it was decided indoor plumbing was here to stay.
Now I feel like I am walking into the same room but in a parallel universe. The place is bigger. Someone has knocked through to the kitchen, laid a wooden floor and painted the walls white, refitted the kitchen. All in the space of ten days. A treatment table, still wrapped in plastic, has replaced Jacob’s desk, and all the paraphernalia for an aromatherapy-cum-massage is neatly laid out on a pale-wood counter that takes up one wall. A feng shui kind of arrangement of ominous forked twig and stones – I mean, where are they planning to shove that? – stands on a low table where my desk had been. It smells new – new paint, new people, new business. There wasn’t even a nail mark in the wall to show where the pinboard once hung.
I resist the temptation to slap my cheek to check I’m not dreaming. ‘What happened to all the stuff that was in here?’ I ask, pointless though it is.
My Polish helper just smiles that bemused ‘seen enough, lady?’ smile.
‘Where is Jacob Wrath? Who’s renting this place?’ Finally I think of a relevant question with which the key holder might be able to help. ‘Do you have a number for the landlord? Landlord? Yes?’ Meeting incomprehension, I type the word into Google translate and let him squint through the spiderwebbed screen.
He nods and pulls a phone out from God knows where in his close-fitting outfit. Also in dumb show, he selects a contact and turns the screen to me. I jot down the number with a biro on a receipt dug out of the bottom of my shoulder bag.
‘Thanks.’
My guide stands back. He’s not going to leave me here, clearly, in case I steal a box of patchouli essential oil. I walk back down the stairs and on to the street. A few moments later, my new friend is outside with the bike slung over his shoulder. He dumps the bike on the road, gives me a wave, and mounts in one smooth move.
‘Jen-Coo-Yan. Thanks!’ I call after him in my one remembered coffee-powered phrase.
And then it starts to rain. Of course it does. But not glamorously, not like that scene at the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral, where the girl stands looking damp but still adorable. This is thunderous downpour where no one escapes with any shred of dignity. Deciding to take my phone call to a drier spot, I scurry to the coffee shop I like on Soho Square.
Buying an Americano to cut down the wait produced by the arcane art of working an espresso machine, I slide into a table near the back. Chasing a couple of paracetamol with a shot of black coffee, I tap in the number I got from the Two-wheeled Pole.
The phone is answered with an aggressive ‘Yes? What the fuck is it?’
God, I wish I was the least bit assertive but that was missed out of the baby shower of cradle blessings thrown by my good fairies. Instead I got impulsiveness, disorganisation and an inability to swear in public. I can swear perfectly well in private – fuck it – see what I mean? But whereas other people seem to regard the f-word as an ordinary intensifier, I can’t use it. Not at all. Not even when it is literally what I’m doing. Especially not then.
‘Um, hello, is that the landlord of 5a Dean Street?’
‘What’s it to you? You’re not that fucking woman from Number 7? Don’t waste my time telling me Marek is playing his music too loud. Fucking racist bitch. Take it up with him.’
I guess Marek is the bicycle messenger. ‘It’s nothing to do with him or his music. I’m not from Number 7. I work in the office below his flat – or at least I did. I was wondering if you know what’s happened to the previous tenant, Jacob Wrath?’
There’s silence at his end. I can hear birdsong and the crunch of gravel. Is he on a golf course? I immediately imagine an Essex gangster type, thick gold jewellery and a blonde younger wife. My mind loves these leaps.
‘You know that fucker Wrath?’
This doesn’t sound good. ‘Um, yes. I mean, I work for him. Do you have a forwarding address for correspondence?’
‘Ha! Stay right where you are… What did you say your name was?’
‘I didn’t.’ Suddenly, it doesn’t seem a very good idea to admit who I am, so I say the first thing that comes to mind. ‘Holly Golightly.’ It must be the whole adrift-on-the-streets-of-a-big-city-in-the-rain thing that’s getting to me if I’ve gone from Four Weddings to channelling Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
‘I’m sending my man round to talk to you. Where are you? Coffee shop?’
He can hear the hiss of the milk being steamed into submission and the Italian being bandied about behind the counter. I calculate what could happen. To lie or not to lie? He needs time to send someone over. ‘Yes, I’m in Carlo’s, Soho Square. Do you know it?’
‘No, but my man will find you.’
‘Why? What do you want?’
‘I’ve got something for you.’
That doesn’t ring true. He didn’t know I existed until he took the call. ‘Right then. I’ll wait for him here. I’m in the seat by the window.’ I mentally picture Audrey Hepburn sitting there over a solitary coffee to make it more real for us both.
‘You fucking be there, all right?’
‘Of course.’ Sending a mental two-fingers, I end the call and then power off the mobile. I have to hope that no unsuspecting girl on her own takes a seat by the window but so far I’m good: there are two Asian boys with laptops who look like they’ve settled in for the morning.
This is getting ridiculous. I’ve just talked to a man who sounds like the cliché of the mobster boss. I don’t do that. My life doesn’t include that kind of conversation. Gathering my things, I leave the cafe, having already plotted my next move into the garden square. I stand in the shelter of the half-timbered hut in the centre, a child-sized Tudor fortress, and keep watch on Carlo’s. A damp ten minutes pass and then a man arrives on a motorbike. He gets off, locks his helmet in the seat compartment, revealing he is the spitting image of Idris Elba, and heads into the cafe. Is that him, the landlord’s man? Two women follow him in with their pushchairs, children under plastic wrap. Then an older man with a briefcase.
I should’ve got a description, but I never got the knack of thinking things through.
Motorcycle man comes back out with a sandwich in a to-go box and roars off. OK, not Idris. Through the window, I see the mothers edge out the Asian students with an interesting piece of psychological warfare. They let their two-year-olds occupy the low window seat normally devoted to flyers for local businesses and West End shows. The kids, two boys, lounge on their bellies and wave their heels in the air as they bash toy cars into each other. The Asian students exchange a look, close their laptops and scram. The mothers settle in the still-warm chairs like a couple of self-satisfied generals. The man with the briefcase comes out but with no sign he’s bought anything.
Him? He doesn’t look dangerous but he looks legal. I don’t want to take charge of any papers or writs that the landlord might be trying to serve. I’ve worked out by now that Jacob must owe him money – just as, come to think of it, he owes me my pay.
The older man, paunchy, grey receding hair, navy suit, makes a call. I would bet that if I had my phone switched on, it would be ringing right now. Then more bad news: he is joined by two serious-looking blokes who have
