‘I only agreed to rent the place with Paul because it was near his office. Unfortunately the landlord had other ideas. We’re sleeping in Neil’s lounge, and I think I’m really starting to bug his girlfriend. She comes in first thing in the morning and slams about in the kitchen, sighing a lot. Plus I don’t like the way Neil looks at me when I’m in my pants.’
‘Well, Paul.’ Heather tapped crimson nails on the breakfast counter while she waited for the kettle. ‘It’s admirable that you’ve stuck by him, of course. He’s never really been able to hold down a job very long, has he? Not much of an attention span. Funny how women always see the long term, while men struggle to concentrate on the next twenty-four hours.’ Heather and Paul had a history of antipathy toward one another. It was the main reason why Kallie hadn’t seen anything of her in the last two years.
‘If you’re determined to make it work with him, I don’t know why you don’t buy somewhere and have done with it.’ Heather poured tea, dispensed biscuits, laid out coasters, cleaned the sink. ‘It was the best thing George and I ever did, getting this place.’
‘How is he?’
‘Oh,’ she waved the thought away, ‘working all the hours God sends, making an absolute fortune, but still travelling too much to enjoy it, and it’s no fun for me, pottering about with female pals. You get too well known at Harvey Nicks and the staff start to look at you with pity. I suppose it could be worse, I could be a golf widow.’
‘Where is George now?’
‘In Vancouver for a week. He asked if I wanted him to bring anything back. I said Vancouver, don’t bother. We mostly communicate by email these days. Listen, you’ll get another place together and things will calm down between you. Moving is stressful, particularly when you do it as often—’
‘I told him I was pregnant.’
If Heather was surprised, she didn’t show it. ‘And you’re not?’
‘No, we’d talked about it, and then we went out to the Italian place in Kentish Town—’
‘Pane e Vino? The lovely one with all the garlic?’
‘And I had a bottle of Soave and got a bit carried away. I thought we really might go for it later, but he ate too much and just wanted to sleep. I left it too long to tell him the truth and now he’s expecting me to start traipsing to the doctor. He doesn’t really want a baby—he says he does but now I can see it in his eyes. He thinks it’ll tie him down and he’ll never go travelling like Neil did, and he’ll have to be a grown-up for ever, and I don’t know, it’s all getting screwed up.’
‘You can’t work out your life when you’re sleeping on someone’s couch,’ said Heather. ‘That’s the first thing you have to change.’
‘You were so lucky, getting this house. A cobbled street, it’s like something out of a fifties black and white film.’
‘I know. It’s all a bit faux-shabby, but we really do have a milkman, a paperboy, a knife-grinder, a rag-and-bone man, ice-cream vans in the summer. Men take their shirts off and mend their cars in the street, as if they’re reliving their childhoods. The woman opposite still washes her front step. Some mornings you half expect Norman Wisdom to walk past with a ladder. We even have our own tramp, a proper old rambly one with a limp and a beard, not a Lithuanian with a sleeping bag. And you’d be surprised how cheap it still is around here. Urban chic, you see, much more bang for your buck than any pied-à-terre in Kensington, and we still have the cottage in Norfolk—not that I’ll go there alone, because who wants to be surrounded by nothing but scenery? There’s only so many times you can go for a walk. Here, we’re sandwiched between two dreadful council estates, and of course there are no decent schools, not that I’ll ever have children. But it’s quiet and we all have gardens. Not quite Eden, given the number of stabbings you get near the Tube.’
Heather lowered her mug. ‘You know, you should go after the old lady’s place. You’ve always wanted a garden. I suppose it will be put on the market now, and some developer will snap it up. She’s been there for years, so it would probably need a lot of work, which is good because the asking price will be lower.’
‘Won’t her brother want to live there now?’
‘I don’t suppose he’d be happy about climbing the stairs. These houses are quite small, but they’re arranged on three floors.’
Kallie refused to allow herself the indulgence of such a fantasy. ‘There’s no point in dreaming, I wouldn’t be able to afford it.’