“Are you scared of her?” I ask.
“My mother? Of course.” He looks at me as if I’m stupid. “She’s lovely and all, but if I don’t clean before she visits she insists on spending the whole weekend clearing out the flat. There’s stuff in there I’d rather she didn’t see.”
This sounds interesting. “What kind of stuff?”
He shifts his feet. “I dunno, just stuff. Paintings and things. I don’t like her looking through them.”
I raise my eyebrows. “At the nudes?”
“You’ve got a dirty mind, do you know that?” He shakes his head, but the grin on his lips tells me he’s kidding. “What makes you think I’ve got a flat full of nudes?”
His smile is infectious. It’s so easy, this conversation, the gentle teasing. “What else can you be hiding from your mum?”
He leans toward me, his dark hair falling over the side of his face as his head inclines. It brushes against my cheek as he hovers his lips close to my ear. “Maybe I’ve got a red room of pain.”
There’s something about the sentence that makes my toes curl up. I’m not sure if it’s the physical sensation of his breath on my sensitive skin, or if it’s the fact he’s saying dirty words in my ear.
Dirty, funny words.
I pull back and raise my eyebrows. “If you can afford a red room of pain in central London, you’re obviously making more money than I thought.”
“I’m not quite in the Damien Hirst ranks yet. Let’s call it an off-pink cupboard of slight discomfort.”
“Now that I’d like to see.”
“Why don’t you come to dinner tomorrow night?” He almost stumbles over the words. “You and Simon. I’m sure my mother would love to see I actually have some friends over here.”
“You cook?”
“I try. I’ve been known not to completely bollocks up a steak.” He’s looking at me quizzically, as if I’m some puzzle he’s trying to solve. “It probably won’t be up to the standards you and Simon are used to but—”
“Simon’s away for the weekend,” I blurt out.
“What about you? Are you free?” His voice is soft. “I can cook steaks for three as easily as for four.”
Thank God his mum will be there. If bones could sigh, mine would right now. I’m reading into things that aren’t there, seeing complications where there is only simplicity. A friend, his mum and a dinner, nothing more.
“Sounds good. What time do you want me?”
12
Niall’s flat is on the top floor of a Victorian terrace in Ladbroke Grove. I stand outside, clutching a bottle of chilled white wine, letting anticipation waft over me like a welcome breeze. In the road behind cars idle, honking impatiently, their horns cutting through the almost-balmy evening air. I wait, one hand clutching the bottle, the other in a fist that’s too scared to move forward and push a tiny silver button that will let Niall and his mother know I’m here.
Why am I here?
It’s only dinner—a meal with a friend and his mum. No different to a night with Lara and Alex, after all. Plus, Simon himself is out somewhere without me, not bothering to call to check in, or even deigning to answer my emails. So I shouldn’t feel guilty about this, should I? Yet I hesitate, standing on the concrete steps that lead to the shiny black front door, breathing in the aroma of the sweet peas trailing down from hanging baskets.
There’s a part of me that wants to spin on my heel and walk straight down the steps and into a cab. Away from the madness and back to my reality. Except I want doesn’t exist anymore, if it ever did. I’m starting to think that my steady marriage and supportive husband are a product of my fevered imagination; a grown-up equivalent of an invisible friend.
A comforting lie.
The shrill sound of a police siren in the distance brings me out of my thoughts, and I realise I’ve been standing here for too long. Swallowing down the last remnants of fear, I finally press the button for flat three, my finger shaking as I pull it away. In the moment it takes for Niall to answer the urge to run away crescendos, and I’m a hair’s breadth from sprinting down the road when his voice crackles through the speakers.
“Hello?”
I lean closer to the intercom. “It’s Beth.”
“Come on up. Third floor.” A buzz followed by a clunk tells me the front door has unlocked. Pushing it open gingerly, I step into an empty hallway that echoes with every click of my heels on the wooden floor. I put my foot on the bottom stair and wish I spent more time at the gym than I do thinking about it.