The Vanishing Point

11

Once I’ve finished the interviews, I generally don’t see anything of my clients until I’ve completed the first draft. When I have queries, I email or phone them. It was different with Scarlett. Five days after we were done talking, she texted me to say she was in town, could she come round to mine?

I never let clients into my life. They don’t know my address, they don’t come to my home. They are professional acquaintances and they stay in my professional sphere. But Scarlett had blown a hole in her barriers to let me in. The least I could do was to return the favour. So I texted the address back and put a bottle of mineral water in the freezer to chill.

She turned up in the red Mazda sports car. My house is the end one of a grimy yellow-brick terrace in what barely scrapes by as Hackney. The car stuck out like a pickled onion on a cream cake, but Scarlett had the good sense to stuff her hair in a snood and cover her eyes with a pair of tinted glasses. Not big, outrageous ‘look at me’ sunglasses but understated specs that made her face look different. She made it up the path without dragging anyone’s attention away from the car.

Once inside, she made no secret of the fact that she was curious. While I made tea, she poked around downstairs, checking out the CD collection, the books and the pictures on the walls. ‘Nice,’ she offered in final judgement as she wandered back to the scrubbed pine table that occupies the dining-room end of the open-plan space I live in, trailing a miasma of Scarlett Smile, the sweet floral signature fragrance the perfumiers had created for her.

‘A bit different from yours.’ I poured boiling water into the mugs and stirred the bags around.

‘Tell you the truth, I didn’t have a bloody clue when I moved into mine. Half the décor I inherited from the bankrupt geezer I bought it off. The other half, Georgie organised.’ She gave a half-laugh. ‘Nobody I knew ever had “interior décor”.’ She used her fingers to signal quotation marks in the air. ‘You just slapped a bit of paint on the walls. Or picked up some wallpaper off the market. So I’m learning as I go along. This here—’ She gestured at my lemon walls, stripped boards with their blue-and-white striped jute rugs and pale wooden cupboards and shelves. ‘I like this. I could live with something like this. I like coming into people’s houses and seeing what they’ve chosen. I’m learning all the time, Steph. I’m getting the hang of stuff that people like you take for granted.’

I’d never really stopped and considered how much people in Scarlett’s shoes missed out on. It’s not that I’m posh. My dad works for an insurance company, my mum’s a primary school secretary. But Scarlett was one of Thatcher’s illegitimate kids, the workless underclass. The rest of us, we’re too busy taking the piss or patronising or judging to stop and wonder why people suddenly thrust into the spotlight have such crap taste. When you did bother asking, the answer was uncomfortable.

Scarlett broke the seriousness of the mood. ‘Got any biscuits? I’m starving.’

I found the remains of a packet of chocolate digestives that Pete had been working his way through the previous evening. ‘You’re in luck. I don’t usually keep biscuits in the house. It’s too tempting when I’m working at home.’

‘Where do you work, then?’ She looked around vaguely, as if she’d missed something.

‘I had the loft converted about five years ago. I’ve got an office up there.’

Scarlett took the offered cup of tea and sat down, stretching out her legs under the table as if she belonged. ‘You live here all by yourself, then?’

‘Pretty much. My bloke often stays over but we don’t live together.’

‘Why not?’ She stirred sugar into her tea and smiled to soften the question.

I sighed. ‘I’m not sure, to be honest.’ I thought about it. ‘I like my own space too much, I think. I’ve lived on my own for a long time and I don’t want to give that up.’

‘Sounds like you don’t love him,’ Scarlett said.

I laughed awkwardly. ‘That’s what he says. But it’s not true. You can love someone without wanting to spend every minute of your life with them. Like Joshu with you. He loves you, but being free to do his own thing matters to him too. I’m a bit like that, I suppose. But my bloke, Pete, he’d like us to live together and for me to give up work so I can devote myself to him. Which I definitely don’t want to do.’

Scarlett pulled a face. ‘Too right. I see what you mean, about having your own space. And I suppose if Joshu was around twenty-four seven, I’d get stir crazy. It’s going to be weird enough when the baby comes along.’

‘How are you feeling about that?’

‘Pretty cool. You know? It’s like I spent all my life watching people fuck up with their kids. I’m the greatest living expert on what not to do to your kids. I’m gonna be a good mum. I’m gonna bring this kid up proper. And nothing’s going to stop me.’ And I believed her.

She delved into her shoulder bag, pulled out a scrunched-up bundle of pages torn out of various brochures and catalogues, and spread them out on the table. ‘This is the cot I’m having,’ she said, flattening a brightly coloured photograph and pushing it towards me. As she went through her purchases, it dawned on me that she probably didn’t have anyone else she could do this with. The girls she went out on the razz with didn’t have the attention span; Joshu didn’t seem bothered about the practical details of their life as parents; and she had no matriarchal family figure to turn to. I was the nearest thing she had to an auntie or a big sister. I couldn’t help feeling that, if I was the answer, Scarlett was definitely asking the wrong question, since I’ve never felt I had a maternal bone in my body.

Still, watching her enthusiasm was infectious, and in spite of myself I began to engage with the debate over buggies and car seats. We were flicking back and forth between cot mobiles when the alarm on her phone went off. Startled, Scarlett began to gather her papers together. ‘Ah, shit,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go. I’m modelling maternity wear at some charity do up Knightsbridge. Scummy mummy meets yummy mummies.’ She shoved the papers in her bag. ‘This has been great. I’ve had a fucking fantastic time.’ She stood up, hand in the small of her back, groaning. ‘Bloody back. This doesn’t get any easier.’ She gave me a hug. ‘Can I come again?’

I returned the embrace. ‘Of course you can.’

We were halfway down the hall, nattering about when we’d see each other again, when the front door opened. Pete took a step inside then stopped dead. His face gave nothing away. That was never a good sign. Scarlett stepped back and somehow in the narrow hallway I managed the introductions. Pete grunted in response, but Scarlett either didn’t notice or didn’t care. ‘You got a good one there, mate,’ she told him as she squeezed past him to the door. ‘You want to take care of that one. See you, Steph.’ And she was gone, leaving only a whiff of Scarlett Smile in the air behind her.

It would be fair to say that Pete wasn’t best pleased by my new best friend. He seemed affronted that I would want to be pals with someone I’d come to know through ghosting them. No, that’s not quite true. If it had been a politician or someone else with status and power, he’d have been happy to include them in our circle. But all he could see was the Scarlett Harlot and all that went with that image.

‘People make judgements about us by the company we keep,’ he said patiently, as if he was explaining to a child. ‘I don’t want them misjudging you because you’re choosing to be with her. Everybody knows she’s racist and homophobic and thick as a brick—’

‘And they’re wrong. That’s not who she is. It’s who she’s chosen to portray.’

He waved a hand dismissively. ‘It doesn’t matter whether they’re right or wrong. What matters is how people view her. They think she’s a contemptible slapper. And that should be enough to keep you away from her. You’ve got nothing in common with her, Stephanie.’

‘I like her.’

‘I like Reginald D. Hunter, but I don’t want him in my kitchen.’

‘Who’s the racist now?’ I tried to sound light-hearted, but Pete didn’t see the funny side.

‘Don’t try to be clever,’ he said, going to the fridge and taking out a bottle of beer. ‘I’m only thinking of you.’

I knew that was a big fat lie. He was only thinking of himself. Concerned that people would judge him because of the company I kept. But I didn’t want to make a big deal of it. It would only end with bad feeling and I hated to see the hurt in his eyes when he was upset. ‘I’ll make sure your paths don’t cross in future,’ I said.

Evidently I hadn’t managed to sound conciliatory enough. ‘The easiest way to make sure our paths don’t cross is not to invite her here again,’ he grumbled, walking past me and settling down on the sofa, remote in hand. ‘What’s for dinner?’

‘I didn’t know you were coming over,’ I said. ‘I’ll make some spaghetti carbonara.’

He grunted. ‘That’ll have to do then. Come here and give me a cuddle before you get stuck in. It’s been a long and weary road, getting this mix right.’ And that was that. Looking back, I wonder whether he thought I’d agreed to dump Scarlett. It never occurred to me that he’d read me so wrong.