“I’d start if I were you. It could take hours to coax his lordship down here.”
He didn’t need to ask twice. I spooned a pile of noodles onto my plate and breathed in the salty aroma of anchovies. The pasta was perfectly al dente and the sauce tasted better than anything I’d ever made, or eaten, and I was embarrassed by the appreciative noises that escaped as I ate. “This is amazing. You’re a chef, right?”
“We used to own an Italian restaurant,” said Ari. “But we sold it a couple of months ago. It’s being turned into a Pilates studio.” He said the word “Pilates” as though it was solely to blame for the sale.
“I thought you were Greek?”
“Yeah, but Italian food is more popular. Or was. Nobody eats pasta round here anymore, too many carbs. They want sashimi, egg-white omelets, bottled air.”
“It’s working though,” I said. “People who live in Notting Hill are the skinniest in the world. They make the average New Zealander look like a whale.”
“Really?” he said, for the first time looking interested in something I’d said. “Too much export-quality lamb?”
“And milk, butter, cheese, bacon, eggs. But they’re much more sporty too. Always playing touch rugby and training for triathlons.”
“How exhausting,” said Ari.
“There isn’t a lot else to do.”
Pippa appeared in the living room, flustered and short of breath. “He absolutely refuses to come down.”
“Tell him he has to,” said Ari.
“I did. He called me a stupid cow, and other things I won’t repeat.”
Ari found this funny, but not Pippa. She spooned spaghetti onto a plate, picked up a knife and fork, and carried it to the foot of the stairs, at which point Ari laid down his own cutlery in disgust. “No wonder he won’t come down if he gets bloody room service.”
“He can’t skip meals. He’s still growing!” Pippa shot back.
“If he starves, that’s his problem,” countered Ari.
“And yours,” said Pippa. “Although you’d probably expect me to deal with that too.” She marched upstairs with the plate.
Next to me, Ari sighed. “Bet you wish you hadn’t come to dinner.”
“Are you kidding?” I said, trying to be bright. “This food is delicious.”
Ari had finished eating and went into the kitchen, where he took his frustrations out on various pots and pans. Then he too disappeared upstairs, leaving me on my own.
I was on my third helping by the time Pippa reappeared, puffy-eyed, Caleb’s plate of food demolished. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Caleb’s not himself at the moment. We think something’s going on at school—we’re not sure what exactly—but we’re going to see out the term there and rethink over the summer hols.”
“How old is he?”
“Sixteen.”
“That’s a difficult age,” I said.
“Do you think?”
“It was difficult for me,” I said, trying hard to think of an age that wasn’t. “And not just because my mother got sick.”
Pippa held up her hands. “That reminds me!” she exclaimed. “The other day I found something you’ll absolutely love.” She went over to the TV and rifled through a stack of VHS tapes that looked like they had been accumulating for years. She put one of the tapes into an antique VCR machine, and gray dots swarmed on-screen, followed by occasional flashes of big hair and talking shoulder pads. “Is that Dynasty?” I said, recognizing Alexis.
“Wrong tape,” said Pippa, taking it out and tossing it into the dead zone behind the TV. “How frustrating, I had it yesterday.” She began to sort and stack dozens of unlabeled and scribbled-on cassettes. “Sorry, this might take a while.”
I excused myself to go to the bathroom, but really it was a pretext to be by myself and explore the house. On the landing, I looked into one of the bedrooms and saw an unmade bed—probably Pippa and Ari’s. No one seemed to be around, but noises were filtering down from upstairs, not just the loud bass line but something with guitars. At the foot of the stairs I tilted my head toward the muffled noise and saw another landing, and a stepladder leading to what must be the roof. Through an open trapdoor, I could just make out a patch of starless London sky, and, if I listened hard enough, the faint warble of a country and western singer joining the guitars. Was Ari listening to music on the roof?
In the bathroom, I flicked on the lights, and came face-to-face with a giant baby boy, smiling widely under thick black curls, enough for a clown wig. The edges of the photograph were blurred, but in the center his eyes were sharp green constellations. The eyes of Pippa and her mother. Another photo next to it showed the same boy as a toddler, staggering toward the camera on plump bowlegs. Above it, and below it, hung more photos of the same boy, Caleb, I guessed, some black-and-whites, some color, and the pictures continued in a ring around the room. Closer to the loo, the boy was older, and above the bidet, he was thirteen or fourteen, a snapshot taken at a soccer match amid a scrum of other lads. In one, Pippa had her arms in a noose around Caleb’s neck, and he looked like he was trying to pull away. The most recent pictures hung on the opposite wall, past the bath, near the door. In these he was a teenager, but utterly androgynous, his translucent skin a canvas for delicate, girlish features. He stared into the camera, sulky and contemptuous. When I sat down on the toilet to pee, his scorn almost put me off.