Our Kind of Cruelty(14)

Work was busy that day. We were in the middle of the Hector deal and the chairman had put me in charge. It should have been relatively simple, but some of their figures didn’t add up and no one was answering my questions in a way I thought to be adequate. I felt myself coming close to losing my temper a few times during the day, as I heard one excuse after another. And not just from the people at Hector, but also my own team. I think I might have spoken a bit harshly and I felt people glancing in at me as they passed my office. But I can’t believe I wasn’t fair. If people do a good enough job and give me the right answers, then all is good. I can’t stand incompetence. V says I expect too much from other people, which always used to make me laugh, as I was brought up to expect nothing at all.

I stopped at the deli on the High Street on my walk home from the tube. I had loaded up with wine and salads and was standing looking at the ridiculously priced vacuum-packed steaks when Kaitlyn walked in. I raised a hand in greeting, but inside my heart sank. She seemed to be behind me wherever I went and the feeling was unnerving. I turned back to the red meat, hoping she’d get what she needed and leave, but she came straight over.

‘What are you having?’ she asked. The basket hanging off her own arm was empty. ‘I’m starving but don’t know what I fancy eating.’

‘Steak,’ I said, keeping my eyes on the meat. ‘It’s Verity’s favourite.’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I’m vegetarian.’

I turned to look at her and her deathlike appearance made a bit more sense. But I also realised something else. I couldn’t very well buy just one steak now I’d said that. I reached up and deposited two large steaks in my basket, trying hard not to hear Elaine’s voice telling me she could feed five people for a week on what they cost. When you are brought up in a foster home, excess never comes very easily, however much money you accrue.

Kaitlyn moved towards the next fridge and picked up some gourmet hummus and a fresh pasta sauce. Her hand hesitated over the wild mushroom or spinach and ricotta tortellini, but the wild mushroom won. She sighed. ‘I wish someone was cooking for me tonight.’

‘V and I take it in turns,’ I said. ‘Whichever one of us is back first.’

‘That’s nice,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit lonely buying all these sorts of ready meals and eating them in front of the telly. It doesn’t make it any better just because you’ve paid ten times what you would in Tesco.’

I tried to smile, but an image of Kaitlyn doing just that almost knocked me off balance. I thought she probably changed into a tracksuit and scraped her hair off her face as soon as she got home. She probably let her dog eat the leftovers from her plate.

We stood in the queue next to each other, which took an annoyingly long time because a woman at the front was going through every ingredient of her vegan lasagna. Kaitlyn smiled wearily and I pretended to be interested in a non-existent message on my phone. We emerged into the evening together and walked up the hill until it was my turning, where we said an awkward goodnight. I realised as I walked down my road that I would be seeing Kaitlyn again in eight hours’ time and that it was perfectly possible that neither of us would speak to anyone else in the meantime.

I got changed myself when I got in, but not into a tracksuit, just some chinos and a T-shirt. I put on Oasis and turned on the oven. My plan was to flash fry one of the steaks in garlic and salt and then give it ten minutes in the oven, whilst I made a good dressing for my salad. But as I got the packets out of the bag I saw both had a sell-by date for the next twenty-four hours, which meant I would have to cook them both or waste one. I was hungry anyway, so I released both steaks into the air, rubbing them with garlic. Once they were in the oven I opened the bag of organic baby leaves and chopped an avocado and some baby plum tomatoes and made a mustardy dressing.

I had over-estimated and there was enough salad for two people. I put the bowl on the table and lit the candles which lived in glass hurricane lamps. They reflected nicely in the bifold doors and I saw the kitchen was well designed for supper parties or romantic dinners. V loved a nicely laid table and so I got two white napkins out along with the cutlery. Then I took down two wine glasses and put the bottle of red between the places. The steaks smelt ready and so I served them up. Two would have taken a whole plate and looked ridiculous. I carried both plates to the table and put them into their places. The meat was succulent and cooked to perfection, the hard brown skin yielding to the red, earthy flesh. And the salad was a perfect complement, crisp and light and benefitting from the blood on the plate. The wine had also been a good choice, full bodied and fruity, real coat-your-throat stuff.

As I sat, Liam began his mournful rendition of ‘Wonderwall’ and I had to put down my knife and fork for a minute to stop myself from choking. Because nobody does know you the way I do, V said, as the lyric sounded out, and I heard her words so clearly I had to remind myself that she wasn’t actually sitting opposite me.

‘Your favourite song, V,’ I said, raising a glass and catching sight of my reflection in the door.

For the record, I didn’t actually think V was sitting with me that night. But it gave me a wonderful glimpse of what our future held, of how we would be when she did finally come home to live with me.

If she had been there I would have spoken to her about the time we were in Ireland and I arranged for her to hold an eagle. At least, hold is the wrong word. She had to put on a long, thick leather glove which reached right up to her shoulder and stand very still, while the eagle’s handler attracted the bird with a dead mouse. We were standing in the grounds of an old castle, the sea whipping against the shore and the trees and grasses of the garden bent almost double by the wind. V’s hair was flying around her head, as if it was alive, and her eyes were fixed upwards. I followed her gaze and saw a speck of a bird high up in the slate-grey skies above our heads. It hovered for a few minutes, surveying us, and in those moments I wanted to rush to V and rip the glove off her hand, to pull her away and cover her with my body. Because as the eagle started to descend it was obvious it saw only the prey, obvious it cared nothing for us and our petty concerns. It whizzed over my head, so close I could feel the wind from its wings, and as it glided towards V I could see the meanness of its talons, the damage they could do. Don’t touch her, I wanted to shout, but it was landing before I could move, with a weight that made V’s arm buckle so the handler had to grab it and hold it upright and she laughed. The eagle picked at the mouse in her hand and V stared at it as though it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. But then the handler moved behind the bird and put a tiny black mask over the eagle’s eyes, making it look like an executioner. He then transferred the bird on to his own gloved hand and V dropped her arm, reaching out to stroke the top of the eagle’s head. ‘Thank you so much,’ she was saying by the time I reached them.