The Love of Her Life

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.