Page 61 of The Way We Are Now

‘But what would I do all day?’

‘Walk? Read? Help me with the hay making on one of the tenant farms?’

I laughed at that. ‘You’ve been reading The Forsyte Saga. Wasn’t it Fleur Forsyte who wheedled her way onto John Forsyte’s sister’s farm and ended up frolicking in the hay with her man?’

‘I’m always up for a quick frolic in the hay.’ Theo gave a dirty laugh. ‘Anyway, before that, we’ve London the weekend after next. How about I drive over to you, we leave the car at Sheffield and get the train down?’

‘Is this the weekend you told your parents you’re meeting up with your old public-school friends? Who was it…? Ah… Minky, Binky, Old Buffy, Barty and Farty…?’ I started laughing.

‘God, you’re so predictable,’ Theo tutted but I could hear the amusement in his voice. ‘And yes, the weekend I’m supposed to be off to some old-school do with Wills and Fraser.’

‘Well, as long as it’s just you and me and not an entourage of champagne-drinking Hooray Henrys.’

‘Actually,’ Theo said slightly irritably, ‘you’re not only predictable, but you’re also bloody rude and prejudiced as well, Anna Piasecki. You’re classist…’

‘Nope,’ I said trying to lighten the slight tension I could now feel between us. ‘Never understood the foundational texts of Greco-Roman antiquity. Homer and Virgil are utterly dead to me.’

‘Seeing as they’re thousands of years old, very likely,’ Theo retorted dryly. ‘Anyway you’re mixing classist with classicist. You’re a snob, Anna, an inverted snob, who presumes to think anyone not having had what you see as your working-class upbringing and status…’

‘That’s unfair,’ I interrupted, knowing Theo’s accusation of me was probably more than equitable.

‘I don’t think it is, Anna. I’m going. Got to start packing my things up to take home.’

And for the first time in our nightly phone conversations, there wasn’t, on Theo’s part, the usual intimate and amorous protracted goodbyes that had me wanting to hang on to him for just a few more seconds before floating up to my room, or off to join Dad at his allotment.

‘Oh, Theo, this is just heaven.’ The bedroom window of Theo’s family’s house in Holland Park looked directly onto the actual park itself. ‘Come on, come on,’ I said in huge excitement, ‘let’s go down, let’s go and look in the park. I can see a peacock. Hell, I’ve never seen one before. Look, look…’

I was like an overexcited kid on Christmas Day, wanting to see everything the big city had to offer. We’d arrived at St Pancras station from Sheffield where Theo had left his Mini.

‘Wow!’ I’d stood in front of the red-bricked façade, stepping back to take it all in. ‘That’s incredible. What an amazing building.’

‘Hmm, but you don’t want to know how it was built.’

‘I do, I do, I want to know everything. Who was the architect? When was it built? How much did it cost…?’

‘It cost the lives of a lot of children. They helped to make the bricks. Not something in Victorian history to be proud of.’

‘Oh, well, that’s spoilt it for me. Child labour!’

Theo had taken my hand. ‘I thought it would. Come on, we need the Piccadilly and then the Central Line to Holland Park.’

I’d been just as fascinated by the London Underground as when I’d first travelled on it as a kid, watching stations go by that I recognised only from the Monopoly board, but even though it was well past rush hour, the trains were hot and airless. I was glad when we took the lift up to Holland Park station and out into the balmy June evening before walking down a vibrant and buzzing tree-lined avenue.

Each café and bar on Holland Park Avenue had taken advantage of every inch of its allotted frontage; chairs and brightly coloured umbrellas from one melting and merging into its neighbour’s until we gave up trying to walk together and, still clutching on to his fingers, I followed Theo in tandem.

‘Ooh, a big red London bus,’ I said, in delight.

‘Hundreds of them, you daft thing.’

‘So many people, so many cars,’ I went on, catching up with Theo who was striding away through a sea of people. ‘And what ridiculously over-the-top cars.’ I stood, counting three Porsches, numerous BMWs and a bright red Ferrari. ‘Blimey, there isn’t half some wealth in this city.’

The whole of Holland Park Avenue pulsated with that particular London restless energy that, in years to come, I would learn to recognise and love as my own adopted city.

The house that Theo stopped outside – flourishing a key like some magician before smiling down at me – was a typical London terraced villa, tall and imposing but belying the number of rooms and bedrooms within. While probably needing some updating, there was something about the shabby chic of the house I immediately fell in love with.

Theo drew back heavy curtains and opened windows in the downstairs rooms, allowing the warm evening air and birdsong to drift in. I followed him into a large ground-floor kitchen which boasted a modern stove instead of the ubiquitous Aga, the usual kitchen cupboards, fridge and freezer and a somewhat boring-looking table and chairs in the middle of the room. Theo went straight to the fridge, pulling it open. ‘Yay. Good old Mrs Crabtree.’ Inside were a couple of bottles of white wine, cans of lager and enough olives, pâté and cheese to set up a deli.

‘Shouldn’t it be Good old Mum?’ I asked, giving Theo a look. ‘Surely she would have had to organise this for you?’