15. FIFTEEN
The four-day Easter Weekend wasn’t long enough to get used to Roscoe Blackton’s flat. That first morning, Poppy spent a long time just walking around it, trailing her fingers over every beautiful surface, peeping inside every cupboard (immaculate, mostly empty). She had a long shower with water pressure so high it was almost as good as a massage. Or what she assumed a massage would be like. Then she made herself a slightly ridiculous breakfast of scrambled eggs with fresh herbs and smoked salmon, and a toasted bagel. And fruit. And yoghurt.
But there was so much fresh food. Far too much for her to eat. So she packed some of it into bags and took it to her mum’s place, stocking the fridge there with cheeses and ham and fruit and salad and vegetables and Fortnum amp; Mason truffle mayonnaise—because apparently that’s where Roscoe Blackton did his grocery shopping and apparently that was the sort of thing he ate. Whether Liam or Harvey would enjoy it, or the beetroot ketchup, or wild boar paté, she had no idea. She considered it educational.
She sat on her mum’s sofa, watching her brothers argue over the video game they were playing, as she fought the urge to invite them to the flat. They would kill to watch some movies or play some games on Roscoe’s enormous fancy screen. But she couldn’t. It wasn’t her place. She didn’t even dare tell anyone she was living there. Far too many questions that she had only the weirdest answers to.
On Easter Sunday, a huge Easter egg was delivered to the flat. It was in a big gold box, with a slim gold ribbon, and the golden writing said Charbonnel et Walker, which, when she looked it up online, turned out to be the chocolate shop the Royal Family used. There was a note—a little card—and it said: How’s my life?
So. Yeah. That was a highlight. But even better, even better than that, a short time after the egg arrived, a courier delivered a brand new phone charger. There was no note with it, but she hazarded a guess.
Poppy: Thank you. For the charger. And the egg.
Poppy: I assume it was you, and not divine intervention.
RB (work): Some might wonder what the difference was ;)
RB (work): But you’re welcome.
Poppy: How did you know?
RB (work): A little bunny told me.
Poppy: About the charger! Not about it being Easter.
RB (work): Found a broken one in your room and remembered some vague comment you made about people’s fundamental right to phone charging. Put two and two together.
Poppy: I’m glad you’re so good at maths.
RB (work): So are my clients.
Then she paused, phone in her hot hands, daft smile on her face, no idea what to say next. The recollection that she was texting her boss on the weekend suddenly swept into her mind and her smile faded.
Poppy: Enjoy your weekend.
RB (work): And you.
She spent some of Easter Sunday and Monday with her family at their flat, each time returning to Roscoe’s place as though she was passing through a magical door in a fairy story—albeit to a fairy palace designed by a brutal minimalist. There was literally nothing here. It was a little eerie, and she found it hard to reconcile such a characterless home with a man who seemed so vital, so warm.
Maybe he really did spend every waking moment at work—from her few days working for him, it certainly seemed that way. But what did he do for fun? What were his hobbies? All she could find in his flat were several books on economic theory and stacks of old financial magazines—he seemed to have subscriptions to several. She had a long soak in the bath reading Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, only dimly distracted by wondering what Roscoe Blackton would think if he could see her now.
Reading the book, obviously. Not naked in the bath.
What he might think about that she had no idea. But it would probably involve him beating a hasty retreat.
He was off work on the Tuesday and Wednesday after the Easter weekend, up at some party or other at his family’s house in Lancashire. On balance, Poppy thought she was probably glad to avoid him for a few days. Part of her was desperately curious to see how he had fared at her place, but a larger part felt sick with nerves at the thought of seeing him. Why? Well, maybe because she’d slept in his bed and he’d slept in hers and she didn’t quite know how to look him in the eye without that thought being obvious.
But the real reason was because the reality of her life might have been more than he could stand. She dreaded seeing it in his face. The overwhelming NOPE.
Lying there in his enormous bed, the thick linen like a reassuring hand on her bare arms, she tried to imagine him in her little room, fighting his way into his suit tomorrow morning in a space too small to swing a cat. She smiled at the thought. Fell asleep smiling, Roscoe’s face blending into the shadows behind her closed eyes, shoulders in white cotton, fingers on shirt buttons…
When Poppy got to the office—over an hour earlier than usual due to having no commute—Roscoe was already at his desk. She’d felt too tense to doze in bed, too nervous to sit around in his flat wondering what his verdict on her life would be.
She sat down slowly, eyeing him cautiously through the glass. He was focused on the screen he was looking at, face set. Ought she go in and talk to him? He looked busy. Not like someone who wanted to be disturbed.
When she switched on her computer, the state of her inbox made her blink. It was choked with emails and meeting notifications. She clicked to the shared diary. Meetings with the board, stakeholders, PR, HR… Meetings with everyone. He’d promised to start letting her do her job, but this was…insane. This wasn’t his usual Portfolio Management stuff, surely? She glanced up at his window again, then got to her feet.
He jumped when she tapped on his door, staring at her for half a second before waving her in.
“Everything OK?” she asked, gesturing to his computer. “Your diary, the meetings…” Then she got a proper look at his face, saw how pale he was, the shadows under his eyes. “Are you OK?” She tried a laugh, heart plunging. “Was it really so bad? My life? You look…wrecked.”
He gave her the ghost of a smile, not quite meeting her eyes, and her heart plunged further still, mortification like the press of hot, cruel fingers around her neck. She’d spent the last few days being coddled in luxury, and her life had done…this. There wouldn’t be any more Easter eggs, would there? No more teasing text messages. It had been a stupid idea anyway. No wonder he was regretting it, probably too embarrassed to start the conversation required to call it all off. It was unbearable, Poppy. Your life? Awful.
“We don’t…” she began. “Obviously we don’t have to… If it’s that bad…”
“What? No. I’ve just had a really, really shitty few days.”
“Right. So I’ll, um… I’ll give you back your keys and—”
His look shot from the screen to her face, his eyes wide. “Christ, Poppy, no. I don’t mean that! It’s my life that’s the problem. I’ve been up at Conyers the past few days, remember?”
“Oh.”
“Got back last night. Technically this morning.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, rubbing tired eyes. Poppy tried to pick her heart back up, wrestle her brain back from the tidal wave of embarrassment that had almost swept it clean of thought. The emails, she remembered. The meetings. This wasn’t about her at all.
“What’s happened?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”
He hesitated before speaking. Let out a long breath.
“It’s my dad. He’s…he’s sick.”