' "I've known Miranda Cotton since she was one day old…" Stuff like that?'
'Something like.' I swallowed and fiddled with my drink.
'Don't go all sentimental on me, Miranda. We're still going to see each other. It's not as if you were leaving town.'
'I thought I might.'
'What? Move out of London?'
'Maybe.'
'Oh.' He raised his glass. 'Good luck to you. I've always been a believer in burning one's bridges.'
'I know. Bill?'
'Yes.'
'I never was in love with Brendan. It wasn't the way people thought.'
Bill gave a shrug.
'I never thought much of him. The way he would always squeeze my arm when he was talking to me and use my name three times in a sentence.'
'Do you believe me, then?'
'On the whole,' he said with a half-smile. 'More or less.'
'Thanks.' My eyes burned with tears again. I felt floppy with gratitude. 'I think I'll have another Bloody Mary.'
'Well, I'm going home. Drink all you like, but we start on the new house at eight.'
'I'll be there, eight sharp.'
He stood up and kissed the top of my head once more.
'Take care.'
CHAPTER 30
I did it. I made myself do it and I did it. I put my flat on the market. I was sleepwalking through it, not thinking. I just didn't care, and so it went more smoothly than anything I've ever done in my life. A young man with a clipboard came and looked around and raved about how saleable it was. He said their commission rate was three per cent. I said two and there was just a beat of hesitation and he said all right. The very next morning, a woman came to see it. She reminded me of me, except a bit richer, a bit more grown-up. She had a real job. She was a doctor. I saw the flat through her eyes. So much had been moved out that it had a minimalist look to it that made the space seem brightly lit, larger than it really was.
She said that the flat had a good feel to it. She smiled and said it must have good feng shui. I took a deep breath and said yes and thought about Troy hanging from the beam. Half an hour later the estate agent phoned saying that Rebecca Hanes had offered ten thousand less than the asking price. I said no. He said the market was looking a bit soft at the moment. I said it didn't matter. He rang back ten minutes later and said she had offered the full amount, but she wanted to move in straight away. I said I didn't want to be hurried. I would move in a month. He said he thought that might be a problem, but he rang back after a few minutes and said that would be fine. As I put the phone down, I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror and I wondered: is that the secret of doing deals? Is that the secret of life? If you care less than the other person, then you win. Was that me?
I was pretty far along in the process of jettisoning my old life, but I had done nothing about getting myself a new one. I took my old school atlas off the shelf and opened it at ' England and Wales, South'. Suddenly I realized that I had an existential freedom to my life. I had no particular family connection with anywhere outside London. I wasn't constrained. I was equally indifferent to everywhere. Should I draw a line an inch around London? Two inches? Three inches? Would I like to live beside the sea? And, if so, which sea? Village or town? Or open countryside? Or island? Thatched cottage? Houseboat? Martello tower? Decommissioned lighthouse? My freedom was like an abyss in front of my feet. It was almost awesome. It was also the wrong way round. I needed to think about work. What I needed to do was to find a job or jobs. I needed to make some calls. But there wasn't immediate pressure now. I'd bought myself a month by being horrible to a nice woman.
I made a resolution. I would contact two people every day who might be of some help in finding me work. I sat down with a piece of paper and after five minutes' thought I had a shortlist with one name on it, a guy called Eamonn Olshin, who had just finished training as an architect. So I phoned him up and asked if we could meet up so I could pick his brains about work. Eamonn was surprisingly – almost ridiculously – friendly. I had been seeing the world as a hostile, treacherous place for so long that it was startling when someone just sounded pleased to talk to me. He said it was funny I should call because he'd been meaning to get in touch for ages and how were things? I was enigmatic in my reply to that one. He said that, come to think of it, he was having people round for supper that very evening and why didn't I come along? My immediate impulse was to say no because I wanted to spend the rest of my life living in a hole in the ground and because it would make me seem pathetically needy. But I was needy. Maybe not pathetically so, but definitely in need. A brutally simple thought struck me. Who would I normally turn to at a time like this? Laura. I said yes, all right, trying not to sound too desperate.
Eamonn's flat was down in Brixton. I wanted to arrive fashionably late, again in order not to show that I was too keen, and then I lost my way so I was ludicrously late. Also, the plan had been to breeze in looking rather cool, but because I'd had to ask the way from about five different people I ended up sprinting along back streets and then the flat was on the top floor, so I was puffing like a walrus, and clammy and dishevelled, when I finally walked through the door, just before nine o'clock. There were eight people sitting around the table, two or three of whom were vaguely familiar. Eamonn introduced me to them in turn. The first was his girlfriend, Philippa, which was a relief. He really had invited me because he wanted to see me. After I had regained my concentration, it was too late. I'd missed almost all the names.
They were halfway through the meal and I said I'd quickly catch up, but I helped myself to just a token portion of lasagne. I sat next to Eamonn and talked briefly about my plans. He was very encouraging, but he had assumed I was looking in London. I told him I was going to move away, probably to the countryside. He looked baffled.
'Where?' he said. 'Why?'
'I need to get away,' I said.
'That's fine,' he said. 'Take a weekend break. There are some great deals. But don't go and live there. London is where you live. Everywhere else in England is for…' He paused, as if it were difficult to remember what it was for. 'I don't know, going for walks in, flying over on your way somewhere.'
'I'm serious,' I said.
'So am I,' said Eamonn. 'We can't afford to lose you. Look, there are people from all over the world stowing away on ships and in containers and under lorries, just because they want to get to London. And you're leaving. You mustn't.'
Philippa raised an eyebrow at her new boyfriend.
'She said she was serious.'
Maybe Philippa thought that Eamonn was being too nice to me. He sulked a bit and said he would talk to his boss to see if he knew any people who 'weren't good enough to make it in London '. We chatted for a bit and then the conversation lapsed and I felt a nudge. It was the man sitting on the other side of me. He was one of the ones who had looked familiar. Of course I hadn't caught his name. Unfortunately he remembered mine.
'Miranda,' he said. 'It's great to see you.'
'David! Blimey!' I said. He'd cut his hair short and had a small moustache over his upper lip.
He waggled his finger at me roguishly. 'Do you remember where we last met?'
'It's on the tip of my
'I saw you sitting on your arse on the ice at Alexandra Palace.'
A wave of nausea swept through me. Oh, yes. He had been one of the group on the day I met Brendan. What was it? Was God punishing me? Couldn't he have given me a single evening free of this?
'That's right,' I said.
David laughed.
'A good day,' he said. 'It's the sort of thing you ought to do more often and you never really get around to it. Didn't we do a sort of conga on the ice?'
'I wasn't really secure enough, I…'
He narrowed his eyes in concentration. I could see he was trying to remember something. I thought to myself, please, God, no.