The Family Remains(14)

13




November 2016


Rachel kept her finger pressed hard against the brass button at the entrance of the red-brick mansion block in Fulham. Then she stopped and waited. No reply. She pressed down again. No reply. She pulled her phone from her handbag and stabbed at the screen with shaking fingers, then slammed the phone to her ear and waited for him to pick up her call.

‘Well, hi. How are you?’

Rachel moved the phone to her other ear and said, ‘Not good. Not good at all. Where are you?’

‘I’m just heading back to my apartment from the shops. Where are you?’

‘I’m outside your block.’

‘Oh. Fantastic. I will pick up my pace. Wait right there.’

She felt a little disarmed by the lightness of his response to hearing she was standing outside his apartment. Many of the men she’d dated in recent years would have classified it as stalking and been quite keen to keep away from her as a result.

A moment later he appeared from around a corner, clutching coffee in a takeaway cup and a canvas bag of shopping with the tip of a paper-wrapped baguette standing proud. He had a face full of stubble and was wearing a very nice woollen overcoat. She was struck for a moment by the sense that he was already familiar to her in some way, that he was more than just the guy she’d hooked up with last night.

His face broke into a smile when he saw her, and he approached her with outstretched arms. Rachel brought herself up tall, remembering her rage, her disgust, her horror.

‘What the fuck?’ she began. ‘What the actual fuck? What do you think I am?’

‘Er …’

She turned her phone to face him. ‘This,’ she said, pointing at the screen. ‘What is this? What the fuck gives you the idea that you needed to pay me for sex? What did I do to give you that impression?’

Michael blinked at the screen of her phone and then looked at her. ‘I don’t really get—’

‘I thought last night was kind of nice,’ she interjected. ‘I thought we’d found a nice sort of balance with each other. I mean yes, of course you did spend half the night telling me about all your houses around the world, while sitting in my tiny flat over a stinking canal, so yeah, maybe I should have picked up on the Pretty Woman vibes then. But for some reason I felt comfortable with you, I felt seen and respected. So what the fuck is this?’ She waved the phone in his face again. ‘What is it?’

Michael sighed and his head flopped heavily towards his chest. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Rachel. I’m sorry. Please. Come in. Let’s talk indoors.’

Rachel sighed loudly and shoved her phone back in her handbag. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Fine.’

They shared a mirrored lift with highly polished brass buttons silently to the third floor and then she followed him down a thickly carpeted hallway to his front door.

In his kitchen he unpacked his canvas shopper and plugged his phone in to charge.

‘Tea?’ he said. ‘Coffee?’

Rachel shook her head.

Michael sighed. ‘I fucked up, didn’t I?’

Rachel nodded. ‘Yup.’

‘I just didn’t – It didn’t occur to me that you’d see it that way. I just, God, I just loved your jewellery and I just wanted to buy some to give to people—’

‘What people?’

‘I don’t know. Friends.’

‘What for?’

‘Birthdays.’ He shrugged sheepishly.

‘But fifty-four thousand pounds’ worth? In one order? I mean, that’s insane.’

‘Yes. I know. But, in the … context—’

‘Of being a millionaire.’

‘Well, yes. Of that. It seemed like … Oh fuck.’ Michael slapped his hands to his cheeks and growled softly. ‘I’m a dick. I dunno. I just got home this morning and felt so euphoric. I think maybe I was also still a little drunk. We just had such an … well, to my mind’ – he put a clenched fist to his chest – ‘such an incredible night. I was buzzing. And I remembered what you said about still finding your feet with your business and I imagined your face as you opened up your laptop and saw the big order sitting there and I just … didn’t think. I didn’t think. And no. I do not think you should be paid for sex. I think you are extraordinary and magical and beautiful and … and … magnificent. And I will cancel the order right now.’ He swung open the lid of a laptop on his kitchen counter. ‘Right now.’

Rachel stood and watched him with her arms folded.

He pressed some buttons and then closed the laptop again. ‘There,’ he said. ‘It’s gone. Please. Give me a chance to make it up to you. If you do, I promise I will never do something that crass and undignified ever again. I swear, Rachel Gold, that I am not what you think I am. I’m a feminist.’

Rachel let out a short bark of dry laughter.

‘Well, maybe not a feminist. But I am a good guy, I swear. I’ve never treated the women in my life with anything other than the utmost respect. It’s how I was brought up. C’mon. Please? Dinner, maybe? Tonight? If you’re free?’

Rachel felt it open up inside her then: a gap, a space. A place where she could be nice to this guy, where she could let him in, this ‘good guy’ who’d been brought up well. She could give him another chance. And she was free tonight and she had already made the journey halfway across town. She glanced around at his apartment now that the red mist in her head was lifting and saw a nice kitchen; black metro tiles, battered cookbooks, mismatched utensils in a red enamel pot, a tall sash window at the far end overlooking the river. She could imagine padding in here barefoot in the morning and making herself an espresso from the big shiny machine over there. She could imagine Michael walking up behind her and those strong arms around her, the smell of him on her, his clothes folded neatly on a bedroom chair, his sweet breath in her ear, his world coming together with hers. She wondered briefly about ‘Lucy’, about the ex-wife. She wondered what she might have to say about Michael’s assertion that he had only ever treated women with respect. Why had it ended? Who had been at fault?