Daisy’s house looked like a normal house, shrunk down. It had a door on the front, and two windows, and that was it. The front door opened directly into a tiny living room with a tiny sofa and an armchair in it. At the back was a kitchen built into a conservatory that led onto a garden the size of a bus shelter. But it was all very smart, all very modern. The walls were painted a muted shade of coffee, the TV was a brand-new widescreen, the curtains looked expensive and the kitchen was fitted with slate grey tongue-and-groove units lit by halogen spotlights. Through the garden doors, Con could see a chrome patio heater and tropical plants in cobalt blue pots.

  ‘Nice house,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Small but perfectly formed.’ She sounded slightly breathless and broke into a rattling cough.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘Oh, the cough. It’s nothing. Just a bit of a chesty thing.’

  ‘Is that your sister?’ he picked up a framed photo of a biscuity-blonde girl who looked like Daisy, but fatter.

  ‘Yup, that’s Mimi.’ She dropped her carrier bags on to a small antique pine table in the kitchen and started unpacking them. ‘And that’s James, sitting behind her.’

  ‘Her boyfriend?’

  ‘That’s right. Her boyfriend. My landlord. Lovely, lovely James.’

  ‘They look nice,’ he said, putting it back. And they did look nice. Nice and boring.

  He wandered back into the kitchen where Daisy was chopping lemons into quarters. The drizzle outside had turned into heavy rain and the glass of the built-on kitchen started to steam up. The table was starting to resemble one of the food stands at Borough Market. There was a silver tray piled high with crushed ice and murky oysters, dishes layered with meats and cheeses, and tumbling bunches of bloomy grapes. ‘Have an olive,’ said Daisy. ‘They’re delicious.’He peered into a bowl and considered what he saw. Olives, in his experience, were small, black, wrinkly and sat on top of pizzas. They were not dark green, the size of walnuts and swimming in khaki oil with red bits in. He thought about popping one into his mouth, but then he tried to imagine what he would do if it tasted as bad as it looked. He might be sick. Or spit it all out down the front of his new merino sweater. ‘Nah,’he said, ‘I’m not really into olives.’

  She turned then and appraised him. ‘Do you actually like any food?’she asked teasingly.

  He shrugged. He’d been rumbled. ‘I like some food. Just not…’ –he glanced at the table – ‘you know?’

  ‘Olives, chocolate and fish?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But you like cheese?’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t mind cheese.’He smiled.

  ‘And salami?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so.’

  ‘And bread?’

  ‘I love bread.’

  ‘What about bread with olives in it?’

  ‘Hmmm…’ he smiled. ‘Maybe.’

  She laughed. ‘So – what do you eat, then? What’s your favourite food?’

  ‘McDonald’s.’

  ‘No!’ her eyes widened.

  ‘Yeah. I love McDonald’s. Really, really love it.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I dunno. It just tastes good.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’

  ‘Yes, it does.’

  ‘Well, it tastes good for the thirty seconds it takes to eat it, then it’s all over.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but it’s good while it lasts.’

  ‘But apart from McDonald’s. What else do you like?’

  He shrugged. ‘Curry, sometimes. Chinese. A good fry-up.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ She placed her hands against her collarbones. ‘This is fate! You’ve been sent to me for a reason. I have to re-educate your palate. Now eat one of these olives immediately!’ She slid it between his lips before he had a chance to protest and suddenly he found himself chewing on something with the texture of old prunes and the flavour of rancid dog food. He gagged on the thing, but kept chewing. His teeth hit something hard in the middle, like a bullet, but he kept chewing. Daisy stared at him expectantly. Eventually some other flavours started to break through – pepper, tuna, cheese, salt – and, by the time he finished chewing, he was on the cusp of enjoying it. He swallowed and beamed at Daisy triumphantly.

  ‘Where’s the stone?’ said Daisy.

  ‘What, the hard thing in the middle?’

  ‘Yes, the hard thing in the middle.’

  He shrugged. ‘Swallowed it.’

  She brought her hands to her mouth and stifled a laugh. ‘You didn’t?!’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Wasn’t I supposed to?’

  ‘No. You’re supposed to spit it out.’

  ‘What? Really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, shit. Is it bad for me?’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head, smiling. ‘I don’t think so. You might end up with a little olive tree growing in there, though.’ She pointed at his belly.

  He glanced down, then up, and smiled. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I reckon if I can eat an olive stone and not notice, then I’ll probably be all right with the rest of this stuff.’ He gestured at the table. ‘Bring it on.’

  For the next two hours, Con did something he’d never done before. He dined. He feasted. He repasted. He lingered over his food. And even though not everything was to his liking (particularly the goat’s cheese, which tasted to him like something you might find underneath your toenails), he enjoyed the majority of it. But mainly what he enjoyed was sitting at a table, under opaque, steamy glass, sensing the slow slide of the sun behind the terraces, drinking perfectly chilled white wine and listening to Daisy talk.

  Everything about Daisy intoxicated him, from the breathy way she said ‘fuck’ like it was a term of endearment, to the way she sucked her fingers one by one after eating anything oily. He loved the way she had an opinion on everything, from feet (‘Disgusting, but not as disgusting as tongues. Have you ever actually looked at a tongue?’) to Sicily (‘My favourite place in the universe, except my parents’ house.’) to dogs (‘Once you’ve looked into the eyes of a Pyrenean mountain dog, you’re ruined. You’ll spend the rest of your life pining for one.’).

  ‘Tell me something really interesting about yourself,’ she said, pouring coffee from a cafetière into two white cups.

  ‘Really interesting?’

  ‘Yes. Something mind-blowing.’

  ‘Shit,’ he said, rubbing his chin. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there’s something really mysterious about you and I want to know what it is.’

  He nodded at her slowly. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Well, after my mum went off to Turkey last year, I lost the flat and had nowhere to live. So I slept on the street. In a shop doorway. For two weeks.’

  ‘What – you ?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘God, I just can’t imagine that. You’re so… immaculate.’

  ‘Immaculate?’

  ‘Yes, your hair and your clothes. Not a crease or a smudge. You smell of Persil. You look as if you’ve just stepped off the pages of a catalogue. I mean, how was it? Was it awful? Did you wash?’

  ‘Yes, I washed. Even changed my underwear. It wasn’t that bad. I was still coming into work every day.’

  ‘Did you beg?’

  He laughed again. ‘No! I was still earning a salary! It was only a fortnight.’

  ‘God, though. How terrible. The thought of not being able to get into a lovely warm bed at the end of the night. Not to be able to turn off the light and roll onto your side and feel all safe and secure. Awful.’

  He shrugged again. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what about you? Tell me something about yourself that’s going to blow me away.’

  She squeezed her eyes closed briefly, then opened them. ‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you want to know? It’s a total downer.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I want to know.’

  ‘Well, there’s this thing about me and I don’t usually tell anyone about it, but I’m telling you because… I don’t know. I’ve got this feeling about you…’ She stopped for a second and glanced at him. ‘There’s this thing, this condition, with my lungs. They make too much of this mucousy stuff and I have to take all these pills and do all this massage so that my airways don’t get blocked up. But I’m also more prone to infections and stuff. It basically turns you into a complete wuss, this condition. I once spent a week in hospital with a cold. All wired up. Life and death. Pathetic.’

  Con stared at her for a moment, not knowing what to say.

  ‘I told you it was a downer.’

  ‘But you don’t seem ill.’

  ‘No. I don’t feel ill. But then, I’ve had this all my life, so I don’t really know what it’s like to feel healthy.’

  ‘What’s it called, then, this condition?’

  ‘It’s called cystic fibrosis.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of that.’

  ‘Yes. I have a very famous condition. A celebrity condition, in fact. My condition gets invited to film premieres every night.’

  ‘Sorry, I…’

  ‘No, I wasn’t being facetious. I’m not sensitive about it. It’s just the way it is. And who cares about a silly old condition anyway, frankly? Life is for living. And eating. And drinking. Talking of which,’ she grinned, ‘shall I open another bottle of wine?’

  Con nodded and watched as she took a bottle from the fridge. Her smallness, her translucence, took on a new and unsettling significance in light of what she’d just told him. The milky alabaster of her skin had a hint of blue underlying it and her fine hair looked fragile and brittle. She wasn’t a fairy or a nymph. She wasn’t a Condé Nast flibbertigibbet. She was ill. Seriously ill.

  Con took a deep breath and tried not to ask her if she was ever going to get better.

  25

  Ruby turned the last page of the Barnet Times and sighed. She couldn’t be arsed. She just could not be arsed with applying for any of these stupid jobs and turning up for stupid interviews wearing stupid clothes that didn’t suit her and talking crap for half an hour in a room with a stranger. She did not want to be an office administrator for a charity in Golders Green. Nor did she want to be a sales assistant in a photography shop in Finchley Central or a receptionist for a firm of accountants in Whetstone.

  She wanted to be a singer/songwriter. That was all she’d ever wanted to be and while she’d had the security of Paul’s monthly payments into her bank account she’d been able to fool herself that that was what she was. Now she was just unemployed and broke.

  She’d even contemplated the adverts for pole dancers and lap dancers. She had a good body and she could dance, but frankly the thought of having to make sure that she was always freshly plucked, buffed, tanned and shaved was off-putting in itself, even before she tried to imagine what it would feel like having a sales rep from Chingford called Dean shove a ten-pound note into her knickers.

  She was up to her overdraft limit and next month’s rent was due next Monday. She didn’t even have any credit cards to fall back on. She’d never been together enough to apply for one and hadn’t supposed anyone would have been stupid enough to give her one even if she had.

  A Conran van had pulled up outside the house that afternoon and two blokes had started unloading things into the house, loads of things, things in boxes, things in bags. She watched them in amazement from her bedroom window, waiting for them to hitch the back door of the van back and pull away before running downstairs. Toby was feverishly ripping parcel tape off things in the hallway.

  ‘What the fuck…?’

  ‘Shit,’ he said, clutching his heart. ‘You made me jump.’

  ‘What the fuck is all this stuff?’

  ‘Just stuff,’ he muttered. ‘Things for the house.’

  ‘Wow,’ she said, picking up a leather wastepaper bin and examining the price tag with raised eyebrows. ‘Nice stuff, Tobes. Got anything useful?’

  ‘That is useful,’ he hissed, snatching it off her. ‘It’sa bin.’

  ‘It’s a £95 bin.’

  ‘It’s quality. It’ll last for ever.’

  ‘And what’s in that gigantic box?’ She gestured with her eyebrows towards a box leaning against the front door.

  ‘Coffee table.’

  ‘Ooh – let me see.’

  ‘In a minute,’ he said.

  ‘God, this is like Christmas,’ she said. ‘Let me open something, will you?’

  ‘No,’ snapped Toby, pulling a clear Perspex globe out of a box.

  ‘What is that?’ she pointed at it, accusingly.

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘It’s a plastic globe. But why?’

  ‘Because… because… I like it. That’s why.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She sat back on her heels and watched him for a while. He was peeling bubble wrap off the plastic globe, looking stressed and slightly flushed. ‘So,’ she started, ‘this money from Gus – how much was it, exactly?’

  Toby tutted.

  ‘No, really. I thought we were talking a couple of grand, but seriously – look at all this stuff. What was it? Twenty? Thirty? A hundred?’

  Toby tutted again and glared at her. ‘Ruby. Please. I’ve told you already. It’s none of your business.’

  ‘Well, actually, it is. It’s my business because you’re my friend. And it’s my business because…’ She drew in her breath and waited until she’d made eye contact with him. ‘… because Paul just dumped me and he’s stopped my allowance and I’m completely skint.’

  ‘Paul? Paul Fox?’

  ‘Yes. Paul Fox. He’s marrying that old bat and doesn’t think that married men should be subsidizing young girls’ lifestyles. Which is fair enough, I guess, but I’m fucked, Tobes, completely fucked. And this money you’ve got, Gus’s money. I’m just thinking that if there’s enough for plastic globes and leather bins, there’s probably enough for a loan?’

  Ruby winced slightly and waited for Toby’s face to soften. Toby had never let her down. Before she’d met Paul, he’d always treat her to lunch, let her off her rent, lend her a fiver here and there. And now he actually had some money, some proper money, surely he’d spread a little her way?

  He paused for a moment and Ruby watched as he chewed thoughtfully on the inside of his cheek. And then he turned to her and said, ‘No.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No. Sorry, Ruby, but no. You’re thirty-one. Nearly thirty-two. You’re a grown woman. It’s time for you to, you know, look after yourself.’

  ‘I’m not asking you to look after me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m asking you to lend me some money. Just to tide me over. Just until I get myself sorted out.’

  ‘Yes, but that’s the problem with you, Ruby. You won’t sort yourself out. You’ll never sort yourself out until you absolutely have to.’

  ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

  Toby sighed. ‘I’m just saying that you’ve always had people round you to prop you up and maybe it would be good for you to, you know, take responsibility for yourself. Stand alone for a while.’

  Ruby looked at him in amazement. ‘Alone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Excuse me. Are you Toby Dobbs?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You know, Mr Caring and Sharing, Mr My-Home Is-Your-Home. Toby ‘No one should ever be alone’ Dobbs?’

  He tutted.

  ‘What’s happening to you, Toby? You used to be the most generous person I know.’

  ‘Yes,’ he muttered, ‘well. Look where that’s got me.’

  Ruby sighed. Toby was feeling sorry for himself. She was wasting her time. ‘Fine,’ she said, ‘whatever. I’ll work something out.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Right.’ She stood up and surveyed him from above. He was starting to lose his hair on top, and the skin on the back of his neck folded together like old suede. He was getting old. Because she’d first met him as a teenager she’d always thought of him as an old man, but it was slightly unsettling to see that he was finally starting to look like one. Old and alone. Old and throwing money away on stupid Perspex globes and leather bins. She brushed her hand against his hair. ‘See you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, tersely. ‘See you.’

  She got halfway up the stairs, then remembered something. ‘Tobes?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I can’t pay you any rent this month, you know?’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. Just don’t tell the others.’ And then he turned to her and a small smile twitched the corner of his mouth and Ruby knew then that she still stood a pretty good chance of persuading Toby to part with some of his money.

  26

  A man came into the shop on Saturday morning. This was unusual in itself, unaccompanied as he was by a woman looking for a birthday gift for her best friend or seeking out tiny leather ballet shoes with rosebuds for her sister’s new baby. Just a man. On his own.

  He was a big man, about six foot one and broad across the back. He had very dark hair, thinning on top but thick elsewhere, probably about forty-five, maybe a well-preserved fifty. He was wearing a leather coat, jeans and slightly battered boat shoes. There was a copy of the Guardian folded in four and tucked under his arm. He was handsome, if you liked that kind of thing, which Leah didn’t. He seemed to be taking a great interest in the furniture, particularly a small cream desk stencilled with faded amaryllis. He turned at her approach and smiled. He had a big dimple in his left cheek and very thick eyelashes. He was definitely a man with charisma and charm, but he was too self-assured for Leah’s tastes.

  ‘How much is this desk?’ he asked. He had an accent, very soft. She guessed at Italian.

  ‘Three hundred and fifty pounds,’ she said, smiling her best Pink Hummingbird smile. ‘It has a matching stool’ – she pointed behind her – ‘with an upholstered seat. And there’s a range of filing boxes to complement it. Linen-covered,’ she finished.

  ‘Do you deliver?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she nodded. ‘It’s free within a three-mile radius.’

  He nodded. ‘How soon?’

  ‘When would you like it?’

  ‘Immediately.’