Alfie lifted his hand to help her down into the launch and she had no choice but to take it. There it was again, that darned frisson of excitement. What was it about men like Wilkie and Alfie that had the power to make her feel this way? Why was she attracted to the liars, the cads, the cheats? Rex had been different, she remembered. Sweet Rex, kind Rex, who had not, despite his best efforts, had the same effect on her. What she had felt for him was a pale imitation of the passion, the desire, the need, she’d had for Wilkie.
Stepping down into the interior, she was fascinated. The design and craftsmanship were impeccable; the hand-stitched leather of the two wide sofa-like seats at the rear and front, the highly polished dashboard with a leather-covered steering wheel that looked fresh out of an expensive vintage car.
‘She’s beautiful.’ Her fingers trailed the butter-soft upholstery as the boat gently rocked in the swell.
‘Lady Margery, named after my mother.’
Lilly kept her eyes on the river ahead, not wanting any more of his history, the personal details that had helped lash him to herwith confidence; she wanted no more of that. Alfie sat next to her and switched on the engine, which purred as, with incredible skill, he pulled away from the dock and out into the river.
‘I’ll take her upstream slowly so you can see Waide House properly – then we’ll turn her about, and you can do the same from the other direction. There’s nothing like seeing your city from the water. A different perspective altogether, like the difference between travelling on the top deck of a bus or underground on the Tube. When you’re on the river you get to see the lines at the top of the buildings, understand their placement along the water’s edge and take in the whole expanse.’
It was thrilling, no mistake, being on the stretch of river she knew so well. A sensation quite unlike any other; and he was right, so much detail she had been unaware of! The proximity of the towering apartment blocks to her building, the small spaces between the plots filled with tiny squares of garden where people shoehorned in snippets of nature. And how tiny Waide House looked, a stocky little anomaly among the shiny skyscrapers.
‘Look at her.’ She wasn’t sure if she’d said it aloud. It was an almost visceral reaction, the sight of her home, the building in its entirety sitting there like a dusty little thing among the shiny giants, a relic among the new. Her tears fell in a steady stream, distressed at the utter abhorrence of the fact that the block was to be razed to the ground, not a brick left. Alfie was strangely quiet. ‘If I look at the flat, I can see me standing in the window when I was little, looking out at the wonder of it all.’
‘Yet I see potential homes for hundreds of people.’
‘Oh, please! Let’s not pretend you are doing this for altruistic reasons. You’re doing it for profit!’ She cut him short.
‘It doesn’t have to be either or, Lilly. Yes, it’s a great business proposition for me, a legacy—’
‘And why do you need that?’ Again she interrupted, turning to look at him now, her breath stuttering as she wiped her eyes on the back of her hand.
‘Why do I need that?’ His expression told her he was not unmoved by her tears.
‘Yes, why is it so important for men to build something big, to build anything at all?’
‘It’s what I do, what I’ve always done.’
‘So I guess some would say surely you’ve built enough?’ She toyed with him.
‘Nothing like this.’ He studied the skyline. ‘This is my opus, my swansong. It’s a building that will shape the London skyline – what an opportunity.’
‘Huh.’ She managed to steady her breathing. ‘Why can’t your legacy be like my dad’s: that he never knowingly harmed anyone, showed everyone kindness, gave me a love of music, never laid a brick, as far as I know, but what a wonderful way to remember a person.’
‘I want to do something that matters.’
‘My dad mattered! I matter! My home matters! Things don’t have to be on a grand or exuberant scale to matter! Are you so keen to show how far from that crowded house in East Ham you’ve come that you have to do this?’
‘Yes, probably, and if it’s amateur psychology you want, why is it you’re so afraid of landing that you can’t fly? You don’t even leave the city!’
I’m afraid to fly because there is no one, absolutely no one, to catch me if I fall ...This was her first and most distressing thought. ‘You know so little about me, even if you think you do. I want to fly, Alfie! I want to!’
‘So what’s stopping you?’ The boat slowed, and the engine ticked, as if both vessel and man waited for her response.
‘I’ve always been too afraid of . . . of . . .’
‘Of what?’ His tone was softer now.
‘Of this not being here when I got back.’ She gave a wry smile at the irony of it all.
‘This what, Lilly?’
‘This home, this view, this river, this feeling like I belong! This place, this history, these memories.’
‘That wouldn’t change just because you weren’t here any more.’
‘Wouldn’t it?’ she snapped.
