Lie With Me (2 page)

He was standing on the other side of the bookcase, only his head visible. I took a brief physical inventory: close-set eyes, receding hairline that gave his face an incongruously twee heart shape, puny chin. It was the large gap between the two front teeth that sparked the memory. Anthony Hopkins, a contemporary from Cambridge – historian, if I remembered correctly. I’d bumped into him several years ago on holiday in Greece. I had a rather unpleasant feeling that I had not come out of the encounter well.

‘Anthony?’ I said. ‘Anthony Hopkins!’

Irritation crossed his brows. ‘Andrew.’

‘Andrew, of course. Andrew Hopkins. Sorry.’ I tapped my head. ‘How nice to see you.’ I was racking my memory for details. I’d been out on a trip round the island with Saffron, a party girl I’d been seeing, and a few of her friends. I’d lost them when we docked. Alcohol had been consumed.
Had Andrew lent me money?
He was now standing before me, in a pin-stripe suit, hand out. We shook. ‘It’s been a . . . while,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘Not since Pyros.’ A raincoat, pearled with drops, was slung over his arm. The shop assistant was looking over, listening to our conversation. ‘How are you? Still scribbling away? Seen your byline in the
Evening Standard
– book reviews, is it? We did love that novel you wrote – my sister was so excited when you sold it.’

‘Ah, thank you.’ I bowed. His sister – of course. I’d hung out with her a bit at Cambridge. ‘
Annotations on a Life
, you mean.’ I spoke as loudly as I could so the little scrubber would realise the opportunity she had passed up. ‘Yes, a lot of people were kind enough to say they liked it. It touched a nerve, I think. In fact, the review in the
New York Times
said—’

He interrupted me. ‘Any exciting follow up?’

The girl was switching on a blow-heater. As she bent forward, her silk top gaped. I stepped to one side to get a better view, caught the soft curve of her breasts, a pink bra.

‘This and that,’ I said. I wasn’t going to mention the damp squib of a sequel, the disappointing sales of the two books have had that followed.

‘Ah well, you creative types. Always up to something interesting. Not like us dull old dogs in the law.’

The girl had returned to her stool. The current from the blow-heater was causing her silky top to wrinkle and ruche. He was still prattling away. He was at Linklaters, he said, in litigation, but had made partner. ‘Even longer hours. On call twenty-four seven.’ He made a flopping gesture with his shoulders – glee masquerading as resignation. But what can you do? Kids at private school, blah blah, two cars, a mortgage that was ‘killing’ him. A couple of times, I said, ‘Gosh, right, OK.’ He just kept on. He was showing me how successful he was, bragging about his wife, while pretending to do the opposite. Tina had left the City, ‘burnt out, poor girl’, and opened a little business in Dulwich Village. A specialist yarn shop of all things. Surprisingly successful. ‘Who knew there was so much money to be made in wool?’ He gave a self-conscious hiccupy laugh.

I felt bored, but also irritated. ‘Not me,’ I said gamely.

Absent-mindedly, he picked up a book from the shelf –
Hitchcock
by François Truffaut. ‘You married these days?’ he said, tapping it against his palm.

I shook my head.
These days?
His sister came into my mind again – a gap between her teeth, too. Short pixie hair, younger than him. I’d have asked after her if I’d remembered her name. Lottie, was it? Lettie?
Clingy
, definitely. Had we actually gone to bed?

I felt hot suddenly, and claustrophobic, filled with an intense desire to get out.

Hopkins said something I didn’t completely hear, though I caught the phrase ‘kitchen supper’. He slapped the Hitchcock playfully against my upper arm, as if something in the last twenty years, or perhaps only in the last two minutes, had earned him the right to this blokeish intimacy. He had taken his phone out. I realised, with a sinking horror, he was waiting for my number.

I looked to the door where the rain was still falling. The red-haired temptress was reading a book now. I twisted my head to read the author. Nabokov. Pretentious twaddle. I had a strong desire to pull it from her grasp, grab a handful of hair, press my thumb into the tattoo on her neck. Teach her a lesson.

Turning back to Hopkins, I smiled and gave him what he wanted. He assured me he would call and I made a mental note not to answer when he did.

Chapter Two

It was two weeks later, a Tuesday afternoon in late February, when he made contact again. I was still – just – living in Bloomsbury. This was the deal: Alex Young, the owner, a violinist with the New York Philharmonic, let me have the place in exchange for feeding the cat. I only had to clear out when he and his boyfriend were in town. Lamb’s Conduit Street, with its organic coffee shops and chic ‘old-fashioned’ gentlemen’s outfitters, was my spiritual home. The flat on the top floor of a tall Georgian building, filled with nothing of mine and everything of his (paintings and white bed linen, mid-century furniture, an Italian coffee machine), presented to the world the kind of man I wanted to be. But the arrangement was coming to an end, and I was trying not to think about it.

When my phone buzzed, I was sitting in a worn velvet armchair with the
London Review of Books
, savouring a moment of winter sunshine. It was shining low through the long window, the shadow of the square casements casting a hopscotch pattern on the Turkish rug. On the table next to me was a cup of coffee and a cheese sandwich; I was eking out the last of the bread. Persephone, of whom I had become fond, was curled like a sliver of mink on my knee.

I didn’t recognise the number, but my guard was down. In the pub the previous night, I’d met a young graduate called Katie, who was trying to break into journalism. I’d written my contact details on her palm, told her to get in touch if she wanted some advice. As I picked up, I was already imagining the meeting (‘my place probably easiest’), her breathless deference, the bottle of wine, the gratitude, the tumble into bed.

‘Paul Morris,’ I said, with the clipped professionalism of a busy man.

‘Ah! I’ve caught you.’

Not Katie. A male voice – one I didn’t immediately recognise. Some jobsworth from one of the literary organs that occasionally employed me? Dominic Bellow, a fellow Soho barfly, who edited
Stanza
magazine, had recently lobbed me the new Will Self to review, and my copy was late. (That’s the problem with under-employment: even the things one has to do tend not to get done.)

‘Yes,’ I said doubtfully. Too late to pretend it was a wrong number. I’d announced my name.

‘Hello. I’m ringing to entice you down to the wilds of Dulwich.’
Dulwich?
‘Tina’s longing to meet you.’
Tina?
‘Mind you, I’d better be careful. I know what you’re like around women. I’ve never forgiven you for Florrie.’ He laughed loudly.

Florrie. Of course. Not Lottie. Florrie Hopkins, the sister of Anthony Hopkins. Andrew. Whatever his name was. I remembered, in the bookshop, the way he had said ‘litigation’, his mouth stretched out to the side, the click of his teeth.

‘Great,’ I said, thinking,
Shit
. ‘Lovely.’

‘How about this weekend? Saturday? A grateful client has just sent me a rather nice case of wine – thought it was a shame not to share it with friends. Châteauneuf-du-Pape. 2009. Tina was going to do her signature slow-cooked lamb. Moroccan.’

I’m not proud of myself. When you are on your own living hand to mouth, you make judgements: the cost and inconvenience of trekking to the wastes of south-east London versus the possible rewards of doing so. A good meal, a decent glass of French wine, they added up. Connections, too, are something to be alert to. I was about to be homeless and you never know who might prove useful. Also: exactly how rich
was
he? I thought about the cut of his suit, the way it had fitted so snugly over his shoulders, the softness of his palm as he’d shaken my hand. I was curious to see his house.

The cheese sandwich of curling Mother’s Pride stared balefully. ‘Saturday,’ I said. ‘Hang on. Yes. I’m away in New York next week but Saturday’s OK. Saturday I can do.’

‘Fantastic.’ He gave me the details and we disconnected.

I sat in the chair for a while longer, stroking the cat.

His address led me to a wide tree-lined street in the further reaches of Dulwich, a good ten-minute hike from the nearest station: Herne Hill, on the same line out of Victoria as Michael’s gaff in Beckenham where I often went for Sunday lunch. This was a very different kind of
banlieue
; less pinched and harried. It was where my tosser of an agent lived, and it figured. Here the roads were wide and self-confident. Even the trees seemed pleased with themselves.

Andrew’s house was a large, detached, late-Victorian villa, with a gabled roof and an arc of drive in which three cars were parked at awkward angles. Most of the front was covered in creeper, an abandoned bird’s nest in the crook of a drainpipe. The slatted blinds were open in the front bay and, between the wood, lights glowed, shapes drifted, a fire flickered.

I stood back, behind the hedge, and tried to light a cigarette. It was windy, coming in gusts, and it took several matches. Under my arm was a bottle of wine I’d bought at the shop by the station. A Chilean Sauvignon Blanc: £4.99. The blue tissue paper, wet from condensation, was beginning to disintegrate.

A large car drove slowly past, indulging its suspension over the speed bumps. Three teenagers ambled along on the opposite pavement, lugging musical instruments. They paused under a street lamp and stared at me; one of them whispered and the others laughed. This was the kind of place where a single man without a family, or a dog, or a Volvo 4x4,
or a bloody cello
, stood out. I turned my face away, back to the privet. Tangled in some twigs at eye level was a stray piece of silver tinsel. Cigarette dangling from my mouth, I pulled and brought out a Christmas bauble – red, decorated with a snowflake in white frosting. I slipped it into my coat pocket. Then I took one last deep suck, threw the cigarette to the ground and stamped it out.

It’s odd to think that, at this point, I could still have walked away, turned on my heel and headed back to the train station with my Christmas bauble, a fag butt the only evidence that I had ever been there.

I thought I had the wrong house at first. The door was answered by a woman with hazel eyes, a wide, open face and thick, curly hair which she had tried to tame with a green silk scarf: surely too bohemian to be Andrew’s wife. I held my arms out at each side, brandishing the wine in one hand: here I am.

The woman appraised me for a moment and then said: ‘You must be Paul Morris. We’ve been waiting for you. Come in, come in. I’m Tina.’

I put out my spare hand and she shook it, drawing me into the hall, where a large glass chandelier shot the light into pieces; small lozenge-shaped fragments across the floor and walls. Dark bannisters curved up a sweeping staircase. I removed my tweed coat and she opened a large French armoire and hung it up. I felt exposed, my chest tightening, as she opened the door to a drawing room where a group of strangers standing by a piano turned to stare. A fire flickering in sequence. An overly sweet smell of burning candle. Elaborately framed photographs on every surface of children in swimwear and salopettes.

A memory stirred, sediment at the bottom of a well. A tea-date with a boy from school. The suit my mother had put me in; the glance the boy’s mother had exchanged with her son. I swallowed hard.

Andrew came towards me. ‘My dear fellow,’ he said. ‘So glad you could fit us in before New York.’

‘New York?’ I said. ‘Oh yes, a work trip. Lightning. I’ll be back before I know it.’

I held out the wine and Andrew took it, his eyes on mine, cradling my £4.99 Isla Negra with its neck in his palm, and the base in the inside of his elbow, like a sommelier. Tiny shaving pimples dotted his neck. ‘Come and meet everyone!’

I was wearing my best suit, no tie, and a white shirt with the top three buttons undone. I was overdressed. Every person there was in jeans, with polo shirts for the men and flowery tunic tops for the women. I took a deep breath, adjusted my cuffs and stretched my mouth into a smile, the kind of smile I knew women loved.

‘This is Paul, the old university friend I was telling you about.’ Andrew led me to the piano and ran through a list of names: Rupert and Tom, Susie and Izzy – a blur of chins and sharp noses and thin legs, cashmere, dangly earrings. ‘Oh, and Boo,’ he said, delivering the name of a short, chubby woman he had almost forgotten.

A cold flute of champagne was pressed into my hand and I found myself the centre of attention. I felt my anxiety ease – I often blossom in such circumstances – and before long, I was leaning against the piano, hamming up the arduous adventure of my journey. The Tube, the train, the bloody walk. I turned to berate Andrew. ‘No one else was on foot. It was like being in LA. I had to flag down a car to ask directions. Twice.’ Andrew laughed loudly. ‘Paul’s a novelist,’ he said.

‘You’re a novelist?’ Susie said.

‘Yes.’

‘You were – what? Twenty-two when you wrote
Annotations
?’ Andrew said.

I smiled modestly. ‘Twenty-one. My last year in Cambridge. I was twenty-two when it was published. It was number nine on the
Sunday Times
bestseller list.’

How clean and innocent the words. I was aware of them landing on fresh turf and taking root – seedlings of hope, new shoots.

‘How exciting. Have you written anything since?’ asked Susie.

I felt my smile harden. ‘Bits and bobs . . . a couple of shorter novels you might not have heard of.’

‘Is it true everyone has one novel in them?’ a voice said, behind me.

It’s an annoying cliché. I turned my head to see who had uttered it. In the doorway stood a slim, slight woman, with shoulder-length blond hair, wearing an apron splattered with flour.