He led her to the dispatch area to look for her parcel.

  ‘Anything in from Miu Miu for Vogue?’ he asked Nigel.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Nigel, grabbing a big plastic bag off a rail. ‘Just in, two minutes ago.’ He handed the bag to Con and smiled at Daisy. ‘Hello,’ he said, gormlessly. ‘And who are you?’

  Con sent Nigel a reproachful look. Daisy hadn’t come down here to be flirted with by overweight men in Primark jumpers.

  ‘Hello,’ she smiled back. ‘I’m Daisy.’

  ‘Hello, Daisy. I’m Nigel.’

  ‘Do you like Miu Miu, Nigel?’

  Nigel smiled. ‘My favourite,’ he said.

  ‘They do nice shoes, too.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed, ‘lovely shoes. But not as nice as those Christian Louboutins. Now those are really nice shoes.’

  Daisy laughed, then Nigel laughed. And Con watched in wonder as they joked together, this lardy fortysomething man from Hainault and an angel from the eighth floor. And he knew it then. Daisy had jumped out of the wallpaper and was within his grasp. It was just a matter of time.

  19

  It was five in the morning and Ruby was about to creep up the stairs and head for bed when a figure appeared in the hallway. It was Melinda, groomed and polished, blonde hair scraped back into a sleek bun, all ready for work in her navy and yellow uniform.

  ‘Oh, hello.’ Melinda pulled her leather coat off the coat stand and glanced icily at Ruby.

  ‘Morning,’ said Ruby, suddenly conscious of the alcohol on her breath. Her hands felt clammy and dirty. She wanted to wash them.

  They stood facing each other for a while. A bird outside started to sing.

  Melinda spoke first. ‘I’m not going to talk to you now because you’re drunk, but just know this – if you do anything, anything to hurt my boy, I’ll belt you. I swear.’ And then she slung her coat over her arm, picked up her fake Mulberry handbag and left.

  Ruby stood for a while, feeling vodka and red wine swilling round the pit of her empty stomach. Then a rush of violent indignation hit her between the ribs, impelling her towards the front door. She threw it open and stamped down the steps, towards Melinda’s receding figure. ‘You are a sick and twisted bitch, do you know that?’

  Melinda turned and stared at her, and Ruby had a sudden moment of objectivity, of seeing this tableau through somebody else’s eyes – the wild-haired, grimy-skinned brunette in tight jeans and a flimsy jersey top screaming at the cool blonde with the shower-fresh skin and crisp suit in the middle of the street, as twilight flickered round the horizon.

  ‘Like I said,’ Melinda began, pulling her car keys out of her bag, ‘I won’t talk to you while you’re in this state. Have a good day.’ The chirrup and click of her car locks opening punctured the silence, and she slid into the driver’s seat, slipped on her seat belt and very slowly, and very deliberately, manoeuvred her Peugeot 306 out of its space.

  Ruby stood on the pavement for a while, swaying slightly in the wake of this surreal collision between the end of her day and the start of Melinda’s. And then she climbed the steps to the house, made her way to her bedroom and fell asleep on top of her bed, still wearing all her clothes.

  20

  Toby’s love for Ruby ebbed and flowed like the tide. When he’d first met her fifteen years ago he’d been consumed by lust for her. It had overwhelmed him to the point that he’d had to question the validity of every other feeling he’d ever experienced, the intensity of every emotion he’d ever felt, even for Karen. He had never in his life wanted so much to perform an act of sexual intercourse with another human being. He felt engorged entirely. There was excess blood in his arms, his feet, his eyeballs. He sweated profusely in her presence, glowed with the heat that emanated from his body, like infrared. He had to keep his hands in his pockets to stop himself from touching her, inappropriately.

  On her second night in his house, she’d brought home a monstrous man she claimed was an ‘old friend’ and made love to him so loudly and for so long that Toby had had to go downstairs to sleep on the sofa. The man had then hung round for the rest of the weekend, wearing Ruby’s dressing gown and smoking everywhere he went, including the bathroom. Toby had imagined this episode to be some kind of aberration and breathed a sigh of relief when the man finally disappeared on Monday afternoon, but three days later Ruby arrived home in the middle of the afternoon with the bass player from her band, said something about reworking some lyrics, then disappeared into her bedroom with him for more than an hour of ear-shattering sexual activity. And so it had gone on, a succession of ‘old friends’ and ‘great mates’ and ‘best buddies’ all clambering in and out of Ruby’s bed – some of them once and never again; some of them on a regular basis. Some of them matched her for attractiveness; some of them were downright ugly. A couple of them had made it to the ‘boyfriend’ stage, but these were fleeting relationships, always ended by Ruby and never cried over.

  The fact of Ruby’s sexual promiscuity had not, strange to say, fuelled Toby’s desire for her. If anything it had flattened it like a big bum on a whoopee cushion. What happened instead was that Toby started to look beyond the physical, his body disgorged, he stopped glowing and he fell in love with her. When it was just the two of them, watching TV, watching a band, having a drink, discussing music, when it was just Toby and Ruby, it was the best thing in the world. He learned to switch off when she was keeping male company, to immerse himself in something distracting, to turn up his music and sit it out like a forecasted downpour.

  Sometimes Ruby would go without sex for a month or two, and Toby would grow hopeful – maybe she was growing up, growing out of it. Maybe now she would look at Toby and see him as a sexual being. But then, eventually, a few days later, usually in the middle of the night, the front door would open and the sound of an alien male voice would float up the stairs towards Toby’s bed and he’d pull a pillow over his head and try to get to sleep before the noise started.

  Once, about six years ago, Ruby had come home from a gig at three in the morning with some girlfriends and stormed drunkenly into Toby’s bedroom. ‘Can I have a cuddle, Tobes?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m really, really drunk and I want a lovely cuddle with my lovely Toby.’ She’d crawled onto his bed and draped an arm over him and nestled her head into the crook of his arm. Toby had barely moved a muscle, too scared to breathe in case she changed her mind.

  ‘Are you naked?’ she’d said after a minute or two.

  ‘Not entirely,’ he’d said.

  Downstairs her girlfriends clattered round the wooden floors in their heels, plundered the fridge for snacks and put on music. Toby listened to Ruby breathing, the bitter alcoholic fumes of her breath filling the space between her head and his arm. ‘What’s this all about?’ he’d said eventually.

  ‘What?’

  ‘This,’ he gestured, ‘this.’

  ‘Nothing,’ she’d murmured. ‘Just want a cuddle, that’s all.’

  She’d fallen asleep there, on his bed, in his arms. One of her friends had walked in a few minutes later and backed out apologetically when she’d seen Ruby in Toby’s embrace. Toby’s arm went numb about an hour later, but he didn’t move it. He slept for about an hour and woke up with the sun at six o’clock, and stared at her for another hour until she woke up and stumbled back to her bedroom where she slept until noon.

  The whole experience was never mentioned again, mainly, Toby suspected, because it hadn’t meant anything to Ruby. But Toby had secretly hoped that that intimate albeit chaste interlude might have laid the foundations for something to change. But it didn’t. If anything things went downhill afterwards because it was then that Ruby met Paul Fox.

  Toby hated Paul Fox.

  He hated him because he had a stupid haircut.

  He hated him because he was wealthy and successful.

  He hated him because he called everyone ‘mate’ in his stupid mockney accent, even though Toby knew he was an ex-public school boy (it took one to know one).

  He hated him because when he came he shouted, ‘Oh God oh Jesus oh fuck,’ in exactly the same order and with precisely the same rhythm every single time.

  He hated him because he’d once overheard him referring to him as Mr Rigsby.

  He hated him because he was being unfaithful to his loyal girlfriend, even though he’d never met her.

  But mainly he hated him because he’d somehow managed to persuade Ruby to sleep with him at least once a week for the past five years.

  All the other blokes were of little consequence to Toby. They came; they went; they were forgotten about. But Paul Fox hung round like a terrible memory, taunting Toby with the inexplicable power he seemed to exert over Ruby. Toby didn’t think things could get much worse than Paul Fox.

  But now they had.

  Ruby had slept with Con.

  This represented, as far as Toby was concerned, a dramatic slip in her standards and, as such, a seismic shift once again in the way he viewed her. It was time for her to go. And, more importantly, it was time for him to stop loving her. He just wished someone could show him how.

  21

  Ruby’s handbag vibrated. She pulled out her phone and wiped some crumbs off the screen. It was Paul. She hesitated for a moment. This was the first time he’d called since the night they’d bumped into Eliza and she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him. She stared at the screen for a moment, then pressed the accept button.

  ‘Hello,’ she said, tentatively, not sure yet what tone to take.

  ‘Hello,’ he replied. He sounded businesslike, but friendly. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In rehearsals with the boys.’

  ‘Are you free this afternoon? For an hour or so?’

  This usually meant that he wanted to come over for sex. She took the phone into the corridor. ‘Erm, I’m not sure. Why?’

  ‘I need to see you. To talk to you. I can pick you up. How about tea at the Wolseley?’

  Ruby laughed. ‘Tea at the Wolseley?!’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got a meeting in Green Park at five, so you’ll have to get yourself home. I’ll pick you up at three.’ He hung up without saying goodbye.

  Ruby switched her phone off and stared absentmindedly at a notice board on the wall opposite, at postcards appealing for lead singers and drummers, cards advertising keyboards and clarinets. She could hear someone further up the corridor tuning a piano and next door someone was battering the hell out of a drum kit. She was in her comfort zone here, surrounded by rhythm and noise and scruffy men.

  Ruby liked scruffiness. She liked wading through plastic beer cups on sticky floors in claustrophobic clubs; she liked smoking and drinking too much in dingy old pubs; she liked watching films in proper old-fashioned flea pits with no leg room and tatty carpets. Ruby didn’t like slick and glamorous. She didn’t like the latest thing. She liked her life to feel grimy and used, like her men. Tea at the Wolseley? This was going to be very strange indeed.

  The woman at the front desk appeared to know Paul. ‘Of course,’ she smiled, when he asked if they had a table available without a reservation.

  They were led through the cavernous restaurant by a small girl in black and shown to a table at the back. Ruby looked round in awe. It was like a vast black-lacquered cathedral, held up by forty-foot pillars and hung with chandeliers the size of transit vans.

  Paul had spent most of the journey here talking to someone called Mike on his Bluetooth, so they hadn’t had a chance to talk yet, but Ruby knew that something was wrong. There’d been no fond smiles, no fingertips trailed down her inner arm, no hand clasped over her thigh – just a subtle but clear distance.

  Ruby ordered half a dozen oysters and a glass of champagne, figuring that she could eat sandwiches and cake at home any time she wanted. She glanced at Paul. ‘So,’ she began, ‘what’s up?’

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I’ve asked Eliza to marry me.’

  Ruby winced and grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Last week. I asked her to marry me. And she said yes.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ she laughed, though she wasn’t amused. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘No. I’m not.’

  ‘But, you’ve only known each other for six months.’

  ‘Eight months, actually.’

  ‘Eight months. Whatever. It’s not very long.’

  ‘No, it’s not. But then I’m not very young. And neither is she.’

  ‘Yes, but, Jesus. Getting married. I mean, that’s such a fucking big deal. That means…’ And then it hit her, exactly what that meant. It meant no more her. ‘What about us?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing, Rubes. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Ruby let her head fall into her hands. The tiredness she’d been fighting all morning at rehearsals hit her directly between the eyes like a left hook.

  ‘There’s no way that this can carry on.’ He gestured at the two of them. ‘No way. It’s one thing messing round in a casual relationship. But, you know, we’re talking engagement rings here. We’re talking a major fucking commitment.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know what you’re talking about.’ Ruby pulled her hair away from her face and glanced up at him.

  ‘And I can’t have you in my life any more.’

  Ruby laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can. You’re my best mate.’

  ‘No, Ruby, I’m not. ‘Best mate’ is just a term that you bandy about because it makes you feel better about the fact that you sleep with men without commitment. I’m not your best mate. You don’t have a best mate.’

  ‘What?’ Ruby sat up straight.

  ‘Well, you don’t. I’m sorry. You have friends. Lots of friends. And you have lovers. Lots of lovers. But you don’t have a best mate.’ He stopped and appraised her for a moment, as if he was about to say something harsh. ‘But anyway… anyway,’ he sighed, and pulled his hands down his face. ‘I didn’t bring you here to give you a character assassination. I brought you here because I wanted to do this properly. Because you deserve it. So here…’

  He pulled open his jacket and removed a box from his inside pocket. He passed it to Ruby.

  ‘What is this?’ she said.

  ‘Open it,’ he said, nodding at the box.

  The box clicked open and something glittered at her. It was a tortoiseshell hair comb, one of those Spanish-style ones. It was decorated with tiny pink rubies set into the shape of flowers. Ruby gazed at it for a while not sure how to react. It was a beautiful gift, but what did it mean?

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s beautiful. But what’s it for?’

  ‘It’s for your hair,’ he said. ‘A hair thing.’

  ‘No, no. I mean – why have you given it to me?’

  ‘To say thank you. To say goodbye.’

  ‘Right.’ She let the box snap shut and laid it gently on the table in front of her.

  ‘Was it a mistake?’

  ‘No,’ she sighed. ‘No. It’s stunning. It’ll be nice to have something to remind me of you. Of us.’

  ‘Are you being facetious?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘of course not. You don’t owe me anything. This was always a, you know, an easy-comeeasy-go thing. It’s fine.’ She stopped and caught her breath as a dreadful thought occurred to her. ‘But, what about our arrangement?’

  Paul lowered his gaze and waited while the waitress arranged their drinks on the table.

  ‘Well,’ he said, after she’d gone, ‘obviously that’s going to have to stop.’

  ‘Right,’ she said, panic surging through her. ‘So what am I going to do? How am I going to pay my rent?’

  ‘Toby will let you off the rent, I’m sure.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ruby, ‘but what about everything else? What about food and clothes and… and…life?’

  ‘You’ll find a way,’ he said. ‘You’ll get a job, sell a song. It’s time for you to grow up, Ruby…’

  ‘Christ,’ she felt panic engulf her, ‘what’s going to happen to me? I owe Kev for the rehearsal this morning. I’m overdrawn as it is. Fuck. Can’t you, maybe, just lend me some money. Just to tide me over?’

  ‘No, Ruby. I can’t. This is it. This…’ He gestured at the gift box. ‘And this…’ He gestured at her oysters which had just been placed in front of her. ‘After this there’s nothing. It has to be like this.’

  ‘What – not even fifty quid?’

  Paul sighed and pulled out his wallet. He pulled out a sheaf of twenty-pound notes and slid them across the table to Ruby. She covered them with her hand. It was more than fifty, probably about a hundred. They were still warm. She slipped them into her handbag without looking at them. ‘Thank you,’ she said, then she stared at her oysters, while she tried to corral her thoughts. Who was the first person to eat an oyster, she wondered, prodding one gently with her fork? Who prised open that first shell and thought it would be interesting to put it in their mouth? She tipped a teaspoon of pink vinegar and shallots into the shell, picked it up between her thumb and forefinger, and lifted it to her nose. The smell reminded her of summer holidays, of barnacle-encrusted shipwrecks and razor clams on empty Kentish beaches, of fish and chips eaten with wooden forks, and buckets full of seaweed and tiny translucent crabs. She tipped the oyster into her mouth and bit down on it, once, twice, swallowed it. She glanced at Paul. He was watching her wistfully over tented fingers. ‘Aren’t you worried about me?’ she said, softly. ‘Aren’t you scared I won’t survive?’

  ‘No,’ he said, picking up his cutlery.