Chapter Twenty-Three
On my way home from the Open Day, I treated myself to some window shopping as I answered messages from Jacob. He had ruined his enjoyment of the weekend by worrying whether Esme and Ajax had overspent on the Open Day.
LIZZY: It’s fine. No champagne, and they weren’t even in attendance. Why weren’t you there?
JACOB: I’d rather tap dance naked down Oxford Street than spend a day staring at that building, darling.
I put my phone away. I really needed a digital detox, but the idea of being disconnected brought me out in hives. What if I missed something? I decided to try and meditate on my journey home. Ha. Double ha.
When I came out of the tube, I pulled my phone out of my bag, on autopilot, and checked it.
Ten missed calls from my neighbour Myra within the last twenty minutes.
I stopped dead in the street, earning a muttered rebuke from a pedestrian behind me as they swerved dramatically. I hit Call. Myra picked up on the second ring. ‘Ohmigod, Lizzy, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.’ She sounded on the verge of tears.
‘What’s happened?’ I heard my voice. It sounded eerily calm.
‘I went to give Pebble her tea, and she just’– she caught her breath – ‘she just ran out. Honestly, I don’t know how she got past me, she was like lightning. And some idiot had left the front door to the block open.’
As always, my mind zeroed in on the worst-case scenario. ‘Is she… dead?’
‘No! That is, I don’t think so. But she’s gone, Lizzy. I’ve been out looking for her. I took some of her kibble, rattled it, called for her. I’ve been all around.’ She named three of the parallel streets and a local park. Kudos to her for venturing there on an already dark winter’s afternoon.
The idea of my aggy house cat facing down cars on the main road brought tears sharply to my eyes. ‘Myra, it’s okay. I’m five minutes away. I’ll deal with this when I get back.’
‘I’m so sorry, honestly, I don’t know how she did it.’
I choked back a sob, thinking, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. ‘She did it because she’s an evil mastermind.’ I started to jog. ‘I’ll be there any minute. Don’t worry, okay? Bye.’
As I turned into my road I slowed down, scanning every front garden, every space between cars, glancing behind every rubbish bin.
Myra was in the entrance hall when I let myself in, arms folded across her chest, looking tearful.
I tried to reassure her as much as I could, my eyes ranging over the entrance hall as I spoke, looking for any sign of Pebble.
It would be just like the ragdoll Goldfinger to be hiding in a corner of the actual building she lived in. But I didn’t see her.
After I’d released Myra from her purgatory and she’d gone back to her flat, I sprinted up the stairs to the flat two at a time.
Someone was cooking what smelt like a field full of cabbage, but I left the front door to my studio open just in case Pebble returned.
My hands trembling, I logged on to my laptop while using my phone to email one of my (many hundreds) of Pebble photos to myself.
I had done an Instagram post and was typing out a poster text at splintering speed when my phone started ringing.
Olly.
I answered on speakerphone. ‘Yes?’
‘Hi, Lizzy. Sorry to bother you, but I think we really should discuss this branding briefing before Venice. I just looked at the first page and I’m feeling underwhelmed. Can we have a quick chat now?’
I snatched up the phone and put it to my ear. ‘It’s not a good time,’ I said. I heard the waver in my voice and bit my lip. Do not cry, Lizzy Brinks.
‘What’s wrong?’ His voice had changed.
I got up and went to the window, suddenly unable to speak.
I needed to be out there, looking for her.
Never mind the bloody posters. As I stood at the window, scanning the pools of light cast by streetlamps, I heard the screech of car tyres and couldn’t help the strangled squeal that came from my mouth.
I looked down. It was two cars having a standoff over a parking space.
‘Lizzy?’ Olly’s voice cut through my panicked thoughts. ‘Speak to me. Are you all right?’
I swallowed hard. ‘It’s Pebble.’
‘Your cat?’
He remembered my cat’s name? ‘Yes. She’s escaped.
I don’t know where she is. She’s a house cat, she can’t fend for herself—’ Here it came.
A wave of emotion took my voice. I held myself still, my body braced against the feelings drowning me, willing myself not to cry.
Silence would have to be good enough. I couldn’t get the words out.
‘Lizzy. Where are you? Send me a pin drop.’
‘No,’ I squeaked.
‘Please? Just do it now.’
I shook my head to the room, the chaotic, shabby room.
‘Please, Lizzy. Let me help you. Look, I know you live in Oval – if you don’t tell me, I’m just going to get in a cab and drive around and around until…’
‘Okay, okay,’ I snapped; the only way of fending off my sobs was to be angry. ‘I’ll do it.’
‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Have you posted anything on social media?’
‘Just Insta.’
‘Send me a picture of Pebble. I’ll be there soon.’
Shaking my head, I sent him the location and the picture.
Then I put a handful of treats into Pebble’s bowl and went back outside, rattling the bowl and not caring whether I looked deranged as I squawked my cat’s name at regular intervals, in a wheedling voice she definitely would have rolled her eyes at.
I wanted her back, and I wanted her back right now, so I could message Olly and call off the dogs.
When I saw him – his upright, soldier-straight stance; his long double-breasted charcoal wool coat; his quick, urgent walk – I felt a wave of shame.
In my burst of emotion I’d pin-dropped him into the heart of my shitty life, the part I kept hidden from everyone I’d ever worked with.
All that admiration in his gaze? All that sense that I was a high-achieving colleague, forever viewed from a distance?
I could see it dissolving as he walked down my street.
For a moment, I considered letting him pass me – it was dark, after all.
‘Lizzy?’
‘Olly.’ I remembered the look on his face earlier, and ran my hands through my now tangled hair, free of any Glow Up. Thank God it was dark. I felt hopeless.
‘Any sign?’
‘No. Look, thanks for coming, but I shouldn’t have involved you in this. Please go home.’ I tried to avoid his gaze.
He gently took my arm. ‘You need a strong cup of tea and four spoons of sugar,’ he said.
‘I need to find Pebble,’ I said, stubbornly.
‘I’ve put the picture of her on four local ‘lost pet’ sites on Facebook,’ he said. ‘Give yourself half an hour.’ He glanced around. ‘Where’s your place?’
I swallowed hard. The moment of truth. I led him across the road to my block, opening the front door so he could be sledgehammered by the smell of cooking cabbage.
I bet he’d thought I lived somewhere that had Jo Malone room scent misted out by an infuser, not in a yellow brick late-20th century block smelling of school dinners.
‘You’re on Facebook?’ I said, trying to distract him from the grimy entrance hall carpet as I stomped up the stairs ahead of him.
‘I am now,’ he said. ‘Joined in the taxi on the way over.’
I dismissed whatever this information meant and tried to stop myself from starting to cry. ‘I hate this bloody cat,’ I said, opening my front door.
‘Lizzy,’ he said softly. ‘I think you love this cat.’
As we walked into my flat he paused, and I went ahead to the tiny kitchen area, putting on the kettle, and not wanting to observe him as he looked at its small proportions, the patch of damp where Bill’s radiator had leaked last year, my line of ten-year-old budget IKEA bookcases bowing under the weight of too many books, and the cheap laminate on the floor.
Never mind the baggy curtain pulled across the niche where the bed lived.
After I’d got the mugs out and put the kettle on, he took over the tea-making, spooning sugar into the cups.
He looked so out of place there, in his dramatically sexy coat, his artfully dishevelled weekend clothes, the signet ring glinting on his little finger.
But then I suppose I looked out of place to him, too.
With the eyes of a bemused stranger, I looked around my tiny studio, at the details I so often shied away from.
This room was part living room, part kitchen, part bedroom, and I could cover it in ten paces.
Him in five. I glanced up to see him watching me.
He looked away, poured hot water into the mugs, and stirred.
‘You can say it,’ I said.
‘Say what?’
‘That you didn’t see me living somewhere like this.’
He handed me my mug. ‘I wouldn’t be so ill mannered. Take the weight off your feet. Do you have any biscuits?’
I shook my head, folding my arms across my chest. His voice softened. ‘Come on, Lizzy. Take a minute.’
I sat down on the sofa and immediately noticed an area that Pebble had been scratching at, which made me miss her like crazy and also feel weird that Olly was here looking at it.
‘What’s this?’ Olly had picked up my gardening scrapbook, which I’d left on the table.
I snatched it from him. ‘Nothing. Just – you know, I might have a garden. One day. Even though I’m not sure I have the gift for it.’ I waved in the direction of the fading plants on the windowsill.
He smiled, nodded, but I could see the cogs turning in his brain. He picked up his tea.
‘Please,’ I said. ‘Don’t – I don’t know – look around. Don’t’– I was rigid with stress – ‘please, don’t tell anyone at work.’ That I live like this, I wanted to say. ‘About this place.’
He put his mug down, swallowing hard and sitting back on my lumpy sofa. ‘Of course. So, what gives?’ He gestured to the room. ‘I’m pretty sure you earn what I do. You don’t seem like a cocaine fiend to me, so is it the bingo?’
It was a good line, but I was far from laughing. ‘Do you even know what property prices are like in London for normal people?’