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  ‘No need,’ said Astrid, standing up and pulling on a leather jacket. ‘You three go ahead. I’ll bike and meet you at the house.’

  We walked outside, into the darkness. I watched Astrid as she stood under the street-lamp to unlock her bike. She clipped on her helmet, hung her canvas satchel over her shoulder and swung one slim leg over the cross-bar. Her breath smoked in the air. Everything about her was fluid and streamlined. Then I saw that Miles was watching her too.

  We took a cab. Miles phoned for the takeaway from the taxi, and we stopped a few streets from the house to collect it. We walked back together with two paper carrier-bags steaming with food and two bottles of wine that I insisted on buying from a shop we passed. I had never been to this part of London before and I looked around me, trying to get a sense of it. The road we were on was one of those arterial routes that cut through the city, full of traffic-lights and clogged with cars and lorries. I could tell at once that it was a run-down area, the kind I’d come to London to get away from. The shops were strange and old and several were boarded-up; there were high-rise blocks on either side of us. I noticed that many faces were black. But the streets running off this road looked a mixture of raffish and rich, lined with tall old houses behind their iron gates and little front gardens.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Pippa.

  We turned down a long, tree-shaded street, then off it on to another, where a group of teenage boys were kicking a ball in and out of pools of light and parked cars. Ahead, a high-rise cut off the horizon. To the left was the entrance to a scruffy park.

  ‘Here we are!’

  The house must have been grand when it was built. It was three storeys high and double-fronted, with bay windows, a small garden at the front and wide steps leading up to the door. But I could tell at once that it needed a lot of work doing to it. Pointing, for a start. And slates were coming off the roof. The window-frames were cracked, the paint peeling. Years of neglect had eaten into the structure, rotting the house like an illness. I saw all of this even as I was saying, in a polite voice, what a great place it was.

  ‘Don’t mind the mess,’ said Miles, as he opened the front door.

  ‘We’re here!’ yelled Pippa. ‘With food!’

  Astrid came down the stairs. She had changed into jeans and a pale green T-shirt. Her feet were bare and I saw that her toenails were painted orange and she had a silver chain round her left ankle. ‘I beat you to it,’ she said. ‘And everyone’s here. I’ve told them about you.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Good.’

  ‘Are you nervous?’

  ‘A bit,’ I said. ‘I’d like to live here. That puts me in a weak position.’

  It was the right answer; I’d thought it would be. She looked at me appreciatively and put one hand briefly on my shoulder. ‘Come into the lion’s den.’

  We trooped down the stairs in single file. I could hear male voices and I suddenly realized I hadn’t asked anything about the other occupants. But it was too late now because there we were, standing in the large, messy semi-basement where three men were sitting round the long table, and Astrid was introducing me, while Pippa slid chipped and unmatching plates round the table, then dumped a handful of cutlery in the middle.

  ‘Right, everyone,’ said Astrid, and silence fell. Everyone looked at me. This first impression would be important, I knew.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, and raised a hand.

  ‘This,’ she said, ‘is Davy.’

  I knew that first impressions would be important. I smiled at each of them. I looked each of them in the eye. I made mental notes.

  ‘First of all,’ Astrid said, turning to a scrawny, freckly man, who looked like the carrot-headed runt in my class at secondary school whom everyone had picked on, ‘this is Dario.’

  ‘Hi, Dario,’ I said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Are you?’ His pupils were dilated and his words ran into each other. Stoned, I thought.

  ‘What? Well, yes. At least, I will be if you decide I can live here.’ There was a ripple of amusement and I felt my confidence grow.

  ‘And this…’ Astrid gestured towards a slightly older man with a buzzcut, who was wearing a thin grey T-shirt that seemed too tight for his stocky body. Something about his pale-blue gaze made me feel uneasy. ‘This is Mick.’

  He grunted something. That was all I’d get.

  ‘And last but not least…’

  I turned towards the third man, smiling and holding out my hand. I knew at once that I didn’t like him, not one bit. I didn’t like his long dark hair, or his high cheekbones, or the hooded lids over his dark, secretive eyes. I didn’t like his fucking beauty or the way he looked dreamy, as if he was seeing something I couldn’t. And I didn’t like the way Astrid was staring at him now; there was a sudden glow about her that was like heat being given off. Nor the way he looked back, a glance passing between them and electricity in the air.

  We shook hands.

  ‘Owen,’ he said.

  ‘Hello, Owen.’

  I took a seat between Astrid and Dario, uncorked the two bottles of wine and poured everyone a glass. Pippa lit three stubby white candles. I listened, nodded, laughed in all the right places. I was modest, appreciative. I patted Dario on the back when his prawn went down the wrong way. I helped Astrid clear away the foil containers. I said I wouldn’t mind dealing with the wasps’ nest under the eaves when summer came. It turned out to be as simple as that. I was in.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I arrived the following Saturday morning. Miles took me up to show me my room, which had been rejected by six other people. It was right at the top of the house, overlooking the street.

  ‘It’s a bit bare,’ said Miles. ‘We haven’t really got round to doing it up. Dario promised but… you know…’

  It was extremely bare and, because the radiator hadn’t been turned on for weeks or months, cold. There was a threadbare carpet, a bed with just a mattress, a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, a curtain rail with no curtains.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ I said, because it was. Previously I’d been staying in different places. Squatting with workmates. Sometimes even on site in a sleeping-bag.

  ‘Have you got much stuff?’ Miles asked.

  ‘A few things.’

  I had a laundry bag full of clothes and that was about it. So I went to the high street and found a funny old housing-supply shop where I bought a duvet and a cover to wrap round it, a pillow and a pillow-case to wrap round it, a sheet, a towel. Then I walked along the street and went into a little bookshop. I browsed through a section devoted to psychology, religion, self-help and gardening and found a book called Success in Friendship: A User’s Manual. When I handed it to the girl at the counter she looked at me curiously.

  ‘It’s for a friend,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ she said.

  ‘That was a joke.’

  ‘It’s seven ninety-nine,’ she said, not laughing.

  I didn’t really care whether or not she thought I was the sort of person who needed a book to tell him how to find friends. That wasn’t what I wanted it for or, at least, not exactly. I wanted to leave my old life behind and to do that I didn’t have to create a fake birth certificate and steal someone’s name. It was very simple. All I needed was never to go home again, never to phone home again. What was the problem with that? In the end my old life would catch up with me, the way it generally does, like something stuck to your shoe, but in the meantime Maitland Road was going to be my experiment. I was going to impersonate a normal housemate who got on with everybody. I was going to treat it like a technical exercise. That was why I needed a book. It would give me a part to play.

  I made up my bed, hung my towel on a hook on the back of the door and lay on the bed with my book. I read the chapter on conversation. Each paragraph was headed by a maxim and I read them aloud to myself: ‘The art of conversation is the art of being a good listener’; ‘If you want to meet a person, first you must meet their gaz
e’; ‘Respect their space’; ‘Reinforce, don’t compete’; ‘When in doubt, talk shop’; ‘Yes, not yes but…’

  My mate Ben’s uncle had put me in touch with a major refurbishment going on across the river in Camberwell. Two days after I moved in, I went down there and wandered round it with the guy who had been hired to do it. It was a fairly basic job, it was cash in hand and it was going to take at least three months. It was all so easy. It was early evening when I got back to Maitland Road. I wasn’t exactly sure what being a good housemate was like but I could avoid being a bad one. Don’t use up the hot water. I had a shower that lasted about a minute. I came downstairs and found Pippa alone, reading a magazine. Don’t be an obvious free-loader, especially at first.

  ‘I bought some wine,’ I said. ‘Would you like a glass?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Pippa. ‘Red or white?’

  ‘Whichever you like,’ I said. ‘I got both.’

  ‘Well, you can stay,’ she said cheerfully. ‘White, then.’

  I poured two glasses and sat along the sofa from her, respecting her space. Be a good listener.

  ‘I’m sure this is going to come out sounding wrong,’ I said, ‘but you don’t look like a solicitor.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ she said, sipping her drink.

  ‘So what kind of stuff do you do?’

  She was really quite funny as she talked about the characters in her office and her strange, demanding clients. I was such a good listener. The book had said that in conversation men compete and women support. So I was really a woman. A really terrific woman. Yeah, yeah, that’s right, I said. I see what you mean. Yeah, right, absolutely. Oh, that’s fantastic. I can’t believe it, you really did it? So what did he say? Bloody hell, what an idiot. I kept topping up the wine. I looked her in the eyes. I didn’t invade her personal space. I reached for the bottle to fill her glass again but it was empty.

  ‘Shall we move on to the red?’ I said.

  She slid along the sofa and invaded my personal space. She put her hand on my forearm.

  ‘You know what one of the big problems with sharing a house is?’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, you don’t, but I’m going to tell you. It’s the sexual tension. It ruins the friendships and it causes problems.’

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘You can’t, because I haven’t said it yet. When we’re together, there’s all this ridiculous flirtation and will-they-or-won’t-they?, and then there’s probably some terrible break-up. It’s dreadful for the couple and almost as bad for everybody else. You probably know about Astrid and poor Miles.’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Basically they got together and it was hopeless and she dumped him and he’s been mooning around ever since.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It was so boring. It is so boring. Now he’s got some new girlfriend. She’s like a weapon for him to brandish at Astrid. There. Look what you made me do.’

  Pippa stroked my arm reflectively and then continued: ‘Now you’re here, there’ll be all this new tension.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘It’s unavoidable. We’ll be brushing up against each other. We’ll bump into each other wrapped in towels on our way from the shower.’

  ‘I don’t want to complicate things,’ I said.

  She ignored me and moved even closer. ‘The only way to deal with it is to get it out of the way at the beginning.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  She stroked my face and gave a slow, lazy smile. ‘You know,’ she said.

  ‘What? Now?’ I felt her nuzzling against me.

  ‘It’s not compulsory,’ she said, ‘but it’d be fun. And then we can go on to being friends.’

  ‘But where?’

  She pulled a face. ‘Well, not here. Someone might come home. Let’s go to my room.’

  ‘Shall I bring the wine?’

  ‘No, we’ll have it later.’

  She took my hand and led me upstairs, talking as she did so. It was something about household routines or someone’s bad habits. But I couldn’t concentrate on the details. The blood was rushing in my ears. I could hear it. I felt hot. The situation had moved beyond my control and I wasn’t sure how it was going to end up. She led me into the room at the front of the house by the front door. Suddenly it all seemed to be happening to somebody else, or at least to somebody else as well as me. I could imagine that somebody else might find her room charming in its disorder, the clothes tossed everywhere, the bed unmade, the curtains closed. There was a clash of smells: perfume and deodorant and soap. I was repelled by it. I wanted to sweep it off the floor and throw open the windows, let in light and fresh air.

  Pippa took hold of her T-shirt and pulled it over her head, revealing a black bra covering her small breasts. She kicked off her shoes and unfastened the buttons on the front of her jeans. She sat on the bed and leaned back.

  ‘Pull them off,’ she said.

  She was as matter-of-fact as if we were going to play squash. I took the bottom of each leg of the jeans and pulled. She lifted herself off the bed and I eased them off. With expert speed she unclipped her bra, pulled down her panties, got into the bed and pulled the duvet over her. I glimpsed her dark nipples and her neatly trimmed pubic hair. Someone else would find this beautiful. They wouldn’t believe their luck.

  ‘Now it’s your turn,’ she said.

  I took my clothes off with the grim feeling I had been tricked into going somewhere I didn’t want to go. I couldn’t think of a way to make it work. I got into the bed next to her and she pushed her face against me. I kissed her. I could taste the wine on her tongue. I had the uncomfortable sensation of being on the wrong side of her, like a left-handed person trying to do something right-handed.

  She put a hand on my arm and ran down it, across on to my chest and down, down my stomach. ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m not… I don’t…’

  ‘No, it’s all right.’

  ‘No, I mean I…’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, grinning. ‘There’s no hurry.’

  She kissed my chest and then began to move downwards, kissing me as she went. I grabbed her shoulders. ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Relax.’

  ‘No.’

  I pushed her away and got out of the bed. I had to look around for my clothes. For a desperate moment I thought they might have disappeared irretrievably into the chaos of her room. But I found them and pulled on my underpants, standing stupidly on one leg, then the other. As I pulled my jeans on, I saw her staring at me, amused. ‘It’s all right,’ she said.

  ‘Of course it’s all right,’ I said.

  ‘I mean, it’s not a big deal.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say. I suppose you do this with loads of guys.’

  Now she looked puzzled, though still amused. ‘What’s that about?’

  She was sitting up in the bed. She hadn’t pulled her duvet up, the way actresses do in PG films to cover their breasts. It was probably the last time I’d ever see them. I walked over to her, shrivelled, humiliated, the blood burning in my face. ‘If you tell anyone…’ I said.

  ‘You’ll what?’ said Pippa.

  ‘Just don’t,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, don’t be silly, Davy. Why would I?’

  I stamped my feet and walked out of her room and straight out of the house on to the street, where an icy drizzle soon soaked through my clothes. My eyes were aching. I felt furious with her for forcing herself on me like that, for not giving me a proper chance. And furious with myself for my failure. It wasn’t just that there’d been a battle between us and she had won, dominated me and humiliated me. Humiliated me in front of myself. But here in this house, where I was going to start again, become a new person. Already I’d dragged myself down. She’d tell the others. I’d heard the way she gossiped. She wouldn’t be able to resist it. Or maybe she would, because it would make her look like a slut, ju
mping into the pants of a guy who had just walked in off the street.

  I was so lost in all of this that I collided with someone and had to reach out to stop her falling. But she dropped her shopping bags, and cans rolled out and a bag of rice split on the pavement. I looked at her in shock, as if I’d been unconscious and suddenly brought round and didn’t know where I was.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘That was completely my fault. Let me help you.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said, flustered. ‘Look at the mess.’ The rice had scattered around us, and several green apples were rolling across the pavement towards the road. ‘But it was probably me. I’m terribly clumsy. My husband’s always scolding me.’

  I bent down and started to replace the shopping. ‘I’ll buy you another bag of rice. Let’s see. Basmati.’

  ‘You really don’t need to. It was a mistake. Most people wouldn’t even have stopped. They’d have shouted something and rushed on.’

  ‘I’m glad I’m not most people, then. These apples are bruised, I’m afraid. I’ll buy some more of them as well.’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘At least let me carry them for you. Do you live near here?’

  ‘Just a few yards away. Number fifty-four.’

  ‘I live at seventy-two. We’re neighbours!’ I moved the bags to my left hand and held out the right.

  The woman blushed and shook it. ‘Hello,’ she said shyly. ‘I wish more people on this road were like you.’

  ‘I’ve just moved in. My name’s David.’

  ‘I’m Margaret,’ she said, ‘but friends call me Peggy.’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  We walked down the road together, and I noticed how she patted her hair surreptitiously and straightened her thick jacket as we did so. She was nervous of me. I’d been bad after Pippa. A feeling had been starting in my head. Now it was lifting.

  Her house was smaller than the one I’d moved into, and in a much better state of repair. The window-frames were newly painted, the front door a smooth dark green. When she unlocked it and pushed it open, I could see that inside it was also tidy. Too tidy. Madly tidy. Even from here, I could smell the detergent and polish and loneliness.