Charlotte Philby - The Most Difficult Thing

She held my gaze for a second before snapping her face away again. Without looking me in the eye, she stepped forward and kissed my cheek. There was a flicker of electricity between us and then she turned, the door slamming shut before I had time to reply.

The bus stop stood opposite our flat on the high street, illuminated in a sickly streetlight. Fifteen minutes later I stepped off the bus at South End Green, where the road veered right towards Hampstead Heath station.

Keeping the pub on my left I followed the right fork which led up to the Heath.

In all the years David and I had known each other, I had never been to his London house. After leaving halls, he had his own apartment in Brighton, on one of the smarter Regency squares, a very different proposition to the house we had shared the year previously.

The flat had been bought for him by his father, he let slip one afternoon. We were lazing on the nobbled rectangle of grass that stood between a U of buildings, sharing a bag of chips from soggy newspaper, the sea lapping at the shore on the other side of the main road. Back then, David still told himself he was uncomfortable with the level of wealth his father had started to accrue as his business grew from small-time independent to leading international trading company TradeSmart. The irony of his faux-liberal university lifestyle, banging on about the importance of fair trade while snorting lines of cocaine from supply chains involving child exploitation and murder, paid for by Daddy’s money, was not so much lost on him as ignored.

He had been the first person I met, the day I arrived at Sussex. Freshers’ Week, Falmer campus. Summer had stretched on that year, grass lining the lazy knolls that formed a ripple in front of the university, swarming with bodies, snatching up the final rays. Morcheeba drifting across the hills. Endless drum’n’bass.

My halls were on the far side of campus, just before rows of housing melted away into fields.

‘So, this is your room,’ explained the self-assured young man who greeted me at the door. He had watched my eyes for a reaction as I scanned the room with its worn carpets and fireproof doors.

‘Sorry, I’m David,’ he had added, stretching out his hand. ‘I’m your RA. This is my second year so I’m here to, you know, make sure you have everything you need …’

‘I’m Anna.’ I smiled self-consciously, trying out my new name for the first time.

‘What are you studying?’ His eyes were trying hard to catch mine.

‘English Literature.’

‘Cool, I’m doing Business Studies … Are your parents bringing the rest of your things later?’

I paused, shaking my head, and kept walking. ‘It’s just my dad but he’s abroad. RAF.’

I could hear the hesitation in my voice, but David never questioned it, and why would he?

As David continued talking, my eyes settled on a blur of hills rising to meet an expanse of blue sky, through the window, unaware of the dark clouds looming in from the edge.

The light was fading as David’s road came into view, in an enclave of North London reserved for old money and increasingly new.

The house was a four-storey Victorian semi-detached, three times the size of my parents’ home, chequered tiled steps leading up to the entrance. It was beautiful, the house a child might draw, plucked straight from a ghost story.

I took the stairs to the house slowly; light and voices emanated from the hallway through the open front door, music spilling over the wall from the garden.

David was there, waiting for me, a smile stitched across his face as I tentatively pushed at the open door.

‘You came!’

He kissed my cheek, his skin soft and grateful, my proximity to him reassuring.

‘This is your house?’

‘This is it.’ Leading the way, past a sweeping staircase with double-height ceilings and down through the kitchen, David paused to pour me a drink.

‘So here we are.’

We were standing in the garden, which was not much smaller than the ground floor of the house. The lawn stretched down to a red-brick wall with an arched doorway leading out onto the Heath.

On the terraced area, where we now stood, there were paper lanterns punctuating the view from one side of the house to the other. In the middle of the garden someone had attempted to create a pit and amidst the ash, a fire licked at the air. A group of people I didn’t recognise were sitting around it, flicking joint roaches into the flames.

‘Anna, I’m …’ Watching my face turn back to his, David took a step forward, a look stirring in his eyes. Ever since that night at the club, something had shifted between us and aside from the gifts that passed between us like relentless peace offerings, he had been careful not to push.

‘Meg couldn’t come,’ I changed the subject before I could stop myself, immediately feeling like a traitor to my friend for raising the subject.

‘What’s with her at the moment?’ David’s face changed. ‘Every time I see her recently she’s …’

‘She’s just, you know, work.’

David raised his eyebrow. ‘I don’t know, it seems like more than that. We’re all busy …’

‘How is work?’ It seemed fitting to change track.

‘Good, yeah, I mean it’s banking, it’s not exactly … But it’s good, you know, doing something for myself, making my own money.’

I nodded, wondering how much David earned. Not that he needed money of his own, clearly.

As if reading my mind, he continued, ‘My dad wanted me to go into the family business but … I don’t know, I want to do my own thing. The idea of just following my father’s footsteps …’

He blushed, shrugging.

‘Good for you.’ Discreetly, my eyes cast their way up the back of the house, the vast wooden shutters, creepers growing up the walls. The top-floor windows gazed out with hollow eyes over the black expanse of Hampstead Heath.

‘So this is the house you grew up in?’

David took a swig of his drink.

‘Yup. My grandparents bought it in the 1950s, and when they died, my dad inherited it.’

‘And he doesn’t mind you having a party …?’

‘He doesn’t live here any more. He’s got a flat in town, but he’s away most of the time, so it’s just me.’

‘How come?’

‘Work. He’s mainly working in Africa and Asia at the moment. His company has an office over here, but mostly it’s …’

The music stopped suddenly, as if someone had lurched the needle from the record, followed by a wave of indignation from the crowd. Behind David’s shoulder I could see more people spilling into the garden as the music started again, something soulful this time.

‘If you ever want to come over …’

‘Thanks.’ I smiled, not sure what else to say as I watched the party from a distance, David’s guests’ uplit faces devoid of features, like apparitions passing under a cloud.

It was nearly 1 a.m. by the time I left the party. David had called me a cab, his hand lingering on mine as I ducked into the car, his eyes following me down the road.

Within minutes of driving, the wide open streets of Hampstead gave way to Malden Road, sprawling council blocks obscuring my view of the sky. Camden High Street, with its all-night bars and the endless roar of the night bus trundling along tarmac scarred by hidden potholes, faded to a reassuring throb as I pressed closed the door from the street.

A strip of light gently glowed above the tatty carpet at the top of the stairs, warm and inviting, but when my feet reached the upstairs landing, something already felt wrong. I pushed open the front door to find the room darker than I had imagined. Meg’s body, her back to me, was unnaturally taut at the table, an open bottle of wine beside her.