‘Yes, but we’re bored with lurking now. Come on, Jane. Let’s go to my room.’ Daphne turned and led the way out of the kitchen. The man came to the foot of the stairs and then followed them halfway up until Daphne stopped.
‘I got you something.’ Jane saw the man smile as he extracted a little package from his pocket. Her friend took the gift and pulled off the wrapping paper. It was a brass model of three tiny monkeys and the man showed how their paws were placed to cover eyes, ears and mouth. ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ As he spoke, he held on to Daphne’s wrist with one hand and pointed out details with the other.
Daphne’s hands were already familiar to Jane – small and wiry, they were hands to pick locks or tie complicated knots. Her nails were bitten and sometimes coloured with felt-tip pens or patterned with matt-white corrector fluid – something she did when bored in class. She had several cheap silver rings, including a puzzle ring that Jane coveted.
‘Thanks.’ Daphne sounded as careless as though he’d just passed her the bread at table. But her expression was one of pleasure and of power. ‘Come on!’ she gestured to Jane. Then in an exaggerated American accent, ‘Let’s get outta here.’
The last time Jane had spoken with Daphne must have been at least twenty years earlier when she was living in some sort of experimental cooperative outside London. So it was odd to make her way to the entrance of an old-fashioned, redbrick mansion block with well-trimmed gardens and polished brass door furniture. But then nobody had gone through more transformations than her old schoolfriend. Maybe it should not be surprising to find her ensconced in this haut-bourgeois residence.
Daphne was waiting in an open doorway at the end of a muffled, non-descript corridor on the fourth floor. As they hugged, Jane smelled a rich, amber-scented perfume and noticed how like her mother she had become. Ellie had been beautiful in the way that aged well – with olive skin and a face so mobile with expression and with such intensity of gaze that you’d never notice if there was a wrinkle.
‘Who’d have guessed? When we were young, I could never imagine being this ancient.’ Her low, throaty voice still cracked up into raucous laughter that Jane remembered from their teens. ‘Well, what the fuck, eh? Anyway, look at you! You look fantastic. I love your cropped hair – all spiky. When did you chop off your Rapunzel tresses? God, you must tell me everything.’ She spun around lightly and gestured for Jane to follow her, which she did, immediately feeling large-boned and leaden-footed.
The flat was painted odd, uncoordinated colours – turquoise in the hall, purple in the sitting room and mustardy ochre in the kitchen – and it was as messy as the rest of the building was orderly. Piles of books and clothes were strewn on the floors, food-encrusted plates and mugs were abandoned on shelves and tables and the layer of dust that covered most surfaces was so thick that Jane only just refrained from running her finger through it to make a mark.
‘Coffee? Tea? A glass of wine? A vodka shot? What would make you happiest?’
‘Oh, just a coffee, thanks.’ She smiled politely. They moved into the kitchen and Daphne put water and coffee in a battered stove-top espresso-maker.
‘You know, I’d never seen one of those until I went to Barnabas Road. I thought it was so exotic.’ Jane laughed, then regretted that she was revealing too much. She remembered the vaguely threatening hissing and bubbling as the black liquid entered the top chamber. Be careful, she thought.
‘So it’s a bit like stepping back into the ’70s here, isn’t it?’ Jane gestured to a throw on an armchair patterned with bold orange flowers and a collection of publicity photos and postcards of Marc Bolan, David Bowie and other stars from their youth. Daphne chuckled somewhat bashfully. ‘Yes, we thought we’d go the whole hog. Seeing as the place was still almost exactly as it was forty-odd years ago, we’re continuing the theme. Saved me having to redecorate. Libby and I are planning an evening where we get rigged up in Lurex tank tops, flared cords and Day-Glo wigs and dance to old recordings of Abba and Top of the Pops.’
She laid out some of the brashly patterned ‘vintage’ crockery on a tray with the coffee. ‘So! You must tell me everything. Still pushing the boundaries of science? Curing the world of cancer? I imagine you’re heading for a Nobel by now.’
‘Yup, Nobel Prize any day now. But yes, still working in cancer research. Still just as obsessed.’
‘And what about…’ Daphne hesitated. ‘Your husband?’
‘Oh, Michael’s fine – a head teacher now. The principal at Redgrove Academy. In Southwark.’
‘Such high-fliers! I expect your boys are geniuses too.’
Jane laughed at the exaggeration. ‘Well, they’re all grown up now. Josh is finishing a PhD in physics at Imperial.’
‘Wow. Following in his mother’s footsteps then?’
‘Yes, he’s firmly wedded to the sciences.’ She tried not to appear too proud, disapproving of boastful parents and knowing she could easily fall into the trap. ‘Toby’s taken a different path, though – halfway through a degree in English and drama at Birmingham.’
‘Amazing. So since I last saw you, you’ve brought up two brilliant sons. You must be so proud. It sounds like the perfect family.’ Jane scrutinised Daphne for a sign of irony, but detected none.
‘Of course, I’m convinced that Libby is the best, most brilliant, prettiest girl that ever existed, even if she is only twelve.’ Daphne flushed slightly from enthusiasm and produced a picture on her phone of a sweet if fairly ordinary, blue-eyed girl who looked nothing like her mother. ‘It’s so sad you can’t meet her today,’ she continued. ‘She’s at a Greek lesson, then going straight to a friend’s. Next time, though – definitely!’
‘So it’s the two of you living here?’
‘Yes, no man.’ Daphne had always favoured directness over the evasive, characteristically English ‘beating the bush’, as she called it aged twelve. ‘It’s better that way. I’ve tried to keep my relationships separate from home life with Libby – certainly in recent years. And at the moment there’s nobody anyway. I wouldn’t marry. Not again. Constantine was enough to put me off that for life.’ She looked away for a moment. ‘It all got quite scary and out of control. Not just the drugs and all sorts of unmentionables, but he got pretty nasty. Often on the verge of violence.’ She turned to face Jane. ‘You know I had a miscarriage? It was quite late. I think that all set me back years – in terms of sorting myself out.’
‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.’ She’s still so pretty, thought Jane. You wouldn’t guess what she’d been through.
‘Yeah, well anyway, long-gone and all good now. The last guy in my life was Kit and he was away on assignment most of the time. A photographer. Wars and any other available horrors – you know the sort of thing.’ She laughed. ‘That ended last summer. I’m quite content, though. It’s actually rather peaceful.’
Daphne led the way out of the kitchen. ‘Let’s go through to the living room. You must see the view.’ It was just as she’d said – the south-facing windows gave on to the river and looked straight across to the backs of the tall, narrow, semi-detached houses on Barnabas Road.
‘Your old place has changed colour. It’s the pale grey one, isn’t it? Wasn’t it dark green in your day?’
‘That’s right. Here, take these.’ Daphne handed her some binoculars and Jane focused on the building that was so significant in her youth that she still revisited it in dreams. A Tube train crossed the bridge, sending gentle tremors through the room like a milder version of the regular rumbling that was part of life in Barnabas Road.