‘No, Caroline, you deserve a viscount.’
‘Oh, piss off. Grow up. I’m not the one with a problem.’
‘Because you’re slumming it here with me?’
‘No. Because you behaved as if you liked me, and that has moral consequences. I liked you back.’ She gave an angry little laugh. ‘It was more than that, actually, Alex. Much, much more than that.’ She was willing herself not to cry. But it was only later that I realised she was telling me she loved me.
‘How dare you, you know? You use the accident of my birth as a stick to beat me. I’m just English and stuck-up, and so are my friends, and that gives you free rein. Whereas I had thought, stupidly as it turns out, that you could see past that to something more like who I was. I thought you liked me, Alex. But really you don’t, do you?’
‘I do like you, Caroline.’
‘Your actions suggest
my
reading over yours, don’t you think?’
She pulled on her shoes and crouched down, negotiated the complex strapwork by touch, staring directly at me. I made to speak, but she stopped me with a shake of the head.
‘Don’t, Alex. Please don’t talk because you’re too good at it and I can’t let myself listen to you. The truth is that I’m nothing like the person you seem to think I am. I’m just as lost as you are. And I thought because you seem vulnerable and sensitive underneath that prickly Scottish carapace that you were sensitive to me and had seen something of yourself in me, and you aren’t, and you didn’t, and I’m completely and utterly heartbroken.’
She had walked out of my flat then.
I wondered for a long time what had made me treat her so badly. I didn’t much like her friends, but I liked her, far more than I’d realised. And she loved me. She had as good as told me so.
Caroline politely answered my phone calls, and just as politely refused to meet me. After a month I understood that she meant it, that she really was telling me no. I had humiliated her, and she would not forgive that.
I waited for Caroline on the street at the end of the working day. She asked me to leave, and went back inside the gallery where she worked. I could see her making a phone call, and shortly after that she came out and stepped straight into a taxi.
The non-molestation order stopped me cold. No one wants to be the man who is cruel to women. I spent months in desperate isolation. I slept with two women. One Claire, one Janet: both firmly within my class. Both times we agreed in advance that it was sex and nothing more. Clear boundaries, no expectations, from the start. For the first time in years I was honest with the women I slept with. I had never felt less fulfilled in my life.
And yes, I sought out a shrink, though it didn’t much help.
I will say this for myself, though: when Caroline forced me to face what I had done I stopped in my tracks. I paid attention. And I realised that I had allowed some angry and resentful shadow in my troubled Scottish soul to blind me to a simple truth: that Caroline had loved me, and that I had loved her.
And then came Millicent, and she was the saving of me.
No police officer ever explained to me why they had to make the arrest in the middle of the night. We’re obedient people: we do what we’re told. There was no flight risk.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Max hugged me as I walked in through the door. He gave Millicent a dutiful kiss, then returned to the kitchen. Arla was letting him cook fish, and he stood quietly, spatula in hand, turning the fillets over in the hot oil. He looked up at Arla, who glanced down at the pan.
‘You did good, Max.’
Max nodded, and smiled. Arla put a hand on his shoulder. There was an intimacy between them that surprised me.
‘You’ve tidied up,’ I said.
‘We did. We tidied up. A little,’ said Arla.
‘It was rank,’ said Max.
‘It looks good,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’
‘That’s OK. Have you really stopped smoking?’
‘Yes. Yes, I really have.’
‘Mum too?’
‘Don’t we smell a little better, honey?’
Max ignored Millicent. ‘Can we have wine with the food, Dad? Arla lets me.’
Millicent and I looked at Arla.
‘A half-glass,’ said Arla. ‘Fifty-fifty with water.’
‘Like in France,’ said Max.
‘Do you even
like
wine?’ said Millicent.
‘Yes,’ said Max, ‘I really do.’
Fried fish with rice. A tomato salad. ‘This is great, Max,’ I said as we ate. ‘Thank you.’
‘Arla helped,’ he said, but I could see the pride in him. As I smiled at Arla I sensed something angular and brittle in Millicent, some slight stiffening on the edge of my vision. Arla smiled back, and by the time I turned to Millicent, she was smiling too.
The doorbell rang. I got up to answer it, wineglass in hand.
‘What if it’s the police, Dad?’
Yes, I thought. What then? I put my glass down on the table.
‘Do you think it is, Dad?’ said Max.
‘I don’t know.’
I felt Millicent’s eyes on me. I nodded back at her.
Courage, love.
We fight this as a family.
It was Mr Ashani.
‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I heard you through the wall.’
‘Mr Ashani.’ Relief coursed through me.
‘Nice,’ he said. He reached out his hand. I took his hand in mine. His grip was as firm as ever. ‘Nice,’ he said again.
‘Nice,’ I said, then felt embarrassed and wished I hadn’t.
‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I owe you my life.’
‘I didn’t do much,’ I said. Hadn’t he already thanked me?
‘Sir, but you did.’ He had not yet released my hand. ‘And your son, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘A fine boy.’ His eyes darted towards the kitchen, and I had for a moment a sense of a man playing to the gallery. ‘He is a credit to your wife, and to you.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘What happened? Are you all right?’
He looked again towards door to the kitchen. I could hear voices, laughter. Millicent, Arla and Max were still sitting at the table. Mr Ashani leaned in close, across the threshold, still shaking my hand. He dropped his voice. ‘I must speak with you.’
‘That’s not terribly convenient,’ I said, lowering my voice to meet his. ‘Could we do it tomorrow?’
‘It is a matter of some urgency. And some delicacy.’
‘If it’s about my wife, I forgive her.’
A shrewd look passed across his features. He let go of my hand. ‘It is not about your wife. Not directly.’
He invited me loudly for a sherry, and I accepted just as loudly.
I sat waiting for Mr Ashani to return from the kitchen, worrying at a piece of nail on my right thumb, foolish and out of place. Mr Ashani’s front room was scrupulously tidy. Everything was old; everything immaculately preserved. There were few pictures; a small number of leather-bound books. A large Bible dominated the bookshelf, and a small wooden cross hung from a chain above the mantelpiece. The fireplace had been boarded up, and a small gas fire installed against the plasterboard.
I guessed Mr Ashani had bought his furniture when he moved in. It was upholstered in muted greens and blues. Clear plastic strips protected the arms of the chairs; the legs sat in shallow plastic cups; more plastic preserved the area of carpet around the door.
Mr Ashani returned with a glass, which he placed on a small table beside me. Cut crystal.
‘Aren’t you having one?’
‘Kind of you, sir, but no.’
I sat, looking at the sherry.
‘May I ask you an impertinent question, sir?’
‘Mr Ashani,’ I said, ‘it makes me uncomfortable when you call me sir.’
‘But we hardly know each other, sir.’
‘Mr Ashani, I’m sitting here, drinking your sherry. Would you
please
call me Alex?’
He leaned over and slammed his palm down on my knee. ‘Nice! Alex! Why not? But you must call me Emmanuel.’
‘And will you please join me in a drink?’
‘Why not?’
‘OK. Emmanuel. Thank you.’
He went back into the kitchen, and returned with another cut crystal glass, which he stroked gently as he sat, nursing it like a small and delicate animal.
‘Your good health, Alex.’
‘Cheers, Emmanuel.’
‘I am grateful for what you did, sir.’ He took an appreciative sip. ‘Exquisite.’
I said nothing. I took a slug of sherry. It was bitter, though I was certain that it was good sherry.
Mr Ashani leaned forwards and grasped my knee with his right hand, his eyes very close to mine. ‘I owe you my life, sir.’
‘I didn’t do much.’ I tried not to blink. There were small grey rings around his dark pupils. ‘It was Max who realised you’d been very quiet.’
‘A transient ischemic attack, sir.’ He relaxed his grip and sat back in his chair. ‘A mini-stroke, if you will. The doctors, they told me to avoid salt, and alcohol.’ He looked wryly at the glass in his hand. ‘But I believe the cause to be stress, so perhaps a little sherry cannot hurt. The death of our neighbour has caused me not a little distress. Now, what is it about your wife that you have forgiven?’
I said nothing.
‘You may know, Alex, that Mr Bryce was not the man he appeared to be.’ He eyed me levelly, measuring my response. I put my glass down as carefully as I could.
‘I’m aware of that.’
‘You are aware of that?’ His dark eyes were keen and alert, now; I wondered what he knew about Millicent and Bryce.
‘I found out very recently. I know that he didn’t own his house.’
‘You know about his financial embarrassment?’
‘He was trading from our address.’ And of course, he seduced my wife. That last thought lay heavy in the air, though neither of us spoke it.
‘Well,’ said Mr Ashani, ‘that is one of many things, Alex, that were not as they appeared to be.’ Mr Ashani stood up, and opened a drawer in the dresser that stood under the stairs. He produced a small pile of envelopes, which he handed to me. ‘I was of course delighted when he told me he was an architect.’
The thought surprised me. Delighted? I looked down at the envelopes. Credit-card statements, and a number of plain white envelopes. All were addressed to Mr D. Bryce.
‘One wishes to find such tenants, does one not? And when the man asked if he might make a number of small improvements – at his own expense – well, it seemed too good an offer to pass up.’
‘You own Bryce’s house?’
‘I do, sir. And when I saw the quality of the work I was rendered speechless. I assumed, foolishly I must now concede, that he was using his own money. But you hold in your hand at least £70,000 of personal debt, sir, of which £11,745 is for work on my house. Not inclusive of VAT.’
I looked down at the envelopes. They had all been neatly opened. Mr Ashani was the kind of man to own a letter knife.
‘You have a key?’
‘Of course. I made regular daytime inspections. The last was a day before his death. Check my arithmetic, sir: £70,000. That I know of. There may be more.’
I looked at the envelopes in my hand. Hadn’t Mr Ashani committed some kind of crime by taking them?
‘Take a look.’
‘I’m not sure.’
I handed the envelopes back to Mr Ashani.
‘You think I was not within my right to take them? They were lying unopened, in a cupboard. There are court orders here. Distraint proceedings.’
I didn’t know what distraint proceedings were. Something must have shown on my face, because he said, ‘Bailiffs, sir. Seizure of possessions. And I knew nothing, sir, nothing. Smiling from behind
my
net curtains, as if all was well, when he had not paid his rent for seven months. Seven months, sir! Big contract, he would say. Money coming soon. He played me like a fish, sir. Like a fish.’
He laughed bitterly to himself, then leaned in to me and took my arm in his. ‘The man was so plausible. So very plausible! He convinced me that he was merely suffering a temporary embarrassment, financially. He was after all an architect. He showed me contracts, sir, for buildings costing millions.’ He shuffled through the pile and selected a windowed envelope, which he tried to hand to me. ‘This tells most of the story,’ he said. ‘About the bailiffs and the court proceedings.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘That’s a line I don’t want to cross.’
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘You must do as you consider right.’ He was still holding out the envelope.
‘I do believe you,’ I said.
‘Well, well.’ He put the letters down on the table beside him. ‘After four months I was obliged to give him notice. I have a key, as I told you, and the things I found you would not believe. The man shopped at Selfridges.’ He said this as if it removed all doubt.
He must have noticed my discomfort, because he said, ‘Of course, you may say that a landlord must not spy on his tenant, and technically I was in breach of our contract, but please, sir, put yourself in my shoes. When you see that the man shops at Selfridges you know this is not a
moral
man. A man in arrears does not shop at this store, sir, not until he has dealt with his embarrassment. Nor Fortnum and Mason. Nor Waitrose. And yet he did. But there was never the money to pay the rent. A squatter, sir, nothing better than a squatter! And a trained architect too. Do you understand how hard it is to evict a man like that, sir? Do you?’
‘I can see it’s a problem.’
‘Alex, sir, I must ask you: what have the police asked you about me?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘The police have said nothing to you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No, they didn’t say anything to me about you.’
What did they ask you about us, I wanted to say. What more have you told them?
‘I am an honest man, Alex. I was driven to this. But I would never commit an act of violence of this sort. You believe me, do you not?’
‘Of course.’
‘When I bought that house it was going for a song. A song, Alex. I charge a reasonable rent. A fair market rent. And now I find, to my bemusement, that
I
am a millionaire. On paper. But I have no cash flow, sir, only costs. Can you imagine how difficult it is for me to live without cash flow? My pension, it doesn’t come close.’