didn’t work out, did it.’

‘I suppose not,’ Kate nodded, seemingly interested. ‘So, how’s his job?’

‘Good, good,’ Zoe said. ‘He’s a resident now in a hospital down here, actually doing pretty well I think. It’s just – since everything happened, it’s good to have him around,’ she said, looking glum. ‘It’s nice for Harry and Flora to see their uncle. He’s so good with them.’ Zoe smiled. ‘Oh, he’s lovely. He’s just a gentle giant, you know.’

‘Yes,’ said Kate, smiling gently at her. ‘He is lovely. I can imagine he would be.’

‘Anyway,’ Zoe shook her head, recovering herself. ‘When he heard you were back and you were coming over, he said he’d pop round tomorrow instead. He said he didn’t want to intrude, you know. On us catching up and everything.’

‘Of course,’ said Kate. ‘That’s really nice of him. Still, it’d be great to see him.’

So Mac could be on his way over, as she sat here on the sofa. But he wouldn’t come over, Kate knew it. Once he knew she was back, he’d no more pop round to Zoe’s to say hi than he would eat a glass vase. And she couldn’t blame him.

‘So how’s work?’ Kate said a bit later, two more glasses down.

‘OK.’ Zoe swallowed. ‘OK. Good, actually. They’ve really been great about the kids and everything. And it’s a nice place to work. I like going there.’

Zoe worked as a garden designer for a picture-perfect little garden nursery near Primrose Hill. Having been a lawyer at one of the top London firms, averaging eighty-hour weeks and earning double that, suddenly three years into her job, she chucked it all in. Memorably – or this was how Steve told it – she’d told a partner at the firm that she didn’t want to end up like him.

She’d trained as a garden designer, because she could afford to – and Steve was a management consultant, still working long hours and bringing home the bacon – and when they had Harry her job was flexible. It was perfect – until Steve left them and now she was struggling to make ends meet. But as she said, she’d rather struggle, working in the open air with the flowers and seeds, and pick her children up from school, than work all the hours of the day and be able to afford five-star holidays to Dubai.

‘You should come and have lunch with me one day, when I’m at the nursery,’ Zoe said, patting the table flatly with the palm of her hand. ‘What are you going to do for the next week or so?’

‘Not sure, really,’ said Kate. ‘I need to sort stuff out in the flat. See Dad. Spend some time with Dani, too, I suppose. And catch up with people, Francesca and all that lot.’

‘How’s your work going?’ Zoe emptied the rest of the bottle into her glass.

‘OK,’ said Kate. ‘Someone’s covering me while I’m away. They’ve been really good about it.’

‘Are you – what’s happening with becoming an agent? Are you handling any stuff of your own yet?’

She took another swig of wine as Zoe watched her, waiting for her answer.

‘Not really, no,’ she said honestly. ‘And I like it that way, Zo. I know it’s terrible, but I loved it. I liked not having to be me any more.’

Zoe nodded.

‘I thought you’d be editor of some huge magazine some day,’ she said. ‘Devil Wears Prada, that sort of thing. Or writing a bestselling novel.’ She shook her head. ‘That’s all.’

‘You sound like Lisa,’ Kate pointed out. ‘I thought you’d be a QC by now.’

‘You thought lots of things would happen,’ Zoe said. ‘So did I. Look at us.’

The cluttered kitchen was silent; the house was quiet.

Kate tried to imagine what it must be like for Zoe, alone every evening, while the children slept upstairs. Tears pricked her eyes; a painful lump rose in her throat.

‘Hey,’ she said, trying to change the mood. ‘Do you remember your housewarming party here, all those years ago?’

‘My god,’ said Zoe. ‘I always forget about then. We only had the groundfloor flat then. Isn’t it weird, how different it was then.’

‘Sure was,’ Kate nodded. ‘That was a great party though.’

‘You wore your blue and gold dress.’

‘You stood on a chair and sang “Cabaret”.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Zoe ruefully. ‘Didn’t Francesca snog that Finnish gatecrasher from the flat upstairs?’

‘Yes, she did!’ Kate hit the table, memory flooding back.

‘And – oh my god. Wasn’t that the night you got together with Sean?’

She cleared her throat, as Kate was silent, drowning in waves of memory. Then Kate said,

‘No, it was a few weeks later.’

‘But you were flatmates, weren’t you?’

‘Yes, we were …’ Kate squashed a piece of bread into her fingers. ‘Yep. That was a weird night. I’d forgotten.’ And she had, strangely. It had been one of those event evenings that mark the beginning of a new time in one’s life and thus the end of another, she realized now. ‘Six years ago,’ she went on. ‘I can’t believe it. It seems – well, it’s weird.’

‘So near yet so far,’ said Zoe, and Kate nodded.

Kate unwrapped an after dinner mint, and carefully smoothed the foil out onto the table. ‘When did you buy the flat upstairs?’ she asked. ‘I can’t remember. Was it after you got married?’

‘After,’ said Zoe flatly. ‘Steve flirted totally disgustingly with the estate agent and I didn’t speak to him for two days. But he got the price down by five grand, so I couldn’t hate him anymore.’

Kate well remembered Steve’s flirting. There was nothing she could say to this.

‘Typical of him,’ Zoe went on. ‘Bloody typical.’ She blinked rapidly. ‘Anyway, what was I saying? Yes, Mac. Mac!’ Kate nodded. ‘You see, I always thought he had a bit of a thing for you. That night at our housewarming party, you know. He was mad about you for a while, you know that, don’t you?’

Kate was silent, and then she said, ‘Well, it’s a long time ago, isn’t it.’

‘Yep,’ said Zoe. ‘It’s just a shame. We should get you two together before you have to go back, you know.’ She looked Kate over, appraisingly, like she was a prize heifer. ‘You haven’t seen him since – how long?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Kate. Keep your voice light, she told herself. ‘Is he –’ she opened her eyes wide. ‘Is he well, though?’

‘Yeah.’ Zoe nodded. ‘He’s OK. Got a bit of grey hair. Works too hard. Doesn’t talk about stuff much. But he’s OK. I know he’d love to see you.’

Kate looked around the bright, cosy room, feeling cold suddenly, and very tired.

‘It’s weird talking about this,’ Zoe said, sighing. ‘I never talk about it, about all of us any more. I’ll have to make the most of you while you’re here. It’ll be a while won’t it?

Perhaps you’ll love it back here so much you won’t go back. Yay!’

‘I am going back,’ said Kate. ‘Seriously. I love it there. I’ve got a new life, you know.’

‘I know you have,’ said Zoe. She crinkled her nose. ‘You needed it. I like thinking of you leading this super-glam New York life, meeting up with Betty for cocktails, running around like Sarah Jessica Parker. Sort of means I can’t hate you for not being here, Katy.’

Since her last birthday party had consisted of her mother, stepfather, and the Cohens (from down the corridor), and Maurice the doorman having a slice of cake out on the sidewalk, Kate didn’t know what to say to this. She smiled and nodded, sagely, as if hinting that a life full of incident and drama lay waiting for her across the ocean.

At eleven o’clock, Kate left, by then a little worse for the wine. As she was putting her coat on, Zoe opened the door and said,

‘Bye darl,’ Zoe said. ‘I love you. It’s so good to have you back.’

‘It’s good to be back,’ Kate said and then, that moment, as she hugged Zoe, it was.

When Kate got back home, the letter from Charly was still in her bag. She waited till she was in bed, face washed, warm chunky bedsocks from Bloomingdales, which her mother had given her last Christmas, enclosing her feet. Her old bedroom smelt faintly of familiar things, Coco perfume and peonies. Outside, someone somewhere was yelling at someone else, or perhaps at no-one, and away beyond her the city flickered, lights gradually going off one by one, still at its heart never asleep. Kate smoothed her hands over the duvet and blinked, the fatigue of the day finally catching up with her as her fingers fluttered on the glue of the envelope.

She drew out a letter. A letter and a photo. It was of Charly and Kate, dressed up before the office Christmas party, their first year at the magazine. Kate winced at her ill-advised Spice Girls-era black clompy platform boots, black miniskirt, waistcoat and hair in a high ponytail, and then, almost greedily, her eyes drank in Charly, glorious as always, her long, tousled hair tumbling around her tanned shoulders, the little black dress with spaghetti straps, the gorgeous, still-covetable knee-high black suede boots. It had been so long since she’d seen her, she’d forgotten how beautiful she was, how hilariously different the two of them were.

Hilarious, yes. That they’d been friends, so close you couldn’t slide a finger between them, so obsessed with each other it was almost like a relationship, so heartstoppingly sad that she hadn’t seen Charly for years, that Kate rocked back against the bookshelf, as if a ray of something had just shot out and hit her in the chest. That was the effect Charly still had on her, nearly eight years on, all those years since they’d first met.

Dear Kate

It’s been a while, hasn’t it. How are you?

I’m fine I suppose, working hard, not.

I found this photo of you and me at the Christmas party, the year you started at Woman’s World, thought you’d like to see it? What did we look like back then??!!

Kate I’m writing to say hello. Also to remind you I’m still alive. I wonder if you still care about that.

This is hard for me to write, you know I never was one for letters. I wanted to apologize. For everything I suppose. Well I thought I might as well try. Also, I’m writing because I wanted to let you know I’m having a baby. We don’t know what it is yet –

Kate didn’t read any more. She screwed the whole lot up, jumped up out of bed, and the cold hit her. She ran through to the kitchen, opened the little narrow french doors, and threw the letter, the photo, the envelope, out. She wondered, as if watching herself from above, why she hadn’t just opened her bedroom window, or thrown it in the bin. But it wouldn’t have been far away enough.

It was only when she felt something drop onto her chest that Kate realized tears were running down her face. In the dark corridor there was no sound. She crawled wearily back to bed, turned the light off, praying for a deadening sleep.

But the thoughts crowding into her brain danced there all night. She should have realized that those scenes would go through her head again, that she would dream about it all again. Back when she was starting her life as a grown-up, they all were. Look how it had turned out. She’d told Zoe, she never thought about it, she’d practically forgotten everything.

But that was a lie. Although she didn’t want it to be, it was imprinted on her brain, for always. How could it not be? And the dreams always ended the same way, with Kate realizing what, deep-down, she carried around with her every single day in New York. That she shouldn’t be here. She didn’t deserve to be here. That was why she didn’t let herself remember.

CHAPTER SEVEN

October 1999

‘Hey. New girl. I’m going to Anita’s for lunch. Do you want to come?’

Kate blinked up at the vision before her, and pushed her tortoiseshell glasses slightly further up her nose.

‘Er, yes, please,’ she said, shocked. ‘Thanks.’

‘I’m going now,’ the vision said. ‘I’m bloody bored, and Catherine and Sue are going to be gone for fucking ages on that conference meeting thing. Let’s get out of here.’

Nearly three weeks into her exciting new job at Woman’s World, and Kate had yet to have lunch with anyone; she was too terrified. She sat on a bench by Lincoln’s Inn each day at lunchtime, eating her sandwich and hiding behind a book if she saw anyone from the magazine. The offices were near Holborn, a big glass building housing all the magazines in the stable of Broadgate UK, and every morning the revolving doors sucked in these tall, gorgeous, glamorous stick-girls who strode past Kate, hair flowing in the breeze, expressionless and cool, and every evening it spewed them out again, as she flattened herself against the wall, trying not to get in their way. She spoke to her boss Sue, to Gary, the postroom boy, with whom she was insanely jolly and chatty, the way new people always are with the photocopying man, the postroom boy, the security guards. They’re men, they’re not bitchy, they don’t ignore new people as a point of principle.

To everyone else, however, she felt miserably that she might as well be invisible. If by chance one of the tall goddesses who hustled and bustled around Catherine Baldwin, the fearsome editor, should be forced to address her with some features-related query which only she could answer, Kate heard herself replying to their careless questions in a voice rusty with lack of use, and a tone hopelessly fulsome and inane.

‘Hi!’ she’d squeak. ‘Hi, there! No, Sue’s not here! She’s still out at lunch! Sorry, sorry,’ she would say, practically bowing, as Georgina or Jo or Sophie looked bored and not a little contemptuously down at her.

Because it was now October, the whole new job thing had a curious resemblance to going back to school, or university. The days still dry and relatively warm, the leaves dusty and crunchy on the trees, the streets of town suddenly busy again after the dog days of August and September. They were still playing ‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’ and ‘Livin La Vida Loca’ on the radio, but they sounded flimsy, summery, silly, out of kilter. The Argos Christmas adverts had started appearing on TV, even. As Kate and her new flatmate Sean walked to Rotherhithe station in the mornings, the still rising sun would hit them in the eyes, and in the evenings though they tried to deny it, it was too cold to sit outside at the pub.

Kate and Sean had been friends at university, but they were more friends-in-a-group than friends who went out for drinks on their own together. Tall, laconic, with a Texan drawl, Sean was Steve’s best friend. Steve was a good friend of Kate’s too. In the Easter term of their first year at university, Kate had introduced Steve to her best friend Zoe, and Steve and Zoe had been going out ever since. So Kate and Sean had spent a lot of time together in the past few years.

Still, though, Kate was still fairly surprised to find herself sharing a flat with Sean, but then lots about her life now surprised her – the fact that she was south of the river, for starters, was a shocker, as was the fact that she didn’t like alcopops any more – she preferred a glass of Chardonnay. She’d been to TopShop and bought a black and grey checked miniskirt, which she wore with a black polo-neck and black tights, mistakenly in the warm, dry weather of September, but it made her feel super-mature. She did her own shopping at the supermarket, picking out Things to Cook from her new Jamie Oliver cookbook. She bought the Evening Standard on her way home each night and felt super-grown-up, reading it with a concentrated expression on her face on the Tube.

Three weeks into her new living arrangement and all was going swimmingly – too swimmingly, in fact, because Kate had started to dread saying goodbye to Sean each morning. He sometimes perplexed her with his constantly flirty ways and optimistic, can-do attitude, as well as intimidated her since he was, without doubt, usually the best-looking man in the room. Now, he was the friendliest face Kate saw most days and she would cling to him at the ticket barriers.

‘I don’t want to go to work today,’ she’d say, clutching his arm.

‘Hey now. Don’t be silly,’ Sean would say, gently prising her off him with a giant, paw-like hand. ‘It’s only been ten days. You’ll soon make friends, Katy. You’re shy, that’s all.’

‘They’re horrible,’ Kate would mutter, biting her lip. ‘Don’t like it. Don’t want to go to work and be grown-up.’

It was true, in its way. Part of her wished this wasn’t happening, that she was back at home with her father, cheerfully cooking stew, throwing insults at each other, listening to music. Warm, exotic – but a little bit safe, boring. Wouldn’t it be easier if she just moved back in with her dad again? And never left the house, faced the real world, with all its terrifying complications that she wasn’t at all good at? Yesterday, she had spilled coffee over one of the girls at work – George. George had given her what Kate could only identify now as a death stare and said, ‘That fucking top was new,’ even though it was only a tear-drop-sized spot of coffee. Kate was thinking of having plastic surgery to change her appearance.

‘Look,’ Sean would say, punching her playfully on the arm. ‘You’re Kate Miller, aren’t you? All you ever wanted to do since I’ve known you was work in magazines. Didn’t you?’

‘I’m not right for them. I don’t fit in.’

‘You got a First in English from Oxford, Kate,’ Sean would say. ‘You’re right for anyone. You gotta see that. You’re young, you’re cool! Man. They’re lucky to have you, OK?’

Kate would rather die than use her university education to impress people, and she refrained from pointing out that at college she’d done nothing but work, while everyone else was off having fun, drinking, putting on plays, drinking, sleeping with each other, going to balls, going to silly parties, drinking and sleeping with each other. She wasn’t cool, she was the opposite of cool, she was … lukewarm. She was destined for the shadows, watching from the sidelines, not centre stage. Ugh. But Sean, whose nature was as sunny as his hair colour, couldn’t see that about her, and it annoyed her.

‘You’ll find some friends,’ he said, one Thursday, nearly three weeks after she’d started there. He patted her on the shoulder, moving her away from the ticket barriers. ‘You’ll love it there soon. This is your time! You’re in the big wide world now, and you’re gonna find your niche. I promise.’

Sean was untroubled by self-doubt. ‘It’s easy for you,’ Kate said, childishly. She looked down at the floor, knowing she was being stupid, feeling eleven again, like she was back at school, trying to persuade her mother to let her stay at home. Sean put his finger under her chin, and she turned her face up towards him.

‘Hey,’ he said gently, looking into her eyes. He smiled, his tanned, kind face crinkling into lines. ‘It’ll be easy for you, Katy. You’re wonderful. We all know it, you just need to know it.’

She clutched at his wrist, taken aback. ‘Oh, Sean.’ She was embarrassed, she didn’t know why, and she smiled back at him, shyly. ‘You’re just saying that.’

You’re just saying that. She sounded about five; Kate cringed, inside, then asked herself why it mattered, as awkwardness fell upon them. She tightened her hold on his wrist, reached up and kissed him on the cheek.

‘Thanks,’ she said, and she smiled at him, feeling happy, all of a sudden. ‘You’re right, Sean. Thanks a lot.’

‘I know I am,’ he said, and he was still watching her. ‘Now, you’re gonna be late. Have a great day. I’ll be there when you come back, after a long day slaving over some JavaScript. OK?’

‘OK. Bye. Thanks.’

His mouth curled a little. ‘No, thank you.’

He was a flirt, such a flirt, she told herself, as Sean walked away. Kate watched him shaking his head at her over the ticket barrier, as the sea of commuters bustled past them, off with lives of their own, full of promise and exertion and interaction and … Oh, all the bloody things she was no good at. It was so sweet of him to try, she told herself. She stared after him. He would be there tonight when she got home, watching TV, and they’d sit on the sofa together and chat about their day and yet another day would have passed with her being shunned, like the Amish. So she’d cook him something and he’d teach her how to mend her bike, or how to rewire a plug, or something, and they’d spend the evening together, like they always did. She’d be fine, if she could come home to that life. It was a nice life. Who said you had to love your job?

But Sean was right. Because that very day, Charly decided to notice Kate.

They went to Anita’s, a traditional Italian around the corner from the office. It was free of Broadgate employees, by dint of the fact it served food, in particular food that wasn’t just leaves. Charly seemed to know them all, the waiters practically clapped as she slunk in, her long legs sliding into a table by the window.

‘God, Sue’s a bitch, man,’ she said as they were seated. She pushed her small frameless sunglasses up on her head and nodded at a waiter. Her honey-coloured hair tumbled around her, she smiled at Kate, the freckles on the end of her nose wrinkling. ‘Yeah, we’re ready,’ she said to the waiter, hovering nearby, a look of adoration on his face. ‘What you having? Salad nicoise for me. No dressing. With extra olives. And a coke. Thanks.’

She flung the menu back at him without acknowledging his presence. Kate said,

‘Er … me too.’

‘The same?’ the waiter said, raising his eyebrows.

‘Yes,’ said Kate, not wanting to be conspicuous. She handed him the menu back.

‘You don’t want dressing neither? The same?’

‘Yes!’ said Kate, trying to affect an incredulous laugh.

‘You want extra olives too?’

‘Oh, go away,’ Charly said, batting the waiter away. ‘Just bring her a normal one. Leave us alone. So. D’you like Catherine? What do you think of Sue?’ she demanded, leaning in, her long, slender fingers plucking a stale roll from the basket in front of them.

Kate was taken aback by the directness of the question, and a little terrified. She hadn’t imagined she’d have to speak, more that she could just sit there and listen to Charly, whom she’d noticed striding around the office, effortlessly glamorous. She never seemed to hang around with the Georginas and the Jos, the Pippas and the Sophies, she was her own separate entity. More beautiful than them, cooler than them (she had been wearing cropped trousers and heels for ages – long before Madonna in the Beautiful Stranger video, as she informed anyone who wanted to listen) – less posh than them, less fake than them. She knew it, and she didn’t seem to care.

‘Come on,’ said Charly impatiently, and Kate was shaken from her reverie. ‘Is Sue a good boss? She really annoyed me today, you know, telling me to recheck that piece on gloves for autumn.’

‘Er … Aah,’ Kate said, hating the impaired speech she seemed to have developed since her arrival at Woman’s World. What would Sean say if he could see her? She thought about it, and smiled. ‘I like her. She’s nice. Bit uncommunicative – I mean I wish she’d tell me what’s going on a bit more.’

‘Yeah,’ said Charly, nodding. ‘She seems to think you’ll just guess. She’s OK, but I know what you mean. I used to work for her.’

‘Did you?’ said Kate. ‘How long – how long have you been here?’

‘Not long,’ said Charly. ‘Too long, you might say. A year. I was her assistant, now I work with Catherine and Georgina –’ Kate nodded, she knew this ‘– and I sometimes write the editor’s letter when no-one else can be fucked to do it, and I do a couple of featurettes.’

‘You do the Letters Page, don’t you?’

A frown passed over Charly’s beautiful face. ‘Yeah, and I fucking hate it. Load of weirdos writing in to tell you how to make stuffed animals out of the lint from the washing machine, or wanting you to print a picture of their grandson just cos he’s done a shit that’s shaped like Alma Cogan.’

‘Really?’ Kate was fascinated.

‘Not the last one, no.’ Charly shook her head. ‘Barbara Windsor, actually.’

Luckily the salads arrived, saving Kate from further comment. Charly ate like a demon, shovelling food in her mouth, throwing out odd comments, inviting responses from Kate, making jokes about the office, filling her in on what she hadn’t known – Barbara in Sales had slept with Fry Donovan, the new Broadgate publisher, a couple of years ago, and he’d given her a job to keep her quiet, so the rumours went, which is why Barbara giggled helplessly whenever Fry walked into the room. Claire Cobain on the subs desk threw up into Phil’s yucca plant the day after the Christmas party; she’d forgotten and he hadn’t realized for three days, except they all kept gagging on the smell. And Jo and Sophie weren’t speaking to each other after Sophie heard Jo saying to Georgina in the loos that she looked rank in her new black patent platform boots.

All Kate had to do was throw in the occasional question, raise her eyebrows at the required moment, but Charly was a great companion, and soon Kate found herself opening up, telling her about her flatmate Sean, about her best friend Zoe, about how she’d started to dread coming into work, how she’d eaten her lunch on a park bench for the past two weeks –

‘By yourself?’ Charly demanded. ‘Sitting in Lincoln’s Inn eating a sandwich from Prêt à Manger by yourself? God that’s sad. What did you do if someone you recognized came past?’

‘I’d look down at my book, or else I’d turn my head so they couldn’t see me,’ said Kate, and as she said it, she realized how silly it sounded. Charly laughed, her eyes wide open with surprise, and Kate joined her.

‘That’s the saddest thing I’ve heard for a long time,’ Charly said.

‘I know,’ Kate agreed. She looked at her watch. ‘We should get back, you know.’

‘Yeah, in a bit.’ Charly looked carelessly at her watch, then pouted. ‘Let’s have a coffee first. So – where were you before here?’

‘Here?’ Kate gestured to the building behind them. ‘Nowhere. This is my first job.’

‘Your first – jeez,’ said Charly. ‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-two. I left university this summer.’

‘Oh my god,’ Charly said, peering at her as if she were an exotic specimen. ‘And you started work right away? Didn’t take any time off?’

Kate shook her head uneasily. She didn’t want to disabuse Charly of the notion that she’d gone straight from university to a job, when in fact, she’d had a solitary, dusty summer at home in Kentish Town, slowly driving herself mad with the future. Her anyway-mostly-absent mother and stepfather were in the Hamptons for the summer and incommunicado, Daniel had a new girlfriend and was rarely at home; Zoe had skipped off into a Magic Circle job; so had Steve; Francesca and Betty, two of her closest friends, had gone travelling together for six months, not back till after Christmas. A few weeks ago, Kate had nearly put the phone down on Zoe when she’d told her that Mac, Steve’s older brother, had just been put on some special fast-track system for the best surgeons in the country. People she hadn’t even met were falling over each other to out-do each other, while she had whiled away the dog days of summer, saving up a trip to the newsagents each day. But that was over now, she hoped. OK, it was Woman’s World, it wasn’t Vogue, but it was a start.

‘What’s your ambition, then?’ Charly asked. It was a strangely childish phrase, that; it touched Kate, though she wasn’t sure of the answer. She wrinkled her nose. Charly persisted. ‘What do you want to do, what’s your dream job, I mean?’

It was what Sue Jordan, her new boss, had asked her, a month ago, at her job interview, and Kate gave the same answer then, as now. She looked over and above Charly, to the shelves behind the counter in the little restaurant. They were lined with spreads, old jars, tins. ‘I want to work in magazines, that’s all,’ she said. ‘I love them.’

‘Really?’ Charly sounded dubious. But Kate had heard it before.

‘Yeah,’ she said, smiling, and shaking her head. ‘I was a geek all through school, and the one thing I loved that wasn’t geeky was Vogue. Don’t know why, just did.’ She did know why, though; it was the entrée into a world she wasn’t part of, a world she could only aspire to: glamour, style, elegance, beautiful clothes. It wasn’t the posh people she was interested in; it was something more fleeting than that – she supposed it was the idea of a blueprint for how to live your life. With style, flair, purpose, and organization. The cold, beautiful women in those magazines, they weren’t ignored by boys, or by their co-workers, they didn’t have mothers who left them, fathers who were messy and annoying. They – all of them, whether they were the writers, the models, the society people – they had black shift dresses, scented candles, fresh linen. Boughs of apple blossom in big glass vases, thick black velvet evening cloaks – that sort of thing. She loved magazines, that was all; the smell of the new pages, the sheen of the pictures, the slice of life, the answers to her curious questions about things, how other people behaved, reacted, everything. She was happy simply to observe, she knew that too.

‘Well, good for you,’ Charly said, sounding uncertain. ‘So, you’ll be wanting Sue’s job in a year, then? Better tell her to watch out.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Kate, looking horrified. ‘It’s not –’

‘Calm down,’ said Charly. ‘Don’t get so worked up about it. It’s a job, OK? When you’ve been here for longer you’ll realize it’s not worth having kittens about. Me, I’m happy if it pays me enough to buy a couple of glasses of wine and some new boots every few months.’

‘Really? What do you want to do, then?’ Kate said, curiously.

‘Fuck all,’ said Charly. ‘I want to marry someone rich and go and live in Spain. Have a house here too, in the Bishop’s Avenue. With a heated indoor swimming pool, and lots of Sophie’s friends.’ They both laughed; Sue had just signed off a feature that morning about the millionaires’ row of houses in North London, and Sophie had spent a lot of time saying in a Very Loud Voice that she knew someone who lived there. ‘I think she’s reading the A-Z wrong. It’s probably Bishop’s Avenue in Acton, more like,’ Charly had said loudly that morning, and Kate had smiled, as Sophie turned on her heel and flounced back to her desk.

‘Hey,’ Charly added, as they laid their money on the table. ‘You been to the Atlas pub? Round the corner from the office?’

‘No,’ said Kate.

‘It’s nice. Fancy a quick drink there tonight?’

‘Really?’ Kate said, then corrected herself. ‘That’d be great.’ She looked at her companion. ‘Thanks, Charly.’

‘What for?’ Charly slung her bag over her shoulder, and pulled out the hair that was trapped underneath it. She shook her head, and the waiters in the café watched in adoration. Like a Timotei ad, Kate thought with amusement.

‘Just – thanks for asking me out to lunch and stuff,’ she said, as they stepped out onto the street. ‘It’s weird when you start a new job. Not knowing anyone, you know.’

‘Course I know,’ said Charly. She didn’t look at Kate. ‘When I joined last year no one spoke to me for three weeks. Hey.’ She pushed her hair out of her face. ‘I reckon we could be a bit of a team, don’t you think? Show Sophie and Jo and Georgina, those bitches, show them we’ve got our own thing going on. OK?’

‘I’m not bothered about them,’ Kate said, surprising herself.

‘Sure, whatever,’ said Charly darkly, and Kate wondered which one of them had incurred her wrath. ‘No worries.

But still, we’re going to stick together. I’ve decided. You up for a drink then?’

‘Definitely.’

‘I’ll see who else is around, too. Introduce you to some other people. We’re going to have a great time.’

The sun was warm on Kate’s hair; she felt relaxed, herself, for the first time since she’d started there. ‘Great,’ she said, as they turned the corner and walked up towards their building.

‘Look at that loser over there, with the Beckham haircut,’ said Charly, flinging her arm out so that she nearly knocked over a teenage boy who was staring at her. ‘What a jackfruit.’

The loser with the Beckham haircut was coming out through the revolving doors. He raised his sunglasses and smiled at them. He was extremely good looking.

‘Hey,’ he said.

‘Hey,’ Kate said, then wished she hadn’t.

‘You never called me back, Charly,’ he said, looking hopefully at her. ‘When are we going out again?’

‘Fuck off, Ian,’ said Charly. ‘It’s not happening. Kate, I’ve got to get some gear from the postroom. See you later, OK? Atlas, straight after work? I’ll come and pick you up.’

‘Great,’ said Kate, and Ian stared at her, annoyance crossing his otherwise perfect face.

That night, when Kate rolled back to Rotherhithe at twelve a.m., swaying and singing softly to herself like a sailor on shore leave, Sean was still up watching American football on Channel Five. As she staggered into the sitting room, Kate waved at him nonchalantly, trying to prove she was sober, and her hand flew back and hit the door frame with a loud thwack. Sean smiled to himself but only said,

‘Good night then?’

Kate’s mind was whirring, with the white wine pooling in her stomach, in her throat, in her head. Good night? The best night, that’s what. She and Charly, Claire and Phil had gone to the Atlas, sunk a few drinks, then some more, then Sophie had joined them, and the five of them had played the pub quiz machine, screaming with joy when they got one of the questions right. It was Kate who knew that Chairman Mao died in 1976. She didn’t know how she knew, she’d just known, and as she’d leant forward, punching the big plastic square on the machine, shouting ‘Yesss!’ as she did so, she felt, slightly hysterically, as if all those years of being the class swot, the one who got their homework in, the one who really never did anything bad, they were paying off. Charly had screamed, jumped up and down, and high-fived Kate, and then ‘Spice Up Your Life’ had come on the juke box, and they’d both jumped off their stools and danced like crazy.

‘I hate the Spice Girls!’ Charly had shouted. ‘They’re fucking awful!’

‘I love them!’ Kate said. ‘Sort of …’ she continued, as Charly looked on at her in horror, and both of them laughed again.

Gorgeous Ian had turned up – Kate didn’t know how he’d worked out where they’d be. Charly ignored him all evening, drinking beer from her bottle, cheering Kate on in the quiz and then, as they all stood around outside the pub after they were kicked out, suddenly walked off down the street with him, her hand carelessly clutching the back of his neck. Kate had been almost shocked, impressed by her total insouciance, the very Charly-ness of it, and then it had made her smile.

As she sat on the night bus home, trying not to acknowledge that she did feel a bit sick, she thought how great life was, how all the usual things that worried her – her dad, her mum, her sad little life, her fear that, since she split up with Tony, her university boyfriend, nearly two years ago, she would never find love again, her fear of her job, that she was just a big fat failure – all these things seemed to vanish, with the optimism of youth, and what she remembered instead was Charly’s face as she bought them all another round of drinks with the winnings from the machine. Her amused expression as she said, ‘You’re hilarious Kate, you know that?’

‘Thanks, Charly,’ Kate had said. ‘This is great.’ She patted her arm.

Charly had shrugged. ‘My pleasure.’ She’d looked strangely pleased. Kate fell onto the sofa next to Sean, put her head under his armpit, and smiled, ridiculously.

‘Found some friends then?’ Sean said. ‘Or have you been drinking alone again?’

‘Shurrup,’ Kate said, her voice muffled by Sean’s sleeve. ‘Friends from work, nice.’

It was so cosy on the sofa, next to him; she loved Sean. ‘So, where did you go?’ he said, muting the sound on the TV. He turned towards her, and stretched his arms, yawning, and pulled Kate towards him. She wriggled into him, happily.

‘Just pubs near the work, near the work building,’ she said. They were silent together, for a moment, and she could hear his breathing, feel the rise and fall of his chest, her head against him.

‘Oh, Kate,’ he said, softly.

Kate sat up slowly, suddenly not feeling so drunk, knowing he was looking at her, and their eyes met.

Sean was a closed book to her in so many ways; she had known him for years, though they had never been best friends or gone out with each other. He was a genial, all-American kind of guy – the first impression, and then you realized, in his quiet, understated way, he was more British than that. His clean-cut, sporty appearance belied his more studious, careful character; though she knew him well, Kate never quite knew what he was thinking. Through the waves of cheap white wine, spirits and exhaustion, she looked at him now, blinking, wishing he would speak first, not knowing what was suddenly, now, between them. Someone more worldly-wise would have known what to do now, on the sofa, having a moment with their flatmate. They would either have leaned over and kissed him, or got up and made some coffee.

Watching him, watching his softly twitching lips, Kate wanted to kiss him suddenly, wanted it fiercely. But she couldn’t. It was Sean, after all. Her flatmate. And she was drunk. No.

‘Pfff,’ she said, rather helplessly, smoothing her skirt with her hands.

It broke the tension, and Sean smiled at her. ‘Oh, babe,’ he said kindly, and he patted her arm. ‘You’re hilarious.’

‘That’s what Charly said!’ Kate said, remembering the evening again, happily.

‘So the mean girls aren’t being mean to you any more?’ Sean said lightly, sitting back and taking another sip from his bottle of beer.

Kate sank against the sofa. ‘Oh,’ she said, her eyes closing, glad the moment was over, and it was normal again. ‘No, hope not.’

Sean nodded, and looked back at the screen. After about a minute, he realized that the head next to his arm was lolling, and that his flatmate was fast asleep.

The last thing Kate remembered that night was Sean’s gentle shove as he pushed her onto her bed where she pitched headfirst onto the duvet. She woke up early the next morning as the late September rays were creeping into her room, the curtains wide open, having not been drawn the night before. She lay there, reconstructing the evening slowly, from its unexpected start to its slightly strange finish – had any of it really happened? Had she imagined the lunch with Charly, the drinks, the general knowledge? The night bus – and that moment with Sean, last night, had she made it up? She patted the bedside table next to her, feebly, feeling for her water glass, and then sat up slowly. Her mouth was dry, her head was ringing, she felt as if she wanted to die, but for the first time in what seemed like a really long time, Kate realized she was looking forward to the day ahead.

CHAPTER EIGHT

March 2001

More than a year after she’d started at Woman’s World, the pie chart of Kate’s friendships was clear. Charly was her best friend. Zoe was her newly engaged, other best friend. Her other friends Betty and Francesca were happily ensconced in their chaotic flat in Clapham; Betty worked in a gallery and tied bunches into her short dyed hair, while Francesca, who was a banker, and the person Kate had been closest to at university, was now extremely grown-up, wore grey suits and worked in Canary Wharf, which was suddenly where everyone was working.

Charly and Kate were still editorial assistants, they sat across from each other and helped each other, they went to the same Italian deli round the corner for lunch (where Kate happily stuffed her face with carbs and fats and Charly gingerly picked out the tomatoes in her sandwich and ate them) and occasionally got the tube to TopShop on Oxford Circus where Kate would try on clothes that didn’t suit her and buy them, and Charly would try on clothes that made her long, leggy form look even more stunning and complain that nothing fitted her, and leave buying nothing. In the evenings, they went to the pub, where they gossiped and bitched about the day at work, their sometimes eccentric colleagues, and the endless fascination of the microcosm of the office.

Kate was changing; she only realized it when other people remarked on it. ‘Nice work, Kate,’ Sue had said briskly to her a couple of months ago, after she had written a little piece on Alma from ‘Coronation Street’. ‘You’re really coming out of your shell, aren’t you?’

The truth was she loved it, she loved her life now. She took to it like an ugly duckling to water. Now Kate strode to the Tube station in the mornings, her long legs flying out in front of her, her long hair catching in the breeze. She laughed with the mailroom boys, she said hello to Catherine the Editor with a bright smile on her face, not a mumbled, half-horrified grunt, in fear lest she might try to engage her in conversation. She loved answering the phone to random readers, calling to ask whether ‘The Darling Buds of May’ was ever coming back on TV again or where they could get the recipe for hot-pot that had been in last week’s issue. And she looked forward to relaxing, drinking, chatting, laughing in the evenings, as she had never done before.

One Friday afternoon in March, Kate sat at her desk, trying to concentrate on the letter she was writing, whilst resisting the temptation to play with her new mobile phone, her first, which she had picked up that very lunchtime. She hadn’t actually called anyone on it yet, but she had taken down everyone in the office’s number, entering each one in the address book, slowly and painfully. It was four o’clock, and the office felt dead. Kate felt dead too – it had been Sophie’s birthday drinks the night before, a long, messy night, culminating in Kate not getting home till two because of the vagaries of the night bus. Charly had disappeared at midnight, with a random ad exec she’d pulled hanging onto her arm. She had been in a strange, cool mood, and Kate could tell a storm was brewing.

Kate chewed on her biro and looked up from her desk, where she had been idly pressing buttons on her mobile. ‘So – did you go back to his place?’ she asked.

Charly was flicking through a magazine, exaggeratedly pouting. She was supposed to be checking the text for the recipe card layout.

‘God, I love Britney Spears,’ she said. ‘There’s no way she’s a virgin. No way. Look.’

She waved the magazine in front of Kate.

‘Fake boobs,’ said Kate, glancing at the magazine.

‘No,’ said Charly. ‘They’re real.’

‘They’re fake!’ said Kate. ‘Come on! Where did they come from! She used to have no boobs at all.’

‘From growing up, she’s only nineteen,’ said Charly, as Kate’s boss Sue zoomed into view, her heels clicking madly on the thin lino. Charly carried on flicking through the magazine, as Kate turned back to her computer screen.

‘Are you in next week?’ Sue said, not slowing down or making eye contact with Kate.

‘Yes,’ said Kate, who was used to her boss. ‘Why, what do you need?’

‘I’m on holiday next week. Bloody half-term. Fucking Malcolm’s booked that stupid riyad in Morocco. Can you do the Editor’s Letter for me? I thought you might like to do it.’

‘Sure,’ said Kate, half standing up, like a Captain in the mess when the General pays a visit. ‘Of course, Sue. Wow, how great! Thanks – thanks a lot.’

Sue stood still, several steps ahead of Kate, on her way out to the lifts. ‘Great. Good one. Get it to Catherine for her to look over by Tuesday morning. OK?’

‘“Thanks – thanks a lot”,’ Charly mimicked as Sue walked away. ‘You big suck!’

‘I know,’ said Kate, embarrassed. Charly rolled her eyes.

‘Well done,’ she said, after a pause. ‘Good one. I’m going to be really kind and take you out for a drink to celebrate tonight. And there’s a new club in Soho just opened. Virus, it’s called. We could go on there afterwards.’

Kate bit her lip. ‘I can’t, sorry. Steve and Zoe are having a housewarming party. Sort of engagement party thing too. It’s fancy dress. And especially not after last night.’

‘Ooh la la,’ Charly said. ‘Sorry I asked. How about just one after work instead?’

‘OK,’ said Kate. ‘Great.’ She swivelled happily on her chair. ‘The editor’s letter! Hurrah!’

‘Where shall we go?’ said Kate, as they left the office an hour later, striding out together in the dusk of the March evening. ‘The Crown?’

‘No,’ said Charly, firmly. ‘Anywhere but The Crown.’

‘Oh god,’ said Kate. ‘Who did you do there?’

‘Shut up!’ said Charly, glaring at her, but smiling. ‘I didn’t “do” anyone there, thank you very much. It’s just Phil and Claire …’ She trailed off, chewing a strand of hair.

‘What?’

‘They’re there tonight, heard them say it as they left.’

‘So?’ Kate liked The Crown. It had nice bar snacks, like mixed nuts, and though it didn’t have a quiz machine, it had a jukebox, a rarity in a central London pub. And it was by the Inns of Court, tucked away on a little side-street – she thought it was rather nice, like something out of a Dickens novel. There were barristers in there, sometimes in gowns. ‘Go on. I love it in there.’

‘No, come on, we’re going to the Atlas.’

‘Again,’ Kate moaned, like an unwilling child being forced to the shops on a Saturday. ‘What’s wrong with Phil and Claire?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Claire,’ said Charly grimly, jabbing the button for the pelican crossing smartly. ‘Claire is great. I don’t have a problem with Claire.’

‘You – and Phil?’ Kate was aghast, not because she was surprised Charly had slept with someone, but because she hadn’t noticed. ‘When?’

The lights changed. Charly marched across the road, impossibly fast. Kate ran behind her. ‘Hey, slow down. When? Didn’t you know he and Claire –’

Of course she knew he and Claire were an item, it was the worst-kept secret in the office, two best friends at work, also having an affair. It wouldn’t have mattered either, except it was blindingly obvious Claire was mad about Phil and Kate could see he wasn’t that into her. He was a bit of a player; nice enough, but he was twenty-seven, he didn’t want to settle down yet.

But Charly didn’t answer, and they arrived at the pub. The welcoming smoky fug of the Atlas drew them in and, after they had settled down with their drinks (double gin and tonic for Charly, white wine spritzer for Kate), Kate said, tentatively,

‘Look, Charly, sorry. I didn’t know. What’s going on?’

‘Nothing’s going on,’ Charly said, and there was a tone to her voice Kate hadn’t heard before, dark, and bitter. She smiled; small, sad smile. ‘Just me. Fucking things up as usual, OK?’

‘So you –?’ Kate made a gesture with her beer mat, waving it around, hoping it would convey the phrase You’ve been shagging Phil?

Charly tutted, impatiently. ‘Yes.’

‘How many times?’

‘Jeez, Kate, do you want a tally?’

‘Oh.’ Kate nodded. ‘So more than once then.’

‘Yep,’ said Charly, and she gave a ragged sigh. ‘It started a few weeks ago, well, it started at the Christmas party. I went back to his, and we saw each other over Christmas, you know I’ll do anything to get out of Leigh.’ Kate nodded. ‘So I’d come down to London and stay the night with him, we’d wander round town, no-one around, all that shit. It was – lovely.’ Her voice cracked.

‘Oh my god.’ Charly never talked like this. Like a person with emotions. Kate watched her friend, she patted her arm. ‘You’ve fallen for him, haven’t you?’

‘No,’ said Charly furiously. ‘He’s a dick, OK? We were supposed to be meeting up last week and he called and said Claire was getting suspicious! He said it had been fun but we should call it a day, he couldn’t have two secret office affairs going on! What a –’

Her hand clenched into a fist and her lovely face crumpled. ‘Oh, Charly,’ said Kate, unhappily. She didn’t know what to say. She liked Phil, but she couldn’t understand why he was so secretive about his relationship with Claire, either. Was it that big a deal? Was it naïve of her not to understand why he was so weird about it? She put her arm around Charly’s bony shoulders, clad in slithery oyster silk. Charly sniffed loudly and caught Kate’s hand.

‘That’s why I don’t want to go to The Crown tonight. OK?’

‘Yes, that’s OK,’ said Kate, kissing her hair. ‘It’s always OK. Now, we need to plan our next move. Tell him he can’t get away with it.’

Charly looked at her in surprise. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate, feeling incredibly protective of Charly, who was so screwed up in her own, weird way. ‘It’s Claire I worry about now, don’t you? He’s just going to mess her around like he has you.’ She got out her new mobile phone, her pride and joy.

‘What are you doing?’ said Charly.

‘I,’ said Kate proudly, ‘am now going to send my first text message.’ She keyed laboriously, for a minute. ‘God, this is annoying, scrolling through. There!’ she said, eventually. Charly peered over her shoulder.

I know what you did to Charlx. If you mess Claire arovnd we will tell her. Have a god eveming. K x

‘Hm,’ said Charly. ‘The typing’s a bit crap.’

‘So?’ said Kate, pressing ‘Send’.

‘Well, Kate Miller,’ said Charly, admiringly. She cleared her throat, and sat up straight. ‘You are turning into a bad girl, you know that?’

‘Hardly,’ said Kate.

‘Slept with your hottie flatmate yet?’

Everyone always thought she was having a torrid affair with Sean. ‘No!’ Kate said, and she blushed. ‘It’s not – there’s nothing going on. Shut up!’

‘Yeah right,’ said Charly, draining the last of her drink.

‘In your head there is. I don’t blame you, he’s gorgeous. Dull as fuck though.’

‘No he’s not,’ said Kate defensively, though Sean had in fact, this morning in the kitchen, droned on for five minutes about the new Microsoft enabling functions, while Kate held her hungover head in her hands and prayed for death. ‘He’s just passionate about his job, that’s all.’

‘Bor-ing.’

Kate thought back to the weekend before, how Sean had showed her how to use his new laptop, set her up with her own hotmail account and everything. They had sat side by side at the computer for hours, she listening, he explaining, their legs touching, neither of them acknowledging it. ‘No,’ she said, quietly. ‘Not all the time.’

‘He’s so not the one for you,’ said Charly. ‘Don’t shag the flatmate just because he’s there and you’re busy playing husband and wife. Textbook. I mean it.’

Kate was silent, uneasy all of a sudden. She looked at her watch. ‘Let’s get another drink, and then I’d better be off,’ she said, after a pause.

Charly sprang up, suddenly alive again. ‘These are on me, doll,’ she said. ‘Thanks. Thanks a lot.’ She sashayed to the bar, and every man in the vicinity glanced in her direction.

CHAPTER NINE

It was after eight when Kate got back, and she was two-white-wine-spritzers-drunk, which is to say not sober but not disastrous. Sean was watching TV as she barrelled into the sitting room.

‘I’m late!’ she cried loudly, hoping that by making a drama of it she’d get the guilt over quickly. Sean hated being late, it was the one area of flatmate life where they diverged wildly. If Kate said Sunday lunch at one p. m., she expected people to pitch up by two and to serve food by three. Sean meant lunch on the table at one p.m.

Sean didn’t look up from the TV. For some inexplicable reason (Kate said it was because she was being all grown-up), Zoe had decreed that tonight was to be evening dress, and Sean was immaculately dressed in black tie. He was that kind of boy, the sort who always had nicely shined shoes and owned his own dinner jacket.

‘Are you furious?’ Kate said, unwrapping her scarf and throwing her coat on the ground. ‘Sean, it’ll take me two minutes to change, I’m sorry –’

He looked up and she saw his face.

‘What’s wrong?’ she said.

His big blue eyes were curiously expressionless; but Kate knew him by now, knew him well enough to know something was up. ‘Jenna’s engaged,’ he said.

‘Oh.’ Kate sat down next to him, and took the remote out of his great big hand. She turned the TV off. ‘Oh, Sean, that’s – that’s crap.’

Jenna had been Sean’s girlfriend all through high school in Texas, and most of university, till they’d broken up before he came back to England for his third and final year. She was, as far as Kate knew, the only woman he’d ever loved, and the circumstances of their breakup were mysterious. Sean had been really unhappy. Kate had only met her once, in their second year, when she’d come to visit. She reminded her of a girl from a Seventies perfume ad: long, wavy brown hair, flicking out at the sides, endless long legs, the shortest skirts, the widest smile. And she was nice, which was the killer. Kate and Francesca had hated her.

She patted her unresponsive flatmate’s leg, feeling the hard muscle beneath the black cloth. ‘How did you hear?’

Sean cleared his throat, and flicked his eyes wide open, then shut them rapidly. He did this several times. ‘She called me. I was just leaving work, and she called me.’

‘Are you really upset?’ said Kate gingerly.

‘No,’ Sean said, sitting up and shaking his head. ‘Hell no!’

Rubbish, Kate thought. He reminded her, fleetingly, of Charly and her earlier bravado.

‘It’s just – hey, Jenna was my first proper girlfriend, and I was really into her, you know. She’s marrying some farmer guy called Todd. Ugh.’ He shook his head again. ‘He grows maize, has like thousands of acres. It’s such a fucking cliché, man!’

Kate looked round their warm, small flat, crammed full of mementoes of their happy flatmate life together. Sean followed her gaze and she nudged him, desperately wanting him to feel better, be happy. She hated seeing him like this, it hurt her too, and it was then she realized how close they’d become. ‘I know,’ she said, almost desperately. ‘Oh love.’ She clutched his hand a little tighter and he turned to look at her, with something like surprise on his face.

‘Kate –’

‘Who wants to be a bloody maize farmer, eh? Aren’t you glad that’s not you? Aren’t you glad you’re here instead?’

There was a silence as they looked round the flat again, together. On the floor was a Kentucky Fried Chicken box, five bottles of vodka forming a pyramid on a shelf, several really vile lads’ mags, several equally vile gossip mags, and pinned haphazardly on the wall were a poster of The Graduate, a panoramic photo view of New York, from Kate’s last trip to see her mother, and a series of photos of Sean, Kate and their friends stuck onto cork boards. At Kate’s feet were two empty beer cans. Their eyes met, and they burst out laughing.

‘You know what,’ Sean said, turning to her slowly, ‘you’re right. I am glad I’m here instead, Katy.’ He took her hand, and kissed it.

‘Don’t be sad,’ said Kate, and she gave Sean a hug.

‘I’m not,’ he said, and he squeezed her tight. His hand cupped the back of her head. ‘Bless you, darlin’. It’s just I thought she might be the one … you know? I thought she was the love of my life. So you can’t help thinking about it.’

‘I know,’ said Kate, though she didn’t. She had never thought Jenna was right for Sean. He needed someone … Well, not like Jenna, that was all, and she’d been glad when Sean had come back for their final year single, truth be told. She felt cross, all of a sudden, like the conversation was shifting out of her control. She rested her head on his shoulder, breathing gently.

‘Thanks, darling,’ he said, and she could hear his voice reverberating against her back. ‘I feel fine, god, it’s years ago now, but you can’t help having a little think when you hear something like that, can you.’

‘No,’ said Kate, stroking his back again, and feeling a little like Florence Nightingale, doomed to tend eternally to the romantically injured. ‘You can’t.’ She stood up briskly. ‘I’m going to get changed, OK? We’re going to get dressed up for the ridiculously-themed fancy dress party, we’re going to look a million dollars, and you’re going to have a great evening, I’ll make sure of that. Get another beer. I’ll be five minutes.’

‘Sounds perfect, darling.’ Sean settled back on the sofa. ‘What you wearing?’ he said.

‘The blue and gold dress,’ Kate yelled as she ran down the corridor to her bedroom. ‘It’s a special night.’

‘Sure is,’ said Sean, and Kate heard him cracking open another beer, as she took the blue and gold dress from the hook on her bedroom door where it was hanging. She stroked it happily.

Kate wasn’t a girly girl when she was a teenager, she was more into the old-fashioned, vintage dresses of years ago. She had her old stack of Vogue magazines, from the 1950s and 60s that she’d picked up in second-hand bookshops and school fairs, and she still loved flicking through them, staring with envy at the girls in their effortlessly elegant cocktail dresses, in completely inappropriate settings: posing with a bough of cherry blossom, or hopping off a suspiciously empty, clean Routemaster bus.

On her nineteenth birthday, she and her father were walking through Hampstead. After Venetia left, they would often go for long walks through London, mostly on Sunday afternoons, ambling without aim through the deserted City, or along the river, or through the parks. They’d just come off the Heath, and were looking for a place to have a cup of tea. As they crossed a little cobbled courtyard, deep in conversation about what utter bastards Daniel’s record company, who had just dropped him, were, Kate’s eye fell on a dress in the window of a rickety old shop. It was Fifties, blue silk, embroidered all over with gold silk thread roses. Kate gazed at it, helplessly. Her father, turning around and seeing his pale, lanky daughter peering shyly into the window, had looked at her quizzically, as if trying to work out why she was looking at the dress, why would she be interested in that? It was just a dress – Daniel had never been good at empathy. Then his expression had changed.

‘My god. I did get you a proper birthday present, didn’t I,’ he said, suddenly remembering, panic streaking across his face in case there was a repeat of That Birthday Which They Never Talked About, the one where Kate had gone to school the next morning and come back in the evening to find Venetia had left.

‘Yes you did,’ said Kate loyally. ‘You got me the new lens for my telescope, and that beautiful box of chocolates. It’s OK, Dad, honestly.’

(She had, in fact, bought the lens herself and he had given her the money, but to be fair, Daniel had actually bought the chocolates.)

Daniel breathed in heavily through his nose and pursed his lips, musing.

‘Do you want that dress, old girl?’

Kate looked amazed. ‘Dad! But it’s a hundred quid!’

Daniel looked quickly at his watch and put his arm round her. ‘Who cares! It’s your birthday, darling. Come on. Let’s go and try it on …’

Five years later, it was Kate’s most treasured possession. When she was answering those quizzes at the back of the Sunday supplements, the reply to ‘What one item would you rescue if the house was burning down’ was always, always the blue and gold dress. It had been her telescope, but she was a bit over that now, and it lay, gathering dust, in the back of her cupboard in the Rotherhithe flat.

She only wore the dress on special occasions. She’d worn it to her mother’s wedding, to her ball at college, and she was going to wear it tonight, for no other reason than that she suddenly felt alive with happiness. First Sue had given her the editor’s letter to write, and now she was off to Zoe and Steve’s housewarming party, and everyone was going to be there, and … who knows what might happen?

Kate was at her most beautiful that night, though of course she didn’t realize it. She was twenty-three, still young but much more confident, more relaxed than she’d been even a year ago, her skin clear and unlined, her dark brown eyes shining with excitement, her cheeks flushed. She was smiling as she entered the sitting room, forty-five minutes later, and as she cleared her throat lightly, and Sean sat up and tried to pretend he hadn’t been asleep, she grinned at him, her evening bag cupped in one hand, the other hand holding the skirt of the blue and gold dress, and Sean whistled.

‘Wow, Kate,’ he said, rubbing his eyes and standing up. ‘You look absolutely fucking amazing, do you realize that?’

‘Oh …’ Kate rolled her eyes. ‘Be quiet!’

‘I mean it,’ said Sean, still staring at her. He bowed, and gave her his arm. ‘Let battle commence. You’re going to hook up with someone tonight, I know it. I’m going to have to make sure no one takes advantage of you.’

They moved graciously towards the front door and he held it open for her.

‘Thank you very much,’ said Kate, stealing a glance at him. ‘You’re too kind.’

‘My pleasure, miss.’

‘People are staring at us,’ Kate said as they moved slowly down the high street towards the bus stop, Kate’s high heels making steady progress tricky. Rotherhithe High Street on a Friday evening was not especially accustomed to seeing men in black tie ambling down the street, accompanied by ladies in vintage silk and gold thread.

‘I know,’ said Sean, loudly. ‘Well let them stare. I have a broken heart and you look ravishing. Hello!’ he said brightly to an old lady in a thick purple coat who was gaping in open-mouthed astonishment at them. ‘Good evening.’

‘Evening!’ she replied. ‘Ooh. Do you know you take me back in time. Back to when I was twenty, you two.’

‘Madam,’ Sean replied, formally, in his rich American accent, ‘surely that time can only have been a matter of weeks ago.’ He smiled wolfishly at her, and she laughed, delighted.

Kate laughed too, and took hold of his arm again, and they continued their unsteady progress up the hill to the bus carrying them north of the river again.

‘So, Kate,’ Sean said, as they turned into Zoe and Steve’s road in the wilds of Kilburn, over an hour later. ‘Are you looking for love tonight?’

Kate stared at the ground. ‘Maybe. I’m going to take it easy this evening, anyway.’

‘Still hungover?’

She stifled a yawn. ‘A bit.’

‘That Charly’s a bad influence on you, girl,’ Sean said. ‘Are you feeling OK?’

‘I’m not feeling great I must say,’ Kate admitted. The excitement of what had happened at work, the drinks with Charly, comforting Sean, rushing to be ready – all had buoyed her up and now, nearly there at the end of the long journey across the city, she was starting to flag. She had had, after all, roughly four hours’ sleep the previous night.

Sean watched her as she rubbed her face.

‘You funny girl,’ he said. ‘Where’s the Kate I know from college who used to wear her hair in a ponytail all the time and sit in her room all night, studying?’

She met his gaze, boldly.

‘She grew up.’

Sean smiled lazily, looking her up and down. ‘You bet she did.’

He was flirting with her; he always did this; it didn’t really mean anything.

‘How about you?’ Kate said, bringing the conversation back on track. ‘You on the pull tonight then? Drown your sorrows?’

‘Oh, you bet,’ Sean said. ‘I’m hoping to break my ’98 Exam Party Record.’

On one heroic night after their finals, Sean had pulled the prettiest girl in the bar, and snogged ten other people – including the barmaid at the pub where they’d started off.

‘You’re such a tart,’ Kate said, as he fell into step with her, her gold high heels clattering on the ground. ‘But – hey. Good luck. Here we are.’

They stood at the garden gate to the house. Sean held out his hand, solemnly. ‘Hey, darlin’. Good luck to you too. May the best party-goer win. Who is Jenna, anyway?’

‘Exactly!’ Kate shook his hand firmly. ‘Definitely.’

‘And we’re sharing a taxi home, whatever happens,’ said Sean. ‘I’m not doing that bus thing at three in the morning, we’ll be taken to, like, Manchester without realizing.’

Despite the fact he’d lived in the United Kingdom for over four years now, Sean’s grasp of the geography of his adopted country was somewhat shaky. He sort of thought that because everything was much smaller than the US, ergo everywhere was literally five minutes away from everywhere else. That is, Edinburgh was a thirty-minute drive away, not an eight-hour drive away.

He released her hand. ‘Let’s go in, Katy-Kay,’ he said.

She was a bit flustered, and fumbled with her bag, but he took her elbow and, as they approached the front door, it flung open and there was Zoe, dressed in a Twenties flapper dress dripping with sequins, her glossy dark hair curled into ringlets.

‘Hooray! You’re here!’ she cried. ‘Now the party can really start! Woo hoo!’ She called out to Steve. ‘Steve, love. Kate and Sean are here. Turn the music up! I’m going to get you two a cocktail each. We’ve got Moscow Mules in the bath. Hurrah, you’re here! Come in!’

Steve appeared behind his fiancee, his dark eyes full of pleasure. ‘Well well well!’ he said, clapping his hands together. ‘Man!’ He slapped Sean’s hand. ‘Kate, you look like – like a dream.’ He kissed her. ‘I could eat you.’ His smile was enormous. ‘Seriously, you two. I kept saying to Zo, the party won’t really get going till you get here. And now you’re here! Yes.’

Sean and Kate smiled at each other on the doorstep, proud of their party-starting status, which was acknowledged and, in Sean’s case, well deserved. Sean rubbed his hands together and Kate smiled. They were good, and they knew it.

‘We’ll see you inside,’ said Kate, and she pushed Sean towards the door again, wanting to get inside, and as she stepped forward, following him in, someone came in from the other side and she stumbled across the threshold, into the house, almost falling into their arms.

‘So this is the famous Kate,’ the someone said, holding her by the arm to support her. She gazed up at him, helplessly, in the dull glow of the swinging lightbulb in the hall.

His open, handsome face, his dark eyes, his ready, wide smile … he looked strangely familiar and yet – she knew him, but she didn’t know him.

‘This is my brother, Mac,’ Steve said, a catlike grin on his face. ‘Finally! You’ve never met, that’s really weird.’

Mac. Of course. He looked like Steve, and yet he was totally unlike him. Steve was easy, open, laughed a lot, restless. Mac was taller, broader, his hair was the same light brown as his brother’s, but closely cropped. He had lines on his forehead, laughter lines by his mouth. Kate suddenly had the irresistible urge to reach out, touch them with her index finger. She stared at him. She was glad Zoe had gone into the kitchen.

‘No, we’ve never met,’ said Mac, still looking at her. He took her hand now, and shook it. ‘I know a lot about you though. A lot,’ he said.

‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ said Kate, recovering herself, her eyes still on him. His eyes were green, a strange, scrubby, sea-like green colour. ‘I know a lot about you too.’ When she was nervous she talked too much. ‘You’re a medical genius, and you live in Cricklewood, which is weird, because I never thought the two would go together, except we just did an article in the magazine about people who come from unlikely places. Did you know Cary Grant was born in Redland in Bristol and he was an acrobat at the Bristol Hippodrome.’

There was silence. Kate looked down at her feet, hating her high heels, which prevented her from fleeing into the night. She bit her lip, yelling at herself inside her head. What? How? Was she mental? This, this was why she hadn’t had a date in six months, she told herself.

‘I did not know that,’ said Mac, conversationally. ‘Did you, however, know that it took ten million bricks to build the Chrysler Building in New York?’

‘No!’ said Kate, with pleasure. ‘That’s – that’s wonderful.’

Their eyes met again; he smiled, she smiled, and that was it.

‘Kate! Are you coming in?’ Sean called from the kitchen. He sounded almost cross.

‘Better come inside, then,’ said Mac. So she did.

CHAPTER TEN

Two hours later, it was after midnight, and Zoe and Steve’s housewarming party was an unqualified success. Zoe had made vodka jellies, of which Kate had had four. Steve was the music mixer, flipping between CDs and his LPs with the greatest of ease. They danced themselves stupid to Michael Jackson, all pretending they could Moonwalk in their narrow kitchen. At one point there were thirty people doing the conga to Perez Prado through the small, corridor-like flat, out into the garden, down the side entrance and through the front door again. Then Steve – who was a brilliant host, one who only wanted his guests to have a good time and one who didn’t care about the carnage they caused to his new flat, as long as they were enjoying themselves – started making flaming B52s, and Zoe stood on a chair and sang ‘Rescue Me’ into a hairbrush, until she fell off and Steve had to pick her up. He threw her over his shoulder, slapping her on the bottom, and carried her out of the room, as she screamed and the others applauded.

Occasionally she would catch sight of Sean, who was drinking steadily, and wave at him or pat his arm, checking in to make sure he was doing OK. But otherwise she lost herself in a whirl of drinks, of laughing, of catching up. She kept looking over her shoulder to see where Mac was, kept thinking she saw him – had she just dreamt it? – as the party grew more and more raucous. In fact, it turned out the party was so good that when the new neighbours from upstairs – a married couple in their thirties – came down after twelve to complain about the noise, Steve thrust a Moscow Mule each into their hands and had them both dancing with Betty to Britney Spears in five minutes.

Betty was after Sean tonight. Kate could tell, and she watched her bat her fake eyelashes at him with some amusement, impressed at the way she could be so subtle and yet so obvious with him. Kate was pretty sure Betty and Sean had slept together at university and, watching them, she was suddenly pretty sure that was the way it was going to end up tonight. She stood in the corner of the sitting room, taking a breather from the dancing, with her glass curled up against her, and she saw the way Betty touched her top lip with her tongue as she talked to him, her blonde bunches wagging on each side of her head, the way Sean watched her mouth as he answered her, the way they smiled into each other’s eyes, moving slightly closer. Suddenly the Sean of a few hours earlier, desolate at the news of Jenna’s engagement, seemed far away. He was on a mission tonight, that was clear. Kate bit her lip, tasting blood on her tongue, and turned away, surprised at the intensity of her reaction.

‘Great party, Zo,’ she said.

Zoe was hugging the doorframe, using it as support, her small hands clinging to the carved wood almost desperately. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘This bloody flat, you know what a nightmare it was getting it, I can’t believe we’re here now.’ She banged her head gently against the frame. ‘I think I may have to grovel to the neighbours tomorrow though,’ she added nervously, glancing down the corridor into the kitchen, where through the french windows Kate could see Francesca and Steve were lying on the small lawn, singing something loudly.

‘You’re cute though,’ said Kate. ‘They’ll love you. We had a thing in the magazine last week, how to get on with your neighbours. Accept responsibility, go round to each of them with a box of chocolates tomorrow and just say sorry. It’ll be fine.’

‘Did you meet Mac then?’ said Zoe suddenly.

‘Yes,’ said Kate. ‘Well, at the beginning –’ she looked round ‘– I don’t know where he’s gone.’

Zoe shrugged her shoulders. ‘Don’t know,’ she said. ‘He’s working too hard. He looks exhausted. Don’t you think?’

Kate hadn’t noticed anything, except how lovely he looked, and she’d never met him before, so she was hardly qualified to judge.

‘Zo, Zo!’ Steve yelled from the kitchen. ‘Zo! Come and see! If you put shaving foam in a tupperware box and light it – look what happens!’

‘Jesus!’ said Zoe. ‘You are such a fucking infant, Steve!’ she yelled back, half-laughing, looking down the corridor. ‘Oh, wow. That’s really –’ There was a loud bang. ‘I’m going to –’

‘Go,’ said Kate, draining her drink. ‘I’m going to find another glass of –’ she looked at her glass. ‘Don’t know what that was. I’m going to find it, anyway.’

She turned around in the tiny hallway as Zoe walked away.

‘Hello,’ said a voice behind her, and Kate spun around.

It was Mac. He was shutting the door to the spare bedroom.

‘Hello again,’ she said, uncertainly. ‘I haven’t seen you for a while.’

He scratched his head. ‘I know. I fell asleep.’

‘You fell asleep? In the spare bedroom?’ Kate was mystified. ‘Can’t be as good a party as I thought it was, then.’

‘I’m sure it is,’ he said. ‘I heard Zoe singing “Cabaret”.’

‘Oh,’ Kate said. ‘Well – there was more, but perhaps you –’

‘I like your dress,’ he said, interrupting. ‘It suits you.’ He caught himself. ‘I mean, I’ve never met you before so how would I know. But you look nice in it.’ He turned away to the wall and said something under his breath, before turning back. ‘Man. How – god.’

Kate smiled; she was a bit bemused. ‘Thanks, though. That’s really – nice of you.’ She repeated the word unconsciously and then realized; they both grinned, relaxing a little more. ‘It was a present from my dad. It’s old, like from the fifties, I think.’

‘Of course, your dad’s Daniel Miller, isn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate, vaguely pleased he should know that, that there was this old connection with them because of Zoe and Steve, even though they’d never met. It made it seem even more comfortable, the air between them.

‘I heard him the other day, on the radio, talking about his new album. Some covers of songs by ABBA?’

‘Yes,’ said Kate again. ‘Er, it’s great apparently. It’s just out, I haven’t heard it yet.’

‘Well, I’ve only heard bits. He was interviewed on the radio. And he was on some daytime TV thing I saw, while I was on rounds yesterday.’

Daniel had a new publicist, called Lisa, who was getting him all this new coverage. She was responsible for Daniel’s new, choppy haircut, his Ralph Lauren suits, the moody shots of him gazing out of windows in dilapidated old country buildings. She called him ‘Danny’, too. She didn’t seem to like things like long evenings in basement kitchens drinking cheap red wine (red wine stains the teeth), walks on the Heath on cold days, or daughters who were close to her in age. Yes, Kate had met her. She wasn’t mad about her.

‘Yep,’ said Kate. ‘It’s great, he’d been quiet for a while before that.’ She cleared her throat to change the subject as a shriek echoed from the next room. ‘God,’ she said laughing. ‘Zoe’s absolutely trollyed.’

Mac’s expression was mock-serious. ‘So, what were the two of you like when you were little, then?’

Kate laughed. ‘Well, Zoe was very bright and bubbly, and loud. Very loud. And I was – clumsy. And a bit moody. And not as nice as Zoe.’

He bent his head, and lowered his voice. ‘Kate. I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘Thank you,’ she said slowly. ‘But it pretty much is.’ There was a pause. ‘How about the two of you?’

‘Who? Me and Steve?’ He shook his head, and crossed his arms, so his hands were wedged under his armpits. ‘He was the typical annoying little brother, always bright and perky and funny and loud. Bit like Zoe, clearly.’ Kate shook her head, moved closer towards him. She wanted to touch him.

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