Chapter 23 Putting a Name to a Face
Putting a Name to a Face
When I open the door, I see a movie star on my doorstep.
Aoife Doherty turns and takes a heartbeat to size me up before giving me a breathtaking smile, an elegant dance of white teeth, sparkle, and instant intimacy.
“Oh my God,” she burrs, in an Irish brogue that half the world must be familiar with. “I am so sorry about the package. Melvyn’s chewed my ear off. I’m a liability—what can I say? You’ve had my parcel clogging up your lovely new place since you moved in.”
She looks genuinely mortified, and I wish old me, me from a few days ago, could be here to enjoy our much-anticipated meeting, but it takes everything I have left not to tell her in the nicest possible way to get lost.
“Melvyn?” I ask.
“Yeah, the postman, Melvyn,” she clarifies, like we’re old friends, and we know a lot of Melvyns.
She suddenly grimaces. “Sweet Jesus, is he not called Melvyn? Have I just been calling him that? Where did I get fucking Melvyn from? Oh my God.”
I bark out a laugh in spite of myself, in spite of, or maybe because of, everything.
“I’m sorry if I woke you the other night, with the house alarm?” I feel unhelpful, embarrassing emotions rising up inside me and take a big breath to still them. Aoife studies me, and while I’m sure none of that was visible, she puts a hand on my arm.
“Oh God, yeah. I heard on the group chat. That’s the last thing you need after moving. I was on location in Cumbria the other night. I didn’t hear a thing from up there.” She grins.
I force a smile. “Maybe a drink is fine. I need some company. I think I woke everyone else, though. Look, I’m really sorry, but I need to go,” I say, gesturing back into the house, leaving her to fill in the blanks: a Zoom call, a boiling pan, a pet-based emergency.
Aoife raises an eyebrow, and I realize she’s probably not used to people not wanting to talk to her.
I grab the Jiffy packet from the hall table and hand it to her.
“Oh. Sure,” she concedes, taking her parcel and sliding it into her bag.
“Thank you for this.” She smiles, her chin dipping to look at it, causing her glorious hair to fall forward across her face; she gives it a gentle swipe to clear strands out of her blue eyes.
“Look, if you need anything, or someone to chat to, give me a message—my number’s on the group. ”
And then she turns and leaves.
I watch her cross the street. She looks so strong and healthy and happy, so unlike the woman I remember from the video.
I think of that woman in the basement, her eyes wide. It is only when an older woman walks by pushing a buggy, a toddler inside carrying a yellow plastic toy mobile phone in its little hand, that I realize I don’t know how long I’ve stood here.
Closing the front door, I move back to the kitchen. There’s still no sign of Blue, so I sit to wait.
An email alert pulls my attention to my phone. I am surprised to see, for the first time in a month, a positive response to an application I have made. I grab my laptop and flop into an armchair next to the window in the living room.
A branding consultant at a fledging fashion house.
I have researched them and they’ve got incredible reach via socials and have even managed to get stocked in a well-known London designer department store without a proper branding/marketing team.
It’s exciting. But I have to force myself to feel that.
I know I’d be great at this job, and usually I’d be really pumped at the prospect of taking something from the ground up.
I’m replying with possible interview and start dates when a car horn blares short and sharp outside. I instinctively rise in my seat, fingers still on keyboard, and look out over the top of my screen.
Down on the road, Aoife’s driver has pulled up. Double-parked outside her house, he honks again.
Aoife races out. She’s now resplendent in gold heels and a chestnut skirt-suit. She is followed out of her front door by a team of women in North Face fleeces and leggings with clear-plastic makeup bags strung cross-body.
Even from high up, she looks ethereal, perfect, gold-leaf eyeshadow and a slash of brown lipstick over her full lips.
As I watch, she grimaces, fumbles her keys again, and storms back into her house.
The other women erupt in concern, flustered, until Aoife bursts again out the front door, holding a crackled-gold Fendi Baguette aloft, tags still on.
As she relocks her door, a gust of wind blows her tumbling, glossy hair out of place.
The women’s hands fly up as Aoife stops and very gently rearranges her hair herself.
It’s at that moment she looks up at my window and our eyes lock.
I almost pull away but a warm smile breaks across her features at the sight of me.
I do not pull away from the window. Instead I wave, and find her beam is contagious, feel my own spreading across my face.
She gestures to her getup, a comically unsure look appearing on her perfectly made-up face.
Without thinking, I bust out a chef’s kiss hand gesture and I watch her cackle before giving a wavering thumbs-up.
Even people like her get nervous, I guess.
The women draw her focus back, ushering her into the waiting car without creasing or smudging anything, artists packaging up their masterpiece and sending it to a viewing.
The passenger doors slam and the car pulls away.
I sink back into my seat and focus back on my screen. Suddenly another noise issues from the street below my window. It’s the distinct rumbling sound of an old-fashioned motor as a London black cab pulls up. More action on the street.
I rise again, curiosity piqued.
Below, a man I have not seen before thanks the driver and gets out with a carry-on bag.
The cab rolls away as the man extends his bag’s handle and wheels it along the street. He’s in his late thirties, with dark-brown hair, tidy little thin-frame glasses, and a strong jaw. He is in good shape but clearly jet-lagged. A long flight, I guess.
I watch to see which house he will go into. He stops suddenly outside Aoife’s, searching for keys in his pocket.
I didn’t consider Aoife might have a boyfriend who isn’t famous, and there’s definitely something about him, with that tidy, gentle, intellectual look. Though I’m not sure I could see her going for someone as buttoned-up as he appears to be.
He walks on past Aoife’s, on past Arabella’s, before he stops and lingers at Pam’s gate.
He could be a friend of Pam’s: a son, perhaps, though she didn’t mention having kids with the man she had lived with.
The man looks up at Pam’s front door, seems momentarily baffled, then shakes his head and opens the next gate. Number 15. I watch, confused, as he mounts the steps to Marina and Chris’s house, slides his key into the door, and enters.
My eye catches the gold wedding band glinting on his finger as he turns back to lift his suitcase over the step, then shuts the door behind him.
I relax into the cushions again.
Is this man with glasses Chris, Marina’s husband? If so then who was the blond man in the video I lost?
I knew there was something wrong with what I saw. Suddenly I feel a wave of vindication. I’m not going crazy; my instincts do still work after everything.
I’ve stumbled upon an affair.
I know what it feels like to have your relationship shattered and splintered apart from inside.
But I need to fact-check. I think of Pam. Then suddenly recall Greg talking about Pam, and how she suggested he not tell me whatever it was he wanted to tell me.
Then I think of Matt.
I tap out a quick message and send:
Coffee?
Three dots appear on the phone screen. I wait for his response:
It’s 6:30! You drink coffee
at 6:30? Maybe a drink? 15mins
at Cantina Bianchi?
Maybe I need some company now. Maybe I’ve spent too much time on my own.
I reply:
Yeah, sure.
A thumbs-up appears above my words.