Clive rose to his feet and started clearing away the plates. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘And arguably, we need them more than we need Dual Power Discount Swaps.’
After he had left the room, Charlotte asked Richard: ‘So, are you looking for something else now?’
‘Not just at the moment. Need to find my feet again first. We should be all right for a year or two anyway. If push comes to shove, we can always sell the Porsche.’
Jocasta looked across at him sharply, as if he had just casually raised the possibility that she might prostitute herself. Poppy laughed: ‘But you never drive it anyway. That car hasn’t moved from outside your flat for three months.’
‘We’re afraid we’ll lose our parking space,’ hissed Jocasta, without a trace of self-mockery. She got up to go to the toilet.
After that, Richard quite obviously turned his back on me, and began a long and animated conversation with Poppy. In fact, from what I could overhear of their conversation, he was openly flirting with her. I’d noticed that he and Jocasta hadn’t had much to say to each other all evening, and it now began to occur to me that, with his loss of job and status, their relationship was probably under strain. But what on earth could Poppy find to like about this self-satisfied oaf? I strained to hear as much as I could, but it was difficult, with Clive trying to engage me in a dialogue about Donald Crowhurst (‘Poppy tells me that his story has captured your imagination’) and her mother making ferocious small talk about a family friend who had just bought a cottage on one of the Shetland Isles. For the next hour and a half, Poppy and I did not get the chance to exchange a single word. Finally I looked at my watch and realized that I would have to leave if I was going to catch the 11.34 to Watford. There were other trains leaving later than that, but I didn’t want to travel home in the middle of the night; and let’s face it, this evening had been a write-off.
‘Come next door for a minute,’ said Clive. ‘There were some things I wanted to give you before you go.’
We went into the next room, a sort of sitting room cum study. Charlotte’s flat was on the third floor of a mansion block overlooking a serene and leafy garden square. Perhaps this used to be one of the bedrooms: it struck me that it was a large flat for a woman to be living in all by herself.
‘Here, I brought you the book,’ said Clive, proudly. ‘And the DVD.’
He handed me an old hardback copy of Ron Hall and Nicholas Tomalin’s book, The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, and a DVD of Deep Water, the feature-length documentary that had recently been made about his journey.
‘You’ll enjoy these,’ he predicted, happily. ‘The whole story just gets more fascinating the more you find out about it.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Let me know how I can get them back to you. Through Poppy, maybe.’
‘Or directly, if you prefer,’ he said, and handed me his card. It gave his business address as Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I hadn’t even known that he was a lawyer. ‘Send me an email or something anyway – let me know what you think of the film.’
‘Yes,’ I said, for form’s sake. ‘I’ll do that.’
Clive hesitated; he was clearly on the point of saying something more personal.
‘Poppy told me …’ he began, and left a pause – during which I wondered exactly what Poppy had told him about me. Maybe she had told him that she was hugely attracted to me, but embarrassed to admit it, because of the age difference? ‘Poppy told me that you’ve been off work with depression.’
‘Ah,’ I said. ‘That.’ Curious how that piece of information seemed to be following me everywhere I went. ‘Yes, but I think … I think I’m over it now.’
‘That’s good to know,’ said Clive. His smile was kind. ‘All the same, you know – these things take time. I was just thinking about your trip to Shetland.’
‘Just what I need, probably. Take me out of myself.’
‘Probably. But it’ll be lonely up there. And you’ll be a long way from anyone you know.’
‘No, I’ll be fine. I’m really looking forward to it.’
‘Good. I’m glad to hear it.’ He patted me gently on the back, and said, rather unexpectedly: ‘Take care, Max.’ But I was far more interested to see that Poppy had just appeared by his side, with her coat on.
‘Thought I’d walk you to the station,’ she said. ‘We didn’t really get the chance to talk much, did we?’
I was glowing with happiness as we walked side by side to South Kensington tube. The fact she had gone out of her way to keep me company; the fact that our bodies kept almost colliding, because we walked so close to each other: there seemed a perfect logic to these things. It felt as though everything that had happened to me in the days since meeting Poppy had been leading up to one charged, pivotal moment, and that moment was now very nearly upon us. Just a few more steps, until we reached the arcade at the entrance to the tube station, and then it would be time: time to do what I’d been hoping to do all evening.
‘Well,’ said Poppy breezily, when we had arrived. ‘Good to see you, Max. I’m off to Tokyo tomorrow, assuming I can get onto the flight, but … well, good luck with your Shetland trip, if I don’t see you before then. And thanks for the chocolate.’
She reached up and offered me her cheek. I took both of her cheeks between the palms of my hands, tilted her face firmly towards mine, and kissed her on the lips. The kiss lasted for perhaps a couple of seconds before I felt her mouth tauten and disengage itself, and Poppy pulled violently away.
‘Erm … Excuse me?’ she said, rubbing her mouth. ‘What was that about, exactly?’
At this point I became aware that passers-by were looking at us, with curiosity and amusement. Or looking at me, rather. I suddenly felt very stupid, and very old.
‘Was that … not what you were expecting?’ I said.
She didn’t answer at first, just took a few steps back, giving me a slightly incredulous glance. ‘I think I’d better go,’ she said.
‘Poppy – ’ I began; but words failed me.
‘Look, Max.’ She came a little closer: that was something, at any rate. ‘Do you not get it?’
‘Get it? Get what?’
‘What tonight was about? What it was for?’
I frowned. What was she talking about?
‘Max –’ She gave a little sigh of despair. ‘You’re twenty years older than me. You and I could never be … a couple. You’re old enough to be my …’
She tailed off, but it wasn’t the hardest sentence in the world to complete, even for a dimwit like me.
‘OK. I see. I get it. Goodnight, Poppy. Thanks for walking me to the station.’
‘Max, I’m sorry.’
‘No need to be sorry. Don’t worry. I get it now. It was a kind thought. And your mother’s a very attractive woman. Lovely, in fact. Just not my … not my type, I’m afraid.’
She may have tried to answer me, I don’t know. I turned away and without looking back walked down the stairs towards the ticket barriers. My face was burning and I could feel tears of humiliation pricking my eyes. I brushed them away with the sleeve of my jacket as I fumbled in my pocket for my Oyster card.
You might have thought that things couldn’t have got any worse that night. But they did. Out of some weird masochistic impulse I checked the emails on my Liz Hammond account and saw that Caroline had written her a message, attaching – as requested – a copy of her latest short story. It was called ‘The Nettle Pit’.
I swear to you that my heart stopped beating for a few seconds when I saw this title. She couldn’t have done that, could she? She couldn’t have written about that episode?
While the story was printing out, I went to fetch myself a drink. There wasn’t much in the house, so I had to make do with vodka. My hands were shaking. Why put myself through this, after that dreadful parting from Poppy? Wasn’t it enough that an evening on which I’d been pinning so many (false) hopes had already ended in catastrophe?