‘No,’ continued Leah, ‘we’re not sure. He’s very old.’

  ‘Ninety-seven,’ said the skinny guy, picking up the old man’s wrist and feeling around for a pulse. ‘He’s ninety-seven.’

  ‘Jesus,’ she said to the operator, ‘he’s ninety-seven.’

  Gus Veldtman was pronounced dead half an hour later and taken away to Barnet General Hospital, where it would later be ascertained that he had died of a massive heart attack. Leah and the skinny guy stood together on the pavement and watched the ambulance as it pulled away. There was something stultifyingly tragic about the silence as the ambulance headed slowly towards the High Road without sirens or flashing lights. There was no hurry. Being dead wasn’t an emergency.

  ‘Well,’ said Leah, looking at her watch, ‘I guess I’d better get on.’

  ‘Off to work?’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, ‘I run a shop, up on the Broadway.’

  ‘Oh, really,’ he said, ‘what sort of shop?’

  ‘It’s a gift shop,’ she smiled, ‘a very pink gift shop.’

  ‘I see,’ he nodded, ‘I see.’

  ‘So. Is there anything else I can do?’ she said hopelessly.

  ‘No.’ He ran the palm of his hand across his face. ‘No. That’s it now, really, isn’t it? I’ll call his relatives. They’ll sort out the rest of it, I suppose. Just got to sort of get on with things, I guess.’ He shrugged and tucked his hands into his pockets. ‘But thanks… sorry, what is your name?’

  ‘Leah.’

  ‘Leah.’ He nodded. ‘I’m Toby, by the way.’ He offered her a hand the size of a baseball mitt to shake.

  ‘Toby,’ she repeated, thinking that of all the possible names she’d ever considered for Young Skinny Guy, Toby was absolutely not one of them. ‘Funny,’ she said, ‘I’ve been living across the road from you for nearly three years and I finally get to talk to you because someone dies.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s London for you, I guess.’

  Toby nodded his agreement.

  ‘So, who was he? Gus? I always thought maybe he was your grandfather.’

  Toby laughed, nervously. ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes. But I’m assuming from your reaction to…’ – she gestured at the spot on the pavement where he’d died – ‘that I was wrong.’

  ‘No. Gus wasn’t my grandfather. Gus was my sitting tenant.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘I see. So it’s your house?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘It is.’

  ‘And the other people who live here – they’re…?’

  ‘My non-sitting tenants.’ Toby was starting to look somewhat strained by the conversation.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Leah. ‘The last thing you need right now is me asking you loads of questions. It’s just – I’m such a nosy person and I’ve been wondering about your house for years, wondering who you all were and how you all knew each other and… well, anyway. I’ll let you get on. And if there’s anything you need, you know where I live. Please – just ask.’

  Toby smiled. ‘Thank you. I will. And Leah?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Thank you, so much.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For being here. Thank you.’

  He turned then and ascended the steps to his big, peculiar house. Leah turned, too, heading towards the bus stop. Looking back at the cold patch of pavement where old Gus had taken his final breaths, she caught a brief glimpse through the front door of the Peacock House. She saw someone glide from one room to another, like a ghost. The door slammed shut and she snapped out of her reverie. It was time to go to work.

  5

  Toby pushed open the door to Gus’s bedroom. He’d been into Gus’s bedroom on only two previous occasions – once to check that he was alive when he hadn’t appeared for breakfast one morning (he’d tripped over his shoes and twisted his ankle) and another time to check that he was alive when he hadn’t appeared for dinner one night (he’d accidentally taken a sleeping pill instead of a headache pill and had been asleep in his overcoat and shoes since teatime).

  The room was papered with a terrible striped flock in burgundy and cream, and hung with ugly oil paintings lit by brass light fittings. The curtains were slightly flouncy in blue floral chintz and the carpet was a flattened rose-coloured shag pile. A brass chandelier hung from the central ceiling rose. Only one bulb still worked. The double bed sagged in the middle like a hammock and was dressed in burgundy sheets and a thick layer of woolly blankets. The room smelled, not as you might expect, of oldness, or of loneliness, but of malted milk and elderly cat.

  The malted milk could be explained by the fact that Gus ate a whole packet of the biscuits every day. The elderly cat couldn’t really be explained at all.

  Toby walked towards Gus’s desk. It was positioned in the window and looked out over the back garden and the asphalt roof of the bathroom below. Gus had a proper old-fashioned typewriter. Toby couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a typewriter. He also had piles of books and paperwork and a collection of old tin snuff boxes in a glass box. There was a manuscript on the desk. It was obviously very old and was covered in faded pencil marks and ink amendments. Gus’s clothes hung in a burr-veneered 1920s wardrobe from heavy wire hangers which jangled together like wind chimes when Toby tugged at a pair of trousers.

  And there, at the bottom of the wardrobe, lay a red plastic tray filled with cat litter. A solitary cat poo poked out of the grey nuggets – it was fresh. On the other side of the wardrobe was a green saucer filled with brown pellets, a small bowl full of water and a huge bag of Science Diet.

  ‘What you doing?’

  Toby jumped and clutched his heart.

  ‘Shit.’

  It was Ruby. She was eating a banana.

  ‘Sorry. I thought you’d heard me come in.’

  ‘Look at this,’ he said, pointing inside the cupboard.

  She peered in over his shoulder. ‘What!’ she grimaced.

  ‘I know. And it’s fresh. Did you know he had a cat?’

  She shrugged. ‘News to me. Where is it?’

  They both glanced around the room in unison. Ruby finished her banana and dropped the skin nonchalantly into Gus’s wastepaper bin. Toby noted the action and filed it away as yet another reason why he should stop being in love with her. He now had about thirty to forty reasons why he should stop being in love with Ruby Lewis.

  She’d slept with more than fifty men.

  And at least one woman.

  She left her toenail clippings on the bathroom floor.

  She called her female friends ‘honey’ and ‘sweets’.

  She always slammed the front door when she got in at night, even though Toby had asked her not to, politely, about a hundred and fifty times.

  She swore too much.

  She smoked too much.

  She never gave anyone their telephone messages.

  She rarely paid her rent.

  She was the centre of her own universe.

  She believed in God (when it suited her).

  She left used cotton buds and cotton-wool balls covered in old make-up on the shelf in the bathroom.

  She called him ‘Tobes’.

  She flirted with everyone, all the time.

  She had a yellow stain on one of her front teeth.

  She read magazines with exclamation marks in the titles and insisted on regaling him with titbits of gossip about so-called celebrities he’d never heard of.

  She did only one wash a month and would then drape and festoon every radiator in the house with the entire contents of her wardrobe, leaving Toby in the position of having to stare at her (surprisingly unpretty) knickers while he ate his dinner.

  She thought classical music was boring.

  She thought literary classics were boring.

  She thought Radio Four was boring.

  She thought staying in was boring.

  And she thought, more pertinently, that Toby was boring.

  She told him all the time, ‘God, Tobes, you’re sooo boring,’ whenever he tried to broach a subject that was in any way serious or important or even slightly domestic in nature.

  She laughed at his clothes and his hair and cupped his bottom, occasionally, through his jeans to tease him about his lack of padding in the buttock department.

  She was awful, really, in so many ways. An awful girl. But, God, so beautiful and, God, so amazingly talented.

  ‘Under the bed?’ she suggested.

  ‘What?’ Toby snapped out of his reverie.

  ‘Maybe that’s where his cat lives.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Yes.’

  She fell suddenly to her hands and knees, and adopted a position that put Toby in mind of one he’d seen on the Internet last night. He glanced at her denim-clad behind as it swung from side to side like a searchlight.

  ‘Oh, my God. I don’t believe it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hello,’ she whispered to something under the bed. ‘Don’t be shy. It’s OK.’

  Toby stopped staring at her bottom and joined her on his hands and knees.

  ‘Look,’ she pointed into the corner. ‘Over there.’

  Toby blinked and a pair of eyes blinked back at him. ‘Oh, my God.’

  They managed to coax the little creature out by shaking its food bowl and making lots of silly noises.

  ‘That’s the smallest cat I’ve ever seen in my life,’ said Ruby, watching it crunch delicately on nuggets of Science Diet.

  It looked like a slightly insane illustration of a cat. It had a gigantic head and a tiny body and stringy black fur. It looked like it might be even older than Gus. Toby’s natural instinct was to pet the poor animal in some way, but there was something about the dandruffy look of its coat and the way its bones stuck out of its flesh that put him off.

  ‘I can’t believe he kept a cat in here all these years,’ said Ruby. ‘Why did he keep it secret?’

  ‘Lord knows,’ said Toby. ‘Maybe the old landlord didn’t allow animals in the house. Maybe he thought I’d make him get rid of it.’

  ‘Tragic, isn’t it? Like a little runt or something.’

  ‘Terrible-looking creature.’ Toby tutted and shook his head.

  ‘Oh, but quite cute in a funny sort of way, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not really.’ Toby stood up and stretched his legs. ‘What the hell are we going to do with it?’

  ‘I don’t want it,’ said Ruby, recoiling slightly.

  ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘We’ll have to get rid of it.’

  ‘What – kill it?’

  ‘No!’ Ruby looked at him aghast. ‘Give it to a home. Or something.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Toby sighed as yet another job added itself to the list of Things He Had To Do Because Gus Had Died. He’d already spent an hour on the phone this morning trying to track down Gus’s great-niece, who’d moved, it seemed, about ten times since Gus had last spoken to her. He’d then somehow found himself offering to host a ‘small drinks party’ after Gus’s funeral the following week which would be hideous, absolutely hideous. Next, he had to find a new tenant for Gus’s room, which would probably necessitate a full redecoration as he doubted that anyone under the age of sixty would have the slightest interest in the 1970s boarding-house look Gus had created in here. And now he had to do something about this odd little cat that Gus had been hiding in his room for possibly fifteen years.

  Ruby got to her feet and sauntered towards a chest of drawers. ‘I wonder what sort of stuff he’s got,’ she said, idly pulling open a drawer.

  ‘Ruby!’ Toby chastised. ‘You can’t go through his stuff.’

  ‘Why not? He’s dead. Oh, my God. Jesus – look at these!’ She spun round, clutching a piece of bright orange paisley cotton.

  ‘What is that?’ said Toby.

  ‘Gus’s pants!’ she beamed. ‘I mean, where do you even buy things like this?’ She held them up to the light and examined them.

  Toby glanced around the room again. His heart lurched. ‘I can’t believe he’s dead.’

  ‘Me neither.’ Ruby put the pants back and closed the drawer…

  ‘Ninety-seven years,’ sighed Toby. ‘He’s taken ninety-seven years of life to the grave with him. All those experiences, all those emotions. People he loved, places he’s seen – gone.’ He clicked his fingers and let his head drop into his chest. ‘I wish I’d talked to him more. Wish I’d let him pass on his stories to me. I could have kept them for him. You know.’

  ‘Oh, stop being so maudlin.’ Ruby poked him in the thigh with the toe of her shoe. ‘He was a miserable old bastard. He didn’t want to share his stories with anyone. I used to try talking to him all the time. Got nothing. I tell you what you need,’ she stretched and yawned. ‘A stiff drink.’

  ‘But it’s not even five o’clock.’

  ‘Yes. But by the time I’ve made the drinks and brought them back it will be. And besides, it’s dark out. It’s as good as night-time. Rum and Coke? Gin and tonic? Something stronger? I’ve got a bottle of schnapps?’

  Toby stared up at Ruby, his face pulling itself automatically into an expression of disapproval. But he let it go. He couldn’t be bothered playing the fusty old stick, not today. ‘A glass of red wine would be lovely,’ he said, letting a small smile soften his face.

  ‘Good boy.’ She beamed at him.

  She left the room then and Toby watched her go. Ruby Lewis. The love of his life.

  The little cat scurried back under the bed at the sound of a slamming door downstairs and Toby got to his feet. He went to the window and stared out across the rooftops. The snow on the ground had melted, but it still clung to the roofs and treetops like sheets of royal icing. It would be gone by tomorrow morning, though, disappeared down drainholes and gullies, taking the memories of a snowy January day with it. London snow was like life: here today, gone tomorrow. What was the point of it all?

  Ruby returned, clutching a bottle of Cava and two long-stemmed glasses.

  ‘I found this in the fridge,’ she said. ‘I think it’s Melinda’s.’

  ‘Oh, my God, she’ll go mental.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ruby winked. ‘I know. But it just seemed fitting.’ She popped the cork and poured them a glass each. ‘To Gus,’ she said, holding her glass aloft. ‘A funny old bastard, but he always left the seat down and he never left a skid mark.’

  ‘To Gus,’ said Toby. ‘And to the future. May it be as bright as Gus’s underpants.’

  6

  In bed that night, Leah lay awake for longer than usual. Her head was full of Gus and Toby and peacocks and cold pavements. How did a person end up living in a house full of strangers, without a wife, without a family? How did a person end up so totally alone? And if she were to die at ninety-seven, she mused, she wouldn’t even have a great-niece to claim responsibility for her remains. Her brother, Dominic, was gay and unless something radical happened to his brain chemistry there was no chance of any procreation there. No nieces or nephews to have kids and keep her in relatives in her old age. It was all down to her.

  She glanced across at Amitabh’s slumbering form. As usual, he had kicked off the duvet and was lying flat on his back, little squeaks and whistles escaping from his nostrils. Leah manoeuvred herself onto her elbow and looked at him properly. She stared at the line of his nose and the contours of his forehead. She touched his thick hair with the palm of her hand. And then, she couldn’t resist it, she leaned over and brushed his lovely cheek with her lips.

  ‘Jesus!’ he jumped. ‘What! What is it?!’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Leah, springing away from him. ‘Nothing. I was just kissing you, that’s all.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because… I don’t know. I just wanted to.’

  ‘Jesus. It’s nearly two. Why are you awake?’

  She shrugged. ‘I can’t sleep. It’s that man. That Gus. I can’t stop thinking about him.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Amitabh sighed and pulled the duvet back over himself.

  ‘How do you do it?’ she said. ‘I mean, you must see it every day. Old people, dying, alone. Doesn’t it, I don’t know, doesn’t it…get to you?’ Amitabh was a nurse in a geriatric ward. He knew about these things.

  ‘Oh, God. Leah. Not now. Please.’

  ‘But is it better or worse if they’re alone? Does it seem sadder if there are loads of relatives and grandkids and things, or is it worse if there’s nobody there at all?’

  ‘Let’s have this conversation in the morning, shall we?’ He reached out and squeezed her wrist perfunctorily.

  ‘I don’t want to end up all on my own,’ she said. ‘I really don’t want to.’

  ‘It’s OK. You’re a nice person. You won’t be on your own.’

  ‘Yes, but being nice isn’t any guarantee that you’ll get married and have kids and that all your friends won’t die before you, is it?’

  ‘It helps,’ he said.

  ‘Hmmmm.’ Leah sank back into the bed and pulled the duvet over her chest. Within ten seconds Amitabh’s breathing had grown heavy. Ten seconds later he was fast asleep. Leah looked at him again and suddenly knew what she had to do. It was obvious. She’d never felt more certain of anything in her life.

  ‘Am. Amitabh,’ she shook him gently by the shoulder. ‘Am.’

  ‘Oh, God! What?’ He turned over and stared at her accusingly.

  ‘I love you.’

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  ‘No. I mean, I really love you. And I want to be with you for ever. You know. Until I die. I want to marry you.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘I want to marry you.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘Yes. I do. Will you marry me?’

  ‘Oh, my God. You’re being serious, aren’t you?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Jesus,’ his face softened, ‘Leah. It’s so late. I can’t…’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, brushing his hair away from his face. ‘You don’t need to answer now. Sleep on it. Think about it.’