Don't Get Me Wrong (17 page)

So the following Saturday, Harry headed for Tottenham Court Road. He felt uneasy. This was all new to him. Obviously, he'd done a bit of background research online—Harry never went into any situation unprepared if he could possibly help it—and buying a sofa didn't look too difficult. Size, fabric, comfort, style—not that different from buying a suit. Which he was good at. How hard could it be?

But Harry had a nagging suspicion that he was being naïve. Since living in New York, where he'd learned how to play the part of a British toff (tortured but basically decent), he'd become even more sensitive to tiny clues about class and status. Back in the UK, he realized just how much he still had to learn. Recently, on one of the bank's dress-down Fridays, a fellow analyst—an old Etonian—had turned up at the bank wearing salmon-pink cords. Harry had only just managed to wipe the look of astonishment from his face before anyone noticed.

Maybe, thought Harry, the perfect sofa—the equivalent of salmon-pink trousers—will be right in front of my nose, and I won't even see it. Perhaps I should have paid someone else
to do the buying. An interior designer. A stylist. Some kind of concierge service.

“Can I help you, sir?” The young man had shaved so fiercely that his cheek was raw. The skin, outraged, was one great burning rash.

Harry shook his head with what he hoped was a forbidding frown. The young man backed off, terrified.

There were sofas everywhere, as far as the eye could see. Plain ones, flowery ones, checked ones, leather ones. There were two-seaters, three-seaters, five-seaters, seven-seaters. Some had curved arms, some had square arms, some had no arms. Some had giant puffed-up cushions like clouds. Others had thin understated cushions, as if the new fashion was to sit on cardboard. In between them were chairs, footstools, occasional tables, side tables, and coffee tables. For a moment, Harry fantasized about walking out and buying a macchiato. But he squared his shoulders. I can do this, he thought. I can buy the kind of sofa that will mark me out as cultured, educated, and full of natural good taste.

Somewhere at the end of the first showroom, Harry caught sight of a squashy sofa that was so vast it seemed to disappear round the corner. L-shaped, he thought, his heart sinking. So there are geometrical options, too?

He sat down heavily. The sofa gave a small squeak of delight and hugged him closely. Harry shut his eyes. Maybe something like this, he thought. You wouldn't even need to go to bed. You'd get home from work, sit down, and drift off. It was like being in a warm bath. Or wrapped in a duvet. Distantly, from the room he couldn't see, from somewhere at the other end of the L shape, he heard a phone ring. An impatient voice said, “Yes?”

His eyes flew open. Every muscle in his body tensed.

“I told you. I'm looking at sofas . . . We talked about this . . . No, I'm not trying to be . . . One sofa, Jake. One single piece of furniture that isn't old and dusty . . . It isn't the Sistine Chapel. It's not going to be desecrated by a . . . I explained this to you. It would mean such a lot to have some say in the way we furnish . . . Blue? You've always liked blue, haven't you? I'm sure they can get it up one flight of stairs . . . No, I haven't forgotten . . . OK . . . Yes . . . Good-bye. Good-bye.”

There was a pause.

“It's just a sofa,” the voice muttered to itself in a tone of outraged misery.

Kim, thought Harry. He struggled to get to his feet but was somehow wedged. Violent movement did nothing but set up a crescendo of squealing from somewhere deep inside the cushions, like guinea pigs calling for cucumber. He felt either side of him with his hands, hoping to find something solid to push against, but his forearms just disappeared up to the elbows in soft, feathery nothingness.

“Kim?” he said.

There was a long pause. Then the voice said, “Harry?”

“I would get up,” said Harry, “but I can't.”

“Neither can I.”

Maybe it's inflated with something, thought Harry. I could find something sharp and jab a hole in it.

From round the corner, Kim said, “This is weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

“No, I meant, both of us being here. I thought you were in New York.”

“I was.”

“So why are you in London?”

“I work in London.”

“Since when?”

“Since last December.”

“Oh.”

Harry rocked back and forward. The guinea pigs set up a frenzied chorus.

“I tried that,” said Kim's disembodied voice. “I think it makes it worse.”

“This is ridiculous. How are you supposed to get out of this thing?”

“I don't know.”

“Isn't there a salesman around somewhere?”

“I think he's on his break. I haven't seen him for a while.”

Harry, defeated, leant his head back. “So how are you?”

“OK.”

“I did think about giving you a ring.”

“But you didn't.” Kim's voice was neutral.

“No.” Harry looked out over the sea of sofas. Apart from a few customers far away on the other side of the showroom, the place was deserted. It was August. People were probably waiting for the summer sale.

“Eva's in Spain.”

“I know,” said Harry.

“She said that Otis can ask for ice cream in five languages now.”

“He must have changed so much.”

“Taller, probably,” said Kim.

With a sudden burst of irritation, Harry kicked both feet upwards and grabbed his ankles. The guinea pigs, with frenzied alarm, burst into chorus again. Now what? Harry felt worse than if he'd done nothing at all. He was curled up like a baby in a cot, holding his own feet. He took a deep breath, tucked his head into his knees and, with a sort of roar, rolled over onto his side. The momentum, as he'd hoped, bounced him upwards. Thrown off balance, he fell back onto the hard showroom floor, cracking his skull.

“Ow,” he said.

“Harry?”

“Hold on.” He pushed himself up to sitting and felt the back of his head. Nothing. Just a bruise. Very slowly, Harry stood up. Then he limped round the corner.

And there she was.

His first thought, before he'd had time to consider anything rationally—before he'd even got ready for the inevitable duel of wits—took his breath away. She's beautiful. Of course he'd always known that. Right from the very beginning. But for a moment, it was as if he'd never seen her before. He took in her short blond hair, her fine cheekbones, her determined chin, and it was like looking at a photograph of someone he didn't know. It was like being presented with evidence of something that was obvious but that he'd always chosen to ignore. Against the billowing octopus of a sofa, with her knees in their black jeans drawn up to her chin, she looked like a small child stuck in a wastepaper basket. But her expression was just as he'd remembered—defiant, questioning, ready for a fight. All the time I've been away, thought Harry, I've never met anyone like her.

“What?” said Kim.

“Nothing.”

“You're staring at me.”

“Am I?”

“Is my face dirty or something?”

“No.” But Harry just stood there motionless.

After a while, Kim said, “So are you going to help me?”

“Yes. Sorry.” Harry held out his hand so that she could hold on while he pulled. She raised her eyebrows. Of course, he thought. That's not going to work. She's buried way too deep.

“Harry,” she said, “you're going to have to lift me out.”

This was, for some reason, a frightening prospect. Harry took a deep breath, bent forward, and pushed his arms down into the marshmallow puffiness, trying to find Kim's waist. Then he hesitated. If he wasn't careful, he'd lean in too far and the sofa would swallow him up again. So he dropped his weight down through his legs, splaying his thighs like a sumo wrestler, and reached behind her ribs. His head was against her shoulder. “On my count.”

“What are you,” she said, “a paramedic?”

He ignored her. “Focus. All your energy. One, two, three—”

Once again, taken by surprise, Harry found himself flat on his back on the showroom floor. But this time, Kim was on top of him. For one charged moment, they stared at each other, nose to nose. He felt her breath on his face. Then, with a sudden movement, she rolled off. They lay side by side, stunned, like lovers who'd just completed a sexual marathon.

There was a small, nervous cough.

Harry looked up. There, just in his field of vision, was a shaving rash.

“Can I help at all, sir?” said the salesman. “Or are you just browsing?”

•  •  •

Kim stirred her coffee. This was a completely pointless exercise, as the coffee was black and she didn't take sugar. But she felt agitated. She had to have something to do.

Opposite her, on the other side of the tiny table, was Harry. She hadn't seen him for three and a half years. He seemed, at the same time, both familiar and a complete stranger. It was like bumping into a TV personality in Covent Garden, saying hello, and then realizing (oh, the shame) that you've never met. He sort of looks the same, she thought. But he seems taller, and possibly wider, as if his shoulders have got bigger. Or perhaps he was always this huge, but I just shrank him in my mind to make him seem less important.

The café was crowded and noisy. Something by the Pretenders was playing in the background. People were pressing in all around them, and Harry had so little room that he'd positioned his long legs either side of her chair. This was embarrassing. She kept her knees very still.

But what embarrassed her even more, and made her keep dropping her eyes to her small white cup, was that she could see he was good-looking. This was the man she'd hated for years—ever since he'd first blocked the sun in the garden in Nunhead. She'd got so used to thinking of him with loathing that she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd turned up today with cloven hoofs, horns, and a forked red tail. But the real Harry, this
Harry, looked normal. He looked like someone she could talk to. He looked like someone she might even like.

Kim was choked with confusion. It was as if the time they'd been apart had put them into a sort of no man's land. Somehow they'd both put down their weapons, and it felt all wrong. It wasn't what they did. I can even see what Izzie meant all those years ago, thought Kim. She said he was a catch. That any woman would want him. At the time, I thought she was mad. But of course he's attractive. Anyone can see that. Especially when he smiles. He's got the kind of grin that makes the whole world seem a better place.

Bewildered, Kim stirred her coffee again.

“So tell me. What's been happening?”

Kim shrugged, trying to look casual. “Nothing much.”

“Still in housing?”

“Still at the charity.”

“Same job?”

“A promotion. I'm head of research and development.”

He looked genuinely impressed. “You must have worked really hard.”

I don't know, thought Kim miserably. Maybe it was just because I slept with the boss.

“Still with . . . who was it? Jack?”

For a moment, she was suspicious. But he didn't look as if he was trying to score points. “Jake.”

“Jake. Are you still together?”

Kim nodded. She didn't want to talk about Jake. “And what about you?”

“No one special.”

Kim realized she didn't want to talk about that, either. “Where are you living?”

“I've just got a new flat. Near London Bridge. You must come and see it sometime.”

You say that, thought Kim, in the way that polite people say, You must come to dinner sometime. Which means, I'm never ever going to invite you. “Have you been out to see Eva?”

“Only once. A year ago, when I left New York. I don't have the kind of job that gives you much time off.”

“Still in the City?”

“Different bank. But the same kind of work. Which shows a complete lack of initiative on my part.”

“I expect it has its compensations.”

“You could say that.”

“Massive bonuses.”

Harry grinned. “People hate us.”

She wouldn't be charmed. “Are you surprised, after what happened? Ordinary taxpayers had to buy up a whole bank to stop it going under.”

“Are you sure you want to talk about this?”

“One of the reasons the crash happened was that no one was willing to talk about it. Even quite clever people just shrugged and thought it would sort itself out. But it couldn't, could it? Because bankers had gambled on assets worth nothing. So now we're in a recession. Deep public spending cuts. Which means the bankers got away with it. They got richer and more powerful, while the poor got crushed.”

She expected him to laugh. But he didn't. “There are a lot of people like you who are angry about what happened.”

“But not enough of them.”

He nodded.

She stared at him, astonished. Was this Harry? The man who had always jumped down her throat if ever she made the smallest criticism of the City?

Harry said, “There have been changes. More regulation. The same thing couldn't happen again.”

“Maybe not exactly the same thing. But it's like putting an obstacle in a river. The water will just find another way. Nothing's really been done to stop the banks being too big to fail.”

“I know you won't believe this,” said Harry, “but I don't like greed either. What makes me happy is finding investors for companies that need money to grow.”

Kim raised her eyebrows.

“I said you wouldn't believe me.”

“It just sounds a bit saintly. You're in it for the money, aren't you? Like everyone else.”

Harry smiled. “Of course I am.”

Now I don't know if he's being serious, thought Kim.