The Switch(40)

‘There’s no such thing,’ Fitz says. ‘Or so Leena always tells me when I’m trying to make excuses not to apply for jobs.’ He winks at me. Fitz walked in just as we were dragging a large trestle table up from Letitia’s storage area, and – bless him – he dropped his bags and rolled his sleeves up and got stuck right in. He’s been moving furniture ever since.

‘What do you think, Letitia?’ I ask, rather nervously. ‘Do you think anyone would come?’

‘I would,’ she says after a moment. ‘And I think there are other people like me, out there, though I’ve never been very sure how to find them.’

That’s the next challenge, certainly. I unzip my handbag and pull out my project diary, itching to get started on a new list.

‘I’ll speak with the landlord again, and then I’ll email around the building to check they’re all happy,’ Martha says.

Letitia pulls a face. ‘Do we have to ask everyone in the building? Whoever complained about me sitting here before, they probably don’t want a whole lot of oldies pottering around down here for a club, do they?’

My face falls. ‘Oh.’

‘Someone complained about you sitting down here?’ Fitz says, straightening up from where he’s trying to pull up a corner of the carpet on Martha’s instruction. ‘Jeez, that’s awful!’

Letitia shrugs.

‘Well,’ Fitz says, ‘whoever it was, they’ve probably moved out by now. I’m pretty sure Leena and Martha and me are the longest running residents here these days.’

‘I’ve lived here for thirty years,’ Letitia says helpfully.

Fitz gawps at her. ‘Oh. Wow. You win.’

‘I could run an art class,’ Rupert says suddenly, gazing at the corner of the room Martha has yet to allocate to any purpose. ‘For the club. Aurora and I could do it together. We’ve got loads of old bits and bobs, spare paints and chalks, that sort of thing.’

I beam at him, heart lifting again. ‘Wonderful!’

‘And the guy in Flat 17 is a magician. I bet he could do the odd show, or even a workshop,’ Rupert offers.

I click my pen, beaming more broadly than ever. ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Step one: floorboards. Step two …’

*

After an exhausting and wonderful day of planning, painting, and directing furniture about the place, I collapse into bed and sleep more deeply than I have in years. When I wake, it strikes me that I didn’t think to thank Letitia for donating all that furniture. It was incredibly generous of her. I am seized by a sudden urge to return the generosity, and I swing my legs out of bed with such alacrity I have to take a moment to recover before getting up.

‘You want to go shopping?’ Letitia says suspiciously when I turn up outside her door with my most comfortable shoes and my largest shopping bag. ‘For what?’

‘New clothes! My treat, to say thank you!’

‘Oh, you mustn’t spend any money on me,’ Letitia says, looking horrified.

I lean in. ‘My ex-husband hasn’t a clue of all the savings I’ve squirrelled away over the years, and I plan on spending them before he notices and tries to get his hands on them. Come on. Give me a hand.’

That gets a grin out of Letitia. ‘I’m not fussed about fashion,’ she says. ‘And where would we shop?’ Her grin fades; she looks slightly nervous. ‘Not Oxford Street or something?’

I have no plans to repeat the experience of visiting Oxford Street. I got stabbed by an umbrella, shouted at by an angry American tourist, and, oddly, followed around Primark by a security guard.

‘No, we’re going to the charity shops,’ I say. ‘There’s five within a ten-minute walk of the building and they’re packed full of the bargains fancy London sorts have thrown out.’

Letitia brightens. I suspected charity shops would be more her cup of tea than those high-street places that only seem to sell clothes for tall people with gigantic bosoms and tiny waists. And even though this part of London seemed a little scary at first – what with all the graffiti, the tattoo parlours, the motorbikes – I much prefer it to the noise and bustle of London’s centre now.

Since Fitz took me out shopping, I have learned all about ‘make-overs’. Fitz had me trying on all sorts of ridiculous things – skirts that showed my knees, shoes that you couldn’t wear stockings with. But I realised afterwards it was all a clever ploy to make me more adventurous. Once I’d tried on a short denim skirt my comfort zone was so severely stretched that it didn’t seem too much of a leap to buy myself the long-sleeved linen dress I’d worn for my third date with Tod, for example, and after forcing my feet into heeled sandals, the lovely leather boots he persuaded me to borrow from Leena seemed quite comfortable.

I try this with Letitia, only I go a bit too far and she almost bolts from Save the Children when I attempt to wrestle her into a fitted pink blouse. I take a new tack and talk to her about her taste, but she stubbornly insists she has no interest in fashion and is perfectly happy in her navy-blue tunic and it doesn’t need washing as often as people think.

At last, just when I’m about to give up, I catch her eyeing an embroidered jacket in Help the Aged. The penny drops. I remember what an extraordinary cove of oddities Letitia’s flat is, and I take a closer look at her.