‘Yes. We shall. Definitely. When would you like to go?’

  ‘Thursday afternoon? It’s my day off.’

  ‘Thursday afternoon, it is. I will invest in some new trunks. And maybe a St Tropez Spray Tan.’

  ‘I’m going out on Saturday night,’ she said to Amitabh a few moments later.

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said, untangling the wires on his headphones. ‘Where to?’

  ‘Out with Toby.’

  ‘What – him over the road?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He threw her a look.

  ‘Why?’ she said, defensively. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it,’ he said. ‘It’s just a bit weird, that’s all.’

  ‘Weird?’

  ‘Yeah. Weird. I mean – he’s strange. He’s not the usual sort of person you’d be friends with.’

  ‘He’s not strange at all. He’s completely charming, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘OK, OK. No need to be so defensive. I’m just not sure about him, that’s all. Do you think maybe he fancies you?’

  Leah spilled farfalle into a pan of boiling water and sighed. ‘No, of course he doesn’t fancy me.’

  ‘Is he gay?’

  ‘No. Don’t be stupid. He used to be married.’

  ‘We both know that means nothing…’

  ‘Well, anyway. He’s just not. He’s in love with that dark-haired girl, Ruby, so he can’t be.’

  ‘How the hell do you know that? Did he tell you?’

  ‘No. It’s just… obvious.’

  Leah stirred a fork through the pasta and pulled a jar of pesto sauce out of the fridge. She was finding this conversation very annoying. She was finding Amitabh very annoying. This whole scenario was putting her in mind of Truly Madly Deeply, where the dead lover comes back to the grieving woman as a ghost and completely pisses her off. Amitabh was, without a doubt, a warm and lovely person. But he was also incredibly passive and annoyingly flaccid. He existed in a bubble of here and now-ness. He didn’t look at big pictures or ask himself big questions. It was all about cosiness and comfort and general ease of passage through life. He had no nooks or crannies, no interesting little corners of intriguing mystery. Where Toby was like an old Victorian bureau, full of tiny drawers and cubby holes and secret compartments, Amitabh was more of a blanket box.

  ‘Where’s he taking you, then, the old charmer?’

  ‘We’re going for dinner,’ she said.

  ‘Very nice,’ said Amitabh, plugging his earphones into his hi-fi, ‘very nice indeed.’

  Leah forked some pesto out of the jar and into a bowl and ground her teeth together, very gently.

  56

  Ruby opened her eyes.

  Her gaze alighted upon a large aluminium suitcase.

  She shut them again.

  She took a deep breath and turned her head to the left. Tim was lying facing her, staring at her. She jumped.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, pulling her hair away from her eyes. ‘Sorry. I just… it’s so amazing, waking up with you.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Tim. God, I’ve only just woken up. Give me a chance to, you know…’

  She rolled onto her side away from him.

  ‘This is a bit fucking mega, isn’t it?’ said Tim.

  ‘You could say that.’

  He rolled towards her and kissed her shoulder. ‘It’ll be fine, Ruby-chews. you’ll see. I’ll make sure everything is fine.’

  He got out of bed and started to dress himself. Ruby glanced at him from the corner of her eye, at his large, white body, at the ski tan that stopped under his chin, like he’d been dunked in a can of creosote, at the black fur that sprouted from his chest in the shape of angel wings and the soft penis that hung from beneath his belly like a naked abseiler, trapped beneath an overhang. She sighed and rolled onto her back. ‘Where are you going?’ she said.

  ‘To the office. I’ve just got back from holiday. I can’t take any time off. But – on Saturday, you and I are going flat-hunting.’

  ‘We are?’

  ‘Yes. Where do you fancy? I’ve always fancied living in Clerkenwell. How about that? A warehouse apartment. Or what about Soho? A nice little penthouse in the middle of town?’

  ‘What – you’re going to buy me a flat?’

  ‘No. Not buy. Rent. For now.’

  ‘But I can’t afford to pay the rent here, let alone in the West End.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, smiling at her, indulgently. ‘You don’t have to pay anything. That’s what I’m here for. I tell you what…’ He looped a Thomas Pink tie around his neck and folded his shirt collar down over it. ‘… you think about it. Make a list of places you’d like to live. We’ll talk about it tonight.’

  ‘OK,’ said Ruby, whose mood had improved rapidly at the thought of quirky little one-bedroom flats above sex shops in Soho, ‘let’s.’

  57

  Con opened the yellow carton and pulled out his Big Mac. He considered it for a moment before he brought it to his mouth, stared at the pale flecks of sesame, the tongue of sludge-coloured meat emerging from the lips of the bun. He peeled it open and gazed at the road accident of relish, the damp lettuce, the smear of glistening mayonnaise. He closed it and put it back in the carton.

  He was sitting in the tea room at work, surrounded by men and newspapers, half-eaten sandwiches and plastic cups. He picked up the paper carton of french fries and ate them rhythmically, robotically, while he flicked through the Evening Standard.

  ‘Connor McNulty, I don’t believe it! I turn my back for five minutes and you’re back on the McDonald’s!’

  Con looked up. So did everyone else in the break room. It was Daisy. She was wearing brown leather shorts with a cream blouse and grey waistcoat. Her hair was in a thin plait and she was clutching a big paper bag from the deli round the corner.

  ‘Daisy,’ he said. ‘You’re back. I didn’t realize.’

  ‘Yes.’ She put the paper bag down on the table and took the seat next to him. ‘It was my first day back yesterday, actually.’

  ‘God, how are you? You look… great.’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘I feel pretty good. It was great to have some time at home. Some good old-fashioned parental TLC. How are you?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m good.’

  ‘Good,’ she smiled, and pulled the paper bag towards her. ‘Well, I’ve got us panini. Tuna and cheese, or ham and cheese. Which do you fancy? If you’ve got any room after all those McDonald’s chips, that is.’

  Con took the tuna panini and grinned. ‘Our kitchen’s being replaced,’ he said. ‘Nowhere to make sandwiches.’

  ‘That’s no excuse.’ Daisy licked some grease off her thumb. ‘That’s what delis are for.’

  ‘You know what, though?’ He pointed at his Big Mac. ‘I couldn’t eat it. Honestly, I just looked at, I mean really looked at it. And that was that. Had to shut the lid on it.’

  ‘Hoo-rah!’ she cried. ‘You are cured! My work here is done.’

  Con smiled and bit into his panini.

  ‘So,’ she said, carefully. ‘I missed you.’

  Con glanced at her. He tried to think of something to say that wasn’t reciprocal, but wasn’t heartless either. He couldn’t. He smiled wanly at her instead.

  ‘I kind of… I don’t know,’ she said, ‘I’d kind of thought you might visit. Or phone.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, staring at his sandwich. ‘Yeah. I know. I just… it was…’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to explain yourself. I mean, I know, illness can be quite scary. Especially at our age. I know it’s not something everyone can deal with. But, a phone call might have been nice.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Mimi said…’ she paused.

  ‘What?’

  ‘She said you might have been a bit freaked out by our parents. All that stuff about coming to stay at the house.’

  ‘Nah,’ he shook his head. ‘Why would I be freaked out by that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was a bit much? A bit soon.’

  ‘No. I told you. Your parents are cool.’

  ‘Then why?’ she said.

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why…’ – her eyes filled with tears – ‘why haven’t I heard anything from you for nearly two weeks?’

  He stared at her, desperately trying to find an explanation that wouldn’t make her cry even more. ‘Oh, God, Daisy…’

  ‘Is it me? Is it actually nothing to do with me being ill or my family? Is it actually just that you’re not interested?’ A tear fell from her eye and landed on her cheek. It rolled down towards the corner of her mouth where she wiped it away. ‘Because if that’s the case then I’d really like to know.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘of course not.’

  ‘Then what is it? Because, really, it’s just not entirely normal, is it, to write someone a poem, tell them that you love them, then leave them in hospital, seriously ill, and not get in touch again?’

  The room fell silent, except for the tinny sound of Rachel Stevens on Capital radio and Daisy’s voice.

  ‘It doesn’t make any sense, to me,’ she continued. ‘None at all. And I came in here, I’d made all these excuses for you – that you were intimidated by my illness, my family. And I was going to be so cool and everything was going to get resolved and be OK. But it’s not, is it?’

  Con glanced at the other blokes in the room, out of the corner of his eye. They were all watching, listening. He shrugged, ‘Everything’s cool,’ he said.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m just. It’s just, not… God.’

  ‘No. It’s fine.’ Daisy dropped her panini onto the table top and stood up. ‘Really. It’s absolutely fine. Don’t bother trying to explain. It’ll only make things worse.’ She gripped the straps of her handbag with one chalky-white hand, stared at Con for a moment and then she left.

  The room fell silent. Con listened to his heart throbbing under his ribcage. He let his sandwich fall out of his hand.

  ‘Jesus, Con,’ said someone, at the back of the room, ‘you total fucking bastard.’

  58

  Melinda came to Toby’s room on Tuesday evening. She was holding a box.

  ‘Now,’ she said, sailing past him and towards his bed. ‘Don’t freak out, but I’ve come to sort you out.’

  ‘Sort me out what?’

  She opened the box and pulled out a black contraption with a cord coming out of it. It was about the size of a mobile phone. She looked round the skirting boards to locate an electricity socket, then she plugged the contraption in. ‘Now,’ she said, wheeling his office chair away from his PC and towards his bed, ‘come over here.’ She patted the seat. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘Er, Melinda, what…?’

  ‘Trust me Toby. This is for your own good. You will never, ever regret this, not for a minute. Now – sit – down.’

  He followed her instructions and glanced at the black contraption in her hand, nervously. He stood up again, sharply, when she switched it on and it started vibrating very, very loudly.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said, staring at it in horror, ‘What are you going to do to me?’

  ‘Just sit down,’ she said, ‘and you’ll see.’

  Toby tried to relax. He assumed that the vibrating black thing was some kind of massage device, and prepared himself for a pleasant sensation between his shoulder blades. Instead Melinda started rubbing it against his cheekbones. She brought it back and forth across the left side of his face and, he had to admit, it wasn’t an entirely unpleasant feeling.

  ‘Is that nice?’ she said.

  ‘Well, it’s not awful, but…’ He stopped when his gaze fell upon the empty box sitting on his bed. It had a photograph of the contraption on the lid and the words ‘Hair styling kit’ and ‘clippers’. He looked at the floor. Tiny tumbleweeds of his hair lay on the carpet. He slapped his hand against his cheek, where for nearly half his life there had been hair. He felt skin, soft and smooth, like the underbelly of a kitten. ‘Oh, my God! Melinda! No!’

  He got to his feet and felt the contraption skidding through his hair.

  ‘Shit, Toby, will you sit still?’

  ‘Oh, God,’ he grabbed the side of his head and felt a channel of baldness. ‘Oh, Jesus!’

  ‘Toby, just sit down.’

  ‘No! I won’t. Oh, God, what have you done?! What have you done?!’ He raced to the mirror and gazed at his reflection. He had one sideburn and a section of hair missing. He looked like he had a terrible, terrible illness.

  ‘Toby, don’t panic. Come over here and I’ll sort it out for you.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve shaved my sideburn off.’

  ‘Well, what did you think I was going to do with a pair of clippers?’

  ‘I didn’t know they were clippers.’

  ‘Well, what on earth did you think they were?’

  ‘I don’t know, some kind of massage device. I thought you were going to give me a massage.’

  Melinda slapped her hands over her mouth and let out a snort of laughter. ‘Oh, shit,’ she said. ‘Oh, fuck a duck, Toby. I’m sorry. I thought everyone knew what clippers look like.’

  ‘Yes, well, apparently not.’ Toby looked at himself in the mirror again. He looked away, in horror. ‘Oh, Christ, Melinda. What are we going to do?’

  59

  Con breathed in. He touched his hair and peered into a blackened window at his blurred reflection. He breathed out again. Then he pushed open the door to the fashion department, with an air that he hoped was breezy and businesslike. The first thing he saw was the back of Daisy’s head. She was standing over the fax machine, watching a document ooze through the mechanism, page by page. She was wearing a blue thigh-length sweater over a cream lace petticoat with tan boots, and her hair was in a bun. Con moved his trolley quickly to the post tray near Daisy’s desk, hoping that she wouldn’t turn round and see him. A girl in horn-rimmed glasses passed him a Jiffy bag, unsmilingly. He dropped it into his trolley and kept moving. Just as he reached the post tray, Daisy’s phone started ringing. She tutted and sighed and turned round. When she saw Con hovering near her desk, she went stiff, momentarily, before looking away. She returned to her desk and picked up her phone.

  ‘Hello. Daisy Beens.’

  Con turned and started loading his trolley from the tray. Daisy was chatting to someone. It sounded like a friend.

  A minute later she hung up and walked towards him. ‘I’ve got a few more letters,’ she said, coldly. ‘Can you wait a sec.’

  He nodded, tersely, and waited while she sorted through her mail. He stared through the window at the blotchy, drizzle-laden sky outside. Someone a few desks along squealed with laughter. ‘No!’ she breathed down the phone. ‘That’s the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard!’

  A middle-aged woman came out of an office, followed by a harassed young minion clutching a pile of notes. Daisy turned and handed Con a small wedge of cream envelopes. ‘First class,’ she said, ‘please.’ And then she walked back to the fax machine and picked up the paper document.

  Con pushed his trolley back into the corridor and exhaled, his flesh crawling with embarrassment, guilt and sadness.

  60

  Toby glanced at the time on his PC.

  11.23 a.m.

  He sighed and pulled his boots from underneath his bed.

  He wound a scarf round his neck and picked up an old mug.

  He paused before he left his room, and glanced at himself in the mirror. He still couldn’t countenance the more or less hairless man who stared back at him. They’d been forced to take the whole lot off. Melinda had tried a short-back-and-sides, but Toby had looked like a neo-Nazi, so she’d just kept going with clippers until he was left with a smattering of stubble. The sideburns, of course, were beyond rescuing. She’d taken the second one off and Toby had watched it fall to the floor in tufts with a sad, heartbroken gulp.

  Seeing so much of his face alarmed him. He constantly felt like he had his flies undone, or his underwear showing. He stroked his cheeks continually, feeling for stuff that used to be there. His scalp was bizarre, pink and unaired, like a testicle. He wore hats pretty much all the time now. Melinda had insisted that he looked gorgeous, ‘like that bloke in Doctor Who’. But to his eyes he just looked bald – and slightly alarming. He bared his teeth at his reflection, and gulped.

  In half an hour he would be at the dentist. He’d phoned to book an appointment with the hygienist and they’d somehow, by some kind of dental stealth, booked him in for a standard appointment, too. He hadn’t been to the dentist in years. They would, he knew it, insist on pulling out half his teeth and then on drilling holes in the rest of them. He would be in there for at least three hours and would leave feeling as if he’d been chewing a pint glass. If he was lucky.

  Toby wasn’t scared of dentists – just annoyed by them. Doctors didn’t make you show up twice a year just to check that you were OK. Doctors waited until you felt ill enough to show up of your own volition. Why couldn’t dentists do the same? Why did they make you feel guilty if you didn’t see them for a while? Surely it was a good thing if you didn’t come, as it meant that you weren’t in any pain, that things were ticking along nicely.

  He took his boots and his mug downstairs. He put the mug on the black granite work surface of his new kitchen and pulled on his boots. The kitchen fitters had finished last night and it was, of course, the most beautiful kitchen Toby had ever seen. It had aubergine-coloured cabinets and a six-ring hob and a barbecue and a breakfast bar and an American fridge with a water dispenser. The kitchen floors had been stripped and stained to look like American walnut and there were a dozen twinkling halogen lights hanging from tracks on the ceiling. And, thanks to Damian’s canny buying, the whole thing had come in at only £5,000 more than he’d meant to spend.

  Melinda’s food boxes were piled up by the back door, waiting to be unpacked tonight. Sticking out of the top was her tequila. Before he’d had a chance to question what he was doing, Toby had removed the cap and swallowed three large slugs. He didn’t trust anaesthetics. If some dentist was going to start slicing his mouth open, he wanted to be sure he wasn’t going to feel anything. He tipped the bottle to his lips again and swallowed some more. He glanced at the bottle in his hands. It was nearly empty. He finished it.