She walked away, looking brittle against the wind, but after a few steps she stopped and came back.
“Here,” she said, digging the box of cakes out of her bag. “Share these with Peggy, won’t you?”
— CHAPTER 24 —
Andrew stooped to double-check, but there were no two ways about it: he was looking at a dead mouse.
He’d been searching for a bucket because water was leaking from an unidentifiable hole in the ceiling above the back stairs. Cameron had called the maintenance team but they’d fobbed him off. His response had been to repeat some sort of mantra over and over under his breath, his eyes tightly shut.
“Back in a sec,” Andrew had said, edging slowly away.
As he opened the cupboard underneath the kitchen sink he was hit by the familiar stench of death, and sure enough, lying there on its back among bleach bottles and a hi-vis jacket was a mouse. This wasn’t exactly under Andrew’s remit, but he couldn’t just leave it there, so he put on a single washing-up glove and picked it up by its tail. He caught his distorted reflection in the shiny side of the coffee machine and saw the mouse swinging back and forth, as if he were performing some sort of macabre hypnotism. Since he didn’t want to disturb whatever mindfulness ritual Cameron was going through, his only option was to go back through the office and out of the front entrance to find somewhere to dispose of the corpse. So it was with a horrible inevitability that he had managed to get all the way to the main doors without passing a soul, only to be met by Peggy coming the other way. She was distracted by collapsing her umbrella, and making a split-second judgment, Andrew opened his coat pocket and stuffed the mouse inside it. Her umbrella now folded away, Peggy spotted Andrew and made her way over.
“Hello,” she said, “how’s tricks?”
Aside from the dead mouse in my pocket?
“Yes, okay. Nothing new, really. You’re feeling better then?”
He had meant it as a genuine question but in his flustered state it came out almost sarcastically. Thankfully, Peggy didn’t seem to take it that way.
“Yep, much better,” she said. “What’s the craic today then?”
“Oh, just the usual.”
Mouse in my pocket, mouse in my pocket, mouse in my pocket.
“Keith and Meredith?”
“Not in yet.”
“Thank god for small mercies. And we’ve not been fired, yet?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, that’s something.”
For the first time since Andrew had known Peggy, there was an awkward pause.
“Well, I better crack on,” Peggy said. “Coming?”
“Sure,” Andrew said. “I’ve just got to . . . I’ll see you in there.”
He disposed of the mouse in some weeds in a corner of the car park. He had only just gotten back inside when he looked out of the window to see Keith arriving on his scooter next to the burial ground. Such was his size relative to the machine it reminded Andrew of a clown on one of those ankle-height tricycles. Barely half a minute later Meredith drove up in her custard-yellow hatchback, and Andrew watched her and Keith take a sly look around before locking lips, Keith wrapping his arms around Meredith as the kiss became more passionate, so it looked as if she’d fallen into quicksand.
—
Andrew was trying to write an obituary for Warren but kept distracting himself by stealing glances at Peggy, who despite her earlier assurances that she was feeling better still looked pale and worn out. Though that might have been something to do with having to listen to Meredith banging on about some sort of “retreat” where she’d just been on holiday. He was considering going over to rescue Peggy, but things felt so different now. He couldn’t bear the idea of her smiling warily as he approached, worried that he might try to bring up what had happened in Northumberland. Instead, he trudged to the kitchen and went to make tea. Someone had finished the milk and put the empty carton back in the fridge. Andrew wished that whoever it was (and let’s face it, it was Keith) would tread on an upturned plug in bare feet sometime soon. From the kitchen doorway he could see into Cameron’s office. Cameron was sitting at his computer, arms aloft, viciously squeezing a stress ball in each hand. He saw Andrew and his grimace turned into a slightly pained smile, the same expression a baby pulls in the process of filling its nappy. At least today can’t get any worse, Andrew thought, and as if Cameron had read his mind he chose that moment to wheel himself over on his chair.
“Remember, guys, it’s dinner party mark two tonight.”
— CHAPTER 25 —
Andrew peered out from behind a tree across the street from Meredith’s house, picking at the price label on the cheapest bottle of wine he’d been able to find in the corner shop. (He was no expert, but he was pretty sure that Latvia wasn’t famed for its rosé.)
He braced himself to enter the fray. Cameron had been suspiciously quiet since the cutbacks conversation, and even though they were supposedly “mates,” Andrew wasn’t going to assume for a minute that he was safe. He would have to be on his best behavior tonight. Cameron was continuing to give a disproportionately large shit about these stupid dinner parties, so if pretending to be the sort of person who enjoyed talking about school catchment areas over an underbaked flan stood him in good stead, then so be it.
He was about to cross the road when a car pulled up outside and he shrank back as he saw Peggy climb out of the passenger side, waving good-bye to Maisie and Suze in the backseats. The window lowered and Andrew heard Steve’s gruff voice. Peggy turned and leaned in through the window to retrieve the handbag Steve was proffering, and there was just enough light in the car for Andrew to see them kiss. He waited after Peggy had gone inside and watched as Steve cracked his knuckles before taking what was unmistakably a hip flask from the glove compartment and taking a deep swig before driving off, tires shuddering against the tarmac.
—
Meredith opened the door and bestowed a kiss on each of Andrew’s cheeks, a greeting he received while motionless, as if he were a statue she was kissing for luck. The music that was playing from concealed speakers throughout the house was, Meredith cheerfully informed him, by someone called Michael Bublé.
“It’s jazz!” she added, taking the wine from him.
“Is it?” Andrew said, looking around for something hard and pointy to bash his face into.
The others were all there. Keith, to Andrew’s surprise, was dressed in a gray suit with a purple tie, the knot of which was largely obscured by the folds of his neck. He looked troublingly happy. Cameron—who was already sitting at the dining room table with a large glass of red wine—was wearing a white shirt with three buttons undone, graying chest hair poking through, and had a bracelet of wooden beads around his wrist.
Andrew bumped into Peggy coming back from the loo and they performed an interminably awkward shuffle as each tried to let the other past.
“You know what, I’m just going to stand still and close my eyes until you’ve found a way past,” Peggy said.
“Good plan,” Andrew said. As he passed her he caught what smelled like a new scent—something subtle and fresh. For some reason this floored him even more than seeing the kiss. He felt his stomach plunge.
“I thought we’d start with a bit of a game, just to loosen us up,” Meredith said once they were all assembled in the dining room.
Oh joy, Andrew thought.
“Let’s go around the group, saying a word each, until we’ve improvised a story. It can be about anything. First person to go blank or crack up loses. Andrew, why don’t you start.”
Oh god.
Andrew: “We.”
Peggy: “All.”
Cameron: “Went.”
Meredith: “To.”
Keith: “Meredith’s.”