Brothers & Sisters - Charlotte Wood [54]
When I’d said no, unhappily fabricating a jealous Australian boyfriend, knowing that Rory didn’t believe me, I put the phone down, and almost immediately it rang again. It was Emma. She was having dinner with Jerome, and if I was sure it was okay, she would stay at his house. I nearly laughed. I said it was fine and put the phone down again. I switched the kitchen light on, and then, walking out into the sitting room, the lamps and the television. All this luxury. At home I’d been living in a terrace house with nearly a dozen tiny bedrooms. Mine had been small and damp, but there was always the sound of someone on the stairs or in the kitchen. I looked out at the traffic and the bright lights of the off-licence, and the people coming up from the tube entrance, and pulled the curtains shut.
I will always love you. That was what the last page of Peter’s last letter said. I’d taken it out of the envelope, which had already been ripped open, and read it. It was a letter like a suicide note, only he wasn’t committing suicide but quitting commerce to join the defence forces. Finally he would realise his dream of becoming a pilot.
I left it on the kitchen counter. It wasn’t deliberate; the microwave beeped. My tinned soup was ready, and I forgot to put the letter back in the envelope. Top of the Pops was on, which I always had to watch through splayed fingers. Then I rang a friend at home and we talked until I could tell her about Rory, tears leaking out of the corners of my eyes as I laughed. I went to bed and slept heavily, without needing to be aware of Emma beside me.
Next morning I was in the storeroom, kneeling on the floor beside the overstock shelves, with a book open on my lap. I’d just unpacked a box of children’s classics and I was reading The Magic Faraway Tree.
I didn’t hear him approaching, just felt, suddenly, a warm hand cradling the back of my head, the way a mother does a baby’s. I looked up, startled. It was the floor manager, Tony. He smiled at me, and said in his soft London voice, ‘Alright, trouble?’
Behind him I saw Rory, hands on his fat hips, glaring at me. I flushed, and smiled up at Tony and nodded. He nodded back, took his hand away, and left.
I could see that Emma was home as I crossed the road from the tube that evening. Our kitchen light was on. There was someone with her; Jerome, no doubt. I took my time scraping my feet on the metal doormat at the entrance to our building. It had been a long day; Rory was not talking to me, which was more tiring than I could have thought possible.
They hadn’t been there long. As I shut the door I heard the squeal of a wooden stool on the tiled floor, the sound of the fridge opening.
‘Hello,’ I called. I stopped to look at myself in the bathroom mirror, seizing a towel to rub over my hair. Some of the red came off on the towel. The back of my head still felt warm where Tony had touched it.
When I came into the kitchen Jerome was reading Peter’s letter, one long arm outstretched to hold Emma off.
‘It’s private!’ she was saying.
I put my bag on the floor. They didn’t notice me.
‘Give it back!’ said Emma. She was making surprising headway, given her size; Jerome had to brace himself against the bench with one foot to stop himself falling off the stool. Then he simply took his hand away, and Emma cannoned into him. She snatched the letter and stood back, panting.
‘I thought you’d finished with him,’ said Jerome, crossing his arms.
‘I couldn’t finish with him,’ said Emma. ‘I never started.’ She put one hand to her chest, as if feeling her trotting heartbeat.
‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘It was unrequited love.’
They both turned to look at me.
‘Whose love?’ said Jerome. ‘Whose love was unrequited?’
He was so beautiful. He was wearing a green scarf, high around his face. You could see the green in his dark eyes. His skin would be smooth to the touch.
‘Peter’s love,’ I said. ‘He’s had a crush on Emma for years.’
‘So