The Playdate (42 page)

“Hmm, sorry,” she muttered, giving him Jack’s homework. Richard’s usual fragrance of pipe smoke and TCP drifted over to her.

They stood for a second, fumbling their fingers between the plastic bag handover.

Kate looked up at Richard’s busy brown eyes, waiting for them to check that Jack was out of earshot, then reach up to the upstairs landing above them, then firmly fix back down on her face, serious and questioning. But they didn’t. Instead he turned on his heels and bounced after Helen and Jack to the kitchen at the back of the house, grinning through his gray-flecked beard at the sight of his grandson.

“So did you beat their socks off, sir?” he boomed at Jack, who was stuffing a muffin in his mouth.

Kate glanced upstairs.

It was still there.

Richard just hadn’t seen it. This was interesting.

She checked her watch. Five-twenty. The woman wanted to see her at six sharp in North Oxford. The traffic was so bad, she was going to have to cycle. Half-closing her eyes, Kate bit her lip and worked out a few figures. Thirty-four . . . Eighty-one—or was it eighty-two? Damn it, she needed that new computer. It was high, anyway.

With a shake of the head, she opened her eyes. It was going to have to be OK.

She followed Richard through to the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and bent down to find her helmet.

“Helen, do you mind if I rush off?”

“Of course, dear,” Helen chirped, filling up a jug at the sink. “Sound like a good job?”

“Um—an index for an art history book,” Kate said, avoiding Helen’s eye.

“Good publisher?”

“Small one—in Summertown.”

“Oh well, good luck, dear.”

“Thanks.”

Kate turned to see Jack, eyes screwed up, his mouth still too full of muffin to answer his grandfather’s question about the match score this afternoon. He was grinning and sticking up two fingers like Winston Churchill.

“Peace, man?” roared Richard. “It’s the 1960s, is it? No! Two-all, then? No? What? A bunny rabbit jumped on to the pitch?” Richard chortled, his arms wrapped round his rugby player’s chest, as his grandson shook his head at his jokes. “What? Two-nil then?”

Jack nodded, laughing, dropping crumbs out of his mouth.

“Aw—well done!” Helen clapped, cheeks as pink as fairycakes.

“Good lad!” Richard exclaimed. “Was he good, Mum?”

Kate grabbed her helmet from the back of the cupboard and went to stand up. “He was. He set up a good goal, didn’t you?”

As she spun round, the sight of Helen and Jack together took her by surprise.

A pit of disappointment opened up in her stomach.

Jack was a clone of her. You couldn’t deny it.

Kate buttoned up her helmet, watching them. It simply wasn’t happening. However desperately she willed his hair to darken and coarsen, or his green eyes to turn brown, it
was Helen and Saksia Jack took after. As he sat, arms touching with his grandmother, the similarities were painfully obvious. The same pale hair that was slightly too fine for the long skater-boy cut he desperately wanted; delicate features that would remain immune to the nasal bumps and widening jaws that would wipe out his friends’ childhood beauty; the flawless skin that tanned so easily and would remain unmarked by Kate’s dark moles or Richard’s and Hugo’s unruly eyebrows. No, he was nearly eleven. Nothing was going to change now. Jack would be a physically uncomplicated adult, like his grandmother and aunt, with none of the familiar landmarks of his father.

Kate stood up straight and made herself stop thinking.

“Right. OK, see you later—oh, Helen, I’ve left a stew in the fridge. It’s just vegetables and lentils. And some potatoes.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We stopped at Marks on the way over. I got some salmon and new potatoes, and a bit of salad.”

Kate hesitated, feeling the waves of Helen’s firm resolve radiate toward her.

“Oh. Well, I made it for tonight. Really. There’s plenty.”

Helen kept smiling. “No, dear. You keep it for tomorrow.”

“Absolutely,” Richard boomed. “Take the weight off.”

Richard and Helen together. Two against one, as always.

“OK,” she heard herself say lamely. What could she do? She had got up early this morning to make dinner for them. And now they didn’t want it. They could eat their bloody salmon. Jack didn’t even like it. He only ate it to be polite.

“Now, you’re probably starving, darling, aren’t you?” Helen said to Jack, taking Kate’s apron off a peg to put on. There was a tiny piece of tinned tomato on it left over from making the stew this morning, Kate noted, that was about to press against Helen’s white summer cardigan.

She went to say something, and then didn’t.

“OK, then . . .” Kate hesitated, glancing at the clock. “By the way . . .” They both looked at her.

Jack looked down at the table.

“I’ve . . . have you been up . . . ?” She pointed at the ceiling.

They shook their heads.

“No, dear,” Helen replied. “Why?”

Kate looked at Jack. He kept his eyes firmly on the table, slowly finishing his muffin.

“Well, I haven’t got time to explain, but anyway, don’t worry about it. It’s just . . .”

They waited, expectantly. She realized Jack’s jaws had stopped moving.

“I needed to do it. And it’s done now. So—see you later.”

And with that, she marched out of the back door of her house—
her
house—cross with herself for feeling the need to explain at all.

Chapter 2

It was a warm June evening and Oxford was bathed in a pale lemon tint. Kate pushed her bike across Donnington Bridge, then freewheeled down the steep path on the other side to the cycle path along the river.

It was busy this evening. She set off, cycling around a woman with two big wet dogs and a student on a bike who had clearly not learned to drive yet and wasn’t sticking to the left side. Kate pumped her legs hard, averting her eyes from the water on her right, trying to clear her mind of what she was about to do. She pushed against the resistance of each pedal stroke, changing gear when the journey along the flat path became too easy, till she could hear her own breath whistling gently on the summer breeze.

One out of eight. Sixty-three percent, she thought. Twenty percent.

She hit a steady pace around Christchurch Meadow. The grand old college looked especially beautiful tonight, its sandstone brickwork soft and pretty in the low light. The grass in front of it glowed that rich, saturated Oxford green,
which suggested high teas and country estates. It was scattered with groups of the cheery, hardworking students who imbued the air in Oxford with their optimism and best efforts; who sprinkled its streets and parks and alleyways with goodwill, like bubbles of sweetness in a fizzy drink. Who made Oxford feel safe.

No, on nights like these, she hardly missed London at all.

After Folly Bridge Kate cleared the crowds, and stepped up her speed again. She sailed past the waterside flats at Botley, and the circus-colored canal boats moored around Osney Lock. Behind Jericho, she ducked under a graffitied bridge, and carried along the canal path till she could cross into North Oxford.

There. She had done it. Dismounting to cross the bridge, she checked her watch.

Twenty-five minutes flat. She could still make it for six.

As she set off, pushing her bike along the pavement to Summertown, the enormity of it hit her.

She stopped and bit her lip.

She was here finally. She was actually going to do it this time.

Before she could change her mind for the tenth time, Kate made herself walk on, pushing the bike along the pavement of quiet side streets, before bursting out into the rush-hour traffic of Woodstock Road and Banbury Road, which she crossed to arrive in a leafy Summertown avenue.

Peace descended as she left the main roads behind and entered the exclusive Oxford enclave. The houses were spectacular. Imposing Victorian detacheds, with grand pianos in grand bay windows and walled gardens. Inspector Morse streets, as Helen would call them. As far from the clattering noise and scruffy chaos of East Oxford as you could be. The
kind of leafy avenue Helen and Richard assumed Kate would live on when she and Jack moved from London—the first thing she had done to annoy them.

To keep her mind from her destination, Kate glanced at each house as she passed, looking for a feature Hugo would appreciate. The houses were Victorian Gothic Revival. She was pretty sure. Not his period, but she bet he would have known the correct name for every architectural detail on their grand frontages.

Before she knew it, the sign was in front of her. Hemingway Avenue.

Kate stopped. Her cheeks were covered in a gentle sheen of perspiration, her lips still slightly numb from riding fast into the breeze.

Her watch said five-to-six. She had made it.

She was nearly there.

This was nearly it.

The urge to run overwhelmed her so abruptly, she put a hand out and touched a wall, gripping the loose brickwork with her fingers.

She was outside number one. If she carried on to number 15 Hemingway Avenue, there would be no going back.

Shutting her eyes firmly, she forced herself to summon Jack’s face in her rearview mirror an hour ago. His cheeks rigid like a mask. His gentle lips thrust forward as he bit the inside of his mouth.

“You are going to do this,” she whispered, pushing herself off the wall with a firm motion that propelled her forward again.

And on she went, with smaller and smaller steps.

The house was even more impressive than its neighbors. The kind of house in which Agatha Christie murder mysteries
took place. One gable jutted in front of the other. Ivy grew around medieval-style stone window frames. The glass revealed nothing inside but the red silk fringe of a standard lamp, then darkness beyond.

Biting her bottom lip, Kate pushed her bike into the driveway and padlocked it to a railing. She removed her helmet and ran her fingers through her hair to loosen it. It fell forward, thick with the Celtic blackness Mum told her she had inherited from a distant Irish aunt, blocking out the early evening sun for a second. She threw her head back, and straightened it back down, just below her ears, then, with a deep breath, forced herself up the stone steps to a white, carved portico. The front door was magnificent. Hugo would have loved it. A ten-foot-high, Gothic Revival arch, wooden, with roughly hewn Baronic black metal hinges and a thick, man-sized knocker. Kate paused.

She shut her eyes one more time, lifted her hand before she could run away—and banged it.

The sound made her jump. It resonated around the front garden, like a shotgun. There was a scraping behind the door, then a catch. The huge door swung open to reveal a blond woman in her sixties. She was as tall as Richard, and broad with a matronly bosom. Her hair was drawn up into an elaborate bun, which looked as if it had first been created in the 1960s. The woman wore a green print dress, with a strong piece of turquoise jewelry around her neck.

“Kate?”

Her voice was pleasant and warm, like ripe fruit.

Kate nodded, feeling like a child.

“I’m Sylvia. Come in.”

“Thanks.”

Kate walked into an elegant, long hall, tiled with gold
and blue geometric Victorian tiles. There was a fireplace in the corner, next to a wide staircase, carpeted a deep, rich red.

“Do you want to leave your helmet there?” Sylvia said, pointing to a mahogany hall table adorned by a giant vase of lilies.

Kate nodded, praying the plastic buckles wouldn’t scratch its surface.

“I’m so glad you finally managed to make it,” Sylvia said.

Kate looked at the floor.

“I know. Sorry. Things just kept coming up.”

“You managed to get someone to look after your son, then?” Sylvia said, opening a door to the right, and guiding Kate through. She passed, smelling a fragrance of roses.

“Yes, I did, thanks. His grandparents. My in-laws.”

The sitting room was even more impressive than the hall, furnished with antique tables, bookshelves, and overstuffed chairs and sofas. It smelled of polish. The wallpaper looked original Victorian, too, or at least one of those expensive reproductions Hugo used to buy through specialists. Sage green with an intricate spray of curling dark stems and ruby-red roses.

Sylvia followed her in, and pointed to an armchair. A tall, ecclesiastical-looking wooden plant stand stood beside it, topped by an ivy plant that flowed gently to the stripped wooden floor.

“Please, have a seat, Kate.”

But Kate couldn’t.

She stood in front of the chair. She was here now. It was time to start.

Looking Sylvia directly in the eye, she made herself speak the words. Maybe it was the numbness in her lips from cycling, but the voice didn’t sound like hers. The words came
out half-formed and uncertain, as if she had missed off the hard edges, and spoken only the soft bits in the middle.

“I told them I was seeing someone about freelance work.”

Syvlia nodded, as she moved to the sofa opposite.

“I see. Well, that’s something we can talk about, Kate.”

*     *     *

There he was. That weirdo again.

Saskia stood second in line at a cash till in Tesco on Cowley Road, watching the student in front of her put through two microwaveable hamburgers-in-buns, three vacuum packs of hot dogs, and a bumper pack of Curly Wurlys.

Yum, she thought, touching a French-polished fingertip on the chilled glass of the sparkling rosé she had placed on the belt. Some lucky girl was going to be wined and dined tonight.

Slowly, she lifted her eyes, to check he didn’t know she was looking. It was the first time she had seen him up this close. It was his height that had originally caught her eye on the pavement a few weeks ago. Not that he was particularly taller than any other tall man she knew. Dad, for instance. His legs just seemed overly long, perhaps due to the shapeless black trousers he wore. His T-shirt was black, too, and slightly too short, revealing a white slice of belly each time he moved. Inside Tesco, the student looked even odder. His outdated spiky, dark blond hair and bad glasses marked him out from the cool indie kids from the
Poly
—or Oxford Brookes University as Saskia was now supposed to call it on her CV. Or Oxford Puniversity as Hugo used to call it to wind her up.