I nod. ‘Sure I do.’
‘Go on.’
I take another sip. I am thinking desperately. He watches me with those imperious dark eyes, and then I see he is mouthing something at me. Mark. Mark-o.
‘Marco!’
‘Well done.’
‘Oh, Marco, I’m so sorry. I’m giving you a terrible impression. Thank you for the flowers, they’re beautiful. Today is just an awful, awful day.’
‘Do you want me to call someone for you?’
He speaks quietly, and his kindness makes me feel like crying again.
‘No, I think I’m just going to go home. It’s my dad. He’s had a stroke.’
‘Oh, Katie, how awful. I’m sorry. Is it serious? Do you need to go to him?’
I shake my head. The shock is wearing off now, and I am starting to shiver. A haemorrhagic stroke, his sister said in the phone call I’d received at my desk, her voice trembling. I’ve never heard her sound so afraid. A bleed on the brain; according to the doctor, it’s lucky we got to him when we did.
‘You stay where you are, love,’ Aunt Jackie said when I’d offered to take a train up that afternoon. ‘Nothing you can do at the moment. Your father’s not going anywhere and me and Darren are driving up this evening.’
I miss my mum. We lost her, my dad and I, when I was nine days a teenager. She jumped from the roof of the multi-storey car park just outside town, near the industrial estate. She was found on a patch of waste ground where weeds sprouted through the cracks in the earth like exclamation marks. A pointless, violent death, I heard my dad say. His voice was raw from crying. I was silent for two months, a mute. I couldn’t take it in. She hadn’t left us a note or given anything away. The last time I saw her she’d given me five pounds for my seventy-pence bus fare and told me to keep the change. I still have it, the change. I’ve put it in a jar, sealed it. It is airless in there, and the rattling sound it makes is like old bones. I’ve taken it to every house I’ve ever lived in. I don’t know what else to do with it. Here’s the thing about being an only child. One day it all falls to you to keep everyone going.
‘Katie,’ Marco was saying, looking concerned, ‘I have my car outside. Let me take you home.’
He drops me at the flat in his smooth, expensive car. It is built like a sleek, dark bullet and as well maintained as a racehorse. It even has a name. Sadie. Marco puts the radio on quietly and other than asking me where to turn off barely speaks on the journey to Lewisham. I ask him if he wants to come inside. He tells me no and kisses me softly on my head. ‘Call me when it gets better,’ he says, and watches me walk into the house. Afterwards Carmel comes home from work and finds me on the sofa beneath a duvet. I’ve started myself on a crying jag which lasts nearly half an hour. She rocks me and soothes me and tells me over and over again it’s all right, it’s all right, Stella. I like the feeling of being cosseted again: it makes me feel plump and indulged, just like I was as a little girl.
Marc-o. Marc-oh. I need to remember that. He’d shown me such kindness.
Chapter 2
In the early evening the city light is the colour of sucked toffee, still warm. Carmel and I are laughing, squeezed onto the tiny metal balcony which creaks beneath our feet. We won’t die if we fall, Carmel tells me, only break our backs. It’ll be fine, it’ll be fine. Traction could be fun, it’ll be fine. We’re laughing at our mortality and drinking beers, the windows open wide behind us to let in the last of the daylight. The view from up here on the second floor is municipal: the patch of littered concrete which serves as parking for all the tenants, the back of a Lebanese restaurant, a line of bins. Further ahead, we can just make out the tower of St Saviour’s Church on Lewisham High Street. We’re talking idly, bare legs pressing warmly together, when Carmel suddenly pitches forward, hissing as though in pain.
‘It’s them! It’s them!’
I lean over the railing, beneath us that sound of grinding metal as the balcony groans. I hear Carmel telling me to be careful. I’m clinging to the wrought iron until my knuckles turn white. The cyclists are back. Our neighbours from upstairs, shiny with sweat, muscular bodies packed into taut Lycra, slick and glossy as seals.
‘I need my glasses,’ I’m saying.
Carmel says, ‘Look at those calf muscles. Thank you, Jesus.’
They haven’t seen us although I’m sure they know we’re here. We heard them leave and came straight out here, and we haven’t moved since. They are locking up their bikes, wiping the backs of their necks, which are deeply tanned from a summer bent over the handlebars.
I turn to Carmel. ‘Say something.’
‘Hello!’ she calls out, unfolding herself. She is all legs, glistening conker-coloured thighs. That gets their attention. They look up, shielding their eyes.
‘Good ride?’ She is smiling down at them; strong white teeth. One of them steps forward, the blond one, although really they are interchangeable: all hardened muscle and sweeping jaws. They’re almost Grecian, as though carved from marble and somehow animated.
‘Yeah – great, thanks.’ He lifts the hem of his cycling top and scratches at his flat stomach idly. I wonder if Carmel is going to collapse. ‘Listen. Uh – you girls haven’t seen anyone hanging around here in the evenings, have you? Noticed anything like that?’
Carmel and I look at each other and shake our heads.
‘Okay. Keep an eye out. Been a lot of break-ins round here recently. Good idea to double-lock the doors when you go out.’
‘Thanks,’ Carmel says, sliding an arm around my waist. ‘But the only thing I have of value is her.’
‘Shut up!’ I hiss, but I’m laughing and it feels good. The warm sun on my skin, the last heat of the day. It’s been a week since my dad went into hospital and he’s being released soon. Aunt Jackie sounded upbeat when she called me earlier, her voice high and happy. Carmel and I went out for food and ended up by the river eating chips greasy and crusted with salt. Her eyes were kohl-lined electric blue, her skin a soft dark shimmer.
‘I got the email today,’ she told me shyly, failing to hide her smile behind her napkin.
‘And?’
‘I got an interview. Listen to this. They’re flying me to Paris. Oh, Stella!’
‘Oh my God, that’s amazing! Well done!’
She couldn’t conceal her excitement, wriggling on the bench. I felt, briefly, a flare of envy as sharp as a needle puncturing my chest. Then it was gone. Carmel has been after this job – a buyer for a very prestigious lingerie company – for a year, more or less. Twelve months of networking and being in the right place, being introduced to the top people, her smile as broad and gleaming as a chrome grille.
I drew in a deep breath and smiled. Well done, I heard myself say. She told me we were going to cautiously celebrate so as not to jinx her chances but I could see it in her eyes. She knows this job is hers. Everything else is a formality. The idea of her moving away – moving on – filled me with cold. She saw, because that is how she is, and slid an arm around my shoulders.
‘We’ll work on your job next, Stell. Promise.’
I leaned against her shoulder. I took on the job at the hotel as a tide-over, a way to pay the rent while I ingratiated myself with the local galleries. Nine years later I’m still there on front of house, checking guests in, answering the phones, smiling, always smiling. Nine years of treading water.