• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1484 0

strolling by a river much as we would in France one day. Maybe next summer, in his garden, with Seffy and Cassie perhaps playing backgammon up on the terrace under that pagoda dripping with bougainvillaea, their laughter filtering down to us. Later we’d all have supper outside, candles flickering in the dusk, cicadas chattering in the long grass, a huge bowl of pasta, or perhaps a fragrant bouillabaisse. The four of us talking and laughing into the night, and if my fantasies seemed to encompass the bigger picture, rather than the minutiae of a heartbeat, well, look where heartbeats had got me before: entangled with men who were careless of my emotions, who made free with my spirit. No, an equable life with Hal, free from the vagaries of passion and despair was my focus, and for once I wasn’t getting ahead of myself. I knew, you see, Hal’s plans for me were long term. Knew there was nothing flighty or ephemeral about this man, knew his love was constant, and I felt so safe. So comforted and wrapped, as if I’d finally landed somewhere soft, after all those years of being Out There.

As we strolled and chatted now by this very English river, the water rushing clear and bright over the pebbles, shivering around the tall bulrushes at the edge, as we strolled on in the fading light, we came to the little stone bridge. That’s where we paused, and where I turned to face him: and that’s where he took me in his arms, and a million miles from that snatched kiss on the landing, kissed me properly, for the first time.

30

The house I was looking at was capacious by most people’s standards, but by mine, it was downright huge. It was in Notting Hill, an area I wasn’t overly familiar with, but could quickly get used to, I decided, as I leaned over the black wrought-iron first-floor balcony, peering down to the garden square below. A cool enclosure full of gently yellowing plane trees and rich autumnal vegetation winked back at me: a tasteful oasis from the buzzing bars and shops I knew lay only a convenient stroll away. I inhaled the air, savouring its gentrification, narrowing my eyes at the terrace of identical creamy stucco houses opposite. Four storeys, with a flight of steps up to a pillared front door, complete with shiny brass knocker: three tall windows on the first floor giving onto a filigreed balcony like the one I was leaning on now. Similar, but look closer, and they were all different, in terribly refined and subtle ways, to do with the planting of the box hedge in the front garden, the window boxes full of expensive tumbling plants, the colour of the front door. Different room configurations within, no doubt too. Behind me, Torquil the estate agent was eulogizing about this particular one’s hidden depths.

‘Working fireplaces in the dining room and also in here, in the drawing room, of course, and French windows in all south-facing rooms. This room is 480 square foot, if you’re interested. And upstairs, five bedrooms, which, with the kitchen and breakfast room below, totals 3,400 square feet. A staggering footprint, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

Indeed it was. Staggering. Certainly compared to my own humble little footprint in Fulham. And so much square air space too, I thought, coming back inside and craning my neck up at the ornate plaster rose in the centre of the ceiling, miles away in the stratosphere. I considered my own cringing little eaves. But then, Hal had said look for something with generous proportions. So I had.

Hal was in Zurich, or – no, Geneva, I think. On the last leg of a legal tour, finalizing a deal worth zillions, whilst I, the expensively dressed girlfriend, was putting a toe in the property market. Seeing what was out there, as they say. All of which was really quite precipitous considering he’d only kissed me properly – what, ten days ago? Obviously there’d been a great deal more than just kissing since then, but still: to be standing here in the new Marc Jacobs coat he’d bought me and my spiky black patent boots, viewing sod-off London houses was undoubtedly fast work. Not mine, I hasten to add.