I hate questions like that; they go nowhere apart from deep inside. ‘I haven’t really thought about it.’
‘But there must be something?’
I tried to search my brain, but it seemed stopped by mud or grease. If I thought about what I wanted it was only V and it felt like it had only ever been her. Although that couldn’t be entirely true because I hadn’t known her all my life. I couldn’t at that moment remember why I’d gone to university or what I’d hoped to achieve. Everything just seemed blank.
Elaine sighed. ‘You could do a lot of good with all this money.’
I nodded, my throat feeling inexplicably full. I needed to make money to make V happy, but it didn’t feel like something I could say to Elaine. ‘I’m hoping to have a family in this house one day,’ I said and as I did so something tugged at my chest. I had never thought about having children before but of course that’s what married couples did and V and I would have perfect children.
Elaine smiled. ‘Well, that would be lovely. But you’ve got to meet a nice girl first.’
I smiled back, but my mouth felt taut. Because if you followed that thought through, and if V really thought she loved Angus, then what would stop them having children? I stood up. ‘Sorry, I just need the toilet,’ I said, walking to the downstairs bathroom, where I locked myself in. I leant over the basin, breathing deeply into my stomach, my hands clenched on the white porcelain. Just the thought of Angus’s baby invading V’s body sent convulsions of fear through me, so they fizzed from my head to my feet, popping through my blood and making me weak. It was an abomination, too repulsive to consider. I knew then that I had to get her away from him as soon as possible.
Elaine was putting on her coat when I came out. ‘It’s been so lovely to see you, Mike,’ she said. ‘And to put you in some sort of context. Barry won’t believe it when I tell him about the house.’
‘You must bring him next time.’
‘I’ll do that.’
I walked her to the door. I think she’d worn the same coat she had on when I’d lived with her. It was her autumn coat, not as thick as her winter one, but good in a rain shower. She rubbed my arm at the door and her eyes were twinkling. ‘You take care of yourself, Mike. And call me anytime. You know our door is always open to you.’
‘I know.’ She looked so tiny standing in my giant hall, the top of her head only reaching my shoulder, and I longed for her suddenly. Longed for my room now occupied by Jayden. She would be going home to cook tea and then she and Barry and maybe Jayden would watch Strictly and they’d share a can of Guinness and at some point someone would say something that made everyone laugh. I bent down and kissed her cheek. ‘Thanks for coming, Elaine.’
‘You’re a good lad, Mike,’ she said. ‘Don’t you forget it.’
I opened the door and the wind had picked up, so you could feel the first chill of a dying summer in the air. She turned and waved at me from the gate and I had to swallow down my tears as I shut the door.
I had an irrational and stupid desire to call Kaitlyn. I knew if I did I could go and sit in her white flat with her wild horses running across the wall. I could imagine her making me a cup of tea and letting me lie on the sofa. I didn’t think she’d even mind if I cried, although she would ask me what I was crying for and I wouldn’t know what to tell her. And anyway it would be a mean thing to do, leading her on unforgivably.
Instead I went back to the kitchen and opened my laptop, googling 24 Elizabeth Road again, trying once more to see past the sterile image. After that I googled V, but there was still nothing online beyond the very basics. But then I had an idea and I typed Angus Metcalf into Facebook. Sure enough his profile popped up, which of course it would, considering what a self-centred, show-off type of person he was. His last post had been from the day before when he’d checked into Virgin Atlantic’s Upper Class Lounge. A stupid graphic showed a dotted line between London Heathrow and LAX. He was very far away.
I spent the rest of the day and night trawling his Facebook page, reading every comment and post. The past year was dominated by Verity, with shots of them in various locations, with people I didn’t know, in places I couldn’t make out. He had been tagged in endless shots of their wedding, so I was treated to the first dance I missed in actuality, the cutting of the cake, the throwing of the bouquet. It was easy to tell how happy he was, but I thought V’s smile seemed a little bit forced, her eyes not quite as sparkling as they should have been, as if she was holding back in a way only I would recognise. And the more I looked and the more I read, the more I realised what a prize idiot Angus Metcalf was. How everything he did was clichéd and contrived and designed to be noticed. His life appeared to be nothing more than one big boast, one big lampooning monstrosity. He enraged me, so that my blood danced in my veins and my head throbbed with a deep, sickening beat. I felt violated by him, as if I had somehow let him inside me, as if his existence on the computer alone was an outrage.
I snapped the lid shut but it wasn’t enough, I knew he was still there, still existing within the virtual wires. I picked the laptop off the table and felt its lightness in my wrist, so light I could lift it up and over my head easily, my muscles tensing and readying. I hurled it through the air, watching it arch and fall, watching it connect with the wall, splintering and shattering, all its innards tumbling to the ground. The floor was strewn with a mess of glass and wires and pieces I didn’t even recognise. Nuts, bolts, circuits, letters, numbers, signals – it was all there but would never go back together again.
I arrived outside V’s house early on Sunday morning, but the curtains and shutters were still drawn so I went to the park, where I walked along the deserted paths. Kensington Palace was right there, overlooking everything in its grandeur, and it struck me as outrageous how it just existed, amongst all us normal people. How it didn’t fence itself in or cower behind walls. How it assumed its right to be there, and so it was. And I was aware as I walked round ponds and up and down giant alleyways that we were all trespassers in this private garden, and that the residents of the palace had had to make compromises as well.
The curtains and shutters at number 24 were still drawn when I got back, but I couldn’t wait any longer, so I knocked on the door. I could hear the sound echoing inside and I knew suddenly that V wasn’t there. My heart sped at the thought that she might not be where I had placed her in my mind.