Donna was chatting to Geoff’s wife, Hannah, but Jo, shaken by the yearning the dance had evoked, interrupted them.
‘I think I’m going to make a move,’ she said. She was aware of Lawrence hovering, but she was desperate not to get into a situation where they left alone together again. ‘You coming?’ she asked her friend, carefully not looking his way.
Donna groaned. ‘God, yes. Take me home, darling. If I don’t go soon, you’ll have to carry me.’
The three of them said their goodbyes, collected their coats and made their way into the freezing night. Once on the pavement, Lawrence turned to Jo, rubbing his hands together in the chilly air.
‘Shall I find you a taxi?’
‘Thanks, we’ll be fine.’
‘Sure? I’m just the other side of Senate House, so I’ll walk.’
He kissed Donna goodbye on both cheeks, but Jo made a pretence of fumbling in her bag when he turned to her.
‘Night, then,’ he said, thrusting his hands in the pockets of his overcoat.
‘Bye.’
Jo watched him stride off into the night.
Donna slumped in the back of the taxi, eyes shut, head lolling on the seat. Jo thought she’d passed out, until she heard her friend murmur, ‘All is not well with the Russian.’
15 February 2014
‘We’ve had an offer.’ Tina sounded cautious on the phone.
‘OK . . .’ Jo sighed inwardly. She was tired and hungover from Ruthie’s party and didn’t feel like having to deal with anything serious this morning.
‘I’m afraid it’s a bit cheeky. Twenty thousand below the asking price, so I’d advise you to reject it.’
‘Who is it?’ Jo asked, although she was certain she knew. The two men – Derek, forty-ish and immaculately dressed in a charcoal designer suit, buttoned black polo shirt and chunky steel wristwatch, and Gary, slightly older, plump, kitted out from head to toe in Hackett – had been round three times in the previous week, and spent hours muttering to each other at various points in the house.
Tina confirmed her suspicions.
‘You think they’ll come up?’
‘Almost certainly. They’re just testing the waters. They want the place, and they definitely have the money.’
‘How do you know?’ They looked well-off, but Jo had long been aware that you could never tell a book by its cover.
‘They’ve just sold a penthouse in Sussex Gardens. Must have gone for at least three mill., conservative estimate.’
‘And they’re downsizing to Shepherd’s Bush?’
‘Gary’s mother lives in Brook Green apparently. Plus they’ve got their eye on a weekend place in Somerset. Anyway, I think we can assume they’re good for at least another ten on your place. Perhaps even the whole twenty. I’ve already told them you’re not in a hurry to sell.’
‘Well, do your best, Tina.’
The agent was silent for a moment.
‘Derek implied he’d want to complete as quickly as possible if it all goes ahead. How do you feel about that, Mrs Meadows?’
‘What does “as quickly as possible” mean, exactly?’
‘Well, depending on their solicitors . . . they’re cash buyers . . . it could be as soon as a month, six weeks?’
‘Wow.’ Jo felt her pulse begin to race.
‘How would that fit in with your plans?’
‘I haven’t found anywhere yet. But I can rent until I do.’
‘I could push them up to two months, if that’d help. But we don’t want to lose a good sale.’
As she put the phone down, Jo took a long breath, trying to stem the panic. She should be focusing on a place to live, but all she could think about was what Donna had told her about Lawrence and Arkadius. Her friend had perked up by the time the taxi dropped them at home after the party and they’d settled on Donna’s sofa with a much-needed cup of mint tea.
‘He said Arkadius had given him an ultimatum,’ Donna told her. ‘If he’s not prepared to properly commit and move in, then it’s hasta la vista.’
‘Arkadius would actually be prepared to split up over it?’
Donna had nodded. ‘Sounds like it. He’s taken it badly . . . maybe invested a whole lot more in the relationship than Lawrence realized. Won’t hardly speak to him at the moment, apparently. And if he does, it’s just one long row.’
‘So what did Lawrence feel about that?’
‘Obviously he hates being blackmailed.’ Donna had paused to sip her tea. ‘From what he said, I gather it’s making him really reassess their relationship.’
‘But he’s still in love with him.’
‘He didn’t say one way or another. I assume he still has feelings for Arkadius, or the decision would be easy, wouldn’t it?’
‘So what’s he going to do?’
Her friend had shrugged. ‘He didn’t seem to know.’
Now, Jo sat at her desk and wondered. What had Lawrence meant when he’d said ‘I hate this too’, when he’d put his hand over hers, when he’d asked her to dance with him? Just that he was sorry? It had felt like more than that.
She shook herself. It was stupid to even think like that, she knew, especially as she couldn’t envisage them being together again in any real-life way. What had happened last night was just nostalgia, nothing more. Remembering what it had been like to love each other.
*
‘We’ve got a buyer.’
Lawrence took a moment to reply. ‘Really? Oh . . .’
‘And at the asking price. Isn’t that great news? I’ll be sending over stuff for you to sign in the next week or so, when I get the contracts from Mark. I’ll answer all the questions myself and give them the info they need, so you’ll just need to countersign and send it back to him.’
‘OK . . . well, thanks for doing all that, Jo.’
He didn’t sound as happy as she’d thought he might, as she filled him in about the details, told him about Derek and Gary.
‘Well, I’m glad they like the house so much. When’s completion?’
‘Six weeks, if it all goes according to plan and the searches don’t throw up anything dodgy.’
‘Six weeks? That’s quick. So have you got something lined up?’
‘Nope. I’m going to rent. I can’t get my head around buying anywhere yet.’
Her tone, she knew, was unnecessarily brusque. But they hadn’t talked since the party five days ago and Jo found herself unwilling to give Lawrence the impression that she’d taken the events of that night at more than face value. She didn’t want him to think she still cared.
‘You must be thrilled,’ she added tartly, when he didn’t reply.
‘Yes . . . yes, I suppose I feel relieved, on the money side . . . but the thought of the house no longer being there—’
‘The house isn’t going anywhere, Lawrence.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Donna’s delighted it’s not a thin blonde with a four by four.’
Lawrence gave a short laugh. ‘Yes, I suppose she’s been dreading you leaving as much as you have.’ He paused. ‘You’ll miss not having her next door.’
I’ll miss more than that, she thought, but held her tongue. There was no point in being angry with him any longer.
‘I’ll come and help pack, obviously,’ he was saying. ‘Just let me know when.’
‘There’s lots we’ll need to get rid of, so I think we should go through the house as soon as possible, and decide what’s going where. There’s a local housing association that collects furniture and household stuff. We can tag it, then I can arrange for them to take it all away before the removal men come.’
‘God . . . it’s going to be quite a number. The accumulation of thirty-odd years . . .’
There was silence.
‘Anyway, I’d better get on,’ she said.
*
‘Muuum . . . I can’t believe it,’ Cassie wailed down the phone. ‘It’s actually sold? Our lovely house?’
‘You knew it was on the cards.’
‘Yeah, but it was still ours. I don’t think I really believed someone else would ever actually live there.’
Jo wasn’t really in the mood to indulge her daughter’s angst.
‘Anyway, we’ve got to get on with sorting stuff out. I’ve only got six weeks. Any chance you could come up for a couple of days and help out? I’ve no idea what you want to keep from your room.’
‘Sure. Of course I’ll help. When shall I come?’
‘The sooner the better. Dad and I are going through the house at the weekend.’
‘OK, I’ll talk to Matt.’
‘How are things with you?’
‘Yeah, good, actually. Really good.’ Cassie paused. ‘Listen Mum, you’ve got to nail somewhere to live. What’ll you do if you can’t find anything?’
‘I’m looking.’ Jo wished everyone wouldn’t sound so worried about her. Nicky had been similarly anxious when she said she hadn’t found a flat yet. But you could only look for rentals six weeks before you wanted one apparently. And she wasn’t worried. She felt almost carefree about it. The burden of clinching the sale, dealing with all the service companies, getting rid of decades of mess, packing up the house – which meant spending a lot of time with Lawrence – organizing removals men and storage, was so stressful that she’d virtually stopped sleeping altogether. What happened afterwards she was sure would feel like freedom. A nice, clean, anonymous flat, with no responsibilities for the roof, the boiler, random leaks, the garden? It sounded like heaven.
‘Let me help. We could do a blitz, check out Rightmove and Primelocation and then spend the day seeing a load of flats. It’d be fun. And one of them’s bound to be OK for a few months until you buy a proper place.’
‘Thanks, darling. I’ll see how it goes. Donna’s said I can stay with her for as long as I want if I can’t find somewhere. Please, don’t worry about me.’
‘I
am
worried, and so is Nicks. He says you seem almost blasé about the whole thing.’
Jo laughed. ‘You’d rather I was sobbing into my coffee?’
‘No . . . it’s just you do need a place to live, Mum.’
‘Yes, darling. I get it. I’m not an idiot. I appreciate your concern, but honestly, I’ve got it under control.’
‘OK . . . I’ll call you later about when I can come up. Love you.’
Jo said goodbye and went back to her lists.
*
‘So . . . where shall we start?’ Lawrence looked positively enthusiastic about the day ahead. And Jo was grateful for his presence. She’d been going quietly insane the last couple of days. Every room she went into, every cupboard and drawer she opened, she saw the piles of possessions as a threat of vast, tsunami-like proportions.
‘Coffee first?’ she suggested.
They sat at the table to drink it.
‘So, D-Day then.’‘
‘Yup.’ Jo’s response was abrupt, her thoughts too distracted to focus on anything.
‘Are the children coming to help?’
Jo nodded. ‘But not till next week. So if we can get the bulk of it done today and tomorrow, then they can do their rooms, I’ll get everything collected, then it’s just packing the rest, you taking yours, me taking mine or putting it in storage, them taking what they want . . .’ she stopped her manic listing, blowing her cheeks out in a long sigh.
‘You look exhausted,’ he said, eyeing her with concern.
‘I feel it.
‘It’ll be better once we make a start.’
‘You reckon? You’ve forgotten how much rubbish there is. I walk into a room and think, Oh, nothing much here, then I open a wardrobe or look in a drawer . . . it’s massive, Lawrence.’
He laughed. ‘Well, we can only do what we can do. In the end it’s only stuff, and if it goes to the wrong place, or gets chucked when it shouldn’t, it won’t be the end of the world.’
‘No . . . no, I suppose not. You’re right, it is only stuff.’
‘So we’re starting with the attic, then?’ he said.
Dusty, dark, up a rickety pull-down aluminium ladder, the bare floorboards hurt her knees as she bent over one box after another under the eaves.
Lawrence, hunkered down in the far corner, sat back on his heels.
‘Can’t imagine why we kept most of this,’ he said, holding up a battered wooden tricycle with a wheel missing.
Jo smiled. ‘You remember Nicky on that, out on the terrace? He was like a demon.’
‘He used to do it for hours on end, back and forth.’ He put it aside and picked out something else. ‘Hey, come and see.’
Jo crawled over to his side. In the dim light from the bulb swinging from the ceiling, Lawrence was peeling open a small plastic photograph album, with a collection of wonky, discoloured Polaroid snaps of the family on a beach.
‘That was Cassie’s. I remember her doing it.’
‘Look at you,’ Lawrence said, pointing to a shot of Jo lying full length in a bikini. ‘What a figure.’
‘You don’t look so hot,’ she laughed, pointing to a blurred one of Lawrence’s broad back view, hunched over a sandwich, hair – still a golden-blond then – damp from the sea. It was a Scottish beach, the West Coast, during an improbably warm summer. They had even swum in the sea, which was just about bearable if you kept to the top two feet of surface water, but numbingly cold if you dropped any lower. Jo remembered hugging Nicky’s little body – icy, blue, teeth chattering, tight-wrapped in a towel – in her arms. She could almost feel him still. And taste the chicken-and-ham paste baps and hot tea they’d brought for the picnic.
‘God, we were so young,’ Lawrence was saying, his voice wistful. ‘You forget, looking at Nicky and Cass, that when we were their ages we had two children, jobs, a mortgage . . . this generation is so immature.’
‘That’s a bit harsh. Anyway, if they are, it’s probably our fault.’
He nodded, giving her a wry smile. ‘Bin it?’ he waved the album over the black bin bag.
‘We ought to keep it, till Cassie’s had a look.’ Jo turned her attention back to an ancient purple-velvet Biba jacket.
*
The day wore on and all they seemed to achieve was looking at things and putting them back in the same place. But Jo and Lawrence had settled into a rhythm with each other. The initial unease Jo had felt at having to confront the past with him had gradually faded as they both became completely absorbed by items they’d forgotten they had, unearthing memories only they shared, memories which, at least for that moment, erased the present, the delicate situation they found themselves in now.
‘God . . . my knees are killing me. Time to break for lunch?’ Lawrence asked after a while.
Jo made them both a tuna-and-lettuce sandwich and a cup of tea. They didn’t speak as they ate, Jo, certainly, still caught in the web of family memories.
‘What will you do with the money?’ she asked eventually.
He shrugged, let out a sigh. ‘Umm . . . I suppose I’ll buy somewhere.’
‘But not with Arkadius, I hear.’
Lawrence didn’t answer. He seemed miles away. She watched his face go tense, his eyelids flutter.
‘Jo,’ he stopped, swallowed. ‘Jo, I need to tell you something.’
She waited, remembering the last time he’d said those very words and the devastating consequences. Nothing, she thought, could ever be that bad again.
‘Arkadius and I have split up.’ He looked pained as he said the words.
‘Split up? Oh.’
Lawrence was staring at her, and she wondered what he expected from her.
‘And how do you feel?’
‘Honestly? I’m gutted.’
‘You still love him, then.’
Lawrence took a moment before he responded, then he gave a light shrug. ‘Things change . . . you can’t sustain that crazy, In-Love thing for long . . . you wouldn’t want to.’
She didn’t reply. What could she tell him he didn’t already know about love?