when they looked at him was an overweight loser with a screwdriver and a paintbrush. He had thought this was all life could offer now, loss and disappointment—but you never knew what fate held in store, and a short while ago he had been given his chance. The trick was knowing when to act upon his knowledge—but soon, he was sure, people would look at him with new-found respect. He shouldn’t have talked to Jake Avery at the party, though. It didn’t pay for too many people to be involved. The drink always made him gabby. He backed the truck up to the muddy pit and clambered down from the cab, thinking about what to do.
Before he went to the police, he would have some fun with the yuppie scum. He was the longest-remaining resident in the street, had lived here when kids still played in the road and mothers sat in deckchairs on their front steps, when there had still been a corner pub and a shellfish stall, long before all the estate-agent boards had appeared and the dry-as-dust middle-class couples had transformed the street’s loud, crowded family rooms into havens of hushed elegance. Now the road was lined with pristine cars and the houses were inhabited by invisible people who came home late and sat in their gardens drinking wine in the summer, hankering for a kind of village life that only existed in their collective imagination, because community spirit, the real spirit of the streets, meant brawling and shouting and getting your hands dirty.
He’d been invited to their party out of politeness; no one had intended him to take the invitation seriously and actually turn up. But he had a secret that would surprise them all, and perhaps it was time to do something with it.
Kallie closed the windows in the front bedroom because the rain was soaking the carpet. It seemed impossible to keep water out of the house. She could hardly believe that Paul had gone. The drawers in his side of the flimsy flatpack wardrobe were empty. This morning at dawn he had thrown some pants and T-shirts into a brand-new nylon backpack, and had taken off. It did not matter who he had slept with in Manchester, only that he had done it at all. The thought allowed her to release him. If he was ever to go, let it be now.
He had tried to write her a note; she found several unfinished attempts in the kitchen bin. It struck her as odd that in order for a man to find himself, he first had to shake off the attentions of those who truly cared for him. She sat on the bed and listened to the rain in the gullies, wondering whether she had smothered too much, pushing him too quickly into setting up house. He had craved spontaneity and she had acted accordingly, but apparently it had been the wrong type of spontaneity.
She shopped and bought a paper, leaving the dripping umbrella to form a puddle on the bare boards in the hall. She painted a dresser pale-blue, and attempted to strip some of the maroon lincrusta wallpaper in the lounge, but cut her hand on the scraper. Finally, she went to see Heather.
Kallie had not been looking for a shoulder to cry on. Compassion ill-suited her neighbour. Heather was far too self-interested to express concern for anyone else’s misfortune. However, when she opened the door, she was an alarming sight. Heather was seething with misplaced energy; Kallie could almost see sparks arcing in aberrant neural connections. What’s wrong with her? she thought. Is she ill? She had expected to be faced with Heather’s patented brand of nervy bravado. Instead she found a borderline hysteric, as distracted as any Ophelia. Heather had flung back the door and walked away into the kitchen, where she paced beside the counter.
‘He’s planning to divorce me,’ she explained, ‘taking everything and giving it all to her. What is it about Paris that makes middle-aged men do this?’
‘Wait, back up,’ begged Kallie. ‘George is having an affair?’
‘He’s screwing some dark-eyed child in the City of Light, and he’ll spend all his money on her, the money that should be coming to me because I’m the one that sits and waits, the one who gets older waiting for him to come home, while she’s bought bracelets and dinners in discreet hotels.’
It was hardly earth-shattering news. George had never put his feet on the ground for fear of taking