One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [161]
‘Lovely to see you, Ivan. I must be off.’
I smiled and turned to head off down the street. My heart was pounding. Steady, Hattie, steady. A nice sedate walk, no scurrying. Glance down at those Calvin Klein boots. Lovely, aren’t they? You see? You’re almost there. Couldn’t be easier. Now. Around this corner, and you’re home and dry. No pounding footsteps behind you – good. No ‘Hattie – wait!’ ringing out. Excellent. I hovered, just on the corner of Pembridge Road, fingering some Brussels lace on a stall. Put my glasses back on, and carefully snuck a look back up the street. Portobello was teeming, but I could see him, turned away now, only a speck in the distance, though my razor-sharp eyes picked him out. He was talking to Ned again. Back to three minutes ago, where he’d left off his conversation. Whilst I, I realized to my absolute horror, was back to square one.
I felt the last few weeks unravel as if a thread had been pulled on the neck of a jumper. My mouth dried and I turned and walked quickly on, listening to the sound of my heels clip-clopping down the steps to the tube, clinging to movement.
At Sloane Square I got a taxi, a luxury I could afford now. I sank back in the black upholstery and fished the particulars for 26 Maidwell Avenue from my bag. I read them as if I were studying for finals, letting the glossy photographs seep in. That glorious first-floor drawing room, and all that fabulous space upstairs: that long attic room on the top floor that stretched the length of the house, and which I’d already earmarked for Seffy to have a pool table in, a wraparound sound system, big screen across one wall. All the cool toys his friends had and we didn’t. He’d be up there with Hal, in the evenings. Did Hal play pool? I wasn’t sure, but the next clip of film in my head featured a broad back in a checked shirt leaning over a pool table in a pub in Fulham, where I’d seen someone else play, a brown forearm stretching down a cue, a throaty laugh ringing out as, with freakish good luck, he pocketed the black.
Breathe, Hattie, breathe. I did, with studied concentration; my hands gripping the particulars as if my life depended on them. The taxi rumbled on. Past the fire station, past World’s End, not home, but to Maggie’s. To discuss the new shop with her. To hear her squeal, jump up in the air and declare, ‘Oh, yes, yes! God, what a star that man is, Hattie, and definitely Chelsea Green, not Pimlico. So nineties, don’t you think? Too many ageing poofters. Or even Chelsea Harbour, what d’you think?’
And I’d get caught up in her glee, make plans, ring estate agents, discuss putting Munster Road on the market. No more stepping over sacks of rubbish, no more down-and-outs sleeping in our doorway – or, perhaps, a better class of down-and-out. And then my phone rang in my bag as I received a text. Never have my hands scrambled so feverishly, never have my fingers so eagerly shot back the screen to receive the message. My eyes scanned it quickly.
The message read: ‘How No. 26? Did you like it? Hx’
I stared. Crushing disappointment had swept through me.
‘Loved it,’ I punched back.
I replaced the phone carefully in my bag and folded my hands on top. After a moment, I fished it out again and added, ‘And I love you too.’
Then I turned my head away to gaze out of the window. The taxi rumbled on.
The shop was shut as we crawled past over the speed bumps on Munster Road, as I knew it would be. It was gone five and we closed on the dot mid-week, particularly at this time of year when business was slow. The paint was peeling a bit, I noticed, on the door, and around the front. Needing doing. But there was no point doing it if we sold; someone else would only want it a different colour. A single Louis Quinze chaise longue resided in the window on a Persian rug, testimony to our ‘less is more’ style: a pendulous Parisian chandelier hung above, and that was it. Tasteful, expensive, minimalist, although it looked a bit forlorn, I thought, that empty sofa,