Chapter 29
Isit huddled on the Piccadilly Line as it whisks me efficiently away from Miles, Bea and the magic of Knightsbridge to the grim, grey shittiness of Park Royal.
This place is so depressing. Lines of boxy, pebble-dash post-war houses.
Retail parks. Self-storage units and offices and drive-thru McDonalds.
Trampoline parks and DIY super-centres. Dual carriageways and nasty neon street lights.
Not like the pretty, Mary-Poppins-esque Victorian ones around The Montague. Ugh.
It’s weirdly comforting to be back somewhere that suits my current mood, and my sense of self worth, so well.
Hanging out in Knightsbridge and South Ken and Mayfair has been a dream, an amazing adventure that’s ended as abruptly as it began.
I didn’t belong there. And it would be hard to be satisfactorily depressed in those pretty parts of London.
It’s very easy to feel profoundly downcast in Park Royal.
I trudge to M I know that already.
It’s out of the question. No matter how much I want to see Bea.
No matter how much I want to see Miles. I can never go back as the nanny, wiping up crumbs and overseeing tooth-brushing while Allegra and Miles fall back in love right in front of me.
What are they doing right this second? It’s almost six. They’re probably sitting around the dining room table, Miles and Allegra sipping a celebratory glass of Dom Perignon as they supervise Bea’s teatime.
She’ll be eating her favourite room service meal: the hotel’s obscenely good pasta pomodoro, which I always finish off. Will Allegra finish it for Bea? Does she eat? She doesn’t look like she eats much except rabbit food. California must have been right up her street in that respect.
So, they’re eating. What’s the mood? Bea’s probably ecstatic: up to ninety, and her parents are trying to calm her down. The primal joy in her voice when she screamed her mum’s name will haunt me for some time. And Miles and Allegra are… cautiously happy?
Miles will be circumspect at first, unable to believe his wife is back.
But I’m familiar enough with Allegra through Sandra to know that her bouncy, sunny personality will soon coax him out of his shell.
They’ll drift closer to one another over the course of the evening.
She’ll lay her glossy, honey-coloured head on his shoulder when they’re chilling out after dinner, and he’ll melt, draw her closer.
They won’t have a bath together, will they?
Dear God, please don’t let them have a bath together.
Could Miles do that to me? He couldn’t. Could he?
It will kill me. It’ll finish me off if I allow myself to think about that.
And I’ll never be able to look at a flannel again, though fuck knows, I may need one in my lonely, grotty bathtub.
I pick up my phone and open WhatsApp. Miles was last seen at four-twenty-eight. Just before Allegra arrived, presumably. Clearly they’re having far too nice a time for him to need to distract himself with WhatsApp. The last message he sent me was that jokey one about the flannel.
What a difference a day makes.
I told him I’d send the photo of Bea’s beautiful, and heartbreaking, and downright spooky letter to Santa.
Here you go. What a magical little girl x
I add the photo. There is so, so much more to say, but there’s no point in bothering him with any of it. I hit the arrow to send.
He replies a short while after.
Thanks x
So that’s that, then.