Madeleine John - The Essence of the Thing

‘Yes.’

‘Lucky Jonathan.’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh, Nicola, do look at your face – oh – oh dear – oh, you are going to cry. Oh, Lord. Here, have you got a hanky? Oh dear. Poor Nicola. Now for Heaven’s sake, darling, do tell Lizzie. What is the matter?’

‘You’re really the last person I should be telling,’ said Nicola, between sobs. ‘Jonathan would kill me.’

‘Oh, would he just . Never mind him for the moment. Just tell me.’

It was dicey, alright. Susannah and Geoffrey were hers, but Alfred and Lizzie were Jonathan’s. Well, Alfred, at any rate: he and Jonathan had known each other since school. On the other hand, Nicola having made their acquaintance had become rather more of an intimate of Lizzie’s than Jonathan was of Alfred’s. But women were like that, as Alfred had remarked to himself – always getting together in corners and bonding: the phenomenon was clearly of evolutionary utility. He was quite content to leave them to it, as long as they weren’t evidently hatching anything significant. Alfred loved women, in their place, and was at all times ready to assert that some of his female colleagues – he being at the bar – were very able indeed: very . Lizzie, of course, was not and never had been a colleague: perish the thought!

‘Just let me make this tea first.’ Nicola went into the kitchen and made the tea and brought it into the sitting room. Lizzie was looking at the china dogs. She picked up a pug. ‘Is this Staffordshire?’ she asked. ‘Not exactly,’ said Nicola. ‘It’s a proper eighteenth-century one. Derby. Jonathan gave it to me.’

‘Don’t cry again.’

‘No, I won’t.’ She poured out the tea. ‘Jonathan,’ she said, ‘wants us to split up. He’s offered to buy me out.’

‘How long has this been going on?’

‘I’ve no idea. None at all. He just announced it, out of the blue, on Thursday night. Then he went to his parents for the weekend, straight from work on Friday. So I haven’t had a chance to talk to him properly. I mean, he wouldn’t discuss it on Thursday night. He just made his announcement and then clammed up. I was completely gobsmacked. I still am.’

‘So am I.’ And she was. They each drank some tea and Nicola began to eat a biscuit. ‘And you really had no warning – no sign – beforehand?’ asked Lizzie. ‘No. Well, for all I know there were signs which I was too thick to see, but—’

‘Tell me again exactly what he said and how.’ Nicola obliged. ‘Well,’ said Lizzie, ‘I must say that’s quite the creepiest thing I’ve heard of in a long while. He should be strung up. It’s an absolute outrage. And here you are, ironing his shirts! Nicola! What on earth are you thinking of?’

‘Oh,’ cried Nicola rather wildly, ‘don’t – don’t be too hard on him – I don’t know – we don’t know – the whole story; he may be entirely justified – it’s probably my fault completely – I just don’t know, yet.’

‘Only because he won’t tell you. The pig, the pig, the absolute pig . Your fault! My God, that creep of a Jonathan should go down on his bended knees to you every day of his life – you should have seen the state he was in before he met you! You’re the best thing that ever happened to him, and he doesn’t deserve you, not for five seconds. You’re well rid of him. He can go right back to where he was, and good riddance. Mournful putrid boring old Jonathan – he’s had his last invitation to my house, if Alf wants to see him he can have lunch with him, I’m not having him about the place. These old bachelors, really ! Useless! My God! Men! ’

Nicola had begun to laugh: and then she began to cry, as well: and then she was crying, as if her heart might break, and not laughing at all. ‘Oh, Nicola,’ said Lizzie, patting her shoulder; ‘he isn’t worth it; he can’t be; a man who can behave like that just isn’t worth it. A man who makes you cry so is never worth your tears.’

‘But I love him,’ said Nicola. ‘That’s the trouble, you see. I really do love him.’

‘You couldn’t have found anyone less deserving,’ said Lizzie.

‘I didn’t really try,’ said Nicola; and in the midst of her tears she and Lizzie began to laugh. ‘Oh, Christ,’ said Lizzie; ‘I mean, Christ .’

‘Yes,’ said Nicola. ‘You never said a truer word.’

‘Leaving aside the question of how you can love a rotten little creep like Jonathan in his present mode,’ said Lizzie, ‘not that women aren’t absolutely famous for loving rotten little creeps—’

‘Susannah says he’s a prat,’ said Nicola. ‘So does Geoffrey. Do you think he’s a prat?’

Lizzie considered. ‘Prat,’ she repeated. ‘Yes, yes, he is also a prat. Quite certainly. How are Susannah and Geoffrey? Nice people.’

‘They’re well.’

‘Bloody Jonathan. Your friends are wasted on him too. He doesn’t begin to appreciate you. But look, the point is, Nicola sweetie, what exactly are you thinking of doing, apart from ironing Jonathan’s shirts, which I absolutely order you not to do, my God, I can’t believe it, bloody shirts, of all things, Jermyn Street too I’ll bet, really hard work —’

‘Yes, well …’ said Nicola sadly. ‘The point is,’ said Lizzie, abandoning Jonathan’s shirts as a bad job, ‘what were you thinking of doing next, exactly? Now that the master has spoken.’

‘Well,’ said Nicola wanly, ‘I was just – I was more or less expecting, or hoping , to see him tonight. I thought we might be able to talk, then. After he’s been away from me for two days. And then, maybe, maybe we can sort it out. Maybe. I mean, I have to hope that. I have to hope.’ She looked as if she might begin to cry again. ‘Of course you do, my sweet,’ said Lizzie quickly. ‘ Of course you do. But just in case you don’t. Just in case Jonathan’s decided to become a full-time complete professional dedicated creep and stick to his last, what then?’

‘Well then ,’ said Nicola, ‘I’ll just have to clear off, won’t I?’

‘Not so fast,’ said Lizzie. ‘I mean, where will you go?’

‘Oh,’ said Nicola, ‘Susannah says I can go there until I get sorted out.’

‘That might take a while,’ said Lizzie.

‘Yes,’ said Nicola hopelessly.

‘You haven’t really thought this through, have you?’

‘No. I thought there wasn’t really any point until I knew for certain that I had to.’

‘It’ll mean buying another flat, won’t it?’

‘Yes. Something really cheap, at that.’

‘Quite.’

‘Well …’

‘The whole thing is a disgrace. You seem to have forgotten, you of all people, that this flat is actually your territory, morally speaking.’

Nicola pondered. ‘Well, I suppose you’re right,’ she said uncertainly. ‘You bloody bet I am,’ said Lizzie. And as a matter of fact, she did have a point.

Nicola had moved into this flat in her late twenties; quite soon she would have been living here for exactly five years.

The flat was one of those lucky scores – such things can’t be sought or even found serendipitously: they fall into the laps of those who manage to be in the right place at the right time by sheer accident. It had been one of the last of those dilapidated, rent-controlled Notting Hill flats, in a Victorian building whose 120-year lease was due when Nicola first moved in to expire a few years later.

The time arrived, the freehold of the building duly changed hands, and the new owners promptly notified each of the building’s several tenants of his or her consequent options. Nicola, like her neighbours, was presented thus with the choice either of vacating her flat in return for a cash payment, or of purchasing the leasehold of the flat herself. Were she simply to remain as tenant the flat would be modernised and, as the house agents say, substantially upgraded; a new and quite unaffordable rent would thereafter be levied. Nicola’s only possible choice – unable to afford to pay a higher rent, or to buy the leasehold – would have been to take the money and run; and she would have had to run rather a long way before finding another affordable flat – whether to rent, or to buy. It would not be so pretty nor so conveniently situated; she would certainly have been thrown into disarray for a period of several months or even years, had it not been for Jonathan.