The Essence of the Thing by Madeleine St John Read Free Book Online

went through purgatory together.’
    ‘If you ask me he’s still there.’
    ‘But I’m not asking you, I’m trying to tell you. God, but you do try a chap’s patience. Now: who do you think owns the other half of the aforementioned Notting Hill flat?’
    ‘Don’t tell me, let me guess.’
    ‘You never will, so I shall. Note my grammar, by the way.’
    ‘Yes, very well, noted. All right, so tell me: who is the abovementioned co-owner?’
    ‘Only a sweet young thing called Nicola Gatling.’
    ‘Like the gun.’
    ‘Yes, like the gun.’
    ‘How do you know she’s sweet?’
    ‘He showed me a photo.’
    ‘He what ?’
    ‘A photo. Sweet. Dark hair, thin face. Intelligent. Thirtyish.’
    ‘He had a photo ?’
    ‘Yes, why not? Just a small one. In his wallet.’
    Lizzie left the stove and sat down and began to laugh. ‘Good Lord,’ she said. ‘He’s serious.’
    ‘Well of course he is. He’s bought this flat with her. There they are, living in sin together at this very moment. So there.’
    ‘Wonders will never cease.’
    ‘Exactly. If only we could all bear that in mind—oh and by the way, I said he should bring her round for a meal some evening, okay?’
    ‘Oh, that was good of you.’
    ‘Yes, well, what could I do?’
    ‘What indeed.’
    ‘Important step in a chap’s life.’
    ‘Considering it’s taken him so long to make it.’
    ‘Well, some of us are slow starters. Not the chap’s fault.’
    ‘No, nothing is ever one’s fault. It’s still one’s responsibility to sort it out, though.’
    ‘So he has sorted it out.’
    ‘Apparently.’
    ‘So anyway, let’s have them round. Don’t you want to take a look at this Nicola?’
    ‘Yes. Sure. Have you got the number?’
    ‘No. But you could telephone him at work.’
    ‘Write down the name of the firm then, I’ll never remember it. On the calendar there. Only I can’t do anything for a few weeks, I’m up to my ears.’ Lizzie was an independent television producer, a fairly discernible operator. But once in a while she cooked the dinner, as tonight, for therapy. She got up and went on with it.
    ‘Okay,’ said Alfred, who was madly curious to see the woman in the case. ‘I’ll remind you.’
    ‘You sweetie you,’ said Lizzie. ‘Now you’d better buzz up and see Henrietta while you’ve got the chance, or she’ll be asleep. You could ask Marie-Laure to come down here for a moment if you will.’
    ‘Oh, yes, Harry. Has she been good today?’
    ‘Ish,’ said Lizzie. ‘Just ish. From what I hear. But it’s better than nothing.’
    ‘She’s a girl of spirit,’ said Alfred proudly. ‘I like a girl with spirit.’ And he went up to Henrietta, and read her The Fox and the Grapes .

20
    The sitting-room windows faced south, and gave a view of a terrace of stucco-fronted Victorian houses like the one they inhabited, and beyond these the tops of trees growing in the communal gardens: it looked, especially in the evening, like a stage set for an urban operetta. They’d just finished painting the sitting-room walls midsummer-sky-blue, with the cornices picked out in white.
    ‘We’re pretty good, aren’t we?’ said Jonathan. But he’d decided to get a professional in to do the ceiling.
    They sat down on the sofa, the rather good old one which they’d bought at auction and which had cost them an arm and a leg—how appropriate—and Jonathan opened another half bottle of champagne.
    ‘It might be nice to do something about the bathroom,’ he said.
    ‘No,’ said Nicola. ‘I’m cleaned out.’
    ‘Let me give it to you for a present,’ said Jonathan. ‘It can be your Christmas present.’
    ‘But that’s not for months and months,’ said Nicola.
    ‘An early present,’ said Jonathan.
    And so one way or another the flat was, after all, substantially upgraded, and pretty good it looked, too, in a laid-back, understated, Notting Hillish way. Part of the upgrading of the bathroom was the latest and best thing in showers,