These Days of Ours (27 page)

‘Which self, though? The self that’s moping around, writing a book nobody wants to read?’ Charlie straightened up. Brightened. ‘I could come to China with you!’

‘Ah. Well.’

‘Oh no, Kate you’ve—’

‘Cancelled? Yes.’ Kate shrugged. ‘I know.
Again
.’ Her focus on Yulan House had led, inevitably, to an aspiration to visit Jia Tang.

Charlie bent to interrogate her. His breath smelled of gravy. ‘What’s the reason this time?’

‘I’m too busy with work.’

‘Your company practically runs itself.’

‘Only somebody who’s never run a business would say that.’

‘It’s Angus, isn’t it?’

‘No! He loves Yulan House.’

The white building among the magnolia trees had captured Angus’s imagination. The annual fundraiser at Astor House contributed to the cost of building a clinic in the grounds. Although
they didn’t recognise any of them, the children had reportedly loved the video of famous faces wishing them ‘Good luck from London!’ in stuttering Mandarin.

‘It’s a shrine,’ Angus had laughed when he saw the photo of Kate’s spare room she’d sent to Yulan House, the space where she hung photos and displayed the myriad
trinkets the children sent her above ranks of files and folders. Spotting the prized ‘Chinese teapot’ snap of a tiny Kate with her dad, he’d asked, ‘Do you think he’d
approve of me?’

‘He’d approve of anybody who made me happy.’

When Angus had asked, ‘And I do, don’t I, despite it all?’ there’d been a plea in his voice that jarred with his physical bulk.

Charlie brought her back to him, tousling her hair as if she was Flo. ‘I know Angus loves Yulan House. I meant you won’t go without him. You two are tethered together.’

‘I haven’t had time to fix my place up properly.’

‘Because you’re always here.’

‘I like it here.’

‘And you like Angus, the lucky old lump. When are you both coming to mine? I’m fed up asking.’

‘It’s hard to drag him away from the club. Customers expect to see him.’

‘Just you, then.’ Charlie lifted his chin to look down at her knowingly. ‘Or do you have to ask permission?’

Kate poked him hard, glad he’d found a lighter tone. ‘I stay with Angus because I want to.’
And because I have to.

‘It’s . . . how long since I cooked you dinner? My fish pie isn’t as good as Lucy’s but I do my best.’ Charlie pushed hair that needed a cut out of his eyes.
‘This,’ he said, pointing first at her and then at himself, ‘is
good
, isn’t it?’

‘What are you on about?’ Kate felt something jump in her breast. Was it panic? Gladness? Through the glazed door she saw Angus lead a conga through the back bar.

‘Friendship,’ Charlie went on. ‘You’re my best friend in the world, Kate. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

A rush of feeling made Kate bow her head, lips pursed tight.

Charlie put a finger beneath her chin and lifted her face. A sense memory, at a deeper level than thought, silenced Kate. The younger Charlie had done that to her a thousand times and what came
next was always a kiss.

‘This,’ said Charlie, ‘is better than what we thought we had. This can’t split up.’

‘Friendship,’ agreed Kate, ‘trumps love every time.’ She stood up, startling Charlie with the abruptness of the movement. ‘Shall we get back to the
others?’

Indoors, the party began to peter out. There were more defections.

Charlie slipped away.

Mum’s driver – a female: ‘very modern,’ said Mum – had strict instructions to toot the horn as they entered the close, in case the neighbours hadn’t noticed
Mrs Minelli coming home in a Mercedes.

Kilian melted away at some point, and Rosie was picked up by a dubious-looking man.

Torn from her new Wii, Flo wore the scarf knitted for her by Kate as she hopped down the steps with her mother and stepdad, Leon guffawing at his own jokes about the dimensions of Becca’s
bottom.

‘Kate, precious, I love your family . . .’ Angus sank like a toppled oak to the sofa.

‘But thank God they’ve gone?’

‘Exactly.’ Angus pulled Kate to him and together they jostled and fidgeted until they’d achieved maximum sofa comfiness.

Outside a lone drunkard sang a carol mash-up. Inside the old house creaked and ticked as the fire crackled. Kate assumed Astor House was haunted. By Ghosts of Piss Ups Past, perhaps. She’d
grown accustomed to the odd merger of domesticity and trade, to the green glow of the fire exit sign and the glimpse of the cash register in the back bar.

Holding up her hand, she said, ‘I love my new ring.’

‘Your poor ma thought it was an engagement ring.’

‘Becca put her right.’

Angus’s impression was spot on. ‘No way!’ he flounced, à la Becca. ‘If Angus proposed he’d get her a massive diamond not a stupid pearl.’

‘
No offence!’ They mimicked her postscript together.

‘Don’t,’ said Kate gently, staying his hand as Angus reached out for the decanter on a low table. ‘We’re too cosy to move.’ She snuggled deeper, pinning him
down. ‘Another Christmas almost over. Today was a microcosm of our relationship.’

‘Don’t call it that. We’re having a grand affair, not a relationship. A conveyor belt of hanky panky and profiteroles.’

‘Whatever you call it, this morning was like our first dates.’ Both of them fresh as daisies, she explained, exploring each other. By the time they put the turkey in the oven they
were on to the later dates, sure this was something special, a festive feel in the air. ‘And now, we’re relaxed and languid, because we’ve seen each other at our worst and our
best, we’ve shared our secrets and we still love one another.’

‘But today’s not over yet.’ Angus shifted, the better to see Kate’s face. ‘Now you’ve compared today to our
relationship
, what does that make tomorrow?
Our break-up?’

‘Tomorrow is Boxing Day. Just Boxing Day.’

‘How come my secrets haven’t sent you screaming for the door?’

Kate knew he was remembering Mum reading out the Christmas card.
Kiss kiss kiss.
‘It was too late. I was already in love.’

‘I’m going to try. Really
try
, darling.’

‘Angus, don’t promise if you—’

‘I mean it.’

‘Good.’ Such understatement.

The gurglings of their tummies woke them up when they nodded off. Sitting up, sticky eyed, the room was still warm. The open fire, being gas, hadn’t gone out.

‘Almost midnight.’ Kate yawned, her breath noxious enough to qualify as a weapon.

‘Let’s have one last snifter.’ Almost toppling off the sofa, Angus leaned over and groped for the brandy.

‘Darling. Remember what you said . . .’ Kate laid her hand on Angus’s arm.

‘Kate, angel, don’t be such a fucking killjoy.’

It was her own fault. Kate had set herself up. Comparing today to their affair meant that their recent past was mirrored in the dregs of Christmas Day.

The fire was out. The lights were turned up full. Kate collected discarded glasses and smeared plates, stepping around the rug.

From the rug, where he lay stranded like an upended turtle, Angus hollered, ‘Look at you! You’re turning into your mother!’

‘Come on, you.’ Kate knelt, carefully jocular. ‘Time for bed.’

As she’d known he would, Angus lashed out, his legs pumping. The predictability of it all was one of the worst aspects of her situation. ‘Unhand me!’

‘It’s late, darling.’

‘The night is young.’

When Angus latched his arms about her neck, Kate used his ardour to heave him up until they both knelt, awkwardly facing each other. It was like a shambling Olympic Floor Exercise. Kate pulled
at the much heavier Angus, who, limp and giggling, resisted her.

The four poster was three flights of stairs away. Kate persisted. She did this most nights, so she knew what it took to haul Angus to bed.

Convulsing, Angus broke free and scuttled through to the bar on all fours like a cockroach. ‘Let’s break out the rum!’

‘I’ve had enough to drink,’ said Kate. She added, tentatively, lightly, ‘and so have you, sweetheart! Let’s get you to bed.’

‘Seductress!’ Angus hauled himself to a standing position against the wooden bar counter. He slapped his tummy. ‘You only want me for my body.’ He grasped, like a baby
grasps for a rusk, at the optics on the far side of the bar. ‘Plenty of time for monkey business after a tot of rum.’ There would be no monkey business in the four poster that
night.

‘OK! I’ll be your barmaid.’ Bright. Chipper. That way she could dilute the booze, although she ran the risk of him charging like a bull if she went too far with that trick.
‘Here’s your rum, kind sir.’

The kiss Angus blew was wet and grotesque.

Kate’s analogy held; the end of their Christmas Day was tediously inevitable.

On a stool, Angus fulminated against imaginary foes. ‘Fucking Kilian,’ he spat, eyes blank. ‘After all I’ve done for him.’

Kate didn’t ask what Kilian had done because Kilian hadn’t ‘done’ anything.

‘Barmaid! I’m thirsty.’

Kate filled his glass, adding a surreptitious measure of water. She knew his thirst could never be satisfied. It was a need that had nothing to do with hydration, or partying. To the lame ducks
he supported, the journalists he feted, being Angus looked like a heap of fun but Angus needed to stop being Angus at regular intervals, or he couldn’t carry on.

‘Smile, can’t you?’ Angus’s machine gun had swivelled to find Kate, as she’d known it would. ‘It’s fucking Christmas.’

Lover and nursemaid was an uneasy mix. Prolonged exposure to Angus’s alter ego resulted in a dimming of Kate’s inner lights, a shrinking of her expectations of
happiness. She’d been lured into intimacy by Angus’s virtues, each as big and as bold as his faults. By the time she’d looked up
alcoholism
on Google, Kate was trapped.

Trapped by love, which throws the most unbreakable bonds of all around people. And, furthermore, trapped by Angus’s potential.

It doesn’t have to be like this.
That truth nagged and fretted at Kate. Her lover was in the grip of a disease, but it was one that could be controlled. If he’d been one iota
less fond and loving, Kate would have fled long ago. But somewhere inside the after-hours monster who roamed Astor House was the man she loved, who she would wake up with the next morning.

And when even the love grew thin, when it was sorely tested by Angus’s crimes, there was duty.

He needs me
.

‘Hey, who’s that texting at this bloody hour?’

‘Mum. She says thank you for a wonderful day and the lady driver was lovely.’ Kate could never admit to Mum that Angus hired chauffeurs because of his tendency to jump, pissed, into
the driver’s seat.

Eyes filled with tears, Angus said, ‘God, I love your mother.’

It could have gone either way; last week Mum had been branded a ‘Mesopotamian harlot’.

Patting his pockets, Angus seemed to have lost something.

Guessing what it was he searched for and hoping to distract him, Kate said, ‘I had an email from Jia Tang today. The children have finished painting the fresco in the dining hall. It looks
amazing. She thinks February will be a good time to visit so should I—’

‘Go whenever you like.’ Angus’s hand was stuck fast in his pocket. ‘I couldn’t give a stuff, as Rhett Butler almost said.’ He wrenched his hand free and
stopped, taken aback by the Christmas card he’d pulled out of his pocket. Kate was glad; Angus’s drunken bile about Yulan House – the antithesis of his daytime attitude –
was hard to absorb and forgive.

Forgive. That wasn’t the word for what Kate did. Like much about Angus, there was no word for the feelings she went through. Midnight Angus was the opposite of the daylight man, a deformed
caricature. The vile opinions he spouted weren’t his own. Not really.

‘Esther.’ Angus’s face melted with sadness as he straightened out the creases of the card. ‘Where are you, Esther?’

Questions would be asked; Mum had sensed a secret when she mentioned the taboo name. If she’d had time to take in the handwritten date at the top of the card, she’d have seen that
Esther had signed her name at Christmas 1999.

Gently, as if praying, Kate said, ‘She’ll come back. One day.’

The rest of the night hinged on what Angus did next. Kate was ready to duck, but instead she had to brace herself as Angus sobbed, his arms around her, burying his face in her as if he wanted to
burrow through her body.

Kate almost toppled, but she held fast and she held him up.

Having refused to go to bed, Angus lay in state on the sofa. From the tilt of his head Kate reckoned he’d soon nod off. With enormous experience in the field, she was an
authority on his behaviours.

When his voice dwindled and the story tailed off, Kate tucked a blanket around him and doused all the candles he insisted on. She lived in fear of hearing Angus had burned to death in this
panelled house.

Creeping away, Kate let herself out. The chill of the courtyard garden was welcome on her burning skin after the claustrophobic building.

I wish I smoked
. The bad habit would suit the moment. Kate longed to text Charlie, to wake him with a howl, but she would never ‘out’ Angus, not even to Charlie.

Pacing the small yard, Kate thought about Esther. Angus would flip if he knew Kate had tracked her down. Over a herbal tea in a Shoreditch café – so nearby! – Esther had
finally said, ‘Just
no
,’ holding up paint stained hands as if to fend Kate off. ‘I get it, really, you’re doing this for the best but I won’t see him.’
She’d filled in a lot of gaps in the narrative.

Esther had been twelve when her mother had ‘finally got her shit together’ and left Angus. The divorce had been ‘rough’. ‘I went to Dad for weekends,’ said
Esther. She’d seemed ready to cry but Kate could tell the young woman was made of strong stuff. ‘Sometimes it was funny but mostly it was . . .’

Kate had known the word she needed was ‘sad’.

‘When I was fifteen I said, right, you’ve got no more responsibilities, Big A. You’re not my dad any more.’ The girl’s voice had cracked on that quote.
‘He’s not dad material. It’s not his fault. But it’s not mine either.’