When the phone rang on Tuesday evening Stephanie nearly didn’t answer it because Finn was moaning about having been given broad beans, which he ‘hated’, with his homemade chicken nuggets, and she knew that if she took her eyes off him for even a second he would scrape them into the bin. She’d picked up her mobile, intending to turn it off, but when she saw that it was a number she didn’t recognize her curiosity took over and she found herself pressing the green button to accept the call.
‘Hi,’ a man’s voice said. ‘It’s Michael.’
Stephanie racked her brain. Did she know a Michael? He sounded vaguely familiar. Before she could answer he, obviously having picked up on her hesitation, added, ‘From the shoot yesterday. Michael Sotheby.’
Michael the photographer. Nice Michael who had made her blush. ‘Hi!’ she said, a little confused. ‘How did you get my number?’
‘It was on the call sheet,’ he said. ‘Is this OK, me ringing you?’
‘Yes. God, yes, of course.’ Stop gabbling, Stephanie.
She remembered Finn, who she had momentarily forgotten about. She glanced over at him and saw that he was looking very pleased with himself, a clean plate in front of him. She smiled at him and moved through to the hall, pulling the door shut behind her. ‘So …’ she said, trying to ignore the fact that her heart had gone a little racy. What was wrong with her? ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I just wondered,’ Michael said, and she was sure he sounded like he was wishing he hadn’t rung, ‘if you wanted to go to that Ian Hoskins exhibition with me. You know – we were talking about it.’
Stephanie took a deep breath. Was he asking her out on a date? She hadn’t mentioned she had a husband yesterday, but then they had been working, why would she have? But she had been flirting with him, she thought now. She must have given him the impression she was interested.
Her silence had obviously made him nervous. ‘It was just a thought. But if you’re too busy or whatever then that’s –’
‘No,’ Stephanie heard herself say. ‘I’d love to. But it couldn’t be till next week and I’d have to get someone to babysit my son. I have a son,’ she added breathlessly – what was she doing? ‘And a husband, but we’re separating, except he doesn’t know that yet. You see, he has a girlfriend, up in Lincoln. I only just found out. Well, a few weeks ago. He doesn’t know that I know yet either. He only lives in London a few days a week. To see Finn. That’s my son’s name.’
‘Stephanie, calm down.’ Michael laughed. ‘All I’m asking is if you’d like to go and look at some photographs. If you’d rather not, then that’s fine.’
‘No,’ Stephanie said, collecting herself. ‘I just wanted to be straight with you. It’s a bit of an issue with me, honesty, after what’s happened to my marriage. I just wanted you to know exactly what the situation is so that there are no nasty surprises lurking.’
‘OK. Well, I was married for fifteen years until last year when my wife decided she wanted out. No one else involved, as far as I know. No children. I own a flat in Docklands and I have all my own teeth except for one which I knocked out in a cycling accident and which is a fake. I once dressed up as a lobster for a school play, but otherwise no embarrassing skeletons in my closet.’
Stephanie laughed. ‘Well, in that case I’d love to go to the show with you.’ She was doing nothing wrong. Certainly nothing that matched up to what James had been doing to her.
‘How does next Monday evening sound?’ he asked, and she said that would be lovely and that she’d see him there, at the gallery, at seven.
Once she’d hung up she stood in the hall for a moment, trying to work out how she felt and whether or not she had done the right thing. Finn appeared at the kitchen doorway. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing. Did you eat your broad beans?’
‘Yes. Who was that on the phone?’
‘Just someone from work. You don’t know them. Did you really eat your beans?’
‘You saw I did. All of them.’
Stephanie knew that if she looked in the kitchen waste bin the broad beans would be sitting in a neat pile on top of the rest of the rubbish but she decided not to push it. She had a date. Someone thought she was attractive enough to ask out. She’d make sure Finn ate his vegetables tomorrow.
Despite feeling like she was doing nothing wrong by accepting Michael’s invitation – looking at a few photographs hardly rivalled pretending you were single and setting up home with someone else on the infidelity scale after all – Stephanie didn’t mention it to Natasha the following morning. She kept wanting to. She and Natasha had never had a secret as far as she was aware.
At one point she even mentioned his name in passing, during a conversation Natasha began about when they were intending to return the dresses lent to them for Caroline’s photo shoot. ‘Michael seemed pleased with how she looked,’ Stephanie had said.
‘He spent most of his time looking at you. I don’t think he even noticed her,’ Natasha had replied, laughing, and Stephanie had thought, Now’s the moment to casually drop it in that he had called and then, if that went down well, to add that they were meeting up on Monday. But something had held her back. She felt foolish, talking about going on a date like a teenager. And, anyway, there was nothing to tell as yet: they were just going to look at some photographs, Stephanie reminded herself.
By the time the following Monday came round she was wishing she hadn’t agreed to go out at all. It just felt too much like hard work, worrying about what she looked like and trying to think up interesting and witty things to say in advance. It was a rainy evening, and more than anything she wanted to go home and curl up on the sofa in front of the TV. She thought about calling Michael with an excuse – an illness or, even better, a childcare problem – but she knew he would probably try to rearrange for another evening and there were only so many personal problems she could pull out of the bag to bat him away with. So she had resolved to make the evening as brief as she could. Be polite, a quick look at the photographs and home by nine, nine thirty at the latest.
Finn was going straight from school to spend the night with Arun’s family, so she had plenty of time to lie in the bath and to fret about exactly what image of herself she wanted to portray through what she was wearing. She settled eventually on a fairly conservative but youthful Pucci rip-off patterned top and a pair of fitted-but-not-too-tight jeans with her favourite too-high-to-walk-in boots. She was checking her makeup for the fifth time when her mobile rang. Katie.
They hadn’t spoken for a few days. The initial excitement of texting each other whenever James said or did anything newsworthy had died down and they had fallen into a routine of a quick catch-up after each of his visits. Stephanie knew she should have called Katie yesterday, once James had hit the road to head back up to Lincoln, but she had found she didn’t feel like it. They had actually had quite a pleasant few days. Stephanie, nurturing the secret of her upcoming date, had felt less resentful of his presence than usual and he, in turn, happy, she had guessed, to be away from the recent pressures of his country life, had seemed relaxed and glad to be there. They had got through the whole time without arguing once and, although there was no doubt in Stephanie’s mind that things would be easier once he wasn’t there at all any more, she had almost managed to forget her anger and hurt and the feeling of betrayal his double life had caused her and pretend that things were normal. It was easier now that she truly believed she didn’t want him any more.
The only awkward moment had been when James had brought up his birthday party and asked her what she was planning. They were having it at the house and Stephanie had gone through the list of the people she was intending to invite: family, friends, colleagues. They were going to have catering, with the teenage children of various friends earning a few pounds each by working as waiters. The music would be provided by James, who was intending to sit down and make playlists on his iPod that would take them right through from eight in the evening until about four in the morning, with several changes of mood scheduled along the way. One of the first-floor bedrooms was to be turned into a giant playroom for their friends’ younger children.
‘I can’t wait,’ James had said, and Stephanie, in turn apprehensive, excited and uneasy, had said nothing.
Michael was waiting for her outside the gallery when Stephanie arrived, sheltering from the drizzle under an awning. He looked good, she thought, relieved, because she had been worrying that her memory of him might have been coloured slightly rosy by the fact that he had liked her. He waved as she got close and did the crinkly-eyed smile thing that had made her notice him in the first place. He was wearing baggy combat trousers and a long-sleeved T-shirt under a shorter-sleeved, contrasting-coloured one. His thick hair, which was a dirty blond colour, was just the right amount of ruffled. He looked totally at home in the urban chic Hoxton surroundings in a way that James could never have pulled off. He looked, maybe, a bit too much of a type for Stephanie’s usual taste, a bit like he spent longer than he should thinking about the impression he was going to make. But he definitely looked good.
‘Am I late?’ she said breathlessly, as she got within speaking distance. She was always late. It was one of the things she liked least about herself and something which she seemed to be powerless to change. The time just went, no matter how organized she tried to be. She put it down to the fact that, to all intents and purposes, she was a single mother – well, for most of the week.
‘No,’ he said, smiling. ‘Not at all. I wanted to be here early in case you couldn’t find the place. It’s not really an area you want to get lost in.’
He held the door open for her and they went into the stark white space. The photographs, no holds barred, warts and all depictions of underprivileged family life, were both shocking and moving and, best of all, Stephanie thought, conversation starters. By the time they reached the end, almost an hour and a half later, she felt as if she and Michael knew all about each other’s backgrounds and upbringings and their views on family life and relationships. She felt like she hadn’t talked so much in years, certainly not to someone who had at least given such a good impression of being interested in what she had to say. Michael’s family, like hers, came from the stifling corridor between city and suburbia. ‘Neither gritty nor idyllic,’ he’d said, and she had laughed, knowing exactly what he meant. ‘Just ordinary. Really, really boringly ordinary.’
By the time they stepped out into the damp evening again it was eight thirty and Stephanie knew that if she was going to stick to her plan then she should make her excuses now and head straight home, but when Michael asked if she wanted to go for a drink she heard herself say yes.
They walked round the corner to an achingly self-consciously cool space with an eclectic mix of armchairs and mismatched tables where they squeezed themselves into a corner and drank beer out of the bottle. Just as Stephanie was beginning to feel completely out of place in the crowd of young men with sticky-up hairdos and courier bags slung across their chests and the girls in their vintage dresses, and was starting to think she might just drink up and go home after all, Michael leaned over and touched her arm. ‘I can tell this isn’t your sort of place,’ he said. ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’
They found a tapas restaurant, which was quiet and candlelit and sat and talked more and shared a bottle of red wine. At a quarter past eleven Michael suggested they share a taxi and Stephanie agreed, half wondering if, in fact, they were both going to end up at his place and not minding in the least if they did. As they pulled up outside his flat in Islington, however, Michael kissed her on the cheek. ‘Can we do this again some time?’ he said.
‘Definitely,’ Stephanie said, wondering if he was waiting for her to suggest that she come in for a nightcap.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ he said, as he got out and slammed the door behind him. ‘Belsize Park,’ she heard him say to the driver, and then he turned to wave as he went up the steps to his front door. Stephanie sat back in her seat. Michael, it seemed, was a gentleman.