31 Dream Street (11 page)

Con felt a surge of excitement then. It was the way she said it: ‘A girlfriend?’ She was fishing; she wanted to know if he was single. And suddenly Con felt everything in his head shift along a bit to make room for this new possibility – the possibility that this girl from another place, from a world of ponies and Caribbean family holidays and parties where boys wore tuxedos might actually want to be with him, a boy from Tottenham, who’d been brought up by his grandmother in a second-floor council flat.

‘No,’ he said encouragingly, ‘no girlfriend. I live with my mum.’

‘Oh, you’re still at home?’

‘No. I mean – she lives with me. In my place.’

‘You share a place with your mum?’

‘Yes. But not just my mum. Loads of us.’

‘What – like a commune?’

He smiled. A girl like Daisy would like the idea of a commune. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘a bit. This poet bloke owns it and rents out rooms.’

‘Wow – a poet.’

‘Yeah. He’s a bit strange, kind of like a recluse, but he’s a good bloke. And the house is massive. All sorts of people have lived there. Artists and singers and actors and stuff. It’s a really cool place.’

The boys in the post room all glanced up curiously as Con walked in with Daisy, their eyes straying automatically to her slender legs, but she seemed completely oblivious to their attentions. Usually when people from ‘upstairs’ had cause to come ‘downstairs’, you could sense their need to assimilate themselves briefly in this alien environment to get what they needed before heading back in the lift to the bright lights of normality. But Daisy wasn’t bothered. She hadn’t noticed that she was in a noisy room full of men, Radio One blaring in the background, tabloids being read backwards.

He led her to the dispatch area to look for her parcel.

‘Anything in from Miu Miu for
Vogue
?’ he asked Nigel.

‘Yeah,’ said Nigel, grabbing a big plastic bag off a rail. ‘Just in, two minutes ago.’ He handed the bag to Con and smiled at Daisy. ‘Hello,’ he said, gormlessly. ‘And who are you?’

Con sent Nigel a reproachful look. Daisy hadn’t come down here to be flirted with by overweight men in Primark jumpers.

‘Hello,’ she smiled back. ‘I’m Daisy.’

‘Hello, Daisy. I’m Nigel.’

‘Do you like Miu Miu, Nigel?’

Nigel smiled. ‘My favourite,’ he said.

‘They do nice shoes, too.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed, ‘lovely shoes. But not as nice as those Christian Louboutins. Now those are really nice shoes.’

Daisy laughed, then Nigel laughed. And Con watched in wonder as they joked together, this lardy fortysomething man from Hainault and an angel from the eighth floor. And he knew it then. Daisy had jumped out of the wallpaper and was within his grasp. It was just a matter of time.

19

It was five in the morning and Ruby was about to creep up the stairs and head for bed when a figure appeared in the hallway. It was Melinda, groomed and polished, blonde hair scraped back into a sleek bun, all ready for work in her navy and yellow uniform.

‘Oh, hello.’ Melinda pulled her leather coat off the coat stand and glanced icily at Ruby.

‘Morning,’ said Ruby, suddenly conscious of the alcohol on her breath. Her hands felt clammy and dirty. She wanted to wash them.

They stood facing each other for a while. A bird outside started to sing.

Melinda spoke first. ‘I’m not going to talk to you now because you’re drunk, but just know this – if you do anything,
anything
to hurt my boy, I’ll belt you. I swear.’ And then she slung her coat over her arm, picked up her fake Mulberry handbag and left.

Ruby stood for a while, feeling vodka and red wine swilling round the pit of her empty stomach. Then a rush of violent indignation hit her between the ribs, impelling her towards the front door. She threw it open and stamped down the steps, towards Melinda’s receding figure. ‘You are a sick and twisted bitch, do you know that?’

Melinda turned and stared at her, and Ruby had a sudden moment of objectivity, of seeing this tableau through somebody else’s eyes – the wild-haired, grimy-skinned brunette in tight jeans and a flimsy jersey top screaming at the cool blonde with the shower-fresh skin and crisp suit in the middle of the street, as twilight flickered round the horizon.

‘Like I said,’ Melinda began, pulling her car keys out of her bag, ‘I won’t talk to you while you’re in this state. Have a good day.’ The chirrup and click of her car locks opening punctured the silence, and she slid into the driver’s seat, slipped on her seat belt and very slowly, and very deliberately, manoeuvred her Peugeot 306 out of its space.

Ruby stood on the pavement for a while, swaying slightly in the wake of this surreal collision between the end of her day and the start of Melinda’s. And then she climbed the steps to the house, made her way to her bedroom and fell asleep on top of her bed, still wearing all her clothes.

20

Toby’s love for Ruby ebbed and flowed like the tide. When he’d first met her fifteen years ago he’d been consumed by lust for her. It had overwhelmed him to the point that he’d had to question the validity of every other feeling he’d ever experienced, the intensity of every emotion he’d ever felt, even for Karen. He had never in his life wanted so much to perform an act of sexual intercourse with another human being. He felt engorged entirely. There was excess blood in his arms, his feet, his
eyeballs
. He sweated profusely in her presence,
glowed
with the heat that emanated from his body, like infrared. He had to keep his hands in his pockets to stop himself from touching her, inappropriately.

On her second night in his house, she’d brought home a monstrous man she claimed was an ‘old friend’ and made love to him so loudly and for so long that Toby had had to go downstairs to sleep on the sofa. The man had then hung round for the rest of the weekend, wearing Ruby’s dressing gown and smoking everywhere he went, including the bathroom. Toby had imagined this episode to be some kind of aberration and breathed a sigh of relief when the man finally disappeared on Monday afternoon, but three days later Ruby arrived home in the middle of the afternoon with
the bass player from her band, said something about reworking some lyrics, then disappeared into her bedroom with him for more than an hour of ear-shattering sexual activity. And so it had gone on, a succession of ‘old friends’ and ‘great mates’ and ‘best buddies’ all clambering in and out of Ruby’s bed – some of them once and never again; some of them on a regular basis. Some of them matched her for attractiveness; some of them were downright ugly. A couple of them had made it to the ‘boyfriend’ stage, but these were fleeting relationships, always ended by Ruby and never cried over.

The fact of Ruby’s sexual promiscuity had not, strange to say, fuelled Toby’s desire for her. If anything it had flattened it like a big bum on a whoopee cushion. What happened instead was that Toby started to look beyond the physical, his body disgorged, he stopped glowing and he fell in love with her. When it was just the two of them, watching TV, watching a band, having a drink, discussing music, when it was just Toby and Ruby, it was the best thing in the world. He learned to switch off when she was keeping male company, to immerse himself in something distracting, to turn up his music and sit it out like a forecasted downpour.

Sometimes Ruby would go without sex for a month or two, and Toby would grow hopeful – maybe she was growing up, growing out of it. Maybe now she would look at Toby and see him as a sexual being. But then, eventually, a few days later, usually in the middle of the night, the front door would open and the sound
of an alien male voice would float up the stairs towards Toby’s bed and he’d pull a pillow over his head and try to get to sleep before the noise started.

Once, about six years ago, Ruby had come home from a gig at three in the morning with some girlfriends and stormed drunkenly into Toby’s bedroom. ‘Can I have a cuddle, Tobes?’

‘What?’

‘I’m really, really drunk and I want a lovely cuddle with my lovely Toby.’ She’d crawled onto his bed and draped an arm over him and nestled her head into the crook of his arm. Toby had barely moved a muscle, too scared to breathe in case she changed her mind.

‘Are you naked?’ she’d said after a minute or two.

‘Not entirely,’ he’d said.

Downstairs her girlfriends clattered round the wooden floors in their heels, plundered the fridge for snacks and put on music. Toby listened to Ruby breathing, the bitter alcoholic fumes of her breath filling the space between her head and his arm. ‘What’s this all about?’ he’d said eventually.

‘What?’

‘This,’ he gestured, ‘this.’

‘Nothing,’ she’d murmured. ‘Just want a cuddle, that’s all.’

She’d fallen asleep there, on his bed, in his arms. One of her friends had walked in a few minutes later and backed out apologetically when she’d seen Ruby in Toby’s embrace. Toby’s arm went numb about an hour later, but he didn’t move it. He slept for about an hour
and woke up with the sun at six o’clock, and stared at her for another hour until she woke up and stumbled back to her bedroom where she slept until noon.

The whole experience was never mentioned again, mainly, Toby suspected, because it hadn’t meant anything to Ruby. But Toby had secretly hoped that that intimate albeit chaste interlude might have laid the foundations for something to change. But it didn’t. If anything things went downhill afterwards because it was then that Ruby met Paul Fox.

Toby
hated
Paul Fox.

He hated him because he had a stupid haircut.

He hated him because he was wealthy and successful.

He hated him because he called everyone ‘mate’ in his stupid mockney accent, even though Toby knew he was an ex-public school boy (it took one to know one).

He hated him because when he came he shouted, ‘Oh God oh Jesus oh fuck,’ in exactly the same order and with precisely the same rhythm every single time.

He hated him because he’d once overheard him referring to him as Mr Rigsby.

He hated him because he was being unfaithful to his loyal girlfriend, even though he’d never met her.

But mainly he hated him because he’d somehow managed to persuade Ruby to sleep with him at least once a week for the past five years.

All the other blokes were of little consequence to Toby. They came; they went; they were forgotten about. But Paul Fox hung round like a terrible memory, taunting Toby with the inexplicable power he seemed to
exert over Ruby. Toby didn’t think things could get much worse than Paul Fox.

But now they had.

Ruby had slept with Con.

This represented, as far as Toby was concerned, a dramatic slip in her standards and, as such, a seismic shift once again in the way he viewed her. It was time for her to go. And, more importantly, it was time for him to stop loving her. He just wished someone could show him how.

21

Ruby’s handbag vibrated. She pulled out her phone and wiped some crumbs off the screen. It was Paul. She hesitated for a moment. This was the first time he’d called since the night they’d bumped into Eliza and she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him. She stared at the screen for a moment, then pressed the accept button.

‘Hello,’ she said, tentatively, not sure yet what tone to take.

‘Hello,’ he replied. He sounded businesslike, but friendly. ‘Where are you?’

‘In rehearsals with the boys.’

‘Are you free this afternoon? For an hour or so?’

This usually meant that he wanted to come over for sex. She took the phone into the corridor. ‘Erm, I’m not sure. Why?’

‘I need to see you. To talk to you. I can pick you up. How about tea at the Wolseley?’

Ruby laughed. ‘Tea at the Wolseley?!’

‘Yes. I’ve got a meeting in Green Park at five, so you’ll have to get yourself home. I’ll pick you up at three.’ He hung up without saying goodbye.

Ruby switched her phone off and stared absentmindedly at a notice board on the wall opposite, at postcards appealing for lead singers and drummers,
cards advertising keyboards and clarinets. She could hear someone further up the corridor tuning a piano and next door someone was battering the hell out of a drum kit. She was in her comfort zone here, surrounded by rhythm and noise and scruffy men.

Ruby liked scruffiness. She liked wading through plastic beer cups on sticky floors in claustrophobic clubs; she liked smoking and drinking too much in dingy old pubs; she liked watching films in proper old-fashioned flea pits with no leg room and tatty carpets. Ruby didn’t like slick and glamorous. She didn’t like the latest thing. She liked her life to feel grimy and used, like her men. Tea at the Wolseley? This was going to be very strange indeed.

The woman at the front desk appeared to know Paul. ‘Of course,’ she smiled, when he asked if they had a table available without a reservation.

They were led through the cavernous restaurant by a small girl in black and shown to a table at the back. Ruby looked round in awe. It was like a vast black-lacquered cathedral, held up by forty-foot pillars and hung with chandeliers the size of transit vans.

Paul had spent most of the journey here talking to someone called Mike on his Bluetooth, so they hadn’t had a chance to talk yet, but Ruby knew that something was wrong. There’d been no fond smiles, no fingertips trailed down her inner arm, no hand clasped over her thigh – just a subtle but clear distance.

Ruby ordered half a dozen oysters and a glass of
champagne, figuring that she could eat sandwiches and cake at home any time she wanted. She glanced at Paul. ‘So,’ she began, ‘what’s up?’

‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘Right.’

‘I’ve asked Eliza to marry me.’

Ruby winced and grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Last week. I asked her to marry me. And she said yes.’

‘Oh, my God,’ she laughed, though she wasn’t amused. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘No. I’m not.’

‘But, you’ve only known each other for six months.’

‘Eight months, actually.’