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It’s not enough.
My heart accelerates. My vision clouds. I stare at my trainers, focus on my breathing.
‘This is Cosima,’ I hear Johnnie say.
Matt has left me. He has left me on my own.
‘Say goodnight, Cozzie,’ Johnnie says.
I make myself stand up, almost straight, and look. Cosima giggles and sinks her head into her father’s chest. A moment later, she raises her head and blows a kiss, says goodnight in a sweet little-girl voice that runs through me like a blade, and collapses into embarrassed giggles, just like Abi used to. I stare down at the floor, blinking back tears, my body white hot, my heart racing. I take deep breaths, determined to remain upright. I am stuck, stuck and alone in this hot, pounding space, while the crowd call out their goodnights, their voices soft with alcohol and affection, with memories of their own children, perhaps, at that age, children who have grown up now, who are still here.
Johnnie is handing Cosima to a middle-aged woman standing just behind them with her arms outstretched. She takes the child into her arms with a nod and a kind smile. The nanny, I guess. The one they bought a little runaround for. Cosima on one hip, Jasmine holding her hand, the three become shadows as they recede. My throat aches.
The cool bossa nova drifts back into the air. Jennifer is wielding her phone, her eyes screwed up at discreet round ceiling speakers. The volume rises. My neighbours begin to dance. They are red and jolly, animated and talkative. The party is really getting going now.
I have to go. I have to get out of here. It has to be now.
Twenty
Matt
Neil is spitting bullets.
‘Did you see that?’ He moves to pace away, apparently decides against it, but his body bristles with the effort of simply standing still. ‘Did you hear him? He couldn’tnotdo it, could he?’ His speech is half-whisper, half-hiss. ‘Couldn’t resist lording it over me in the bloody palace I built for him. Arsehole.’ More expletives follow, a furious tirade that threatens to get louder and be overheard. His face pinks; the rims of his eyes redden. His scalp glows through the shaved sides of his head.
‘Mate.’ Matt is aware of people looking at them. ‘Just keep it down, will you? He didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘Yes he did. Yes he did, Matt. The guy’s a condescending prick. It was like this every day when I did his kitchen. Every fucking day.’ At his sides, Neil’s hands roll into fists.
‘Mate. It was his daughter. She can’t help it. She hasn’t got… she doesn’t speak in sentences – that’s not her fault. Johnnie was just trying to… I dunno… accommodate her.’
‘All right.’ Neil raises one hand, nods his promise to stop making a scene. ‘The thing is, it makes me laugh, because if it weren’t for me, his kitchen would look like shit. It was him who got the measurements for the RSJs wrong, me and the lads that had to work around it, correct his bollocks maths. I could have done those calculations in my head.’
Matt waits. Now is not the time to say he’s heard this before.
‘I’d already done the maths when he first showed me the house!’ Neil glances towards the kitchen and bites his bottom lip in disgust, makes a gun with his fingers and points it at his own head. ‘I’d already built it, in my mind. In here! These pricks make you think it’s rocket science, but it’s basic… it’s basic building. They think just ’cos they dossed around for a few years at uni, they think they’re better. They think they know more but half the time they’re useless. I’m telling you, he thinks ’cos he’s got some bullshit certificate, it means no one has ever thought of doing what he’s done. Leaving the steels exposed to make them look industrial?’ He makes sarcastic jazz hands. ‘Woo, big deal. I saw that in Peckham about five years ago. He thinks he’s so edgy and cool with his zinc and his glass bullshit extension. He’s a… he’s a… the guy’s a…’ He sighs deeply, appears to cool. When he looks at Matt, there is apology in his eyes. ‘I don’t mean you.’
‘I know you don’t.’
‘I don’t. I know you worked hard at uni. I mean, I respect your qualifications and that. I’m not, like, chippy about it or anything.’
‘I know.’ Matt wonders why Neil feels the need to say this – he’s never said anything like it before.
‘I’m not jealous of you, that’s what I’m trying to say, so don’t go thinking that. I’m just pissed off, that’s all. With him. I mean, I bet he couldn’t get in to do architecture. I bet that’s why he didn’t use an architect.’
‘I’m sure he was capable of doing the sketches. He was probably just sure about what he wanted.’
‘All right. I know. I’m just… and I know he got me all that work and he gave me a massive tip at the end of the job – did I ever tell you that?’ Neil shakes his head, continues without waiting for an answer. ‘Well, no, it was… I probably never mentioned it, did I, but it was… It was difficult times, but, yeah, he gave me a five-hundred-quid tip. Five bloody ton – who does that? I said nah, but he insisted, said I’d done an exceptional job and deserved it and all that nonsense, so in the end I took it, I took because I reckoned it was more of his patronising bullshit, do you know what I mean? Pay the little man.’ He blows out a long jet of air, cools another degree. ‘I dunno, it’s just him, the way he is gets on my tits. But you, you were always proper brainy – you know I mean that, don’t you?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, of course. I’m not offended or anything.’
‘That’s why you were so shit at football.’ He almost grins, takes a gruff swig of his beer.
‘Funny.’ Matt feels his chest loosen, the way it does when he spots and corrects a last-minute mistake at work.
‘And at least you don’t go round telling your builders how to do their job.’
‘I never see the builders anymore. I’m too important.’
