turning up out of the blue and wondering how soon I could get shot of them. But I softened when Sally’s face lit up – really lit up – when Pat padded into the room with Peggy. Perhaps she was human after all.
‘Hi Pat!’ she beamed. ‘How you doing?’
‘Fine,’ he said, giving no sign that he remembered his mother’s half-sister. What was she to him? Half an aunt? A step-cousin? These days we have relatives we haven’t even invented names for yet.
‘I made you a tape,’ she said, fumbling in her rucksack and eventually producing a cassette without its case. ‘You like music, don’t you?’
Pat stared at the tape blankly. The only music I could remember him liking was the theme from Star Wars.
‘He likes music, doesn’t he?’ she asked me.
‘Loves it,’ I said. ‘What do you say, Pat?’
‘Thank you,’ he said. He took the tape and disappeared with Peggy.
‘I remembered how much he liked hip-hop when we were all staying at my dad’s place,’ she said. ‘There’s just a few of the classics on there. Coolio. Ol’ Dirty Bastard. Tupac. Doctor Dre. Stuff like that. Things that a little kid might like.’
‘That’s really kind of you,’ I said.
They sipped their drinks in silence – herbal tea for Glenn, regular Coke for Sally – and I felt a stab of resentment at these reminders of Gina’s existence. What were they doing here? What did either of these people have to do with my life? Why didn’t they just fuck off?
Then Pat or Peggy must have stuffed Sally’s tape into the stereo because suddenly an angry black voice was booming above a murderous bass line in the living room.
‘You fuck with me and I’ll fuck with you – so that would be a dumb fucking, mother-fucking thing to fucking do.’
‘That’s lovely,’ I said to Sally. ‘He’ll treasure it. So – you visiting your dad again?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m living there now,’ she said, shooting her old man a look from under her ratty fringe.
‘A few problems back home,’ Glenn said. ‘With my exlady. And her new partner.’
‘Old hippies,’ Sally sneered. ‘Old hippies who can’t stand the thought of anybody else having fun.’
‘Heavy scene with the new guy,’ Glenn said. ‘Bit of a disciplinarian.’
‘That moron,’ Sally added.
‘And how’s your boyfriend?’ I asked, remembering the ape-boy smirking on the sofa.
‘Steve?’ she said, and I thought I saw the sting of tears in her eyes. ‘Packed me in, didn’t he? The fat pig. For Yasmin McGinty. That old slapper.’
‘But we spoke to Gina the other night,’ Glenn said, his foggy brain finally getting down to business. ‘And we promised that we would look in on you and Pat if we were in the neighbourhood.’
Now I understood what they were doing here. No doubt they were responding to Gina’s prompting. But in their own ham-fisted way, they were trying to help.
‘Heard you’ve got a new gig,’ Glenn said. ‘Just wanted to say that the boy’s welcome to crash with us any time.’
‘Thanks, Glenn. I appreciate the offer.’
‘And if you ever need a babysitter, just give me a call,’ Sally said, hiding behind her hair and staring at a point somewhere beyond my shoulder.
It was really sweet of her. And I knew I needed a bit of extra cover with Pat now that I was working part-time. But Jesus Christ. I wasn’t that desperate.
Cyd loved London the way only a foreigner could love it.
She saw past the stalled traffic, the dead pubs, the congealed poverty of the council estates. She looked beyond the frightened pensioners, the girls who looked like women, the women who looked like men, the men who looked like psychos. She saw beyond all of that. She told me the city was beautiful.
‘At night,’ Cyd said. ‘And from the air. And walking across the royal parks. It’s so green – the only city I ever saw that is greener than Houston.’
‘Houston’s green?’ I said. ‘I thought it was some dusty prairie town.’
‘Yeah, but that’s because you’re a dumb limey. Houston is green, mister. But not as green as here. You can walk right across the centre of town through the three royal parks – St James’s, Green Park, Hyde Park – and your shoes never touch anything but green, green grass. Do you know how far that is?’
‘A mile or so,’ I guessed.
‘It’s four miles,’ she said. ‘Four miles of flowers, trees and green. And people riding horses! In the heart of one of the biggest cities on the planet!’
‘And the lake,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget the lake.’
We were in a café up on the first floor of a huge white building from the thirties on Portland Place – the Royal Institute of British Architects, right across the street from the Chinese embassy, a monumental oasis of beauty and calm that I never knew existed until she took me there.
‘I love the lake,’ she said. ‘I love the Serpentine. Can we still hire a rowing boat at this time of the year? Is it too late?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. It was the last week in September. ‘We might be able to get a boat for a few more days. You want to try?’
Those wide-set brown eyes got even bigger.
‘You mean now?’
‘Why not?’
She looked at her watch.
‘Because I’ve got to get to work,’ she smiled. ‘Sorry. I would have loved it.’
‘Then how about tomorrow? First thing. Before the crowds get there. We’ll get an early start. I’ll meet you at your place after breakfast.’
I still hadn’t seen her flat.
‘Or I could come to your place after I get through at work tonight,’ she said.
‘Tonight?’
‘That way we would really be sure of getting an early start.’
‘You’ll come to my place after work?’
‘Yes.’ She looked down at the clouds in her coffee and then back at me. ‘Would that be okay?’
‘That would be good,’ I said. ‘That would be great.’
Maybe the thing with Cyd had started off as some dumb infatuation when I was still reeling from Gina leaving me. But after we slept together for the first time it really wasn’t
