It would be misleading to say that she hadn’t stopped thinking about Ivan since that first meeting in the Italian restaurant on Crown Passage – the man who would peel the skin from her body and reveal the rot. Aside from the occasional jolt of recollection in the weeks that followed, she had barely thought of him at all.
There had been so much else going on. Summer was fast approaching and with it a roster of school-related events, now that Sadie was finishing her first year, which Tom and she would split between them, the bulk of the daytime duties falling to him because otherwise how could she explain her sudden availability for Sports Day after being inescapably chained to the office for so long?
And what could she tell him, without putting their children’s lives at stake?
It was four months to the day since she’d walked out of the office, though the specific date only occurred to her later on. She had been distracted by the fight she and Tom had had that morning, though it wasn’t so much a fight, when she thought back on it, as a stalemate: a lingering cloud of resentment that hung over every room of their home. She couldn’t even remember what the argument was about, only the feeling; the same dull ache that for so long had stretched in front of them, like an elastic band waiting to snap.
Unfair as it was, she felt a growing bitterness towards him that she knew was illogical. She had jeopardised everything she held dear in order to protect them, to protect their children, to protect Tom, and yet she couldn’t even tell him. Irrational though it was, she couldn’t help but resent him for the burden she had to carry alone.
She had been so deep in thought that morning, browsing in Waterstones on Charing Cross for as long as she could, trying to transport herself elsewhere, before continuing to wander the streets of London, that when she looked up and saw him there again, the two of them walking towards one another on Crown Passage, for a moment she felt as if she had been tugged from one world into the next.
‘Hi,’ he said first.
‘Ivan?’
Their eyes caught and for a moment neither of them spoke, but then they slowed down, clearly both heading for the same place.
‘You going in?’ He didn’t move towards the bistro and for a moment she didn’t reply, ambushed as she was by these feelings that suddenly surged inside her as she stood opposite this man who was practically a stranger.
He pushed open the door to let her through and she smiled.
‘I’m sorry, you didn’t tell me your name …’ he said and she blushed.
‘It’s Gabriela.’
The coolness of the restaurant compared to the street was almost chilling and she held her arms across her chest for warmth.
‘Table for two?’
A waitress she didn’t recognise spoke and then turned, ushering them towards the only free table, near the back of the room, before they could object. Turning briefly to her and pulling a face as if to say What can you do? Ivan followed and Gabriela’s feet moved after him, as if by their own will.
Lowering herself into the chair and watching Ivan do the same, she felt their legs brush against each other under the table.
‘Sorry,’ she said, rearranging herself, but he didn’t respond.
‘So, do you know what you’ll have?’ the waitress asked, her face moving between them.
‘Oh, I’ll— you go ahead. I’m going to the loo.’
As she stood, her hands moved quickly through her hair, her legs out of step with the rest of her body. It was as though the internal dial that controlled the senses in her body had been turned up too high. It was a feeling that was hard to pinpoint then, but looking back she would recognise it for what it was: guilt. Guilt for what she had no intention of doing and yet which was also utterly inevitable, even then. Fear, too?
As she moved past Ivan, she became aware of a hint of musky aftershave wafting from his direction. Tom had never worn fragrance. They had laughed at the idea when discussing what they might buy each other as presents on their first Christmas together, over a Chinese takeaway, Tom conceding that he wasn’t enough of a proper grown-up to use such things.
‘So you’re saying you’re some sort of man-child,’ she had replied. ‘Well, that’s an attractive prospect.’
‘My eternal youth is just one of the reasons why you adore me,’ Tom had shrugged in response, and she had rolled her eyes, biting into a prawn cracker, her lip sticking to the surface and leaving a tiny blister.
What had changed, between then and now? The answer was heartbreakingly clear: everything had changed and yet not enough.
‘So what brings you here again?’ Ivan asked once the food had arrived, two plates of chicken Milanese set between them preventing her from fiddling with her phone by way of distraction.
‘I’m working around the corner,’ she said, unsure of her tone.
‘Oh yes, you work at a charity.’
She made an expression of surprise and he shrugged unapologetically. ‘I have a good memory.’
‘Clearly.’
‘Says the woman who remembered my name.’
She looked down, as if her next question was little more than polite conversation. ‘And what about you?’
‘Me?’ He raised his eyebrows as if her question hadn’t been clear enough.
‘Are you based around here?’
He nodded, taking a mouthful of food.
‘My office is on Pall Mall. Just around the corner.’ He stopped and raised a napkin lightly to his mouth, apparently unsure of what he was about to say.
‘Listen, I don’t suppose … Today is my birthday and I was going to go for a drink after lunch, to celebrate. I wonder if you would join me?’
‘Oh, happy birthday,’ Gabriela said, her voice faltering. ‘I’m sorry, I have work—’
It wasn’t as though she didn’t resist, she would tell herself later. It wasn’t like she didn’t try to say no.
‘So how was the party?’ Tom asked above the whistling of the kettle, the following morning.
Gabriela was sitting at the kitchen table, still in her pyjamas, a dressing gown pulled tightly around her body, her hands shielding her face in a futile bid to block the bright sunshine that flooded in through the French doors. When Tom spoke, her mind was somewhere else, picking through the details of the night before, trying to work through the knots gathered in her stomach.
Davy’s Wine Bar stood at the bottom of a discreet flight of steps on the corner of Crown Passage. Inside, under the old champagne vaults, a wooden counter ran along the right-hand side, and there were old cask barrels and low wooden tables lit up by candles in bottles. It was like closing the door against the world as they stepped inside, into a space untouched by the rhythms of the streets so that down here it might be any time or season. Her boots pressed tentatively against the stone flooring as if scared of giving her away as they moved towards the back of the bar, where two red leather armchairs were tucked out of sight.
Ivan spoke as though their being here together, in the middle of the afternoon, was the most normal thing in the world.
‘You OK with champagne?’
‘I’ll have a gin and tonic,’ she said, and he tipped his head in approval.
It was just a drink with a stranger, she told herself. It was the sort of thing she’d had to do a thousand times before, for work.
‘Is it actually your birthday?’ she asked over the edge of her drink, which was strong and bitter and sweet at once.
‘Of course, why would I lie?’
She raised her eyebrows slightly, her gaze drifting over his left hand as he lifted his champagne flute. There was no ring, though that meant nothing. Glancing down at her own bare fingers, she didn’t flinch; the image of Tom retreating as quickly as it had emerged.
There was something so disconnected about this place, about everything in this moment, that she could almost imagine she was someone else.
‘Happy birthday,’ she said, as their glasses touched. ‘So, how old are you?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘How old do you think I am?’
Her eyes scanned over him, drinking in the details: the curly hair, still thick but flecked with grey. His skin was lined in that way that made men more distinguished, and women reach for the scalpel.
‘Fifty-two?’
He pulled back. ‘Whoa, OK, don’t hold back.’ He took a swig of his drink.
She laughed, ‘Oh God, sorry – so how old are you?’
He shrugged. ‘Fifty-three.’ When he smiled, she felt an ache, as if she were pressing the brakes, too late, just seconds before a crash.
‘You’re not married?’ she asked before she could stop herself.
‘If I were married, I probably wouldn’t have asked you for a drink.’
Did she blush?
‘And you, Gabriela?’
She tilted her head. ‘No, I’m not married.’
It had been his idea to move on, some time later, after enough drinks had been consumed that the stairs on the way out of the bar seemed steeper than when they arrived.
Outside, it was still light, the sky swollen with heat and toxins; when she asked Ivan the time, he told her it was nearly six.
‘Shit,’ she said and he looked taken aback.
Recovering herself, she added, ‘It’s just that I left my things at work, and it’s too late to get them. I just need to make a call.’
Moving away from him, she let her hand hover for a moment over Tom’s number, before opening a new text message instead.
She was drunk. Even if she hadn’t intended to continue onwards with Ivan, she would need to stop and eat before she got home. That was how she justified it to herself as she typed, as if it was still not a done deal: Have to go to a work leaving drinks, won’t be too late.
She was still dithering about whether to send it when she heard Ivan moving behind her and hurriedly added Gx. Send. And then it was done.
‘So you grew up in London?’ he asked as the waiter poured the wine, a pressed white napkin folded over his forearm.
They had moved on by then to a sushi bar overlooking the city skyline, the sort of overly fashionable, eye-wateringly expensive place no one Tom knew would ever choose to come, which was exactly why she had suggested it. Still, if they were spotted there, she could claim to be taking a foreign businessman for a working dinner, in line with her job at the FCO. The job Tom still believed she had.
‘Yup,’ she took a sip of her wine. ‘North London. And how about you, where do you live?’
‘Everywhere, nowhere …’ he smiled. ‘My work means I move between London and Moscow, mainly, so I have an apartment there, and here I have a house in Richmond. You know it?’
A sense of relief ran over her; he was wealthy enough that he could easily reside in Hampstead proper, which was just a couple of miles from her house. The distance between their London worlds, her north to his south-west, was so pronounced that regardless of the physical space between them he might as well have said he lived in Tokyo.
‘Actually, I don’t know it at all, really. I’ve been once, maybe. But not for a long time.’
Their eyes met and her skin flushed so that she looked down. The effect of the gin and wine she had drunk seemed to have plateaued so that she was in a state of otherness that was beautifully calming.
‘You still live in North London?’
She stalled long enough, raising the iced water they had ordered to her lips, that by the time it was necessary to answer, the waiter had appeared again with a tray of sashimi and vegetables carved to look like exotic birds.
‘This looks beautiful,’ she said and Ivan nodded, ignoring the food and staring across the table at her. It was the first moment she had considered what she must look like to him, in the clothes she picked out every morning to fit the image of the competent mother-of-two, off to King Charles Street to oversee a busy department of civil servants.
How could she have known this morning as she absent-mindedly selected a pale pink shirt and navy ribbed sweater, the black Whistles trousers she had bought herself in the sale on her birthday, where she would end up?
‘So, tell me about yourself,’ she said once the waiter had disappeared into the darkness of the dining room.
Ivan made a few movements with his mouth, indicating that he was either working out how to explain it, or how most effectively to evade the subject.
‘I suppose you would say I’m an entrepreneur, which is a way of saying I do everything and nothing. Mainly I work in sustainable energy. I know it sounds terribly boring but it’s interesting – to me, at least – and lucrative. Although I don’t think you’re supposed to say things like that in England, are you? Too distasteful. I also run charities, as you know … and which you definitely can say in England …’
She smiled.
‘And how about you, are you still with Amnesty International?’
She shook her head. ‘No, not anymore. The one I’m with now is much smaller. I suppose I’m like you, a bit of this, bit of that.’
Gabriela picked at a piece of sushi with her chopsticks and counted the seconds in her head as the time passed and Ivan said nothing to call her out on her lie.
After a moment he said, ‘Shall I ask for a fork?’
She laughed and flashed her middle finger at him before picking up some rice she’d been hopelessly chasing around her plate between her fingers and popping it in her mouth. ‘No thanks, I’m fine as I am.’
Ivan nodded, his eyes locking hers. ‘Yes, you are.’
Her fingers had fumbled with the keys in the lock as she pushed open the front door to her house later that night, tentatively at first. Stepping inside, she saw that the lights in the living room were off. Closing her eyes for a moment in silent prayer, she walked forward, removing her shoes, holding the bannister to steady herself.
It was nearly midnight according to the clock in the hall. With a shiver of relief, she noticed the absence of light filtering down the stairs from their bedroom. Tom, never one to feel perturbed by her late returns, would sleep through until morning, never stirring to wonder what fate might have befallen her after dark.
Placing her handbag on the hall table, she moved into the kitchen. The room felt like an abandoned stage set, unnaturally still. The light from the streetlights beyond the garden wall illuminated her daughter’s colouring pencils, scattered across the Formica dining table. Pouring herself a glass of water, she sat in front of the piece of paper Sadie had left for her, inscribed with the words: FOR MUMMY, LOVE SADIE.
The drawing was of the four of them, Callum substantially smaller than exact ratio would dictate, Tom and Gabriela on either side. There were flowers and hearts etched crudely around them, as if to create a frame, but within its walls none of them was smiling.
There was a sudden sound like a child’s bone snapping as the light clicked on in the kitchen. She turned sharply to see Tom in the doorway, blinking in boxer shorts and an old T-shirt.
‘Fucking hell, you nearly gave me a heart attack!’ She jumped before gathering herself, her heart thumping in her chest as her fingers lifted self-consciously to the skin under her eyes. The thought crossed her mind that she should have taken a moment to look at her face, to see what it betrayed.
He paused for a moment, looking at her, and then frowned, moving over to the sink.
‘Sorry, I only turned on the light. I had no idea you’d be back so late.’
Swallowing, she ran a hand through her hair. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise either. It was someone’s leaving drinks after work, I couldn’t get out of it and then I got delayed coming back. I sent you a text.’
‘I know …’ He filled his glass and moved back towards the doorway. ‘Are you coming up?’
‘In a minute,’ she said and his reply was lost as he moved back up the stairs.
She was trembling as she sat at the table, waiting for the sound of Tom’s footsteps to fade out on the hallway upstairs. Once the silence took hold again, suddenly the room was cold, the gravity of what was happening consuming her, and she stood, looking about for a shirt or a blanket to wrap around herself, where Ivan’s arms had been, but she found nothing.
After a couple of minutes she stood, suddenly unsteady on her feet, and moved towards the stairs, her toes pressing uncertainly on the treads. On the landing there were two doors directly above the kitchen, in the wall adjacent to her and Tom’s room. It was her own teenage bedroom split in two with a flimsy wall demarcating Sadie’s space and Callum’s, the single renovation they had managed since Tom had moved in.
Pushing open the door to Sadie’s room, for a moment her eyes struggled to find her daughter in the darkness. And then they did and the stillness of her body, the shard of moonlight slicing across her features – Tom’s features – pressed at Gabriela, like the blade of a knife, so that she had to turn away before she felt herself bleed.
‘Gabriela? I said how was the leaving party?’
Tom was still standing in front of her with a cup of tea, and she could hear Sadie and Callum squabbling in the hall.
She had been prepared to apologise for her part in the argument the day before, but it seemed to Tom it was long past. How did he do that? How did he so readily move on from those moments, as if nothing had ever happened?
‘How much did you drink? You look rough as arses.’
‘Thanks so much,’ she replied, the normality of his tone helping to smooth the juddering transition from last night to present day.
This role play of theirs was one she knew well and she played her part with ease. ‘That was actually the precise look I was going for. With any luck I might also smell as well.’
Making a face of concentration, Tom leaned into her. ‘I mean, a bit, yes.’
Pulling back from him slightly, instinctively fearful of what he might sense, she met his eyes and smiled before looking away, feigning a distraction on the other side of the room.
And yet, despite the feeling that followed her around the house, the truth was that she really didn’t have much to feel guilty about in relation to her evening with Ivan. She hadn’t done anything, had she? Not really. It would have been so easy to say yes when he asked her back to his place. It would have been the easiest thing in the world. But when he leaned in to kiss her good night, once she’d made her excuses about an early meeting the next day, she had turned her face so that his lips pressed against her cheek instead of her mouth, the slight scratch of his stubble brushing against her hair as he pulled away respectfully.
‘Well, Gabriela, thank you for the company.’
Was she disappointed that he hadn’t pushed harder, that he hadn’t expected more from her as he helped her into a taxi, placing a note into the driver’s hand, ignoring her insistence that she could take the bus?
‘Are you not going to work, then?’ Tom asked, before moving into the hallway where Sadie and Callum were waiting in their coats and hats.
‘I am, just a bit later than usual today,’ she said.
‘Good for you.’ Tom winked. ‘You deserve to take it a bit slow for once. Remember to take a shower though, yeah?’ He pulled a face and walked towards the front door, slapping his keys into his pocket. ‘Right, kids, say goodbye to your mum, but don’t get too close!’