39

The sun came out that afternoon, just as Toby left the house. It matched his mood. He hadn’t been for a walk across the Heath in a very long time. He hadn’t, now he thought about it, been out on a Saturday afternoon for a very long time. Saturday afternoons were for other people, Toby felt, for people with children and people with partners and people who’d been in bed all morning because they’d been out all night. Saturday afternoons involved partaking in activities of which Toby had no experience – playing sports, doing the weekly shop, seeing friends. People did things on Saturday afternoons that they couldn’t do during the week because they were at work. Toby, being without gainful employment, had no need to venture out on a Saturday afternoon. But now Toby had a friend, and Toby had somewhere to go. He felt strangely euphoric as he walked down the High Road towards the Tube.

He met Leah outside East Finchley station and they walked down the Bishops Avenue together, playing the ‘Which house is most disgusting?’ game. It always disturbed Toby somewhat that people with so much money were allowed to spend it on such horrible houses. Toby had seen one for sale once, in one of the property magazines that got hefted through his letterbox occasionally, a low-built Southfork monstrosity with pillars and red bricks and cathedral windows. It had a gold-plated entrance hall, a cinema, a gym and two swimming pools. It was priced at £35,000,000.

Toby and Leah weren’t the only people to decide that it was a nice afternoon for a walk around Kenwood. The grounds around the house were thronging with designer prams, big dogs, and toddlers in fleecy hats. The sky was a brilliant shade of blue and the sun was a blinding white orb behind the leafless trees.

They were ascending a small slope and Toby felt his lungs begin to strain against the amount of breathing he was having to do.

Leah stopped and turned to look at him. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ he said, holding his hand to his chest and squinting slightly. ‘Just a bit … breathless.’

Leah smiled. ‘Are you really that unfit?’

Toby nodded. ‘Too much time … in front … of my … computer.’

‘Oh, dear Lord, that’s terrible. You know, I’ve seen you up there at your desk, every day, every night, for three years. It never occurred to me that I was actually watching you die.’

‘Oh, God, it’s not that bad.’

‘But it is. Look.’ She pointed at the hill they’d just climbed. ‘It’s barely a slope. Terrible,’ she said. ‘Terrible. You should start exercising.’

‘No, no, no.’ Toby shook his head and they started walking again. ‘I’m not that kind of person. I don’t do sports.’

‘It doesn’t have to be sports.’

‘I don’t do gyms.’

‘Swimming,’ she said, ‘try swimming. It’s the best all-round exercise.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I have a slight phobia of swimming baths. The smell of chlorine, the eerie echo, women in rubber hats. And I get claustrophobic in goggles.’

Leah laughed. ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘I go every week. And I don’t wear a rubber hat.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No. I promise.’

‘Well, then, maybe I will. Though I must warn you, I don’t have entirely the correct physique for swimming trunks.’

‘And what exactly is the correct physique for swimming trunks?’

‘Oh, you know, muscles, shoulders, buttocks – all that business.’

‘Well, I’ve got muscles, shoulders and buttocks, so we should sort of balance each other out.’

Toby envisaged Leah in a damp swimsuit, her muscles, shoulders and buttocks shiny and wet. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Yes. Why not? Let’s go swimming.’

‘Good,’ said Leah. ‘It’s a deal.’

They headed back to the main house and queued for tea and cake in the café. It was mild enough to sit outside, so they took their trays into the courtyard and found themselves a table.

‘Con’s girl stayed the night,’ said Toby, stirring the bag round his teapot.

‘What, the posh one?’

‘Yup. He cooked her dinner. Well, we cooked her dinner. Her coat was still in the hallway the next morning.’

‘Well, that’s brilliant.’

‘You know, I’m starting to feel rather fond of Con. In a kind of paternal way. There’s more to him than I originally thought. In fact, I’m starting to feel more warmly disposed towards all my tenants. And you know, in a strange way, I’m quite enjoying this project. I’m quite enjoying being …’

‘Nosy?’

‘Yes,’ he smiled, and poured his tea into his cup. ‘Yes, being nosy. It’s fun.’

‘Well, I am having a good influence on you, aren’t I?’

‘Yes,’ said Toby, ‘I’d say you are.’ He glanced up at Leah. She was scraping whipped cream off the top of her hot chocolate and licking it off her spoon. Her cheeks were the colour of strawberry sauce. She looked divine. He stared at his hand for a while where it rested against his teacup. He could feel it twitching. It wanted to move; it wanted to slide across the wooden table top and lie on top of Leah’s hand. Toby talked to his hand. ‘Don’t do it, hand. She’ll freak out. It’ll spoil everything.’ But the hand seemed intent on disobeying Toby’s instructions. He watched as it moved across the table, slowly, disembodied from him, like something out of a zombie movie. It was halfway across the table when someone suddenly boomed in Toby’s ear, ‘Leah! Leah!’, and his hand came scuttling back to him like a nervous cat.

There was a large man standing behind him, in a fur-lined parka and trendy jeans.

‘Am!’ said Leah. ‘My God!’

‘Hello,’ said Amitabh.

‘Am – you know Toby, from across the road?’

Amitabh smiled at Toby. He had a lovely face. ‘Well, I don’t know Toby, but I recognize you from through the window. Good to meet you.’ They shook hands. Amitabh’s hand was warm and fleshy.

‘Who are you here with?’ said Leah.

‘No one,’ Amitabh shrugged. ‘Just me. I was supposed to be studying this afternoon, but I couldn’t face it. Thought I’d get some fresh air.’

‘Right,’ said Leah. ‘So, just got here? Just leaving?’

‘Just got here.’ He pointed at a table behind them with his tea and cake on it. ‘Mind if I …?’ He pointed at their table.

‘No,’ said Leah. ‘Why not?’

She grimaced at Toby while Amitabh went to get his food and mouthed a ‘Sorry.’

Toby shrugged, trying to look as if he didn’t care much one way or the other about Leah’s ex-boyfriend crashing headlong into the nicest afternoon he’d had in fifteen years.

Amitabh put down his cheesecake and cappuccino, and sat next to Leah. He was very solid and very healthy-looking. His skin was clear and his hair was abundant and shiny. He had very white teeth and a high-octane personality. ‘You look good,’ he said to Leah. ‘You’re wearing make-up.’

‘Yeah, well, us single girls have to make an effort.’

He smiled. ‘So – what have you two been up to?’

‘Nothing much,’ said Leah. ‘Just walking. Just chatting.’

‘I’ve got to say, mate, and don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s kind of unnerving seeing you like this …’

‘Like …?’

‘You know – out. I’ve only ever seen you through the window. Me and Lee – we thought you were agoraphobic, to be honest.’

‘You did?’

‘Am!’

‘What?! I’m just saying. Yeah. It’s good to see you out. Good to know you’ve got legs. You have got legs, haven’t you?’ he grinned and glanced underneath the table. ‘Phew,’ he said, wiping his brow, ‘imagine if you hadn’t, if you’d been in a wheelchair. Shit.’

Toby smiled and tried to look as if he was amused by the idea of having no legs. He stared at Amitabh’s mouth, at the way it moved when he talked, which he did, non-stop. He watched it receiving large forkloads of cheesecake and being relieved of a cappuccino moustache by the back of his large, dark hand. He was very intense, robust, alive, full of news and chat and blather. He was slightly immature, seemed young for his thirty years and, to Toby’s mind, a bit silly. He could kind of see how he and Leah would have worked together. They were both youthful for their years, teenage in their style of dressing, with a fresh-faced, puppyish approach to the world. But he could also see why they’d split up. Leah was ready for phase two of her adulthood. Amitabh was stuck firmly in phase one.

Toby finished his tea and buttoned up his overcoat. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I think I’m going to head off, leave you two to catch up.’

‘What? No,’ said Leah, ‘don’t go.’

‘No, really. I better had. I’ve got some stuff I need to get on with and you two haven’t seen each other for a while. I’ll see you soon, Leah. And nice to meet you, Amitabh.’

‘Oh, Toby.’ Leah got to her feet. ‘I don’t want you to go. What about our pint at the Spaniards?’

‘Another day, maybe.’ He smiled and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. ‘See you soon.’

He walked away then, towards the entrance. He tried not to look back, but he couldn’t resist it. He saw two people, perfectly matched in levels of attractiveness, in style and outlook, sitting together in the early dusk, laughing and at ease with each other. He wondered how different a tableau had been painted by the two of them before Amitabh’s arrival; a preternaturally tall man with unruly hair, ungainly mannerisms, an old coat and a large nose, sitting with someone as fresh, normal and wholesome as Leah.

For a moment, for an hour, Toby had felt like just another man, out on a Saturday afternoon, out with a friend, inhabiting a world he usually only viewed as a spectator. Until a large, jovial man in a parka had crashed into his moment of normality and reminded him that he really didn’t belong out here at all.

He headed back down the Bishops Avenue, the soulless, ugly spine of road that connected his world with this world, alone. And then it started to rain.