Bookends (11 page)

James looks thrilled as Lucy continues. ‘Look. We can’t promise anything, because it may not even be a viable idea, we really have to look at it from every angle, but even if we don’t display them in the shop I’d love to buy some for home.’

‘I’m astounded,’ James says. ‘And embarrassed. You must think I came here to try and wangle an exhibition, or somehow to make you feel obliged to buy my work I…’

Lucy cuts him off mid-sentence. ‘James,’ she says gently. ‘I am not a people pleaser. I am not a person who says things because she thinks it will make the other person happy, nor am I a person who offers things she cannot deliver because I want the other person to like me.’

James nods. ‘Okay.’

‘What I think is this,’ she says, while I’m slightly dumbfounded, because isn’t this the sort of decision that should be taken with a partner? Even though James’s work is, admittedly, beautiful, shouldn’t Lucy have waited until she and I had discussed it in private?

And what on earth is she thinking of when she says, ‘I think that Cath and I should come over this evening when we’ve finished and have a look at your work. How does that sound?’

James gulps. ‘This evening? Okay. Why not? Fine.’

‘Oh bugger!’ Lucy says immediately. ‘I can’t make it this evening. I have to go for dinner with some boring colleague of Josh’s. Oh damn. I completely forgot. Oh well, never mind, Cath, you don’t mind going by yourself do you?’

‘Mind? Why should I mind?’ I say. ‘I’ll just cancel the dinner party I was having.’

James looks completely stricken while Lucy lets out a snort. ‘She’s joking,’ she says. ‘She’ll see you at… seven?’

James nods, and I try to catch Lucy’s eye to let her know she’s about to get a severe bollocking, but she refuses to look at me, just chats animatedly to James about the plans for the shop until he gets up to leave.

‘What on earth were you doing?’ I’m completely bemused, and more than a little furious, because this is supposed to be a joint business venture, and what the hell is Lucy thinking of, offering him a show without discussing it with me first? Not to mention press-ganging me into going over there later, which I’m not happy about in the slightest.

‘What do you mean?’ she feigns innocence.

‘I mean, Lucy, and put that bloody roller down and look at me, I mean first of all you made a work decision without discussing it with me first, which I find hugely insulting, given that we’re supposed to be partners, and secondly,’ I stop to breathe, ‘secondly you then dumped me in it by saying that I could go and check out his work when I don’t want that responsibility all by myself, plus I felt that you were arranging my evening for me like I’m your errant daughter. You had absolutely no right to do that, plus, how do you know I don’t have plans?’

‘Do you?’

‘No, but that’s hardly the point.’

‘Darling Cath.’ Lucy comes over to me looking sad. ‘I’m sorry that I upset you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t discuss it with you but it was all spur of the moment.

‘I did tell the lovely James that it wasn’t written in stone, and that we may not go through with it, so I
have
provided a get-out clause, but I’m so sorry that I hurt you. It really wasn’t my intention to do so.’ She pauses and looks at the floor, scuffing the boards with her trainers like a naughty little girl. ‘But I can’t apologize for making you go there this evening,’ she says slowly, still looking at the floor.

I’m speechless. ‘What?’

‘Face it, Cath.’ She looks at me again and this time she’s grinning. ‘Not only is he gorgeous, but I’m sure he’s got a wee crush on you. I know you’d never give him the slightest hint of encouragement, and this was the only way I could think of to get the two of you together this evening. And I’ve heard he’s definitely not with anyone at the moment – apparently he was in a nine-year relationship that ended about a year ago.’

‘He doesn’t fancy me, and anyway,’ I mutter, although my anger suddenly seems to be disappearing, ‘you really didn’t need to go to all the trouble of plotting to get us together. He already invited me over for supper, and he meant it in a purely platonic way.’

‘I know he already invited you for supper, but that was
weeks
ago, and neither of you has done anything about it. I apologize for my intervention, but sometimes that’s the only way.’

‘God, you’re a nightmare,’ I say, shaking my head slowly. ‘What makes you suddenly think I need a man so badly? I’ve managed pretty well without one up until now.’ I sigh and look at her. ‘I must have been mad taking you on as a friend.’

‘What
are
you talking about?’ she grins. ‘You didn’t take
me
on. I chose
you
.’

Chapter ten

‘It’s not bloody funny,’ I hiss down the phone at Si, who’s laughing hysterically at Lucy’s conniving. ‘And I can’t get this bloody paint out of my hair.’

‘I thought you just said you didn’t care what you looked like?’

‘I don’t, but I’d quite like to give the Big Bird impression a rest for a while.’

Si snorts again. ‘God, I never would have guessed it of Lucy. Amazing what she hides behind that innocent face of hers. So, what are you going to wear?’

‘The usual,’ I say, smiling, waiting for Si’s predictable reaction.

‘Oh Christ. Not bloody black again. At least try. Please? For me?’

‘All right, then,’ I mutter. ‘Brown. But for God’s sake, Si, I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up. I told you before, this isn’t a date.’

‘Not yet,’ he says, ‘but give it time.’

‘You and Lucy,’ I sigh. ‘You’re both as bad as each other.’

I’ve never heard of his road before, which is odd because I thought I knew West Hampstead pretty well by now.

‘It’s off Sherriff Road,’ he said earlier, writing down the address while Lucy practically exploded with pent-up excitement. ‘It looks a bit dodgy from the front, but the house is back to front, so follow the path round to the back and you’ll see the front door.’

I’ve come empty-handed, unsure about whether to bring wine, which of course is what I would always bring when visiting someone’s home in the evening, but perhaps wine would give a mistaken impression, would make him think that I might have had an ulterior motive, and I have no wish to embarrass myself.

I realize while trudging up the path that I haven’t eaten anything since the slab of strudel earlier, and although I very much doubt that food will play even the tiniest of roles this evening, I am praying that James will not keep me long, so I can grab something on the way back home.

He did once upon a time mention he would make me supper, but this is so impromptu that there’s no way he will be thinking of food. This is a business arrangement, pure and simple.

The back of the house is almost pitch black, but I can just about make out that almost the entire back wall is a huge arched window, and next to that is a front door. I stumble over a stone and feel around the door frame for a doorbell, but before I can find one the door opens and James is standing there grinning.

‘You found it.’

‘I found it.’ I find myself grinning back at him, noting that he is holding a corkscrew in one hand and immediately wishing that I had, in fact, brought a bottle of wine because suddenly it feels like the right thing to have done.

‘Come in, come in.’ James gestures inside, and I shuffle in, apologizing for coming empty-handed, explaining that I had meant to bring wine but…

‘Don’t be silly,’ he says. ‘I’ve got plenty of wine. What would you like? Red or white?’

I’m about to answer him, but, as I walk inside, I just stand there, open-mouthed, too dumbstruck to say anything, because out of all the scenarios I had imagined, this was definitely not one of them. This house was not what I would have imagined at all.

The room is enormous. Vast. At least double height, the entire ceiling is glass, and, although all you can see now is velvety blackness, it must be like the playground of the sun during the day.

It seems to be divided into three sections. The section closest to the door is obviously James’s studio. The white varnished floors are splattered with paint, and everywhere there are canvases propped up against the wall, some finished, some blank, waiting to be started. Pots of paint are dotted around, brushes, rags, the smell of turpentine.

‘Have a wander,’ James says gently, enjoying my amazement. ‘I don’t mind. Oh, and take your shoes off, it’s probably safer.’ I kick them off, noticing that James is wearing thick red socks.

I pick my way through the pots of paint, purposefully not looking at James’s paintings, wanting to save the best until last. I walk through the large opening into the second section, the open-plan kitchen, and through again to what is evidently the living room.

Sea-grass rugs cover the scrubbed floorboards, while huge white squashy sofas dominate the room. An old wooden chair sits at an angle by an enormous stone fireplace. It is, in short, spectacular. It looks like something out of a magazine, and I tell him this.

James manages to look embarrassed. ‘It has featured in a couple, actually,’ he admits. ‘But I wouldn’t do it again. I had to spend about a week tidying up before they’d come near it. Never again. Much too stressful.’

I laugh, as it dawns on me why this looks like a home. Why, despite the designer-type furnishings, it is a house in which I feel immediately comfortable. The mess. Piles of papers dotted around, just out of sight, but nevertheless there.

In the kitchen sink there is a pile of washing-up, waiting to be tackled, and on the kitchen table there are distinct rings left by coffee cups.

James notices me noticing. ‘God, I’m sorry,’ he sighs. ‘I’m just so bloody messy. I keep meaning to get my act together, but I’m just not naturally a tidy person. You’re horrified, aren’t you?’

I laugh. ‘You’ll be happy to hear you’re not half as disgusting as I am.’

‘Really?’ His face shows the beginnings of relief.

‘Really.’

James breaks into a grin. ‘Red okay?’ I nod, and he pours me a glass of wine as I wander back into his studio.

‘This place truly is incredible.’ I turn to him. ‘It’s the sort of home we all dream of living in but none of us could ever afford.’

‘The one perk of being an estate agent,’ he says with a smile. ‘Not only are the commissions extremely welcome, you also get to hear about things way before anyone else.’ He pulls out a chair for me in the kitchen and I sit down, wanting to hear more.

‘How did you find this, then?’

‘It was about four years ago,’ he says, taking a sip of the wine and murmuring with pleasure, his expression inviting me to do the same. ’It was one of those ridiculous situations where this had been on the market for ages and the owner was desperate.

‘He didn’t live here, he’d moved to the country years before, and this place was slowly falling down. Everyone knew about it, but nobody wanted to touch it. In fact, everyone knew about it by reputation. Somehow word got round that there were problems of some kind, and it just sat here slowly rotting.’

‘Until you came in and saved the day?’

‘Well, sort of,’ he grins. ‘I’d always been curious, but I’d heard all the negative stuff, and then one day I heard a couple of other agents talking about it and I decided to come along and have a look.’

‘And was it love at first sight?’

‘Yes and no. I couldn’t believe the building. The potential. But it was disgusting. There were rats here, rubbish that had been left for years. It had been lived in by squatters for a while, and you could hardly walk around for the smell.’ He gestures up at the gallery. ‘That was completely rotten, you couldn’t even walk up the stairs to see what was there.’

‘But you took a chance.’

‘I’d never seen somewhere with such enormous potential in my life.’

‘And did you get it for a knock-down price?’

‘Yup.’ He grins. ‘And a week after I exchanged I was offered double for it.’

‘You’re joking!’

‘Nope. That’s property for you. As soon as one person’s interested, everyone wants it.’

‘But double the price? Weren’t you tempted?’

‘Are you kidding? This was my dream home. And now I love it. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. Do you want the guided tour?’

‘You mean there’s more?’ And as I say this I suddenly blush slightly because I realize I haven’t seen any bedrooms, and there is something uncomfortably intimate about going into a strange man’s bedroom, and what else could there be left to show me?

James stands up and walks to the arched window, flicking a switch to the left. Suddenly the outside lights up, and he opens two double doors hidden in the window, and we walk outside.

And I realize that the pitch blackness outside through which I stumbled to get here is in fact a huge garden, not particularly well tended, but breathtaking by the sheer fact of its size.

‘Bit of a mess, but at least I get to grow my own tomatoes.’

‘You are joking?’ I start to laugh.

‘No, I’m serious.’ He points to a patch at the back where I can just about make out large black shapes that are evidently tomato plants. ‘What else would you expect from a farmer’s son?’

We go back indoors, James pours me another glass of wine – I didn’t realize I’d finished the last quite so quickly – and makes me laugh with stories of drunken rides on tractors and escaping the clutches of braying horsy women at Young Farmers events, saying how moving to London when he was twenty-one felt much like winning the lottery.

‘So where’s your yokel accent, then?’ I ask, after a while.

‘You mean my Worzel Gummidge accent?’ he says, doing a perfect impression as I splutter out my wine with laughter. ‘I haven’t spoken like that since my first day in London,’ he laughs. ‘It took about five minutes to realize that I didn’t have a hope in hell of surviving here unless I changed the accent.’

‘Did you really speak like that?’ I’m amazed.

He raises an eyebrow and grins, pushing his hair out of his eyes. ‘You’ll never know now, will you?’

‘Come and see the rest of the house,’ he says, and I follow him upstairs, where he proudly shows me two bedrooms and a bathroom, and I manage to control any lascivious thoughts that may or may not have been lurking somewhere in the depths of my mind.

And then it’s back downstairs to sit in the kitchen, still chattering away.

‘Look, I don’t know about you,’ James says after a while, ‘but I’m starving. Are you hungry?’

I nod, although to be honest by this time it’s a reflex answer, because the hunger seems to have disappeared completely, and I really couldn’t care whether we eat or not.

‘You saw me in the corner shop, so you know that my fridge is not exactly the most well stocked in the world. Would you mind getting takeout?’

‘Whatever you want,’ I say. ‘I really don’t mind.’

‘Curry?’

‘Great.’

James picks up a sheaf of papers from the kitchen counter and starts leafing through them. I stand up to see what they are, and laugh out loud when I realize that all of them are leaflets for Indian, Chinese, Thai and Pizza.

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ I admonish playfully. ‘Thirty-six years old and you can’t cook?’

‘It’s not that I can’t,’ James says seriously. ‘It’s that I won’t. Actually, to be completely honest, I absolutely adore cooking for other people.’

I raise an eyebrow in doubt.

‘No, seriously. There’s nothing I love more than having my closest friends round and cooking for them, it’s just that when it’s only for me I really can’t be bothered.’

‘Mmm. I know what you mean.’ I think of my own empty fridge.

‘Okay,’ he says triumphantly. ‘Found it. What do you fancy?’ He brings the leaflet over and stands behind me, looking over my shoulder as I read.

‘What are you having?’

‘Maybe a vindaloo. You?’

‘Chicken korma, I think.’

‘Okay. Plain rice?’

I nod as he picks up the phone.

‘Hello,’ he says, ‘It’s Mr Painting here.’ I stifle a laugh as he shrugs his shoulders in resignation at the name they’ve evidently given him. ‘I’d like to order a delivery. No, no. Not the usual. We’ll have a chicken korma…’

I watch him with a smile, because he’s the most un-estate agenty estate agent I’ve ever met. Not that I’ve met a lot, but James is so normal. So nice. And it’s been so long since I’ve met someone new with whom I immediately bond. And although it might be a little early to jump to conclusions, I would say that James is exactly the sort of new friend I’ve been looking for.

It’s not just that he seems to fit in with me, I think, as I watch him put the plates in the oven to warm them up. It’s that I could also see him fitting in with my friends. I mean, I know that Lucy already adores him, and I could see Si adoring him too. All in all, I would say he’d make an extremely welcome new addition to our cosy little gang.

‘Onion bhaji?’ He looks at me for approval and I shrug my shoulders. ‘A nan and a peshwari nan. Oh, and vegetables. Maybe a sag aloo?’ I throw caution to the winds and just nod, slightly bewildered at the amount he’s ordering, but he must be a man with a big appetite.

Oh, and by the way. Just in case you’re wondering, I do mean all of the aforementioned – all of that stuff about James fitting in – platonically. Okay?

*

‘I’ve got a stomach ache,’ I groan, sliding down the sofa until my head is practically on the seat, undoing the button on my waistband and rubbing my stomach to try to ease the pain of over-stuffing.

‘Oh God, me too,’ says James, grinning at me.

‘I know this is a bit weird,’ I say, downing the last glass of our second bottle of wine, ‘especially because I hardly know you, but it is a bit weird that I feel comfortable enough to make a complete pig of myself in front of you.’

‘That is weird,’ James says. ‘Does that mean that if you didn’t feel comfortable with me you would only have eaten six grains of rice and a thimbleful of chicken korma?’

‘Quite probably,’ I say sternly, realizing that I have had an awful lot to drink, and that unless I sit up straight I’m quite liable to fall asleep in this position. Then I remember with horror that this is supposed to be a business evening.

‘Oh God.’ I manage to force myself upright. ‘We’ve been having far too much fun. I’m supposed to be here on business.’

‘Are you?’ James looks completely bemused, which isn’t surprising, bearing in mind he’s matched me mouthful for mouthful. ‘What kind of business?’

‘I’m supposed to be looking at your paintings.’ I stand up, in my best impression of an imperious gallery owner. ‘In fact, as you already know, Lucy and I are considering giving you the opportunity to exhibit your work in our super-duper fab and trendy new gallery café/bookshop type thing. And I’ – I pause dramatically – ‘am here to do the dirty deed and decide whether to give you a chance.’