The streets are crowded with people marching towards the Tube station, but their pace is too slow for someone who has been listening all afternoon to the finer points of the new e-mathematics degree scheme. I weave my way around pedestrians going my direction and avoid eye contact with people coming towards me. This is how to avoid being forced off the footpath; if they think I haven’t seen them, they duck away at the last minute, averting disaster.
Once across Euston Road, I steer clear of the main thoroughfares. The side streets are almost completely devoid of people. I stride out towards Regent’s Park and on to Primrose Hill, and feel my spirits lifting the further I get from Gower Street.
I take a detour to the top of Primrose Hill and look out across London. To the south, an army of purple and black cumulus clouds is forming, and shortly it begins to march forward, driving in front of it wisps of fluffy grey cloud in panicky retreat. As I watch, the grey sky above turns a bruised yellow and soon this is obliterated by the ranks of advancing black clouds. There is something exciting about the approach of this storm; it’s almost as if it might herald a new phase of my life. Exhilarated, I breathe deeply before racing down the hill.
‘Spare us some change?’ says the emaciated young man standing at the bottom, his hand outstretched. Absent-mindedly I dig in my coat pocket and find a couple of coins to give him. By the time I turn towards home, the sky is completely overcast. The first flash of lightning slices through the dense clouds and a moment later, as I reach our street, I hear the rumble of thunder. By the time I reach our house, fat raindrops are starting to fall.
As I unlock the front door, I smell onions and garlic. I run downstairs to the kitchen and find Charlie making a risotto. She puts out her arms for a hug; I always try to put my arms over her shoulders when we embrace, pretending that I’m still taller than she is, though it has been two years since she overtook me. And then, after a little mock battle that Charlie always wins, I hug her from below.
‘There’s a message for you on your desk,’ she says. ‘An Anthony Blake. Quite chatty. He’s rung twice. Left his number.’
‘He called here?’
‘Yeah. Like, I couldn’t have spoken to him if he hadn’t. He wants you to call back. Said to tell you it’s a different number to the one you tried before.’
‘Perhaps I’ll have a glass of wine first. And Charlie, thanks for doing dinner, you’re a darling.’
‘Cool, Ma.’ Charlie stirs the onions, which are softening in the pan. The salad is on the table already. ‘You’ve got fifteen minutes,’ she continues, mimicking the way I speak. ‘That’ll stop you wittering on and running up the phone bill.’
I pour myself a glass of wine and surreptitiously knock back half in a couple of gulps while Charlie is engrossed in her stirring. When I go up the two flights to my study, I take the glass with me. Charlie has written, on the notepad next to the phone, Anthony’s name and number in large block letters. Around the words she’s drawn a scalloped border, coloured in with the green fluorescent pen that I keep in the jar on my desk. Around this border she’s added some variants of Anthony’s name, as she always does with any caller: there is Ant Blake, Tony Baloney, Tone the Drone, and The Blake Bloke. At the bottom of the page she has written in red ballpoint: Don’t be Alone, Phone Tone the Drone! I transcribe his number to another piece of paper before dialling. After three rings the phone is answered.
‘I’m so glad you called back.’ Anthony’s voice is deeper than I remembered. ‘I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten me.’
‘Of course I haven’t forgotten you. I really hoped you’d phone me.’
‘I tried to call you a couple of times at your office last week but each time the administrator said you were lecturing. I didn’t leave a message. I was ringing from Boston and I thought it might be hard for you to return the call. And I tried to send you an e-mail last week but it bounced back.’
‘We had problems with our server last week.’
‘I’m giving a talk at a conference in Stockholm on Saturday week. I could stop in London on the way if you’re free for dinner on the Friday night. Then I could get the early morning flight to Stockholm the next day.’
‘How lovely!’ But at that moment I remember the dinner party I’m committed to that evening, given by the head of my department. For one glorious second I imagine taking Anthony with me but dismiss it an instant later. Could I tell the head I’m unable to come after all? Impossible: I like him and his wife and they invited me weeks ago; there’s no way I can get out of that dinner without risking offence. Someone on the academic grapevine would be sure to see me with Anthony that same evening. And there’s my promotion application coming up; I can’t afford to jeopardise this.
After I explain some of this to Anthony, he says, ‘Let’s do Friday lunch.’
He is easy to talk to on the phone. After a few minutes I feel so relaxed that I lie down on the Balochistan rug and in next to no time Charlie is at the door to tell me the risotto is ready.
‘She sounds delightful, your Charlie,’ says Anthony. I laugh; evidently Charlie did not try out any of the alternative names for him that she’d written on the margins of her message.
‘Who is he?’ Charlie says when I return to the kitchen.
‘Someone I met at the conference in Spain. He’s been at Harvard since then, on leave for the term. He’s coming back here again at the end of next week.’
‘Cool. What was so urgent?’
‘He’s asked me out to lunch. On Friday week.’
‘Oh,’ Charlie says. ‘Lunch is not exactly exciting. Or urgent. You often have lunch with people.’
‘This is a special lunch, at a special place.’ I name a restaurant that even I know is rather fancy, because it’s one that Zoë often eats at. ‘Such a nice man,’ I add, and smile at Charlie.
‘A proper man,’ Charlie says. ‘Like, not a boy.’
‘Not a boy,’ I repeat slowly, shocked by her remark. Perhaps she meant it as a joke, but it starts me wondering what Zoë has been telling her. I set the table and pour myself another glass of wine.
‘He’s got loads of gravitas,’ Charlie adds; she is trying to make amends by using the expression I often use about some of my more pompous colleagues.
‘Gravitas,’ I repeat, laughing now. My moment of anxiety has gone. Surely Zoë wouldn’t have gossiped to Charlie about my unsuitable past boyfriends.