Kate never saw Marcus again, and she spent the last few days of the holiday pining while reclining on a sun lounger, wondering if she’d imagined the whole thing.
Potential boyfriend number three had been a friend of Pippa’s. After university they’d all lived together in a terrible house-share in Hackney: terrible not just because there was a constant influx of mice and the boiler rarely worked, but because Pippa turned out to be a terrible person to live with. She’d been wild during their undergrad years, but who hadn’t been a little wild? Lindsey had shared with her in student accommodation and would send Kate frequent panicked, exasperated messages about how she had never been this bad back then, or that she thought Pippa would have grown out of her bad habits by now, but just over a year out, things hit breaking point.
Pippa had decided to throw a house party, and then also decided that she didn’t need to tell Lindsey and Kate about it.
‘I put it up on Facebook,’ she said, as the house crowded with people. ‘Didn’t you see?’
Lindsey and Kate spent much of the evening holed in Lindsey’s room working through Orange Is the New Black on Netflix, trying to ignore the thump of the music and the smell of weed that was starting to drift under the door.
‘Are we lame?’ Lindsey had asked, snuggled in close to Kate.
‘Absolutely,’ Kate had replied.
Things got quieter at around 2 a.m., so Kate peeled herself out from under a sleeping Lindsey and took herself back to her room. Pippa was strung out on the sofa but called out when she saw Kate pass by.
‘I told Nikesh he could crash in your room,’ she mumbled.
‘What the . . .? Why would you do that?’ Kate asked. She was exhausted. She wanted to wake up from whatever nightmare this was.
‘He needed somewhere to sleep. He missed the last Tube.’
‘Where am I going to sleep?’
But Pippa was already out cold again.
Kate resolved to get what she needed from her room and then skulk back to Lindsey’s for the rest of the night. She wasn’t expecting Nikesh to be awake, propped up on her bed and laughing at videos on his phone.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said, before remembering it should have been him who was apologising.
‘This your room? Pippa said I could crash.’ Kate’s face, even in the barely there light, must have said it all. ‘Right. Pippa didn’t ask you. Sorry.’
‘Why are you sorry? She’s my housemate.’
‘I can go, I don’t have to stay. It’s your room.’ He made to get up.
‘Pippa said you’d missed the last Tube?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So where would you go?’
‘I honestly have no idea.’
He was cute. Still a little dopey from his high, but not wasted like Pippa was.
‘No, you stay here. I’ll crash with my other housemate. Just don’t touch anything.’
She went to a drawer to pull out some fresh pyjamas and some clothes for the following morning, so that she didn’t have to come back in and disturb him. It wasn’t his fault that Pippa was being a nightmare, she reasoned. She’d wait till she got back from work the next day, and liaise with Lindsey about a course of action, before letting Pippa know how she really felt. At that moment she was tired, and there was no point causing trouble when Pippa would barely remember it.
‘What are you watching?’ Kate asked as Nikesh sniggered.
‘Oh, it’s stupid.’
But now Kate was intrigued. Nikesh shuffled over so that she could lean closer and watch his screen. It was just a video of a cat pushing items off shelves, the clips edited together with exceptional comic timing. Soon they were talking about cats, and after that they were talking about everything else.
When Kate woke up in the morning she was still in her clothes, on top of the covers, neck sore from being propped up awkwardly. Nikesh was already gone. Had she imagined a connection? A level of instant comfort she rarely felt with anyone? You didn’t share a bed with someone you didn’t like, did you?
The row with Pippa the following evening had been apocalyptic, and she’d moved out soon after. It was this shift that had prompted Kate and Lindsey to find the new flat, just the two of them together, the one she was now leaving behind.
She had thought about asking Pippa for Nikesh’s number as Pippa was packing to leave, but it didn’t seem appropriate somehow. Battle lines were being drawn, and any contact with her was charged with the potential for new, even more bitter arguments. If Nikesh had asked about her, she reckoned Pippa was likely to have blocked the connection.
My first night sleeping with a boy and I have nothing to show for it, Kate thought as she decided that if it was meant to be one day, then she had to let it be. Then, a couple of years later, she managed to track him down online and found the pictures from his wedding.
She wished she had been bolder. At school, at university, and after, it seemed like every single opportunity had been blown by her own hesitancy. And after that there hadn’t really seemed to be any more opportunities. She had been under the impression that once she had settled into adulthood, then she would feel more comfortable with herself, that all her insecurities would be washed away by the wisdom of years. But lately Kate had just found the confidence she had draining away instead.
Kate found Beth, her line manager, towards the end of her shift and pulled her to one side.
‘Would you be annoyed if I went for it?’ she asked after telling her about the job opening.
‘You know, I thought about you when I saw that one,’ Beth replied. ‘I can write you a recommendation letter if you like?’
Kate struggled to maintain her composure, wanting to make sure that Beth knew how grateful she was without overdoing it with bubbly enthusiasm, but as soon as she was out of eyeline and earshot, she allowed herself to take a moment to feel her heart racing, and smiled.
She caught the figure in her peripheral vision first, a strange blur of movement far too fast for the gentle pace of the gallery. Kate had had to warn bored teenagers to stop running around or playing hide and seek before, but the figure had seemed too tall to be a kid. Aware now that someone had darted behind a pillar to avoid her for some reason, her hand went to the radio clipped to her waist, ready to alert security if she needed.
‘Excuse me, can I help you?’ Kate started as she approached, before cocking her head with recognition.
The man who had been trying and failing to hide from her was Freddie.
Chapter 11
Freddie was having a disaster of a day.
His mum had been trying to arrange a good time to chat for the last couple of weeks, but Freddie had been putting it off. Christine Weir often sent her son a gentle text message first thing in the morning, and Freddie would reply in an optimistic way that would make it sound as if he was content and that no further intervention was necessary: a bright, Looks like it’s going to be a lovely day today! or a just a simple, I’m good, how’s Dad doing? But he knew he was putting off the inevitable, that he had to talk to his mum at some point. Freddie loved his mum dearly, but that didn’t always mean that he wanted to share his feelings with her.
How is everything? she had asked.
Freddie missed the text message. He was in the shower, and hadn’t thought to look at his phone once he was back in his bedroom.