I left it until 10 a.m. and then ten minutes more. By then I had run, showered and dressed, cleaned the house and opened the doors into the garden and made myself a pot of coffee. I would walk across the common in a bit and buy a paper, maybe even have lunch in a pub. Normal Sunday pursuits.
Steeple House’s number was still stored in my phone, although it wouldn’t have mattered if it had been lost. Suzi took a while to answer, but I knew better than to ring off, knew she would be in the garden on a fine summer morning with her daughter’s wedding looming and all the guests to impress.
‘Mike?’ she said, failing to hide her surprise behind her over-accentuated vowels.
‘How are you, Suzi?’ I asked, keeping my voice light.
‘Well. We’re fine, thank you,’ she replied, recovering herself. ‘Thank you for replying to the invitation so swiftly.’
I was worried when she said that. I thought I’d left an adequate time, but maybe I was wrong, maybe I looked too keen. ‘It will be lovely to see you and Colin.’
‘Yes. How long have you been back in England for?’
I could hear the radio spluttering on in the background and I knew it would be Radio 4, which was never turned off in Steeple House. V and I always listened to Radio 4 as well and I do miss it, but it’s one of the things I still find too painful. ‘A couple of months. I’ve bought a house in Clapham and got a job at another bank.’
‘Well, yes. Verity told me.’
It was good to know they had discussed me. ‘Fantastic news about Verity’s promotion,’ I said, which was a gamble, but not that big a one, if you knew V.
‘Oh, you heard?’ I could hear the pride in her voice. ‘Have you two been in touch then?’
‘Just by email.’ I let the conversation rest for a minute. ‘In fact, that’s why I was ringing. I wanted to send her and Angus an engagement gift and I haven’t got their address.’
I felt Suzi’s hesitation down the line, as large as a bear. ‘Oh, well, that’s very sweet of you, Mike. But you don’t need to do that, surely? And anyway, why don’t you ask Verity for it?’
I half laughed, trying to sound casual. ‘I was going to, but then I thought that might ruin the surprise.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose it might,’ Suzi said, but I could still feel the hesitation.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I should have realised it’s a bit of an odd thing to ring and ask after all this time. I’ll just email her, don’t worry.’
‘No, no. Sorry, I’m being silly. It’s 24 Elizabeth Road, W8. I don’t know the whole postcode, but I could get my address book.’
‘No, postcodes are easy to find.’ I looked at the words I had written on to the pad in front of me. I knew W8 meant Kensington and I had a feeling I knew Elizabeth Road. Large, grand houses. ‘How about a flat number?’
‘Oh no, they have the whole house.’ Again I heard the swell of pride in her voice. ‘Anyway, I’m glad you’re feeling, well, better, Mike. It’ll be good to see you at the wedding.’
‘Yes,’ I said, heat rising through my body. ‘Thanks.’
‘I think it’s a good idea to put all that nastiness behind us. And Verity’s very happy now. It’s good of you to understand that.’
‘Yes.’ I wanted to say something more significant but my voice felt caught inside me.
‘Anyway, take care,’ she said, ringing off before I could say goodbye.
I stayed sitting at the long table which runs along the back of the kitchen, by the bifold doors. I could imagine V holding lunches and dinners at the table, the doors open, me manning a barbeque. The day felt as though it had darkened, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
‘“Oh no, they have the whole house,”’ I said out loud, mimicking her entitled voice. ‘We don’t say toilet,’ she said to me on my second or third visit to Steeple House. They were having a lunch party and she took me to one side before it started. ‘Or pardon, for that matter,’ she’d added. ‘And please don’t hold your knife like a pen.’
She’d walked away from me after that, leaving me to wonder at all the other things I did wrong without realising. I found V in the garden and told her what her mother had said, but she told me not to worry, that her mother was a stupid snob. ‘Please, please promise me you’ll say at least one of those words during the meal and you’ll definitely hold your knife like a pen,’ she said. At first I refused, but she put her hand down my trousers and stroked me until I would have agreed to learn Chinese if that’s what it took.
The guests did flinch when I said both words, Suzi’s colour rising up from her shirt to her taut, chicken-like neck. But V just smiled and winked at me when nobody was looking.
I must have sat at the table for longer than I realised after speaking to Suzi, because it was 2 p.m. by the time I set off on my paper errand. There was a newsagent’s close by but I thought a walk across the common would do me good and there was a pub which overlooked it that appeared nice. I bought the Observer and a pint and sat outside on a table close to the road. I checked my email on my phone, but my inbox was still empty. Instead I did what I’d been avoiding all morning and typed 24 Elizabeth Road, W8 into Google Maps. The house was just what I had expected: grand, white, imposing. I expanded the image, but I couldn’t make out anything beyond white shutters and dark rooms behind.
Next I googled V’s fiancé, Angus Metcalf, my hands shaking slightly against the keys, so I had to retype his name a few times. There were quite a few results, but I knew immediately which he was. Angus Metcalf of Metcalf, Blake, apparently the pre-eminent advertising company of our age, who had embraced the more cynical, ever-connected world we live in to come up with the most innovative, exciting and successful campaigns of the past decade. On the staff page was a black-and-white photograph of a rugged-looking man. He was smiling out at the camera, his eyes creased and his hair greying slightly at the temples. I suppose some people would have called him attractive, but I thought he was very simian-looking and I had to tear my mind away from imagining his ape-like hands on V’s body. His smile was too full, as if he was laughing at you rather than with you. I estimated him to be quite a bit older than us, early forties perhaps, which made me feel a bit better because he hadn’t retired yet and he must be approaching V’s magical number of forty-five, which would suggest she wasn’t that serious about him.
‘Mike.’
I looked up and Kaitlyn was standing in front of me on the street, a disgusting little dog in her arms. The thing was yapping at me and I would have dearly loved to kick it across the road. V said anyone who kept pets was mad and this seemed to prove the point.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’ve just been walking Snowdrop.’ She laughed lightly. ‘Remember, I live here.’
‘Sorry, of course you do,’ I said, remembering our conversation from Friday evening.
‘God, what happened?’ She motioned to my eyebrow.
I reached up to the sore area of skin. ‘Oh, nothing. I walked into a door.’
Her forehead creased into a frown. ‘Are you here alone?’
‘Yes. Just reading the paper.’
‘Where’s Verity?’
I was slightly shocked to hear V’s name in Kaitlyn’s mouth and it took me a minute to remember everything I’d said to her. ‘At home. Making lunch.’
‘Oh, how nice.’ But she stayed standing where she was.
I stood up and drained my pint. ‘Anyway, better be off. I was only meant to be getting the paper.’ I held it up like an exhibit.
‘Oh yes, well. See you tomorrow.’ She put Snowdrop down and they moved away, all their long spindly legs marching on the pavement. I was relieved to see Kaitlyn was wearing trainers today and giving her poor feet some time off the vertiginous heels.