‘What is it?’
‘I – I’m sorry to bother you. But I had an idea. It’s something I think might help Agnes.’
He leaned back in his leather chair and signalled to me to close the door. I noticed there was a lead glass tumbler of brandy on his desk. That was earlier than usual.
‘May I speak frankly?’ I said. I felt a little sick with nerves.
‘Please do.’
‘Okay. Well, I couldn’t help but notice Agnes is not as, um, happy as she might be.’
‘That’s an understatement,’ he said quietly.
‘It seems to me that a lot of her issues relate to being plucked from her old life and not really integrating with her new one. She told me she can’t spend time with her old friends because they don’t really understand her new life, and from what I’ve seen, well, a lot of the new ones don’t seem that keen to be friends with her either. I think they feel it would be … disloyal.’
‘To my ex-wife.’
‘Yes. So she has no job, and no community. And this building has no real community. You have your work, and people around you you’ve known for years, who like you and respect you. But Agnes doesn’t. I know she finds the charity circuit particularly hard. But the philanthropic side of things is really important to you. So I had an idea.’
‘Go on.’
‘Well, there’s this library up in Washington Heights which is threatened with closure. I’ve got all the information here.’ I pushed my file across his desk. ‘It’s a real community library, used by all different nationalities and ages and types of people, and it’s absolutely vital for the locals that it stays open. They’re fighting so hard to save it.’
‘That’s an issue for the city council.’
‘Well, maybe. But I spoke to one of the librarians and she said that in the past they’ve received individual donations that have helped keep them going.’ I leant forward. ‘If you just went there, Mr Gopnik, you’d see – there are mentoring programmes and mothers keeping their children warm and safe and people really trying to make things better. In a practical way. And I know it’s not as glamorous as the events you attend – I mean, there’s not going to be a ball there, but it’s still charity, right? And I thought maybe … well, maybe you could get involved. And even better, if Agnes got involved she could be part of a community. She could make it her own project. You and she could do something amazing.’
‘Washington Heights?’
‘You should go there. It’s a very mixed area. Quite different from … here. I mean some bits of it are gentrified but this bit –’
‘I know Washington Heights, Louisa.’ He tapped his fingers on the desk. ‘Have you spoken to Agnes about this?’
‘I thought I should probably mention it to you first.’
He pulled the file towards him and flicked it open. He frowned at the first sheet – a newspaper cutting of one of the early protests. The second was a budget statement I had pulled from the city council’s website, showing its latest financial year.
‘Mr Gopnik, I really think you could make a difference. Not just to Agnes but to a whole community.’
It was at this point that I realised he appeared unmoved, dismissive even. It wasn’t a sea-change in his expression, but a faint hardening, a lowering of his gaze. And it occurred to me that to be as wealthy as he was, was probably to receive a hundred such requests for money each day, or suggestions as to what he should do with it. And that perhaps, by being part of that, I had stepped over some invisible employee/employer line.
‘Anyway. It was just an idea. Possibly not a great one. I’m sorry if I’ve said too much. I’ll get back to work. Don’t feel you have to look at that stuff if you’re busy. I can take it with me if you –’
‘It’s fine, Louisa.’ He pressed his fingers to his temples, his eyes closed.
I stood, not sure if I was being dismissed.
Finally he looked up at me. ‘Can you go and talk to Agnes, please? Find out whether I’m going to have to go to this dinner alone?’
‘Yes. Of course.’ I backed out of the room.
She went to the mental-health dinner. We didn’t hear any fighting when they got home but the next day I discovered she had slept in her dressing room.
In the two weeks before I was due to head home for Christmas I developed an almost obsessive Facebook habit. I found myself checking Katie Ingram’s page morning and evening, reading the public conversations she had with her friends, checking for new photographs she might have posted. One of her friends had asked how she was enjoying her job and she had written, ‘I LOVE it!’ with a winky face (she was irritatingly fond of winky faces). Another day she had posted: ‘Really tough day today. Thank God for my amazing partner! #blessed’
She posted one more picture of Sam, at the wheel of the ambulance. He was laughing, lifting his hand as if to stop her, and the sight of his face, the intimacy of the shot, the way it placed me in the cab with them, took my breath away.
We had scheduled a call for the previous evening, his time, and when I’d called he hadn’t picked up. I’d tried again, twice, with no answer. Two hours later, just as I was getting worried, I received a text message: Sorry – you still there?
‘Are you okay? Was it work?’ I said, when he called me.
There was the faintest hesitation before he responded. ‘Not exactly.’
‘What do you mean?’ I was in the car with Garry, waiting while Agnes had a pedicure, and I was conscious that he might be listening in, no matter how engrossed he appeared to be in the sports pages of his New York Post.
‘I was helping Katie with something.’
My stomach dropped merely at the mention of her name. ‘Helping her with what?’ I tried to keep my voice light.
‘Just a wardrobe. Ikea. She bought it and couldn’t put it together by herself so I said I’d give her a hand.’
I felt sick. ‘You went to her house?’
‘Flat. It was just to help her with a piece of furniture, Lou. She doesn’t have anyone else. And I only live down the road.’
‘You took your toolbox.’ I remembered how he used to come to my flat and fix things. It had been one of the first things I’d loved about him.
‘Yes. I took my toolbox. And all I did was help her with an Ikea wardrobe.’ His voice had grown weary.
‘Sam?’
‘What?’
‘Did you offer to go there? Or did she ask you?’
‘Does it matter?’
I wanted to tell him it did, because it was obvious that she was trying to steal him from me. She was alternately playing the helpless female, the fun party girl, the understanding best friend and work colleague. He was either blind to it or, worse, he wasn’t. There wasn’t a single picture that she had posted online in which she wasn’t glued to his side, like some kind of lipsticked leech. Sometimes I wondered if she’d guessed I’d be looking at them, and if she got satisfaction from knowing the discomfort this caused me, whether in fact this was part of her plan, to make me miserable and paranoid. I wasn’t sure men would ever understand the infinitely subtle weaponry women used against each other.
The silence between us on the phone opened up and became a sinkhole. I knew I couldn’t win. If I tried to warn him about what was happening, I became a jealous harpy. If I didn’t, he’d carry on walking blindly into her mantrap. Until the day he suddenly realized he was missing her as much as he had ever missed me. Or he found her soft hand creeping into his at the pub as she leant on him for comfort after a tough day. Or they bonded over some shared adrenalin rush, some near-death incident, and found themselves kissing and –
I closed my eyes.
‘So when do you get back?’
‘Christmas Eve.’
‘Great. I’ll try and move some shifts. I’ll be working for some of the Christmas period, though, Lou. You know the job. It doesn’t stop.’
He sighed There was a pause before he spoke again. ‘Listen. I was thinking. Maybe it would be a good idea if you and Katie met each other. Then you can see she’s okay. She’s not trying to be anything other than a mate.’