quite valuable paintings, horrible old watercolours. The building is having its electrics rewired this weekend so they’ve got to shut everything off until midnight on Sunday. Why these people can’t work around the clock is beyond me. Hardly any of the other flats are occupied yet, and there’s a rumour that they won’t be because, well, there’s the credit crisis, and the landlord is asking too much money.’ Julie spoke so quickly that I had trouble understanding her. I wondered if she could get a sugar rush from Nutrasweet.
‘Malcolm moved in early so that he and I could have somewhere to go. His wife wants nothing to do with the place. The paintings are in his mother’s name. The mother handles the insurance premium and doesn’t want the wife to get her hands on anything when they finally divorce. The wife lives in Henley and is on tranquillisers. Malcolm says they don’t sleep together anymore and she says they’re trying for another baby, so somebody’s lying. Obviously I’d pay you for coming in. If we don’t get away together this time, I really think it’ll be over between us.’
‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure,’ I said uncertainly. I found the complexity of other people’s relationships rather overwhelming.
‘Of course you can, you said you’re broke and Julie’s willing to pay you,’ Lou prompted, unembarrassed.
‘What if I break something?’ I hissed at Lou while Julie visited the toilet as a penalty for taking nourishment. ‘Valuable paintings. What if I left a tap running and everything got ruined? He could sue me.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, June, don’t be such a wimp. What could possibly go wrong? She told me she’s willing to donate her entire month’s salary. He must be a fantastic shag. Think of the cash, just for flat-sitting three nights. She can easily afford it.’
But I just couldn’t agree to do it. I couldn’t leave my comfort zone to go and sleep in an unfamiliar bed. The thought filled me with a strange disturbance. It crossed my mind that I might be agorophobic. I felt as though I had let everyone down, my best friend, even a woman I had never met before today.
Gordon didn’t come home that night. I tried to settle on my side of the bed, but my feet kept straying to the uncreased sheet beside me. Nothing was in its right place. At two o’clock a car stopped in the street and pumped bassy hip-hop against the windows. At three I abandoned the pretence of slumber and went downstairs to clean out the kitchen cupboards. Why do kitchens look so bright and bare when you turn the lights on in the middle of the night? As I jabbed at the brown figure-eights left by sauce bottles and jam jars, I called myself a pathetic useless doormat, but felt that nothing, not even this, could change me.
The next morning, innervated by a lack of sleep and vertiginous, disorienting dreams, I called Lou and asked for Julie’s telephone number.
CHAPTER NINE
The Ziggurat
‘M ALCOLM WILL GET a bit nervous when I tell him you’re staying there,’ Julie warned me when we met in Starbucks on Wednesday morning.
She was dressed in a taupe designer suit that was daywear to her, anniversaries and court appearances to the housewives of Hamingwell. She had something in her cheek that rattled against her teeth as she talked. I thought it must be a gobstopper. ‘He’s like a wolf, he has to pee on his own territory and bare his teeth at anyone who steps across the boundary line. And he hates anyone touching his things. He was an only child. You know how they are, always have to collect things, then have to find a place to house it all.’ She spat delicately into her hand and revealed a glass marble. ‘It’s to stop me from eating.’
A malevolent sky loomed over the town like a coming apocalypse. In the distance, four grey concrete council blocks stood guard, darkening as an iron foundry of a cloudbank settled above them. Getting away was looking more appealing by
‘Malcolm moved in early so that he and I could have somewhere to go. His wife wants nothing to do with the place. The paintings are in his mother’s name. The mother handles the insurance premium and doesn’t want the wife to get her hands on anything when they finally divorce. The wife lives in Henley and is on tranquillisers. Malcolm says they don’t sleep together anymore and she says they’re trying for another baby, so somebody’s lying. Obviously I’d pay you for coming in. If we don’t get away together this time, I really think it’ll be over between us.’
‘I’m not a hundred per cent sure,’ I said uncertainly. I found the complexity of other people’s relationships rather overwhelming.
‘Of course you can, you said you’re broke and Julie’s willing to pay you,’ Lou prompted, unembarrassed.
‘What if I break something?’ I hissed at Lou while Julie visited the toilet as a penalty for taking nourishment. ‘Valuable paintings. What if I left a tap running and everything got ruined? He could sue me.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, June, don’t be such a wimp. What could possibly go wrong? She told me she’s willing to donate her entire month’s salary. He must be a fantastic shag. Think of the cash, just for flat-sitting three nights. She can easily afford it.’
But I just couldn’t agree to do it. I couldn’t leave my comfort zone to go and sleep in an unfamiliar bed. The thought filled me with a strange disturbance. It crossed my mind that I might be agorophobic. I felt as though I had let everyone down, my best friend, even a woman I had never met before today.
Gordon didn’t come home that night. I tried to settle on my side of the bed, but my feet kept straying to the uncreased sheet beside me. Nothing was in its right place. At two o’clock a car stopped in the street and pumped bassy hip-hop against the windows. At three I abandoned the pretence of slumber and went downstairs to clean out the kitchen cupboards. Why do kitchens look so bright and bare when you turn the lights on in the middle of the night? As I jabbed at the brown figure-eights left by sauce bottles and jam jars, I called myself a pathetic useless doormat, but felt that nothing, not even this, could change me.
The next morning, innervated by a lack of sleep and vertiginous, disorienting dreams, I called Lou and asked for Julie’s telephone number.
CHAPTER NINE
The Ziggurat
‘M ALCOLM WILL GET a bit nervous when I tell him you’re staying there,’ Julie warned me when we met in Starbucks on Wednesday morning.
She was dressed in a taupe designer suit that was daywear to her, anniversaries and court appearances to the housewives of Hamingwell. She had something in her cheek that rattled against her teeth as she talked. I thought it must be a gobstopper. ‘He’s like a wolf, he has to pee on his own territory and bare his teeth at anyone who steps across the boundary line. And he hates anyone touching his things. He was an only child. You know how they are, always have to collect things, then have to find a place to house it all.’ She spat delicately into her hand and revealed a glass marble. ‘It’s to stop me from eating.’
A malevolent sky loomed over the town like a coming apocalypse. In the distance, four grey concrete council blocks stood guard, darkening as an iron foundry of a cloudbank settled above them. Getting away was looking more appealing by
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