“But just don’t lie about it, you know?”
“Absolutely,” Andrew said. “That’s the last thing you should do.”
Peggy sighed. “Sorry, this is stupidly unprofessional of me, banging on about my marital problems.”
“Not at all, it’s fine,” Andrew said. He suddenly realized what he’d just opened the door to. He could sense the question coming a mile away.
“You married, yourself?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“So I can’t now not ask you: what was your first post-proposal argument?”
Andrew thought for a moment. What would it have been? He had the feeling it should be something equally as trivial as Peggy’s.
“Whose turn it was to take the trash out, I think,” he said.
“A classic. If only all the arguments were about domestic chores, eh? Anyway . . . just nipping to the loo.”
For one dreadful second Andrew nearly stood up, too, out of politeness. Calm down, Mr. Knightley, he thought, watching Peggy disappear around a corner in search of the toilets. He looked around, accidentally catching the eye of a man sitting at the bar, who gave him the slightest of nods. Here we are, the look seemed to say. On our own. As usual.
Well, not me this time, Andrew thought, feeling a prickle of defiance. When Peggy returned he looked at the man, feeling rather smug.
There was a shriek of laughter from the other table. However insincere her friends were being, the bride-to-be was very obviously glowing with happiness.
“Bloody hell,” Peggy said. “Last time I smiled like that it was after I’d found a twenty-pound note in my dressing gown. I screamed so loud the dog farted.”
Andrew laughed. And perhaps it was just the beer on an empty stomach, or the fact he hadn’t had to go straight back to the office to face another afternoon of Keith and the others, but he was feeling really rather happy and relaxed all of a sudden. He made a mental note to try to remember how it felt not to have his shoulders tensed so much that they were practically touching his ears.
“Sorry again for dragging you to the pub,” Peggy said.
“No, no, it’s fine. I’m actually having a good time,” Andrew said, wishing he hadn’t sounded quite so surprised. If Peggy found this an odd thing to say, then thankfully her face didn’t show it.
“By the way, how are you at pub quizzes?” she said, half distracted by a man on a mobility scooter edging his way through the door, shepherded by the barman.
“Pub quizzes? I’m . . . I don’t really know,” Andrew said. “Normal, I suppose?”
“A few of us get babysitters and do the one at the Rising Sun on the South Bank. We come last every time and Steve usually ends up getting into a fight with the quizmaster, but it’s always a laugh. You should come.”
Before he could stop himself, Andrew said, “I’d love to.”
“Champion,” Peggy yawned, rolling her head around her shoulders. “I hate to be the one to say this, but it’s nearly two—I suppose we better get back?”
Andrew looked at his watch, hoping that there had been some sort of glitch in time so that they had another few hours. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.
Even when they were approaching the office and climbing the rain-slick steps outside, which seemed especially keen to have him slip on them today, Andrew found he couldn’t stop grinning. What an unexpectedly pleasant end to the morning that had been.
“Hang on a sec,” Peggy said as they came out of the lift. “Remind me: Keith, Cameron . . . Melinda?”
“Meredith,” Andrew said. “The one I’ve decided has a thing for Keith.”
“Oh yeah. How could I forget? A late summer wedding, maybe?”
“Hmm, spring, I think,” Andrew said, and in the moment it felt somehow perfectly natural for him to perform a semitheatrical bow as he held the door, gesturing for Peggy to go through first.
Cameron, Keith, and Meredith were sitting on one of the sofas in the break-out space and all got up straightaway when Andrew and Peggy walked in. Cameron’s face was ashen.
Oh shit, Andrew thought. We’ve been rumbled. They know about the pub. Maybe Peggy was just a stooge, hired as a one-off to investigate improper practices. The pub trip was all just a fucking ruse and it served him right for daring to hope to pretend he could be happy. But a quick glance at Peggy and he saw she was as nonplussed as he was.
“Andrew,” Cameron said, “we’ve been trying to get in touch. Has someone managed to call you?”
Andrew pulled his phone out of his pocket. He’d forgotten to turn it off silent after leaving Eric White’s flat.
“Is everything okay?” he said.
Keith and Meredith shared an uneasy glance.
“Someone called earlier, with some news,” Cameron said.
“Right?”
“It’s about your sister.”
— CHAPTER 8 —
Andrew had been three and Sally eight when their father had died of a heart attack. Rather than this bringing the two siblings together, Andrew’s early memories of his sister tended to feature her slamming doors in his face, screaming at him to leave her alone, and their occasionally vicious scraps when he was brave enough to stand up to her. He sometimes wondered if their dad had been around how their relationship might have differed. Would they have bonded more, or would their dad have had to be constantly intervening to stop them from fighting, getting angry himself at their relentless squabbling, or perhaps using a gentler approach—telling them in a soft voice how they were upsetting Mum. For her part, their mother was never on hand to stop their squabbling. “She’s taken to her bed,” was the confusing expression Andrew had once overheard a neighbor say, unaware that he was lying in the border by the garden fence, recovering from Sally’s latest pummeling. At the time he couldn’t comprehend that his mum was crippled with grief. Nobody explained this to him. All he knew was that if she’d opened her bedroom blinds it was going to be a good day—and on good days he got sausage and mash for dinner. Occasionally she’d let him climb into bed with her. She’d lie facing away from him, her knees pulled up to her chest. She would hum songs and Andrew would rest the tip of his nose on her back, feeling the vibration of her voice.
By the time Sally was thirteen she was already a good six inches taller than the biggest boy at school. Her shoulders grew broad, her legs meaty. There was a large part of her that seemed to embrace being different, stalking the corridors, actively seeking out people to intimidate. Looking back, Andrew realized this was obviously a defense mechanism, a way for Sally to strike preemptively against any bullies, while also providing an outlet for her grief. He might have been more understanding if he hadn’t been her punching bag of choice on quite so many occasions.
When some of the boys came back after summer holidays having had growth spurts, the bravest of them were confident enough to tease Sally, provoking her until she went for them, pursuing them across the playing fields, a manic glint in her eye, windmilling her arms at whoever she managed to corner.
One day shortly after Andrew had turned eleven, he had waited until Sally had gone downstairs before creeping into her bedroom and just standing there, smelling his sister’s smell, wanting desperately to perform some sort of spell that would change her and make her care about him. He had his eyes closed, tears pooling behind his eyelids, when he heard Sally hurrying up the stairs. Maybe the spell had worked; maybe Sally had felt the urgent call to find him and tell him everything was going to be fine. It only took Andrew a split second to realize that Sally advancing toward him was going to end with a punch in the gut, not an arm around the shoulder. He received a gruff apology later that day, though he couldn’t be sure if it was guilt that made Sally do it, or a rare instance of their mother stepping in. In any case, Andrew was only afforded a few days’ respite before another scrap.