Inigo always makes an unpleasant fuss about having supper at Cally’s house. On the way there this evening he is bolshy: jet-lagged because he arrived back in London this morning, cross because his reception here was not rapturous as it had been in New York.
‘You could have told me you were going to be at home not the studio,’ he grumbles, flinching exaggeratedly as Laura, who is driving, swerves the car while attempting to put her seat belt on.
‘I didn’t know. I had to be at home because Dolly had a sore throat and needed to go to the doctor. I didn’t know she was going to be ill until this morning.’ Laura is patient only because she is preoccupied, negotiating across slow traffic, weaving through side streets across north London to Maida Vale and the canal.
‘Why can’t she live in a normal house?’ Inigo is too big in his bulky coat for Cally’s narrow gateway covered by a collapsing arch of roses, not out yet but showing sharp leaves. He squeezes through, dislodging a shower of water droplets which scatter behind him. Cally opens the door to greet them and a hot smell of spices and cooking bursts out, hitting the chilly spring air.
‘Inigo, I’m glad you’re back safely.’ She kisses him, winks at Laura and follows them onto the houseboat. At the far end of the long narrow room, a table is laid and beyond it, curled up on the sofa with Hybrid, Cally’s large ginger cat, is a woman wearing a black lace dress which clings like a stocking to her body. Inigo, poised to make an unpleasant remark about lentils, Cally’s most frequently offered dish, changes his mind and his expression.
‘This is Gina, my cousin,’ says Cally, wiping her hands on her skirt before pouring drinks.
Gina is a big hit with Inigo, and by the time they are all sitting at the table eating Cally’s curry, Inigo has discovered some of the more intimate details of her divorce (she never really loved him, so when he turned out to be gay, although it destroyed her ego, her heart remained intact), and also that she lives very near them in Hampstead.
‘It’s great, Laura,’ he enthuses, forking tarka dal to his mouth with no hidden agenda at all. ‘Gina lives in that house with the silver front door.’
‘We drive past it every day to school,’ says Laura. ‘The children will be fascinated that we’ve met you – they are always fantasising about who lives there.’
Gina looks alarmed. ‘I’m very sorry, I don’t think they’ll be at all pleased that it’s only me and not a famous pop star.’
‘But at least you’re on television,’ says Cally encouragingly, and tells Inigo: ‘Gina is the presenter of a talk show called In the Daytime.’ Inigo is a little crestfallen to hear this, and Laura deliberately drops her fork to hide the choke of laughter that bubbles up in her as he chews his rice and reassesses Gina.
Gina swallows half her glass of wine in one gulp. ‘Yes, I’m on telly, and I was married to a performer, so I suppose I’ve earned the right to paint my house a silly colour.’
Into the general laughter, Inigo starts talking about music, and then he says, with a self-deprecating cough, ‘But of course my only claim to fame is through Leonard Cohen.’
Laura rolls her eyes. If she had a pound for every time she’s heard this story, she’d definitely have enough to buy a pug outright by now.
Gina’s eyes are big; she tucks her hair behind her ears and blinks. ‘How come?’ she asks obligingly.
‘He slept with Suzanne from that song,’ says Cally, who has heard it too, getting up for another bottle of wine.
‘Ooh,’ says Gina, eyeing him respectfully. ‘Did she feed you tea and oranges?’
‘That come all the way from China?’ Laura adds, swinging her legs under the table, wondering why everyone always asks exactly the same questions about bloody Suzanne.
‘What did she look like?’ Even Cally, who’s heard about it at least three times before, is interested.
Inigo hugely enjoys this anecdote. If truth be known, it is much more enjoyable now as a story than when it was happening. Suzanne was fifteen years older than him, and although the sex was great from his point of view, he couldn’t help worrying at the time that if you’ve had Leonard Cohen, a twenty-year-old from Manchester might not cut much ice.
‘She looked great,’ he says. ‘I met her at a roller disco in the San Fernando Valley when I was visiting UCLA. She had long shaggy curly, dark hair and she wore tight jeans, like those ones Laura’s wearing now.’
Laura obligingly gets up and does a pirouette, making a hideous face at Cally as she twirls. Both Cally and she dissolve giggling and pour each other more wine.
Gina is still in the song. ‘And you spent the night for ever, but did you know she was half crazy?’
‘She wasn’t crazy, she was chilled out; she had a great figure, and dark skin, and a bit of a beaky nose. She was thirty-five then, I suppose, and she was looking for some fun.’
‘Blimey, says Gina. ‘It sounds just like another Leonard Cohen song to me.’
‘Is she dead yet, do you think?’ Laura muses.
Inigo, slightly annoyed, protests, ‘No, of course she isn’t, she’d only be about sixty. I haven’t read anything in the papers anyway, have you?’
There is a silence while they all think of Suzanne drawing her pension. Gina breaks it, getting up with a smile, pulling the clinging fabric of her dress away from her stomach.
‘I’m going to be the party pooper,’ she says. ‘All that talk about rock legends has left me feeling exhausted and ancient.’ She blows a kiss across the room towards Laura and Inigo. ‘It was nice to meet you,’ she says.