a small child and a dog in the family. There was an astonishing lack of clutter, no dishes left out in the kitchen, no toys on the stairs, no crumbs on the table. I began to feel guilty about the explosion of clothes and books I’d left in my third-floor turret. Even Alex’s room was perfectly neat, his toys put away in blue boxes, his Thomas bedspread pulled straight. Patrick had already given me a list of ‘house rules’, mostly about what went in which recycling bin and how to sort the laundry correctly.
Luckily, Max was just as messy as me. I found him sprawled in his basket, with several chewed socks in there for company. He peered back at me, giving out a vague whiff of damp, ageing dog. Bless him.
I trailed around the kitchen, opening cupboards and trying to orientate myself. It was so strange being alone in someone else’s house. Like having a good poke about inside their heads. They never kept anything in a logical place—the tea beside the kettle, surely? The vegetables in the salad drawer? Patrick—and Michelle, the ghost in the house—had a bread bin shaped like a cat. I wondered how Max felt about this. He seemed to be staring at it sadly, as if to say, Oh, stationary cat, why do you taunt me with your stillness?
There was a whole cupboard of herbal teas, and that’s how I knew Michelle and I would never get on. I liked my tea the colour of brick and with a biscuit dunked in. I suspected she was the type of woman who considered ‘celery with a dab of almond butter’ to be an acceptable snack. I wasn’t even sure what almond butter was. Marzipan?
I felt a presence and realised Max had got out of his basket and was so close he was breathing on my leg. ‘Just having a look,’ I told him defensively. ‘I do live here now.’ Even so, I felt like a burglar. I’d ascertained which cupboards held the cleaning stuff, the biscuits, the canned goods—there weren’t many of them; this being very much an organic quinoa sort of house. There seemed to be one small cupboard on the end that was closed with a padlock. ‘What’s in there, Maxxy?’ I frowned at it. Murder supplies? The heads of Patrick’s previous lodgers? I wondered what my new landlord wasn’t telling me. I could hardly protest, given everything I wasn’t telling him.
‘This is an awful idea.’
‘Oh, come on. It’ll be fun! Remember we’re embracing life and making the most of it!’ I wasn’t sure I liked this new Pollyanna-style Cynthia. She’d actually arrived on time, changing in the loos of the bar from her terrifying work suit to a flowery dress with high strappy heels. I was wearing jeans and Converse, of course, but she had a cunning plan to get me out of them. ‘Ta-da!’
A shoebox with similar heels to hers—black patent Mary Janes. ‘But I can’t …’
‘Of course you can, darling, they were on sale. I practically made money.’
I glared at her. ‘You have to stop this. I feel like a charity case.’
‘Well, just borrow them, then, if it upsets your communist sensibilities. But you can’t dance in Converse.’
I gave in, because she was right, and also because I was amazed she was there—albeit tapping constantly at her phone. ‘How’s work?’ I asked. ‘Where are we right now on The Great Escape scale of awfulness?’
‘We’re dropping soil out of our trousers in the exercise yard.’
‘So, making progress?’
‘Making progress. What about you?’
‘We-ell, I’m not having much luck getting interviews. A few possibilities.’ I’d applied for every single vaguely art- or design-related job I could find in London, but my inbox was deafeningly empty. When I thought about it, I got a gnawing fear in the pit of my stomach, so I tried to push it away as Emma ran in several minutes later in her work clothes, sensible trousers and a blouse, with paint on her hands and a foul expression. ‘God, whose idea was it to meet in town on a school night?’
‘Yours.’
‘Hmph. Well, I suppose we better do it.’ Cynthia gave her a look. Emma forced a smile. ‘I mean, it’ll be great. Yay! Dancing! My favourite thing! Embracing life!’
Emma had certain physical skills—I’m told at school she was the terror of the netball court, bearing down with murder in her eyes on hapless Goal Defences. She could lift up small children who were having hissy fits over the allocation of the class pencils and carry them right into the ‘timeout corner’. She could make a working model of the London Eye using only drinking straws and toilet roll tubes. But one thing she couldn’t do was dance. In fact, at uni we had a little dance routine we called ‘the Emma’, which involved stepping from foot to foot and waving your hands as if trying to dry nail polish. Cheered by the thought that someone might hate this more than me, I pulled on my shiny new shoes and stood nervously on the dance floor.
We were in a bar near St Paul’s, all dark lighting and wooden floors. The tables had been pushed back to create an empty space, and around it were gathered twenty or so students, all wearing the same ‘going to the guillotine’ look of British people who are going to be called upon to dance in public without the aid of alcohol.
‘Hiya, everyone!’ The teacher was a dancer. I mean, of course she was. But she was really a dancer. Slender, graceful, wearing leg warmers over her dancing shoes and a pink leotard. All the men in the room visibly straightened their spines. ‘I’m Nikki, yeah.’ She spoiled the graceful impression somewhat with a hard-as-nails Cockney accent. ‘If everyone’s here, then—’
There was a noise at the back of the room and someone bumbled in, a blur of expensive suit. I saw to my surprise it was Rich. ‘He’s here?’ I said to Cynthia. ‘He actually left work?’
She tossed her hair vaguely. ‘I thought we’d better try new things—you know what I said about us both working all the time.’ He was coming over. Her face morphed into a smile. ‘Darling. You made it!’
Rich was frowning and stabbing at his BlackBerry. ‘Had to cut the damn meeting short. The partners are not happy.’
‘Well, you’re here now. There’s Rachel.’
‘Hi, Rich,’ I said, making a vague forward movement to hug him, which wasn’t reciprocated, so I turned it into a pre-dance stretch instead.
‘Hi,’ he said briefly. He didn’t ask how I was, though this was the first time he’d seen me since the split.
We were all amazed when Cynthia turned up with Rich on her arm. It was Emma’s birthday, her twenty-sixth, I think, and we were at a World War II–themed dance. Emma had on red lipstick and a tea dress, and Ian was in a shroud—his idea of humour. I had on a pair of overalls and my hair in a victory roll, which fell out after half an hour. Dan, who didn’t really do fancy dress, had reluctantly worn combats and carried a plastic gun. Rich, however, rolled up in a full Navy uniform, which it turned out had actually belonged to his grandfather Admiral Lord Richard Eagleton. At uni, Cynthia had joined us in mocking the public-school boys who banged on about rugger and tuck. Now she’d fallen for one. Granted, back then Rich had been tall, fair and strapping, though now corporate lunching and long hours were leaving him with a distinct brick-like appearance—red, square and hard.
Cynthia stood close to him, snuggling into his arms, and I was left with scowling Emma, who was limbering up as if going into the boxing ring. ‘Right. At least I can dance with you if I have to …’
‘Male-female
