Kismet Page 5

  Her own birthday is nine days away. She looks up from the computer screen and across the dark living room to the narrow dining table, and imagines seven or eight friends crowding around it. She imagines them leaving at the end of the night, and being left alone with Pete. The idea releases a bass note of dread – much worse than anything to do with work, or anything at all – and her mind is sent again to that Sunday afternoon a month before, when she was alone in the flat, scrambling around like a crazy person, emptying drawers, pulling cushions off the sofa, turning pockets of hanging coats inside out. All she wanted was a cup of tea. But when the kettle boiled she had found there was no milk. So she had thrown on lounge pants to run to the shop, only to find no more than 27p in her purse, bag and coat, not even enough for a half-pint. Anna hated this: the ramshackle corner shop was just over the road, a minute round trip, while the cash machine was on the high road ten minutes away. She began scouring the flat for change, working through every drawer in the kitchen, every coat in the hallway, then moving to the living room, continuing even when she realised the man in the shop would surely let her pay later, for a principle seemed to be at stake: there had to be money somewhere in the flat, there had to be. In the bedroom she fingered through the little dish of leftover foreign coins from holidays, then worked through the pockets of all the clothes hanging on her clothes rail, finding nothing but dry-cleaning tickets and spare buttons. Finally she arrived at Pete’s clothes, which appeared like a topological presentation of his existence, beginning with the casual jumpers and T-shirts and jeans of his new student life, then moving on to the rough fleeces and sweaters adorned with the logo of the garden centre he used to work at, before finally landing on the shirts and chino trousers and suits from his time with a global engineering firm. As she patted down one of these suits her hand found an alarming lump within the silken folds of fabric, and inside she discovered a small velvet box, along with a receipt from a jeweller’s on Hatton Garden. Spare change and milk and the rest of the world were forgotten, as she knelt on the floorboards with the box in her palm. Of course she knew what it was, but that didn’t take away the ceremony of the act. She took a deep breath and prised open the lid, and saw herself opening the box as she did so, as in some ways she still sees herself opening it, as if since that moment a month ago she has been in a constant fixed state of looking down upon that simple gold band, with its diamond glinting in reflection of the colourless sky.

  Anna is still staring at the dining table, and imagines Pete at the end of the party, getting down on one knee. He will produce that same little box from his pocket, and then gaze up at her, the dazzle of the jewel reflected in his hopeful eyes …

  No, she can’t have a dinner party. She needs to cancel the whole thing, throw off his plans. She swallows the last of the whisky – now diluted with melted ice – and searches for ‘boat hire, London’. The first option is fantastically, almost comically expensive, as are the second and third, but then she finds a company in Little Venice that offers a weekday special rate of £200, which seems doable. Her birthday is on a Friday, and it’s not too much to ask people to take the day off work, or call in sick, or, in Hamza’s case, to carry on being the bums that they are. They could start in Little Venice and sail all the way through Camden and Islington to Hackney Wick, where they would go for a proper night out at Colorama, if it’s still there. Yes, this is good. She can almost see the photo album already.

  It is 1.40 a.m. Her mind is still turning, but the whisky is doing its work – a warm inner glow and surface fuzziness – and she should at least try and sleep. She brushes her teeth again and then scales the ladder, which she can now do effortlessly and without thinking, even when carrying two cups of tea. She drops her dressing gown and shivers as she gets into bed; the sheets are cool while Pete, deadweight in sleep, is radiating heat. Feeling guilty, she backs her bum into the warm nest of his lap. His arm falls over her like a latch, then his breathing stutters and stalls.

  ‘Hmmmph?’ he says.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve been downstairs.’

  ‘What is it?’ he says, sounding worried.

  ‘It’s nothing. I just couldn’t sleep.’

  A pause, then he sighs and rolls away from her onto his back.

  ‘Now I’m awake,’ he says.

  ‘Sorry. I tried to be quiet.’

  ‘Did you try not to touch me as well?’ He sounds cranky, but this is how she likes him: there is weight in his voice. The whisky has put her in a generous mood, and also made her fearless.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about my birthday,’ she says.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I want to cancel the dinner party. I want to hire a boat.’

  ‘A boat?’ he says, his voice sharp with concern.

  ‘A narrowboat. Or is it a longboat? You know, a canal boat.’

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘We can sail around for the day, pack it with food and booze …’ And drugs, she suddenly thinks. How long has it been since she last had a pill or a line? At least one year. Perhaps two. Could it even be three?

  ‘Sounds cold,’ says Pete, who can get through most winters without having to resort to a coat.

  ‘It’s often warm on my birthday. Late March can go either way.’

  ‘Sounds expensive, then.’

  ‘It’s not so bad, on a weekday. Two hundred pounds.’

  He scoffs at the price, says it is a complete rip-off, and Anna thinks of the receipt she found alongside the ring, for six times that amount. Where did he find the money? The story is that he is a student and hard up, so much so that they couldn’t take a winter holiday this year, that two-week dose of warmth and light that had seemed like an annual indulgence but was shown by its absence to be more of a medical necessity. And yet he bought the ring. Because being broke for him – and most other people she knows, Zahra included – does not really mean being broke; it is more like a game, and in many ways a satisfying one, which he can call off at any time simply by ringing his parents.

  ‘I don’t mind paying for it,’ she says. ‘If people think it’s too much.’

  Silence for a moment. She can almost hear his thoughts circling around, groping for some innocuous reason to undermine her plan.

  ‘This is crazy,’ he says. ‘We’re having a dinner party. Everyone’s happy with the dinner party idea. Now go to sleep.’

  Another moment’s silence, then Anna says, ‘I want a boat.’ This sounds involuntarily childish and makes her giggle, the seriousness of the conversation dispelled. Pete also laughs, and for a moment they are laughing together. Perhaps it is the whisky, but Anna feels a surprising tenderness for him – and for the idea of them as a unit – and, experimentally, she tries to coax this feeling by kissing the soft globe of his shoulder.

  ‘And I’m not tired,’ she says.

  ‘What can I do about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Tell me a story.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me a scary story.’

  He says nothing, but she feels his body, where her feet, knees and forearms are touching him, go tense with concentration.

  ‘I know: tell me about the shark.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘I love it. Tell it from the start. In detail.’

  ‘Alright,’ he says, sighing. There is a long pause, then he begins, in a croak barely above a whisper. ‘I was in Koh Phangan, living in a little bamboo hut. At the end of the beach was this lip of black volcanic rock that jutted into the sea, and beneath it the water became really dark and cool. Every morning I’d dive off and make a lotus flower at the bottom for a minute or two.’

  ‘How old were you? When was it? Give the details.’

  ‘It was my gap year. I must have been eighteen or nineteen. So one morning I was down there and I saw this fish swimming towards me. It kept coming for ages, then I realised it was a lot further away and bigger than I thought. It kept coming and growi
ng, and coming and growing, and eventually I saw it was a shark, a tiger shark. He was huge, at least three metres, and coming right at me.’

  ‘I love this story,’ she mumbles, already drifting away.

  ‘I was utterly helpless,’ he says, his hands carving shapes in the half-dark. ‘But then something strange happened. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen, but I suddenly became completely calm. I realised there was nothing I could do about it. I was beneath a ledge, with no air in my lungs, but since there was nothing I could do, there was nothing to worry about. The shark angled right up to me, a few feet away, staring. I stared right back, fearless. I swear he sensed it, my lack of fear, and respect passed between us, from one strange animal to another. Then he banked away to his left, looped around and swam away again.’

  ‘Just floated away.’

  ‘I scrambled out from beneath the ledge and burst from the water, panting, gasping, amazed to be alive.’

  Anna shuffles further into his warmth.

  ‘Floated away,’ she whispers.

  ‘It was like we doffed caps at each other.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Top o’ the morning.’

  ‘Just floated away.’

  ‘Exactly. Night.’

  ‘Night.’

  Thursday

  On Thursday the weather is as bright and warm as the forecast promised, and on her way to an al fresco lunch Anna is pleased to pass people in their shirt sleeves and T-shirts, their bare arms swinging in the mild air for the first time this year. The sunlight burns through the fog of fatigue and alcohol that has clouded her morning. At the corner of Dean Street and Berwick Street she meets Zahra, who has them walk all the way to Old Compton Street to find a new Japanese place she has been raving about, before taking their ramen pots back to the little park in the centre of Soho Square; on the journey neither mentions Kismet or Pete or Thomas 72, and Anna takes this as a tacit agreement to keep things light, to not repeat the argument they had on WhatsApp the day before. When they reach the square they find that so many other people have had the same idea that the lawn is almost invisible, replaced by a dense carpet of office workers as they crouch over burritos, gözleme, katsu curry, fried noodles, pie and mash, tortilla, roti and countless other unidentifiable and perhaps unnamed dishes. They find a spot at the edge of one of the quadrants of lawn and go to work on their ramen pots, but have to sit so close together that their crossed knees are touching. It is a nice feeling though, and the sensation of Zahra’s elbow and shoulder rubbing against her as she eats stirs up a memory in Anna.

  ‘Hey. Do you remember that time it was as busy as this, and we ended up sitting with our backs to each other? And I had that idea for a big elasticated piece of fabric – a sling, basically – that would wrap around two people, so they could both sit upright while still facing each other?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Zahra is leaning over the pot rested between her knees; she uses a cupped hand as an extra barrier between her wet noodles and her dazzling white shirt as she lifts her chopsticks to her mouth.

  ‘You do remember. We were sat almost exactly here. Or maybe it was in Hoxton Square. Anyway. “Slinghy”, I called it. Because it was a sling, and because it would be a bit like sitting opposite someone in a dinghy.’

  Zahra’s eyes narrow to squint behind her square glasses as she chews.

  ‘I remember one about leasing a sheep to people so it could cut their grass.’

  ‘While entertaining the kids. Another great idea. Sometimes I think I should try resuscitating one of them.’

  ‘Maybe you should. Get yourself a second income.’

  ‘Yeah,’ says Anna, flatly, the thought of paid work and jobs sending a shudder through her. ‘Though I should probably try and not throw away my current income first.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ says Zahra. She puts down her chopsticks and reiterates that Anna shouldn’t worry about that shit, that the Power Women list was just some throwaway clickbait, and that the Sahina interview is the real thing – the exciting thing – the thing that will finally make her a successful journalist. Anna keeps her eyes averted, and all she can muster when Zahra finishes is a hum of agreement.

  ‘Don’t sound too excited,’ says Zahra, and Anna spins her head in all directions to make sure they are only surrounded by strangers.

  ‘Do you ever feel like a fake at work?’ she says, beneath her breath. ‘Like everyone else is really doing their job, and you’re just pretending?’

  ‘That’s called being an adult.’

  ‘Or like you’re being tested for something? Something that maybe you didn’t even want in the first place.’

  ‘Trust me, everyone feels like this.’

  ‘You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of running cross-country.’ This makes Zahra’s head jerk in confusion, and Anna describes in detail the feeling of representing her school at these big races when she was twelve or thirteen, always in the freezing cold, standing at the start line surrounded by hundreds of horrible strange children from other schools, feeling physically sick at the prospect of doing badly and not placing in the top ten, and at the same time knowing she wouldn’t feel the slightest hint of pleasure if she came first, because it would only mean running more races.

  ‘You’re just nervous!’ says Zahra. ‘It’s going to be fine. Nerves make you perform – you just need to nail the questions, then memorise them.’

  ‘Yeah … In fact, I should head back and work on them. I’ve got the list down from thirty to ten.’

  ‘What? I haven’t even finished my noodles. We’ve been, like, forty minutes. And it’s way too nice to take a short lunch.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ says Anna, thinking she can always stay late tonight if necessary. She resolves to push Sahina from her mind for the next twenty minutes, and tilts her face towards the sun and leans back on her palms; the warmth feels like a faint even pressure on her pale skin. ‘We did it, Z. We survived another winter.’

  ‘Steady on.’

  ‘It’s true. I can feel it. I can even smell it.’ Anna inhales through her nose and tries to engage with the positive feeling she had on the walk to the park, but as she projects her thoughts forwards in time, rather than excitement for the warm bright months ahead, her imagined future stops with a thud at her birthday dinner party, just eight days away, and being left with Pete at the end, and once again she is kneeling on the floorboards in the bedroom, looking down upon the ring. A shiver runs up her arm and she realises the ground beneath her palms is spongy and damp; winter is lurking just beneath the surface. She isn’t listening to what Zahra is saying – something about there being no leaves on the trees – and, unable to respond, they lapse into silence, a silence that Anna senses will mark the end of their attempt to keep things light and friendly; she can no longer hold the heavy stuff at bay, it looms too large in her mind for her to think or talk around.

  ‘I found proof,’ she says, eventually. ‘He’s definitely going to propose on my birthday.’

  ‘Proof? You told me you already knew.’

  ‘Not a hundred per cent. Now I’ve seen a text to his brother, and he really, definitely is.’

  ‘You checked his phone?’

  Anna says she couldn’t resist, and relays the five-text exchange almost from memory: Pete asking his brother Bean if he was keeping the ring in a safe place, Bean asking if he was nervous, Pete saying he had it under control, and Bean joking that he should serve it to her in meringue, to which Pete said haha. Zahra listens with her lips queasily askew, the freckled skin around her nose crinkled in disapproval.

  ‘What does this mean, anyway?’ she says. ‘It’s hardly new information.’

  ‘It means I have to cancel the dinner party.’

  ‘Cancel it?’

  ‘I’m thinking of a boat trip instead.’

  ‘What the fuck have boats got to do with anything?’

  ‘Because it will be a big event! I will invite people fro
m up north – Gaby and Alice and that lot – they’ll have to stay over. We can really go for it – drink all day, go out in Hackney at night, have a walk and pub lunch the next day. Pete won’t propose in the middle of all that. He’ll have to reschedule.’

  ‘Until, like, a day later.’

  ‘No way. People wait for special occasions. Holidays, anniversaries, birthdays. Where was it Keir proposed?’

  ‘Lake Como,’ admits Zahra. ‘But a boat? Won’t it be cold?’

  ‘Of course not. Look at today.’

  Zahra sighs and repeats that today’s heat is a sneak preview, not a seasonal change.

  ‘No way, it’s spring,’ says Anna, pointing, as if in evidence, to the timbered hut at the centre of the square, where a man in green overalls is taking a padlock from the door.

  ‘That’s a gardener,’ says Zahra. ‘Not Old Father Time. Look at the forecasts. It’ll be raining next week.’

  ‘I don’t care if it snows – the boat’s perfect. I’ve already asked Hamza to get us some drugs. But Pete thinks it’s crazy coming from me. You need to text him, tell him you think it’s a great idea.’

  Zahra turns her head away from Anna towards the short road that gives onto a portion of Oxford Street. Anna looks at the side of Zahra’s freckled, narrow face and marvels at how she is urging her to contact Pete. Until recently she contrived to keep them apart, because she found it alarming how well they got on. Every time Zahra came around they swapped recipes, discussed botany tips and made each other laugh by moaning about their respective independent schools – which are part of the same foundation or academy or linked in some way that Anna has never quite understood – while maintaining a level of eye contact that was borderline inappropriate. But these feelings have faded over the last six months, largely because Zahra has been busy knocking down walls at her own flat rather than hanging around theirs, and then disappeared entirely when she found the ring. Now she almost misses her jealousy, since it was proof she had something she couldn’t afford to lose.