31 Dream Street (15 page)

The bill came to nearly
£
6,000. Leah gulped and hoped that Jack would approve. And then she folded her pizza box in half, disposed of it behind the back of the shop, turned off all the lights and headed home.

Leah turned into Silversmith Road and glanced across at the Peacock House. The lights in Ruby’s room and Con’s room were switched off, but Toby was there, as ever, framed in his window, his face lit up by the glow of his computer screen. Leah felt a wave of warmth pass through her. Poor Toby, living in a house full of people, but always alone. He looked up from his monitor and saw Leah gazing up at him. She raised her hand to him and smiled. He waved back, then he stood up and indicated that she should wait there, that he was coming down. She waited on the pavement, watching her breath leave her mouth in ghostly ribbons. Eventually the front door opened and Toby appeared, dressed in a huge green sweater, black tracksuit bottoms and lambskin slippers. He’d had his hair cut, Leah noted. It was still a mass of brown scrub, but seemed to have more shape to it. It made him look a little less
absurd
.

‘Hello! Hello!’ He pranced across the street in his
furry slippers. He ran like a girl, or, in fact, not like a girl, but how a man would run if he were trying to run like a girl. Leah swallowed a smile.

‘Hi!’ she said.

‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ said Leah. ‘You?’

‘Yes, I’m fine, too. Look. I just wanted to say, I’m really sorry about the other night.’

‘Oh, honestly, Toby, it’s fine.’

‘No, it’s not. It must have been miserable for you. I have no idea what those two were thinking’ – he indicated his house – ‘and I wasn’t much fun myself. I’m sure you have much better things to do with your time than sit around in pubs with an old fart like me. And I just wanted to say, well, thank you for trying, I really appreciate it. But I’ve decided to give up the whole idea.’

‘What?’

‘Yes. I’m not going to sell the house. My father will just have to accept me the way I am.’

‘But, Toby. I got the impression that this wasn’t just about your father. I thought this was about
you
, about moving on, getting out of a rut.’

‘Yes, well, it was. But, really, I’ve tried talking to those people and there’s no way any of them are ready to leave yet. I mean, I can’t
even get a whole sentence out of Joanne. Con’s saving up for flying lessons, which is just
amazing
, but it means that he really needs to stay in the house – and Melinda’s not going anywhere without him. And as for Ruby – well, she’s worse than ever, dumped by her boyfriend, sleeping with Con, begging me for hand-outs. She can’t even afford to pay the rent. I’ve been trying to get quotes from builders, but they don’t return my calls or they say they’re going to come round, then they don’t show up or they’re completely exorbitant or completely dodgy and, frankly, I’m starting to remember why I found myself in this rut in the first place. Because getting anything to change is just so unbelievably difficult.

‘This is my rut,’ he shrugged. ‘I made it and now I’ll have to lie in it. But thank you. Thank you for trying. You’re a really, really nice person.’ He smiled apologetically, then he turned and headed back towards his house.

Leah watched him walking across the road, climbing the steps to his front door. The plaster lions seemed almost to purr as he passed by them, the master of the house. He slipped his key into the lock and turned to look at Leah. He smiled, then he was gone.

Leah went inside, climbed into her pyjamas, climbed into her bed and dreamed about pink lions with marabou-trimmed paws.

27

Toby was listening to his crappy music. Con could hear it through his bedroom door. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t modern. It wasn’t even indie. Con hated indie music, but at least he could kind of relate to it, at least it was made by people roughly his age, people who were still alive, people who didn’t take drugs with stupid hippified names and die in car crashes. But the stuff that Toby listened to – it was beyond his comprehension; whirling guitars, tinny drums, no chorus, ten minutes long sometimes. He’d seen the album covers downstairs – weird old blokes with beards and chiffon scarves, floppy hats and face paint. It made Con feel uncomfortable, just looking at them.

He knocked firmly against the door, once, twice, three times, until Toby finally appeared. He was in a thigh-length stripy jumper and black drainpipe jeans, unwittingly fashionable. He had some black ink smudged across his cheek and toast crumbs on his cuff.

‘Hi, sorry to bother you.’

Toby smiled. ‘No, not at all. I wasn’t really doing anything, just, you know…’ he trailed off, hooking his hand round the back of his neck.

‘Can I ask you a favour?’

‘Sure. D’you want to come in?’

‘I need to borrow your computer.’

‘Right, of course.’

‘Except I don’t know how to use them. Well, except the system at work. But I don’t know how to use the Internet. Can you help me find something?’

‘God, of course, sure.’

Toby moved a plate of toast out of the way, some paperwork, notepads and textbooks. He moved things into one large pile, then pulled up a stool for Con to sit on.

‘Is that all your poems and stuff?’ asked Con.

Toby glanced at the pile and shook his head. ‘Well, sort of, I suppose. It’s notes and ideas. I write my actual poetry straight onto my computer.’

‘Right. And what sort of stuff do you write?’

Toby grimaced. ‘Kind of… well, it’s hard to say. It’s all so different.’

‘Yeah, but are they long poems, short poems? Do they rhyme?’

Toby smiled. ‘No. They don’t rhyme. And they’re quite short. OK.’ He placed his huge hand over the mouse and jiggled it. His computer came to life and he brought up Google. ‘So, what is it you want to look up?’

‘It’s an illness. It’s called cystic fibrosis.’

‘Ah, right.’

‘I’m not sure how it’s spelled.’

‘That’s OK. I’m pretty sure I know how to spell it.’ He typed it in and hit a button. A big list came up on the screen. ‘Now what was it that you wanted to know, exactly?’

‘Well, shit, it’s…’ He ran a hand through his hair and stared at Toby. He may as well tell him. ‘Remember that girl I was telling you about?’

‘The girl at work? The posh one?’

‘Yeah. Her. Well, we’ve kind of been hanging out. I went to her place and she cooked for me and stuff. And then she told me that she’s got this condition, this…’

‘Cystic fibrosis.’

‘Yeah. And it made sense because she’s really little and delicate and her skin’s kind of, you know, blue. And she’s got this cough. But I didn’t really want to ask her too much about it, you know? In case it made her feel like a freak. And I went to a bookshop today to see if I could find anything there, but I didn’t know how to spell it so I couldn’t look it up in the indexes. And I just want to know what it is. What it means. Like – is she really ill? Is she going to die? That kind of thing.’

‘Fuck.’ Toby sucked in his breath and ran a hand over his chin. ‘Right, let’s see what we can find.’

Con had known, even before Toby started clicking on his list and reading stuff out. He’d known it was bad. It had been obvious from the very first moment Daisy had mentioned it to him. She’d had that tone of voice, that tone of someone who knows they’ve drawn the short straw and doesn’t want to waste time going on about it.

According to the Internet, Daisy’s life was already difficult and uncomfortable. She needed daily physiotherapy
to dislodge the mucus that built up in her lungs, she had to take drugs to help her body absorb nutrients and drugs to help prevent lung infections. She needed to consume higher than average daily calories, but experienced poor weight gain and the chances of her carrying a child to full term were low.

She was also, apparently, quite likely to die in her thirties.

Con and Toby sat in a numb silence for a minute. Toby kept breathing in and out really loudly and tugging at his hair. Con could tell he was trying to think of something reassuring to say.

‘God, Con, I’m really sorry,’ he said, in the end.

‘Yeah, it’s bad, isn’t it?’

‘Quite bad, yes, but remember, all the research they’re doing, medical breakthroughs happen every day. And she could last a lot longer than the average, even without a breakthrough.’

‘No,’ Con shook his head, ‘it’s bad. Whatever way you look at it. She can’t have kids and even if she could she wouldn’t be around to see them grow up. And you know, that must be why she lives with her sister. I bet her sister does all that chest shit for her every day. So she’s, you know, reliant on other people, just to get out of the house in the mornings. Her life sucks.’

Toby sighed again and touched Con’s knee. ‘Do you think
she
thinks her life sucks?’

Con shrugged. He thought about her enthusiasm for food, her love of her family, her passionate views about everything, especially the truly mundane. She didn’t
act
like someone who hated her life. She acted like someone
who couldn’t believe her luck. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think she does.’

‘Well, then,’ said Toby, ‘best thing you can do is carry on as if you never saw any of this.’ He indicated the screen. ‘Best thing you can do is help her to enjoy her life.’

Toby gave Con a poem before he left. ‘I wrote this on the morning of my mother’s funeral,’ he said. ‘It might help you work out how you feel about Daisy.’

‘I didn’t know your mum was dead.’

‘Yes, she died when I was thirteen. Breast cancer.’

‘God, I’m sorry.’

‘Yes, well…’

‘It’s funny, though. I’ve been living here for nearly a year and I never knew your mum was dead. You don’t say much really, do you? Don’t talk much.’

‘No,’ said Toby, ‘no. I don’t suppose I do.’

The last person Con wanted to see when he stepped out of Toby’s bedroom a few minutes later, clutching the unread poem, was Ruby.

‘Hello!’ she beamed at him. There was a brown lump in her mouth, chewing gum. It looked like Nicorette.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘What’s with the gum? Are you giving up the fags?’

She laughed. ‘No! Don’t be daft. I just keep a pack in my drawer, in case I run out of fags and can’t be bothered to go out and get any. I like the taste.’

‘Ah,’ he nodded, feeling a sudden sense of sick
disgust that someone blessed with a pair of healthy, functioning lungs should abuse them so wantonly. ‘I see.’ He tried to move past her, towards his room, but she positioned herself across his pathway.

‘So,’ she said, ‘what are you up to tonight?’

He shrugged, his mind whizzing with potential lies. ‘Not sure, really.’

‘Your mum’s out.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

‘I saw her leaving about an hour ago.’

‘I know,’ he smirked at her, sarcastically.

‘Fancy sharing a bottle of wine?’

‘What?’

‘I was just going to get myself a glass. Fancy sharing it with me?’

Con shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Thanks. I’ve got stuff to do.’ He tapped Toby’s poem against the palm of his hand.

‘What’s that?’ She glanced at the typewritten sheet.

‘A poem. One of Toby’s. He just gave it to me to read.’

Ruby laughed. ‘Oh, God! Not one of Toby’s poems.’

Con glanced at her. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘Have you ever read one of Toby’s poems before?’

He shook his head.

‘Right,’ she laughed again. ‘Well, you’ll see what I mean when you do.’

‘Oh,’ he said, feeling a sharp pinch of annoyance in his chest. Everything about Ruby was wrong. Her brown gum, her offer of wine, her belittling of Toby.

Distasteful, and wrong. He pushed gently past her to get to his bedroom door.

He could feel Ruby’s eyes boring a hole through his shoulder blades.

‘Have I done something to piss you off, Con?’

‘What?’

‘Are you annoyed with me?’ ‘No!’

‘Then why are you being so… so
cool
with me?’

‘Cool?’

‘Yeah. Offish.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t realize I was.’

He closed his bedroom door behind him, kicked off his trainers and sat down on his mattress, cross-legged. And then he read Toby’s poem:

Young

I saw you yesterday.

You wore an old lady’s nightdress, it wasn’t yours.

You were young.

I saw you the day before.

You wanted to dance, but you couldn’t get out of bed.

You were young.

Last Christmas you were young, in a holly-print apron and a tissue hat.

And every birthday of my life. In mini skirts and maxi skirts, hair long and short. Home-made cakes and jam tarts.

Young. And beautiful.

Soon it will be winter.

I will be older.

You will be young.

I’ll look in the mirror, see a grey hair.

A boy will call to me in the street,

Hey! Old man!

Still, you will be young.

Young and beautiful.

For all your days.

Con folded up the poem, slid it onto his bedside table and cried for the first time since his grandmother’s funeral.

28

Giacomo Caruso’s house was the nicest house Leah had ever seen. It was an Arts and Crafts mansion on the best street in Muswell Hill, with a hallway the size of Leah’s living room. All the rooms were wood panelled and all the windows were stained glass. The manicured garden wrapped itself round all four sides of the property and there was an outdoor swimming pool. With a pool bar.

Jack poured her a glass of iced water from the filtered-water dispenser in his huge stainless-steel American fridge and let her wander round while the Pink Hummingbird delivery boys unloaded the van. Downstairs there were two living rooms: one with a pitched ceiling and a chandelier; the other with an enormous oak fire surround with gargoyles carved into it. There was a billiards room, a study, a dining room and a luxury kitchen diner built into a huge conservatory at the back. Every room was decorated with antiques and fitted out with state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment, including a home cinema in a turret room off the main hall.