‘Gosh,’ said Katy, coming through with her hair wrapped in a towel. Her grey tracksuit trousers and buttoned-up cardigan did not promise any frisky post-breakfast foreplay. ‘You’re no writer,’ she said, ‘you’re a food sculptor.’
‘We aim,’ I hummed, ‘to please.’
She picked up the Daily Telegraph from the doormat, sat down with it and dug in. She made straight for the Weekend section of the supplement, which I never read, even when I’m busy moving house and can be distracted by share prices in Singapore.
I joined Katy at the table. This was a nice room. There was an overgrown little garden out back. In the front was a raised pavement. I watched human legs and canine legs and pushchair wheels go by. On the pine dresser was a collection of mainstream CDs. All very Princess Diana: Elton John, Pavarotti, the Four Seasons. A Chinese rug hung on the wall, on the mantelpiece was a zoo of ethnicky sculpted animals. Terracotta tiles and Japanese lampshades. It was a room from the Weekend section of the Daily Telegraph. ‘The lack of morning-after recriminations is refreshing.’ I only meant it as a pleasantry.
She looked over the paper. ‘Why should there be any recriminations? We were both consenting adults.’ She slid in another forkful of egg. ‘Albeit bloody drunk consenting adults.’
‘True.’ I bit on a bit of chilli and had to swish my mouth out with water. ‘Would you like to be a drunk consenting adult with me again sometime?’
Katy thought about it for a full three seconds. ‘I don’t think so, Marco, no.’
Hey, she remembered my name. ‘Oh. Fair enough.’
I poured us some more coffee.
‘Katy, I hope this isn’t an impertinent question, but I saw the photo in the toilet and I wondered if I wasn’t treading on anyone’s turf here?’
‘Nobody’s turf but mine. He was my husband. We separated, then he went and died.’
I just kept the lid on a mysterious giggle. ‘Oh... I’m terribly sorry. I don’t know what to say.’
‘He was a bloody clot. He always insisted on having the last word. It happened four months ago. Around Wimbledon time. Undiagnosed diabetes in Hong Kong.’
I let a respectable silence elapse. ‘More toast?’
‘Thank you.’
The doorbell rang. Katy went over to the door. ‘Who is it?’
‘Registered delivery for a Mrs Forbes!’ yelled a man’s voice.
‘Ms Forbes!’ Katy said in a disciplining-the-dog-for-the-hundredth-time voice, peered through the peephole, and undid the bolts. ‘Ms! Ms!’
A lad in blue overalls and shiny hair and ears as big as a chimpanzee’s heaved a packing case into the hallway. He saw me and his face said, ‘Nice one Cyril.’ ‘Sign here please, Miss Forbes.’
She signed and he was gone.
We looked at the packing case for a moment. ‘Nice big present,’ I commented. ‘Is your birthday coming up?’
‘It’s not a present,’ she said. ‘It’s already mine. Come and give me a hand, would you? In the cupboard under the sink there’s a hammer and a cold chisel, in a box with some fuses...’
We prised open the lid, and the four sides fell away.
A Queen Anne chair.
Katy’s thoughts wandered a long way away. ‘Marco,’ she said, ‘thank you for making breakfast. It was really... But I think I’d like you to go now.’ There was a tremor in her voice. ‘You’re not a bad man.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Could I just hop into your shower?’
‘I’d like you to go now.’
The avenue was littered with autumn. The air was smoky with it. Not yet 10 a.m., it was crisp and sunny and foggy all at once. I’d try to get to Alfred’s by late lunchtime, Tim Cavendish’s by late afternoon, and back to my place by early evening in time to meet Gibreel. It wasn’t really worth going back to my flat now. I’d just have to smell of sex all day.
Katy Forbes wasn’t the stablest of campers but at least she hadn’t been a head-case like that vamp of Camden Town who’d tied me up to her bedstead with a leather belt and videoed herself releasing her pet tarantula on my torso. ‘Stop screaming,’ she’d screamed. ‘Baggins has had his sacs removed...’ It hadn’t been Baggins’s sacs that were at the forefront of my mind. Katy’s intellect must have impressed me enough to go for the writer identity, rather than the drummer. Even so. The Morning After Me was not overly impressed with the Night Before Me. I pass through many Mes in the course of the day, each one selfish with his time. The Lying in Bed Me, and the Enjoying the Hot Shower Me are particularly selfish. The Late Me loathes the pair of them.
I really am a drummer. My band’s called The Music of Chance. I named it after a novel by that New York bloke. I describe us as a ‘loose musical cooperative’ — there are about ten members, and whoever’s around performs on whatever’s happening. Plus, most of us are pretty loose. We play our own material mostly, though if I’m strapped for cash we’ll play whatever will put bums on seats. We’ve been offered a recording contract, by the biggest record company in southern Belgium, but we thought we should hold out for something more EMI or Geffen-sized. The Music of Chance is pretty big in the Slovak Republic, too. We played a few gigs there last summer that went down very well.
I really am a writer, too. A ghostwriter. My first published project was the autobiography of a pace bowler called Dennis Mackeson who played for England a few times in the mid-eighties, when it rained a lot. The Twistlethwaite Tornado got great reviews in the Yorkshire Post — ‘Not in a million years would I have guessed it that Mr Mackeson could bowl ’em out with his nib as well as his yorkers! “Owzat!”’ On the strength of the first book I’m currently writing the life story of this old guy Alfred, who lives on the edge of Hampstead Heath with his younger — though not by much — boyfriend, Roy. I go, he reminisces about his younger days, I tape it, jot notes, and by next week I write it up into a narrative. Roy’s the son of some Canadian steel tycoon, and he pays me a weekly retainer fee. It helps pay the rent and the wine bars.
You could get lost in these north-east London streets. I was half-lost myself. They curve around themselves in cul-de-sacs and crescents and groves. A few months ago I spent the night bonking the Welsh Ladies Kickboxing Champion in a caravan somewhere beyond Hammersmith. She’d said that the whole of London seemed like one vast rat’s maze to her. I’d said yes, but what if the rats happened to like being in the maze?
The leaves are covering up the cracks in the pavement. When I was a kid I could lose myself for hours kicking through fallen leaves, while avoiding dog turds and cracks. I used to be superstitious, but I’m not any more. I used to be a Christian, but I’m not one of those any more either. Then I was a Marxist. I used to wait with my cadre leader outside Queensway Tube station and ask people what they thought about the Bosnian Question. Of course, most people shrug you off. ‘I see, sir, no comment is it?’ I cringe to think of it now.