Our Kind of Cruelty(16)

‘Outsiders?’ The word felt hot in my head.

‘Yes. Haven’t you noticed what an old boy’s club it still is at work? How it’s all don’t you know so and so and where did you go to school? People like you and me need to stick together. They don’t naturally like us.’

‘Don’t they?’ The thought was both ghastly and new to me.

But she just laughed. ‘It’s not as bad as it used to be, but we still have to watch our backs.’

I resisted the urge to turn around. ‘Thanks for the advice,’ I said, standing up. ‘But I really should be going. Verity will be wondering where I am.’

She stood up with me. ‘Oh yes, of course.’

Kaitlyn went to the toilet and said I should go on without her, so I strode up the hill to my road with her words churning inside me. I hadn’t realised I was an outsider at work and it made me wonder what else I hadn’t noticed. V would have warned me about all of that. She knew all the codes and what everything meant. She could have even told me what to say, or at least why I shouldn’t care about it.

I turned on to my street and the loneliness hit me again like a gust of wind. I had nowhere else to go other than back to my dark, empty house, but at that moment it was about the most unappealing place in the world to me.



I took to walking home from work most nights, especially as the days were long and the warmth stayed late in the air. The Hector deal went through and the chairman said I could expect a large bonus. I wondered how much houses were in Sussex – for weekends of course. Walking via Kensington wasn’t that much of a detour, in fact it was pleasant, looking at the palace and the park, crossing over the Serpentine and looking at the birds and the boats. I didn’t walk down Elizabeth Road every evening, only sometimes, only when I felt like V wanted me to.

In the end I got what I had been half waiting for, half dreading, when a taxi pulled up outside number 24 and V and Angus got out. She was wearing a pair of loose white trousers and a pale blue shirt, with white, slightly heeled sandals on her feet. Her hair was tied in a loose bun at the nape of her neck and she had a grey bag slung across her body. Her skin looked tanned and I thought she had lost a little bit of weight; her collarbones certainly looked more defined than when I’d last seen her. She waited on the pavement while Angus paid the driver, checking something on her phone, which made her smile. When he turned to her she held the phone out to him and he looked and laughed, putting his arm round her and kissing the side of her head. Angus was dressed more smartly, in a crumpled blue suit with an open-necked shirt. I tried to work out what they’d been doing as I watched them climb the steps to their front door. It was nine thirty; maybe they’d met after work for an early supper. Or been to the cinema.

V unlocked the front door and they went inside, closing the door behind them. I waited, but no one went into the drawing room. I thought it likely that the kitchen was in the basement and so I crossed the road and walked towards the black railings, taking hold of them and looking downwards. I had no idea what I would say if V saw me, but at that moment it didn’t matter. I could see a sink in the window and the lights were on, but the view was infuriatingly oblique.

There were some old stone steps running from the road to the well in front of the basement, which was dark and in shadow. I pushed the gate at the top of the stairs and it yielded. I checked the street, which was empty, and then walked inside. I kept my body flat against the wall, sliding down the mossy bricks. I didn’t look into the window until I was at the bottom of the stairs, tucked behind a bend in the wall. And then I wished I hadn’t.

The room was illuminated like a screen, bright and inviting, a huge kitchen stretching on out into a dining area with a large table. V was sitting at an island in the centre of the room on a high stool, sipping from a glass of wine. Angus was cutting something on a board on the opposite side of the island and something he was saying was making her laugh. Occasionally he would hold out a piece of cheese or meat, or whatever it was, and she would take it and nod and lick her fingers. But then he stopped chopping and leant back against the wall of ovens behind him. He said something else and she looked up at him and I thought I might be sick because her eyes were wide and shining and trained only on him. And I knew that feeling too well, knew what it was to have V look only at you.

She stood then and circled the island, walking towards him, where he pulled her into him so there was no air at all between their bodies. She laid her head against his chest with her face turned out towards me, a generous smile on her lips.

I wanted to run up the stairs and into the evening, but of course that was impossible. I had to watch V turn her face to Angus and the long, slow kiss they gave each other. I had to watch him take her by the hand and lead her from the room. They switched off the light as they left the room and so I was able to stumble up the stairs without worrying too much about being seen. I felt woozy when I reached the street and slightly unconnected to what I was doing, so I kept on having to remind myself that it was necessary for me to get myself home.

I hailed a taxi when I got on to Kensington High Street and lay back against the soft seats, refusing to answer any of the cabby’s inane questions. My head felt like it had a vice around it, which was being slowly but surely tightened. I thought I might be sick and remembered I hadn’t eaten anything since an overpriced sandwich at lunchtime.

But when I got into the house the thought of walking through the empty space to the kitchen was too much and instead I went straight up the stairs to my bedroom, where I undressed in the dark and crawled into bed, my body shaking. I pulled some of the pillows into me, shaping my body around them, clinging on to their soft surfaces.