Tea and Sympathy was a private members club in Soho that wasn’t actually terribly private, in that non-members could use it when it wasn’t busy. It had started out life as a women’s only teetotal club, then segued to being a teetotal club for both sexes, before becoming a place where alcoholic drinks were allowed and eventually what it was now; a bar famous for its cocktails. But it had a nice enough vibe, Adam had always thought, with its roomy leather chairs and plumped velvet cushions, low round tables and soft lighting. Eva had taken him there, as a change from the Chelsea Arts and Groucho clubs, his usual hangouts. He had liked it enough to get Matilda a membership; had hoped it might help her have an independent base, away from her mother and Walter, from scuzzy flat shares out in God-knows-where-land, from the noisy and often intimidating chaos of London pubs.
Eva was already there, scrolling through her phone as she sipped at a Singapore sling, her glass topped with a triangle of pineapple decorated with two shiny glacé cherries.
Adam sat opposite her, studying that lovely, familiar face. His girlfriend was wearing an embroidered maroon jacket he had bought her for her birthday, which looked as good on her as he’d hoped when he’d spotted it in the window of the fancy Hampstead boutique. He didn’t hold out any hope that he could speak to her; or even pick up one of the Twiglets from the little lacquered bowl on the table in front of her and zoom it around like a toy rocket; or perhaps do something humorous with her pineapple slice. If he couldn’t reach her when he was alone, what chance was there now, in this crowded place, with the hum of conversation and laughter over the tinkling dinner jazz?
But here came his daughter, his representative on earth, weaving her way skilfully through the chairs.
‘Matty!’ Eva cried, rising to her feet, holding her arms out wide.
‘Eva,’ Matilda replied, giving her a tight little hug. She was looking tentatively around as she spoke, and Adam imagined she was wondering whether he had seen the scribbled note she had left folded in her bedside candle and was here too, with them, observing, but unable to indicate his presence.
‘I’m sorry we didn’t really get a chance to chat at the funeral,’ she said, once they’d got the preliminaries over, hailed a waiter, and Matilda had dithered between a margarita and a whisky sour.
‘You were busy with family,’ Eva replied. ‘I didn’t stay long. Bundled back on the train to London with some colleagues.’
‘I know Dad meant a lot to you.’
‘It’s weird, not having him around. I know we weren’t exactly public, yet. But we saw a lot of each other. At work, and then, outside, in the flat and places. Here, even.’
‘You miss him?’
‘Terribly, at first.’ She sighed. ‘More than I thought I would.’
Oh my darling, Adam thought.
‘But then, recently, since the funeral…’ Eva looked up at Matilda and smiled. ‘Loved your singing by the way…’
‘Thank you.’
‘…it’s really come home to me that it’s all over. You know, it’s been almost two months now. I need to move on.’
‘Of course you do.’
And whose side are you on? Adam thought, as pain stabbed his virtual heart. I thought you were here to argue my case.
‘Tell me,’ Matilda asked, after they’d chatted a bit more about Eva’s feelings. ‘Do you ever get… like… a sense of him?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Like, he’s still around in some way.’ Matilda laughed lightly.
‘Do you?’
‘Maybe. I miss him. Obviously.’
‘When you miss someone that much you can almost imagine they’re there, can’t you?’ Eva said. ‘The night after the funeral, when I was at home, it was a bit like that.’
‘Really? How?’
‘I actually spoke to him, called his name. Crazy, eh? Then I played him this song on the violin that he used to like.’
‘“Quizás, Quizás, Quizás”,’ Matilda said.
As she hummed the tune, Eva sat forward. ‘How d’you know about that?’
‘He told me.’
‘What! When?’
‘Before… he died. When you were… er… dating.’
‘Oh.’ Eva looked puzzled. ‘Weird sharing. It was, like, a theme tune for our relationship. You know, “What’s happening, dude? You going to leave the bitch or what?”’
Matilda grinned. She hated Julie. ‘How d’you find work?’ his daughter went on. ‘Without him? What’s happening with the rogue partner?’
Eva laughed. ‘Is that how your father described him?’
‘And the rest. He was trying to take over, wasn’t he? Push Daddy out of his own firm.’
‘It’s not quite like that. They have – they had,’ Eva corrected herself, and Adam was happy to see a sad look flit across her face, ‘very different visions. Adam was always a bit old school for Jeff.’
‘Old school?’
‘Just ways of doing things. You know, a wizard on the drawing board, but he didn’t really understand how to design on computers, thought social media was a waste of time–’
‘Total bollocks!’ Adam interrupted. ‘I had a Twitter account for years. You know I was on Instagram, Eva. Stylish pics of buildings in their settings, different views of street widths, nice details and use of materials. Come on, you helped me with my posts. Facebook too, 900 plus so-called friends, most of whom I hadn’t seen in the flesh for years, if ever.’
But these were words that fell on deaf ears; or rather, didn’t fall on any ears at all. As Eva carried on with her revisionist view of Butcher’s Yard, Adam’s heart sank. Jeff had got to her. In the space of a few weeks, Adam’s perspective had been thrown out of an ultra-modern, triple-glazed, iconic tower window.
‘And what about you, Eva?’ Matilda was asking.
‘What about me?’
‘Which vision do you believe in? Adam’s or Jeff’s?’
‘ATTAGIRL!’ Adam shouted. But nobody noticed, except for one pale-faced young woman with long, lank blonde hair, sitting on her own drinking jasmine tea, who looked up and stared straight at him, as if trying to make him out. He smiled at her, then waved. If she could see him, he thought, all well and good. If she said something, even better. It would be wonderful for Eva and Matilda to know he was there. But maybe she had been looking at something else, as people in crowded places do, because her gaze went straight through him, oblivious to his increasingly frantic gestures.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Eva was saying. ‘Adam’s philosophy was and is totally cool. The importance of people in built environments, “placemaking”, I’m not letting go of that. It’s just, you know, realities. Adam’s gone. Jeff’s running the show now. I have to be on side, otherwise I might as well not be there. You have to be in the room, don’t you?’
‘So, with Butcher’s Yard,’ Matilda asked coolly. ‘You don’t care about all those quaint buildings being knocked down and replaced with yet another glass and steel box? The Clerkenwell Tower.’
Eva looked gobsmacked. ‘Who told you about the Clerkenwell Tower?’
‘Dad.’
‘But this was only finalised yesterday.’
‘I know. But you’ve all been discussing it for some time, haven’t you?’ Matilda looked down, then very slowly up again. ‘You know I was just asking you whether you’d ever sensed him, like, around. This might sound a bit crazy, Eva, but the fact is he is… still around.’
‘What are you talking about, Matty? Around where?’
Matilda explained about Adam’s visit to her at home and Eva laughed in disbelief. No, Matilda insisted. It had all been real. Her dad had been lurking around for a while, following people. Eva even, when she’d gone to The Prosperous Parson with Reuben after the Savidge and Sugar meeting…
‘You what?’ said Eva. ‘How d’you even…?’
‘He was there. Dad. Watching, listening. That’s why he was so upset, why he visited me. Because he’s freaked out that you…’
‘That I what?’
‘Seem to be backing Jeff. That all his plans for restoring Butcher’s Yard have been chucked out.’
‘So why has he spoken to you about all this stuff, and not to me?’
‘He said he’d tried. Twice. But he couldn’t get through to you.’
‘Why not?’
‘He doesn’t know. He was worried you’d lost interest and moved on. That’s why he sent me to see you. Or rather, why I offered to speak to you.’
‘He’s dead, Matilda. It’s not a question of moving on.’ Eva fell silent, her face lost in thought. ‘Has he visited anyone else?’
‘Yes, my aunt Claire…’
Eva nodded, blankly, in a ‘fair enough’ way.
‘And Julie.’
‘He’s spoken to Julie but not to me?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘Fucking hell!’
‘Eva!’ Adam cried. ‘She’s getting this arse over tit. I’ve tried, twice, to get through to you. Please don’t blame me for failing. I was shouting at you, for God’s sake!’
But there was no point in this tirade. He still wasn’t getting through. In any case, Matilda’s phone was ringing. She pulled it from her pocket and looked at the screen. ‘Eva, sorry, it’s my mother. D’you mind?’
Eva waved her on.
‘Mum… hi… yes… I am sitting down… I’m in a club in Soho… It doesn’t matter, what’s wrong… what?… oh my God… I’m coming now.’
‘What?’ asked Eva, concerned at Matilda’s sudden change of expression. She was white-faced.
‘It’s Leo. He’s been in a car crash.’
‘Leo? Your brother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he okay?’
‘No.’ Matty was shaking her head. ‘No, he’s not okay. He’s dead. I’ve got to go, Eva. I’m sorry.’