31 Dream Street (31 page)

‘Oh, you did?’ Toby feigned surprise.

‘Yes. He’s not a kid any more. He’s got his life. It’s time I got mine.’

Toby smiled. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘very good.’

The door bell rang and Toby spun round. He could see Leah’s outline through the stained glass. He bounded to the door to let her in.

She was wearing a purple silk shalwar kameez and jeans. Her hair was down and wavy with a small diamanté clip holding it back at one side. It was the most feminine Toby had seen her look. ‘You look lovely,’ he said, holding the door open for her. ‘That top is stunning.’

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got any proper evening clothes, but I’ve got piles of these things. Amitabh’s mum was always bringing them back for me from Mumbai.’

‘Well, I must say, they really suit you.’

‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘And you look amazing.’ She stroked the sleeve of Toby’s shirt. ‘New outfit?’

‘Yes. I went into a menswear boutique. On my own.’

‘Ooh,’ she said, ‘well done.’

She smiled at Melinda. ‘You look beautiful,’ she said.

‘Thank you very much. So do you.’

The three of them stood a moment in the hallway, beaming at each other.

‘Well,’ said Toby, ‘shall we go?’

The chemistry between Melinda and Jack was instantaneous and overwhelming.

‘Oh, but, Leah, you have brought me a goddess!’ said Jack, holding Melinda’s outstretched hand in his and gazing at her in awe and wonder.

Whether Melinda’s reaction to Jack was influenced in any way by the guided tour of his house that he insisted on giving her within moments of her stepping through the front door was impossible to gauge.

Jack and Melinda returned, looking smiley and delighted.

‘Isn’t this place
gorgeous
?’ said Melinda, smoothing her skirt and seating herself on the edge of the sofa. ‘And I love what you did to Jack’s girls’ rooms, Leah. They’re stunning.’

Jack offered everyone aperitifs. Toby wriggled slightly, feeling a small squirm of discomfort. This place was so plush. Jack, for all his childlike charm, was a proper grown-up man, probably only five or ten years older than Toby, but different in every way. He had children, a business, a fleshy middle-aged body. He’d paid for his house himself, not been bought it by an emotionally deficient father. Jack’s ex-wife was still a part of his life, not a vague, dream-like memory. He’d used his own money to decorate his home, not the life savings of an elderly homosexual Dutchman. And now he was about to serve up immaculate Bloody Marys in proper glasses with all the trimmings.

‘So, Toby.’ Jack passed him his glass, replete with celery stick and crushed black peppercorns. ‘What have you done to yourself? A sporting injury?’

‘Oh, my eye? I fell into a swimming pool…’

‘He was drunk…’ chipped in Leah.

‘Well, only a little bit. It was the drugs, really…’

‘The
drugs
?’ Jack raised an alarmed eyebrow.

‘Not those sort of drugs. Dentists’ drugs. I had a tooth removed…’ He opened his mouth to show Jack the gap. ‘I shouldn’t have gone swimming, really.’

‘It was my fault,’ said Leah. ‘We went for a walk in Kenwood and he nearly passed out walking up a slope and I was so horrified by how unfit he was that I made him come swimming with me –’

‘Even though I haven’t swum since I was sixteen –’

‘And to prove it he wore his school trunks –’

‘Yes. It’s true. They still have my name label in the back.’

‘I am impressed that they still fit you,’ said Jack, patting his own girth. ‘I would be happy to get my school trunks on to one thigh these days.’

‘Don’t put yourself down,’ said Melinda. ‘You’ve got a lovely physique.’

‘You think so?’ said Jack.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you’re in good shape.’

‘For an old man, you mean?’ He smiled. ‘I work out,’ he said, ‘at the gym, three times a week.’

‘Oh, really, which gym are you at?’

‘Esporta,’ he said. ‘You know, the posh one in the old mental hospital in Friern Barnet.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Melinda, ‘I know the one. Very smart. I’m at the Manor on Fortis Road. Plus I do Pilates twice a week and kick boxing on a Wednesday.’

‘Yes,’ said Jack, his eyes skimming appreciatively up
and down her body. ‘It is clear that you look after yourself. But, not too well, I hope.’

‘What do you mean?’ she giggled.

‘Well, it’s not good for a woman to exercise away all her… softness. It’s not good for a woman to feel like a man. Like that Madonna,’ he shuddered. ‘What must he think, that man of hers, an English man? When they are in bed together and the lights are off, he must feel he is fucking a small boy.’

Melinda laughed and Jack smiled. ‘Excuse my language,’ he said. ‘And now, I must go and stir something.’

‘Need a hand?’ said Melinda.

‘That would be lovely.’

Toby waited until they’d left the room, then nudged Leah gently with his elbow. ‘You are so good at this,’ he whispered.

‘What?’

‘You really do know people. I mean, Jack and Melinda – genius.’

Leah smiled and rubbed her fingernails against her collarbone. ‘I can’t deny I have a certain knack.’

‘And this house is extraordinary, isn’t it?’ He looked round the living room. It made his plans for his own house pale into insignificance.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it, just exactly how rich you’d have to be to live somewhere like this.’

‘
So
rich,’ said Toby, ‘so
extraordinarily
rich. Tell me again why you rejected Jack’s advances.’

‘I am a woman of unimpeachable moral fibre.’

‘Well,’ said Toby, ‘let’s hope the same is true of Melinda.’

‘She’s a good woman.’

‘Yes,’ said Toby, ‘you know what – I think she is? I’ve got quite close to her over the past couple of weeks. She’s really very well meaning, if a bit misguided.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ said Leah, sucking tomato juice off her celery. ‘Aren’t we all?’

‘He’s got a maid in there!’ said Melinda bursting into the living room a moment later. ‘Some little Asian girl – wearing an
apron
!’

‘Oh, my God,’ said Leah. ‘That’s dreadful.’ ‘

Why is that dreadful?’ asked Melinda. ‘He can afford it. I’m sure he pays her well. And you can’t expect a man like Jack to look after a big house like this all by himself.

Leah shrugged. ‘So,’ she said, ‘what do you think?’

‘What do I think? I think he’s gorgeous. Totally. And such a nice man.’

Leah smiled. ‘He’s lovely, isn’t he?’

‘He’s a sweetheart. So funny. And that accent…’

‘Look,’ said Leah. ‘We need a secret code. A special thing that you say when you want to get rid of us.’

‘Yes,’ said Toby, ‘we’d hate to outstay our welcome.’

‘OK,’ whispered Melinda, ‘when I want you to go, I’ll say…
Can you two fuck off now because me and Jack want to shag
.’ She let out a loud burst of laughter and put her hands over her mouth. ‘I’m not that sort of girl,’ she said primly, ‘but if I say
ai carumba
, then scarper.’

*

Over the course of the next three hours Jack and his Filipino maid, Marietta, served up five courses of superb Italian food. Platters of aged Parma ham and cornichons, truffle and wild mushroom soup, sea bass with lemon and parsley, and Amaretto-soaked pears with cloves and vanilla cream. He poured bottle after bottle of expensive wine into huge glasses and served them home-made almond biscotti with tiny cups of coffee from a proper Gaggia espresso machine. Then, once they’d finally started to digest the first four courses, Jack brought out a groaning cheese board and a bottle of pudding wine the colour of early morning pee.

‘Ai carumba,’ said Melinda, caressing her distended belly. ‘I’ve never been so stuffed in my life.’

Toby and Leah folded their napkins, made their excuses, collected their coats and left.

‘Well,’ said Toby, pulling on a knitted hat outside Jack’s house. ‘I think we can safely call that a success.’

‘Wow. What do you think will happen? Do you think he’s already having her, on the cheeseboard, as we speak?’

Toby smiled. ‘I doubt it. They’ll have to wait for the maid to go home first.’ They both turned then at the sound of Jack’s front door. A small figure crunched across the gravel driveway and turned onto the road. It was Marietta. ‘Good night!’ she smiled, before disappearing towards the Broadway, in a black puffa jacket and a baseball cap. Leah and Toby looked at each other and laughed.

‘Well,’ said Leah, ‘I guess there’s nothing stopping them now.’

‘Christ,’ said Toby, ‘can you imagine those two in bed? I bet they’ll both talk the whole way through.’

‘Oh, yes,
dirty
talk.’

‘Oh, definitely. And role playing. And dressing up. They’ll be at it all night, with whipped cream and leather dildos.’

‘Ooh, stop it!’ They smiled at each other.

‘Walk me home?’ said Leah.

‘Yes,’ said Toby, ‘why not? Although it is, of course, a little out of my way.’

They headed towards the Broadway. The pubs had just closed and the streets were full of drunk people looking for cabs. They passed a group of rowdy men in their early twenties and Toby instinctively brought his arm round Leah’s waist to protect her. He didn’t even realize he’d done it until they turned into Silversmith Road and it was still there. ‘So,’ he said, ‘swimming again on Thursday?’

She laughed. ‘Only if you’re sure you can face it.’

‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.’

‘Great,’ she said. ‘It’s a date. But you might want to buy yourself some new trunks.’

‘Oh, dear. Were they terribly embarrassing?’

‘Well. They weren’t the best look.’

‘New trunks it is, then,’ he said. ‘And if you’re free, afterwards, I’d like to take you for a drink. Just to say thank you. For saving my life.’

‘I didn’t save your life!’

‘Yes, Leah, you really did. And in so many ways.’ He sighed and looked at her. He couldn’t believe that he had to deposit her at a house that she shared with another man, a man who she hadn’t even been living with when he first got to know her, a man she’d been getting over, a man who’d somehow managed to inveigle himself back into her life as a direct result of a meeting that
he’d
inadvertently engineered. ‘So – what’s going to happen with you and your nurse? Is he going to marry you now?’

Leah shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose so. But then, I never really wanted to marry him in the first place. I just wanted some sort of confirmation, I suppose, that my life was going somewhere. That I wasn’t going to end up like Gus.’

Toby nodded. ‘So is it – going somewhere?’

‘No,’ she sniffed, ‘not really.’ She laughed wryly.

‘Then why…?’

‘Why did I take him back?’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Because he asked. And because… because I was lonely.’

‘Oh, Leah,’ Toby stopped and turned her towards him. ‘How could a girl like you ever be
lonely
? Someone as vital and good and clever as you.’

She shrugged again. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m not as clever as you think.’

‘But you are. You’re a hundred times cleverer than I think.’

‘Well, if I’m so clever, then why have I let this man back in my life when I know I’m just a temporary arrangement? When I know that any day now his mother will present him with some twenty-year-old from Mumbai with eyes like coals and he’ll be gone in a flash.’

‘Oh, God, is that the situation?’

‘Uh-huh. Yes. I had no idea until two months ago, thought his parents were all trendy and westernized. But it turns out that they were just letting their little boy have some fun until he turned thirty.’

‘So, if that’s the case, then why has he moved back in?’

‘Because it’s better than living at the nurses’ home. Because I’m a nice girl. Because he’s in denial that he’s actually thirty and he can’t cope with the reality of what’s expected of him. Basically because he’s in some sort of state of arrested development.’

‘So, you’re back at square one?’

‘Totally. All I know is that as long as Amitabh’s living with me I don’t have to hand in notice on the flat, therefore I don’t have to look at any more shitty flat shares and I can pretend that I’m still a grown-up.’

‘Can’t you find somewhere on your own?’

She shook her head. ‘Can’t afford it.’

‘What about your parents? Can’t they lend you some money?’

‘No. If they’d had money to lend they’d have offered it to me by now.’

‘Leah – this is crazy.’

‘I know. I know it is.’ She sighed and lowered her eyes. ‘I’ve really fucked up.’

‘Just tell him to go!’

‘I can’t.’

‘You can! I’ll lend you some money.’

‘Oh, Toby, I can’t. I…’

‘Yes. You can. I’ve got no mortgage on my house, you know? Once I sell it I’ll have, God, hundreds of thousands of pounds. I’ll have more money than I’ll know what to do with.’

‘Yes, but you’ll need that, to buy a new house, start your new life.’

‘I’ll need some of it, but not all of it.’

‘No way, Toby. Absolutely not. You’ve spent the past fifteen years subsidizing other people. It’s time to let go, let people take responsibility for themselves. But thank you. Thank you for offering. You are a very generous man.’

Toby smiled, wanly. ‘To a fault, it seems.’

She squeezed his hand and smiled. ‘Yes, well, maybe.’

Toby squeezed her hand back and then, because it seemed like it wouldn’t be entirely the wrong thing to do, because she wasn’t in love with her nurse, because she was lonely and lost just like him, he reached out with his other hand and stroked her cheek. Her skin was cold and smooth under his palm. She lowered her eyes briefly, then smiled. ‘You’ve got cold hands,’ she said.

‘And you’ve got cold cheeks.’

‘Time to go home,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘let’s go home.’

He draped his arm across her shoulders and pulled her towards him, and they walked down Silversmith Road in a warm and companionable silence.

66

Con completed the second half of his bargain with Toby on Monday. At lunchtime, instead of hiding in the break room as he’d been doing every day since Daisy had been back at work, he went upstairs to the fashion department.