‘Oh.’
She hears the sound of the snib being slid off the Yale lock before the knob turns. Not taking any chances, then. I did that to her, thinks Cher, ruefully.
The door cracks open, and Collette peers at her. Cher brandishes her gifts and flashes her a wide smile. ‘Peace offering.’
‘Oh,’ says Collette. ‘Thank you. But really, there’s no need. I’m not offended. Don’t worry.’
‘All right, then,’ says Cher. ‘Housewarming present.’
‘I – no, really, I’m okay. I don’t need anything. You don’t have to…’
‘Oh, come on,’ says Cher, ‘I’m doing my best, here.’
‘I’m really tired,’ says Collette, and her face looks for a moment as though it might crumple into tears. ‘Really. I should just go to bed.’
Cher’s not taking no for an answer. She stopped taking no for an answer when she left the Wirral. ‘It won’t even start to get dark for a couple of hours. Call it a nightcap.’
Collette sees that she’s not going to get away with rejecting her and reluctantly lets the door swing open. Walks ahead of Cher into the room and stands in the middle of the carpet, looking around as if she doesn’t know what to do next. ‘Sorry. It’s a mess.’
She’s clearly been sleeping again – or lying in bed, at least. The duvet is thrown to one side, and there’s a deep indentation in the thin pillows she’s piled on top of each other. On the floor, there’s a small pile of clothes.
‘That’s okay.’ Cher reassures her, ‘you should see mine. And I’ve been here months.’
‘It’s not – it doesn’t help that the place is full of Nikki’s stuff,’ says Collette. ‘I don’t really know where to put anything. I can’t help feeling she might want it all back, some day.’
Cher looks around at her former friend’s familiar belongings. Waste not, want not, she thinks. If Nikki doesn’t want it… ‘Well, anything you want to send my way…’
Collette whirls round, looks shocked. ‘I can’t do that! It’s someone else’s stuff!’
Cher shrugs. ‘It’s not like I’m going anywhere, is it? If she comes back, I’ll give it her.’ She waves a hand at the sweatpants, the emerald green vest top Collette is wearing. ‘And anyway, it’s not like you mind helping yourself, is it?’
Collette blushes, looks at the floor. ‘I’ll get them laundered,’ she says. ‘It’s just till – you know. All my clothes are dirty. I’ve been travelling. It’s just till I…’
Cher dismisses the protestations with a cackle. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell if you don’t. So… We having a drink, or what?’
Collette springs into life like a clockwork doll, starts bustling about, pantomiming busyness. ‘Of course. Yes. Let me just…’ She picks the pile of Nikki’s clothes off the single armchair, drops it against the wall behind. ‘I don’t know where the glasses live, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s okay.’ Cher goes straight to the left-hand wall cupboard of the kitchenette, gets down two tumblers. ‘I know my way around. Plates and stuff are down here,’ she pulls open the door by the sink, ‘with the saucepan, and there’s this drawer here, for knives and forks and stuff. Have you got any ice?’
‘Ice?’
‘Nikki always had ice.’ She crouches down in front of the little fridge and opens the freezer compartment. A half bag of frozen peas, and an ice tray. ‘Thought so. You might want to throw that milk away without opening it. It’s probably been here since before she went away.’
She gets out the ice tray and runs it under the tap. Bangs a couple of cubes into each glass and fills them up with Irish cream. Takes a big gulp from one, sighs and tops it up again. ‘There. That hits the spot.’
Collette sits down on the bed. She looks hopeless, tentative. ‘I got crisps as well,’ Cher says, handing her a glass. ‘D’you want me to put them in a bowl?’
Collette takes the glass and looks at it as though she’s never seen the stuff before. ‘Nah,’ Cher answers herself, ‘what’s the point in making washing-up?’ and flings herself into the armchair, hooks a leg over an arm and takes another swig. ‘Trouble with this stuff,’ she says, ‘is it doesn’t really feel like booze at all, does it? And once you start drinking it, it slides down your throat like it’s coming out of a spittoon.’
Collette takes a sip, raises her eyebrows. ‘I’ve never drunk this stuff before. I though you just put it in cocktails, like curaçao.’ She takes another sip. ‘It’s delicious.’
‘Never drunk it? Girl, where’ve you been?’
The look Collette gives her is startled, suspicious. It’s like we speak a different language, thinks Cher. ‘Oh, you know, here and there,’ Collette replies, eventually. Then adds: ‘It’s been Cristal champagne for me, 24/7.’
They fall awkwardly silent and sip their drinks, eying each other. She looks like my friend Bonny, thinks Cher, only older. I wonder what happened to Bonny? She was meant to be going back to her dad, but I know she didn’t want to go. Not like that matters to social services.
‘So how are you settling in, then?’ she asks, to fill the silence.
Collette shrugs. ‘Oh, you know. Okay. It’s all a bit strange.’
‘Better once you’ve got your stuff.’
‘Yeah,’ says Collette, and looks away again. That can’t be it, wonders Cher. That tiny bag I saw her with earlier? No one moves in somewhere with that little stuff, do they? And then she remembers the duffel bag she’d arrived with herself, seven months ago, and does an internal shrug. Hossein had a suitcase, but from the way he hefted it one-handed up the stairs, she doesn’t think it was full.
‘It feels a bit like moving into someone else’s grave, though,’ says Collette, suddenly. ‘What happened to this Nikki? Where did she go?’
‘I wish I knew.’ This much is true. Cher’s had few friends in her brief life, and has felt the loss of Nikki surprisingly strongly. Nikki was kind to her, let her watch the telly, used to make her fry-ups on Saturday mornings, the two of them nursing their come-downs in companionable silence. ‘She just – I mean, I know she was bothered about making the rent, but it’s not like he could just have thrown her out on the street or anything.’
‘What was she like?’
Cher remembers. What do you say? Bright orange hair and a ginger complexion; a tendency to eczema on her ankles, and an embarrassing passion for Johnny Depp… ‘Scottish,’ she says, eventually. ‘She came from Glasgow. I guess maybe she went back there.’
‘Mmm,’ says Collette.
‘She didn’t even say goodbye,’ says Cher, mournfully.
Chapter Ten
The Landlord doesn’t suit the heat. Or the heat doesn’t suit him. Either way, on a day like this, he would usually spend most of it in his flat, the curtains drawn. On a day like today, he likes to lie beached on his leather sofa, naked, watching his DVDs with a fan playing over his flesh, drinking Diet Coke from the bottle and occasionally lifting up his belly to let the air get to the crevices beneath.
But today is rent day, and rent day gives him purpose. He is out on the street by eleven o’ clock, shuffling up Beulah Grove in his Birkenstocks, sticking to the shade to keep the sun off his pate. Behind him, he drags a shopping trolley in Cameron tartan. He likes to take this with him when he goes to Beulah Grove, not just because of the convenience, but because no one would ever assume that someone pulling a shopping trolley might also be carrying large amounts of cash. The Landlord is a lot wealthier than most of his neighbours, but they’ll never spot it from the way he looks.
He pauses at the foot of the steps to take a breather, and surveys his domain. Though he doesn’t have a lot of time for beauty, Roy Preece can see that number twenty-three is a handsome house, in a road of handsome houses. If it were in one of the gentrified boroughs – City-money Wandsworth, perhaps, or Media Putney – it would be worth two, three million, even in its current state, even with the railway running past the bottom of the garden and the old bat in the basement. As it is, with the Farrow & Ball front-door paint going up all over and the front pullins full of SUVs, he’ll have enough to live like a king for the rest of his life when he gets shot of the place. Go somewhere where life is cheap, and buy as much of it as he can.