Jane Green - Bookends

‘He doesn’t fancy me, and anyway,’ I mutter, although my anger suddenly seems to be disappearing, ‘you really didn’t need to go to all the trouble of plotting to get us together. He already invited me over for supper, and he meant it in a purely platonic way.’

‘I know he already invited you for supper, but that was weeks ago, and neither of you has done anything about it. I apologize for my intervention, but sometimes that’s the only way.’

‘God, you’re a nightmare,’ I say, shaking my head slowly. ‘What makes you suddenly think I need a man so badly? I’ve managed pretty well without one up until now.’ I sigh and look at her. ‘I must have been mad taking you on as a friend.’

‘What are you talking about?’ she grins. ‘You didn’t take me on. I chose you .’

‘It’s not bloody funny,’ I hiss down the phone at Si, who’s laughing hysterically at Lucy’s conniving. ‘And I can’t get this bloody paint out of my hair.’

‘I thought you just said you didn’t care what you looked like?’

‘I don’t, but I’d quite like to give the Big Bird impression a rest for a while.’

Si snorts again. ‘God, I never would have guessed it of Lucy. Amazing what she hides behind that innocent face of hers. So, what are you going to wear?’

‘The usual,’ I say, smiling, waiting for Si’s predictable reaction.

‘Oh Christ. Not bloody black again. At least try. Please? For me?’

‘All right, then,’ I mutter. ‘Brown. But for God’s sake, Si, I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up. I told you before, this isn’t a date.’

‘Not yet,’ he says, ‘but give it time.’

‘You and Lucy,’ I sigh. ‘You’re both as bad as each other.’

I’ve never heard of his road before, which is odd because I thought I knew West Hampstead pretty well by now.

‘It’s off Sherriff Road,’ he said earlier, writing down the address while Lucy practically exploded with pent-up excitement. ‘It looks a bit dodgy from the front, but the house is back to front, so follow the path round to the back and you’ll see the front door.’

I’ve come empty-handed, unsure about whether to bring wine, which of course is what I would always bring when visiting someone’s home in the evening, but perhaps wine would give a mistaken impression, would make him think that I might have had an ulterior motive, and I have no wish to embarrass myself.

I realize while trudging up the path that I haven’t eaten anything since the slab of strudel earlier, and although I very much doubt that food will play even the tiniest of roles this evening, I am praying that James will not keep me long, so I can grab something on the way back home.

He did once upon a time mention he would make me supper, but this is so impromptu that there’s no way he will be thinking of food. This is a business arrangement, pure and simple.

The back of the house is almost pitch black, but I can just about make out that almost the entire back wall is a huge arched window, and next to that is a front door. I stumble over a stone and feel around the door frame for a doorbell, but before I can find one the door opens and James is standing there grinning.

‘You found it.’

‘I found it.’ I find myself grinning back at him, noting that he is holding a corkscrew in one hand and immediately wishing that I had, in fact, brought a bottle of wine because suddenly it feels like the right thing to have done.

‘Come in, come in.’ James gestures inside, and I shuffle in, apologizing for coming empty-handed, explaining that I had meant to bring wine but…

‘Don’t be silly,’ he says. ‘I’ve got plenty of wine. What would you like? Red or white?’

I’m about to answer him, but, as I walk inside, I just stand there, open-mouthed, too dumbstruck to say anything, because out of all the scenarios I had imagined, this was definitely not one of them. This house was not what I would have imagined at all.

The room is enormous. Vast. At least double height, the entire ceiling is glass, and, although all you can see now is velvety blackness, it must be like the playground of the sun during the day.

It seems to be divided into three sections. The section closest to the door is obviously James’s studio. The white varnished floors are splattered with paint, and everywhere there are canvases propped up against the wall, some finished, some blank, waiting to be started. Pots of paint are dotted around, brushes, rags, the smell of turpentine.

‘Have a wander,’ James says gently, enjoying my amazement. ‘I don’t mind. Oh, and take your shoes off, it’s probably safer.’ I kick them off, noticing that James is wearing thick red socks.

I pick my way through the pots of paint, purposefully not looking at James’s paintings, wanting to save the best until last. I walk through the large opening into the second section, the open-plan kitchen, and through again to what is evidently the living room.

Sea-grass rugs cover the scrubbed floorboards, while huge white squashy sofas dominate the room. An old wooden chair sits at an angle by an enormous stone fireplace. It is, in short, spectacular. It looks like something out of a magazine, and I tell him this.

James manages to look embarrassed. ‘It has featured in a couple, actually,’ he admits. ‘But I wouldn’t do it again. I had to spend about a week tidying up before they’d come near it. Never again. Much too stressful.’

I laugh, as it dawns on me why this looks like a home. Why, despite the designer-type furnishings, it is a house in which I feel immediately comfortable. The mess. Piles of papers dotted around, just out of sight, but nevertheless there.

In the kitchen sink there is a pile of washing-up, waiting to be tackled, and on the kitchen table there are distinct rings left by coffee cups.

James notices me noticing. ‘God, I’m sorry,’ he sighs. ‘I’m just so bloody messy. I keep meaning to get my act together, but I’m just not naturally a tidy person. You’re horrified, aren’t you?’

I laugh. ‘You’ll be happy to hear you’re not half as disgusting as I am.’

‘Really?’ His face shows the beginnings of relief.

‘Really.’

James breaks into a grin. ‘Red okay?’ I nod, and he pours me a glass of wine as I wander back into his studio.

‘This place truly is incredible.’ I turn to him. ‘It’s the sort of home we all dream of living in but none of us could ever afford.’

‘The one perk of being an estate agent,’ he says with a smile. ‘Not only are the commissions extremely welcome, you also get to hear about things way before anyone else.’ He pulls out a chair for me in the kitchen and I sit down, wanting to hear more.

‘How did you find this, then?’

‘It was about four years ago,’ he says, taking a sip of the wine and murmuring with pleasure, his expression inviting me to do the same. ’It was one of those ridiculous situations where this had been on the market for ages and the owner was desperate.

‘He didn’t live here, he’d moved to the country years before, and this place was slowly falling down. Everyone knew about it, but nobody wanted to touch it. In fact, everyone knew about it by reputation. Somehow word got round that there were problems of some kind, and it just sat here slowly rotting.’

‘Until you came in and saved the day?’

‘Well, sort of,’ he grins. ‘I’d always been curious, but I’d heard all the negative stuff, and then one day I heard a couple of other agents talking about it and I decided to come along and have a look.’

‘And was it love at first sight?’

‘Yes and no. I couldn’t believe the building. The potential. But it was disgusting. There were rats here, rubbish that had been left for years. It had been lived in by squatters for a while, and you could hardly walk around for the smell.’ He gestures up at the gallery. ‘That was completely rotten, you couldn’t even walk up the stairs to see what was there.’