'You're the woman who's been kicked out of her own flat?' she said.
Laura looked apologetic.
'I just said that you were my best friend and that you'd had one or two problems,' she said.
It didn't seem to matter and it broke the ice. Joanna escorted me in and started telling me in too much detail about what she'd done to the house and how long it had taken. She obviously knew other things about me as well.
It was an improbably good party, though. It was a large flat with a garden you could walk out to through French windows in the kitchen. The garden was flickering with candles in jam jars. There was a salsa band, a real-life salsa band, in the living room and the bath was full of ice and bottles of beer. Apart from Laura and Tony, there was nobody at all I knew, which I've always found kind of fun. A party crammed with strangers is like going to another planet for the evening. I was struggling with the top of a bottle when a man next to me took it, used his lighter to get the top off and handed it back to me.
'There,' he said.
'You're looking a bit too proud of yourself,' I said.
'I'm Callum,' he said.
I looked at him suspiciously. He was tall, with dark frizzy hair and with that funny form of hair growth about the size of a postage stamp just under the bottom lip. He caught me looking at it.
'You can touch it, if you want,' he said.
'Is there a word for it?' I asked.
'I don't know.'
'Is it difficult to do?'
'Compared with what?' he asked. 'Brain surgery?'
'A beard.'
'It doesn't seem that hard.'
'My name's Miranda,' I said.
'I know,' he said. 'You're the woman who's moved out of her own flat.'
'It's not that big a deal. It's just a pathetic, sad tale.'
'It sounded pretty funny the way I heard it,' said Callum.
'Well, it isn't,' I said. 'It's sad.'
I went into my Ancient Mariner mode, telling him the full story. While I was talking, he steered me towards the food table and loaded up a plate for me with a slice of pork pie and two kinds of salad. I'd told the story to numerous people, but the odd thing was that this time it did come out funny. Partly it was because Callum was about five inches taller than me and was looking down at me with a quizzical expression, his hair drooping over his forehead. Also, it's hard to remain dignified and solemn while simultaneously telling a story, drinking from a bottle of beer, holding a plate and trying to eat from it.
'What you should do,' said Callum when I had finished, 'is chuck them out.'
'I can't do that,' I said instantly.
'Then treat this like a holiday, except that it's in the place where you already live. You've got housesitters, so you can go out and have fun in London.'
The conversation meandered on to other areas. He already knew what I worked at and, like most people, he was too impressed by the fact that I went up ladders and sawed pieces of wood for a living. In the end he asked me for my phone number and I told him I didn't have a phone number, that was the whole point, hadn't he been listening? He laughed and said that he was a friend of Tony's and he would ring me there.
I felt a bit ashamed when I saw Laura and Tony hovering, obviously wanting to be on their way. I was meant to be the depressed one and I'd apparently had a better evening at their friend's party than they had. In the car on the drive back I remembered what Callum had said.
'I'm going to chuck them out,' I said.
Laura looked round with a puzzled expression.
'What?' she said.
'I've got too caught up in all of this,' I said. 'I haven't been thinking straight. Now I'm going to act like a normal person. I'll find somewhere for Kerry and whatsisname to stay, even if I have to put them up in a hotel.'
'You can still stay with us, you know,' said Laura. 'Can't she, Tony?'
'What?'
'Can't she stay with us?'
'You're the boss.'
'Oh, for God's sake.'
I intervened.
'No. You've been lovely. I feel like I've been trapped in a room with the heating on and the curtains closed and something rotting somewhere. I'm going to pull back the curtains and open the window.'
'What about the thing that's rotting?' asked Laura.
'I think that was just in my imagination. You know, if other people want to be weird, that's their problem. I'm going to get on with my own life.'
'It's good to hear you talk like that. Why the sudden change?'
I laughed.
'Maybe it was talking to Callum. I'd been thinking I was in a Greek tragedy. Maybe I'm just in a situation comedy.'
CHAPTER 20
I fastened the laces of my trainers and drank a glass of water before opening the front door. It was half past six in the morning, still dark outside and much colder than the previous day. There was a glint of frost on the pavement, and car windows were iced up. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to think that this was masochistic. Instead of torturing myself like a medieval nun, I should go back to bed – or, at least, the sofa bed. It would still be warm from my body. I put aside that thought, pulled the door shut behind me and set out on a run that would take me up the small roads to the park.
It had been a long time. At first I felt chilly and a little stiff, but gradually I settled into a rhythm, and as I jogged – past the newsagent that was just opening up its metal shutters, past the deserted primary school, the recycling centre – I watched the dawn turn to day. Lights came on in houses; street lamps turned off; cars spluttered into life along the roadside; the sky that had been dark grey became gradually lighter and streaked with pink clouds. The postman was doing his rounds. A woman walking three huge dogs straining at their leads was pulled past me. I thought of people turning over in bed to stop their alarm clocks; children stretching and yawning and wriggling down under their duvets for the last snatch of sleep; showers running, kettles boiling, bread toasting… All of a sudden I felt a small stab of happiness, to be running along the empty London streets as the sun rose on a glorious late autumn day.
I stopped at the bottom of the road on my way back to pick up a pack of streaky bacon and some white bread. In the flat, no one was stirring yet, so I had a quick shower and pulled on trousers and a jersey that was old and warm and raspberry pink. I put on the kettle for coffee and started to grill the bacon. Laura's door opened and her head poked round. She looked half-asleep still, like a young girl, with mussed hair and rosy cheeks. She sniffed the air and murmured something unintelligible.
'Coffee and bacon sandwiches,' I said. 'Do you want it in bed?'
'It's Monday morning!'
'I thought we should start the week well.'
'How long have you been up?'
'An hour or so. I went running.'
'Why are you so cheerful all of a sudden?'
'I'm taking my life in hand,' I said. 'This is the new me.'
'God,' she said, and withdrew her head. A moment later she had joined me in the kitchen, wrapped in a thick dressing gown.
She sat at the kitchen table and watched as I put the rashers between thick slices of bread, and boiled milk for the coffee. She nibbled at her sandwich cautiously. I chomped into mine.
'What are you up to today?' she asked.
I slurped at my coffee. Warmth was spreading through me.
'I had an idea in the night. I'm going to ring round the people who I know are going to be out of the country for a bit. There are quite a few because our customers often want us to do work for them while they're not there. I'll ask if they want a responsible couple to housesit for them. There's at least one family with loads of pets that someone would have to feed twice a day anyway. Maybe they'd be glad of Kerry and Brendan staying. I'm sure I can find someone like that – it's much better than looking in the classifieds. So…' I poured myself another cup of coffee and topped it up with hot milk, then took another sandwich. 'I'm going to find them somewhere else to live because they're obviously not going to do it themselves, are they? And then Troy can be with me like we'd planned. Then I'm going to the Reclamation Centre with Bill and then I'm going to do my accounts and then I'll go to my flat and collect a few things and tell them when they've got to be out by. There.'