Read an Excerpt
ONE
Meredith
London
1988
She's barely slept. Not last night and not much for the previous ten, the number of days since she was offered the job she will start this morning. But she knows adrenaline and coffee will power her through whatever lies ahead. Meredith's stomach flips. She takes a deep grounding breath and hopes with all her heart that they will be kind. That she will be able to add something, to answer any questions directed at her. But more than anything she hopes that she will love this job every bit as much as she's always dreamed she will.
She checks her bag for the final time, ensuring everything she needs for the day is there before she leaves her small apartment. She arrives early and circles the block several times. It may inconvenience others if she arrives too soon. They won't be ready for her and it will cause a disruption.
At eight a.m. on the dot she presses the doorbell and waits. Another deep breath, smoothing her hands down over her brown wool coat, which now feels lacking, given what she knows is created behind this door, which is at this very moment opening to reveal a man.
"Meredith?"
She nods, nervous anticipation not yet allowing her to smile or offer a good morning. She reaches out a hand to shake his but the tall man ushers her inside a cramped narrow hallway and misses it.
"You can hang your coat there"-he nods toward a rail that runs the length of the small space-"and ideally your bag. We try to keep as few personal belongings in the workroom as possible. No drinks, obviously. Staff room and the bathroom are one floor up." He nods skyward. "I'm Peter, the sample cutter."
"It's lovely to meet you, Peter. I'm really looking forward to getting started."
"That's great to hear because there is a mountain to do," Peter adds with all the weariness and none of the enthusiasm of first-day Meredith. "This is the workroom where you'll be based." He pushes open a door to another room that is again much smaller than Meredith anticipated. Everything she would expect to see is here-and nothing else. Everything is in its place, just as she likes it. There is very little color, no plants, no personal effects, no packed lunch waiting to be eaten later.
"It's all pretty self-explanatory. That's your seat." Peter nods toward the one vacant spot close to the window, not that there is much of a view through its frosted glass. It's one of the lower tables and, she can see, has enough space for her to neatly display all her own essentials. "I'll leave you to make your own introductions if you don't mind. I've got to get on."
"Absolutely, no problem at all." Meredith casts a broad smile around the room. She takes her time introducing herself, ensuring she makes eye contact with everyone, eleven of them in total, mostly women. Everyone nods, taking the briefest moment to acknowledge her, to assess how she will fit into their tightly ordered regime.
All except one.
A man in a pristine long white coat leaning over a high table, a small sharp pencil in his right hand. Meredith refuses to be ignored so she waits. She sees the faintest frown pinch at his eyebrows. He doesn't want to pause. Doesn't want to raise his head from the work he is doing, breaking his concentration, but understands that he should. His eyes move a fraction toward her. He senses her continued presence and eventually straightens. Surprisingly, his eyes are kind, not challenging. Shy perhaps, or unassuming, thinks Meredith, rather than rude.
"Hello, I'm Meredith," she says directly to him, then watches as his face remains motionless. He's going to ignore her. She can see his head start to dip back toward the white shapes in front of him on the table.
"And you are?" She tilts her head, searching out eye contact again. She allows her smile to deepen. Now is not the moment to be intimidated by anyone, least of all someone she is about to have a close working relationship with. Their eyes reconnect for a second or two longer than she suspects he has awarded anyone else so far today.
"William." There is the subtlest curve upward at the corners of his mouth. She's reminded of the efficiency of Peter's smile earlier. It wasn't friendly. It was intended to communicate something else altogether, his doubt about how much she might enjoy being here, perhaps. William's smile is different, more genuine.
"Well, I'm looking forward to working with you, William."
Meredith hears the door open again behind her and feels the faintest shift of energy in the room. She looks over her shoulder just as Catherine enters, instantly recognizable with her dark shoulder-length hair and an immaculate jet-black trouser suit, the jacket open, its sleeves pushed a little up her arms, ready for work. Meredith didn't imagine she would meet her so soon. She's considerably more beautiful than the few images of her in the press suggest. But it isn't her looks that impress Meredith. Here is a woman at the very top of her game, whose creativity and work ethic have ensured the kind of meteoric rise that might give birth to a giant ego in some. Not so, in this case. Meredith has read enough to know this is where she wants to be and whom she wants to learn from.
Catherine extends a hand. "A pleasure to have you with us. Meredith, isn't it?"
"It is, yes." The two women exchange a firm handshake before Catherine makes her way to the back of the room to chat with Peter.
Meredith turns to take her seat and notices that William is yet to return to his task. He is watching her, a subtle curiosity in his eyes, and apparently feels no need to hide the fact.
TWO
Jayne
Bath
July 2018
Margot is so much like me. Hates unnecessary noise. Prefers to be alone. Very happy just to sit, as we are now, side by side, her weight leaning into my right arm, watching the early-morning mist lift off the grass, the city far below us starting to stretch and wake.
The realization that I have more in common with a scrappy Jack Russell than I do with most people always makes me smile. A smile that is 80 percent genuine-this dog has a lot going for her-and 20 percent denial, but at least I can admit that. I am okay with the fact that Margot and I share a love of peaceful solitude, but I have some awareness that others think I shouldn't be.
It's eight a.m. and we have just completed the two-hour skyline walk of the city, as we do at least twice a week together. Her at my heel, fiercely obedient until her nose lifts, she catches a whiff of something she likes, then she's gone. I learned early on not to panic. Unlike some of the other dogs I walk, Margot always comes back. I don't even have to pause for her to catch up. She will find me again. Loyalty is everything to her. Plus, she knows I'm carrying tripe sticks.
As I stretch my long nettle-scratched legs out in front of me, I feel the heat of the new day starting to burn away the last of the clouds, and the sharpness of the scorched grass on the back of my knees. It's going to be another brilliant blue-sky day. Margot's owner, the highly impressive Davina, will be manhandling her two children off to school by now, while I sit here, surely the lucky one, feeling a deep contentment. I have made this dog happy and I didn't have to say a single word. That's the great thing about dogs. The more you get to know them, the better they are. I can't always say the same for humans.
We didn't see anyone on our walk this morning. Too early for the tourists who always get lost in the network of fields and trails and need redirecting, or the grumpy older men determined to make me solely responsible for every poop bag thoughtlessly left behind. Not even a text from Mum. Two hours of uninterrupted isolation with just a series of kissing gates and stiles between me, Margot, and the space we both crave. Would the air have smelled any fresher, would my lungs have expanded any further, would this dog like me any better if I was something more than just me, doing what I love? If I was more boldly striding through this life with great confidence, as the world likes to remind me that I should be in my final year before I hit thirty?
I look down onto the rooftops of Bath, the honey glow spreading across its network of famous Georgian terraces, already warming in the early sunshine. Just the odd spire, construction crane, or church tower asserting itself above the other buildings. I notice the city's beauty first, but while Margot is loudly crunching on her well-earned breakfast, I think about all those people packed into those buildings. Beautiful town houses just like the one I live in, that have been converted by ambitious landlords keen to see the best possible return on every square meter. Every day the same. Up. Commute. Work. Repeat. What confrontations, negotiations, problems might they face today? Will they feel energized at the prospect of it all or intimidated by it? Are they making themselves live a life someone else convinced them they should desire? Am I too?
I was always the quiet, awkward one. The girl not to sit next to. The girl whom everyone loved to talk about rather than to. Most people understood why I was quiet, the sadness that had written itself through my family history. All it took was one careless mum to lower her voice over coffee and retell our story to others, forgetting that a hushed tone was the quickest way to pique the interest of the children in the room next door. Unfortunately, as a kid, that made me intriguing, the focus of the last thing I wanted: more attention. For some I was just that strange girl who never talked much. For others I presented a challenge. Could they provoke me enough to make me talk?
I hear a siren, a police car or an ambulance some way off in the distance, and its urgency reminds me that I also have the second part of my own working day to get to at a local florist, Bouquets & Bunches.
I wait until the last possible moment to slip Margot back onto her lead and then we walk the thirty minutes or so back to Lansdown Crescent, her home and mine. My eyeline never dipped on the walk, I was taking everything in, absolutely reveling in the landscape and all it has to offer. But once I'm back on the streets of the city, it's my walking shoes I see, my gaze lowered, not wanting to interact or be seen but knowing that my height, a lofty five foot ten, will always make me visible in a crowd. Margot seems to share my discomfort, too, and she picks up her pace, keen to return to the comfort of her dog bed and an empty house.
When I finally plucked up the courage to leave Mum's place, this address was an easy choice. Lots of people wanted it. Mum and Dad's money helped. It's the best terrace in Bath, the estate agent said, you'll rarely see a For Sale sign. He was right about that.
But it was the sheep that sold it to me. I can look out the window of my top-floor apartment at the sweeping view over the city skyline and at the livestock that roam the private patch of land directly opposite-with no idea quite how lucky they are to have claimed this space in the middle of an overcrowded city.
It's also sufficiently far enough away that Mum or my older sister, Sally, has to call before visiting, they can't risk a casual drop-by. Mum gets it, but Sally, always the loudest of us two, still doesn't understand why I don't fancy the improv comedy night at the Theatre Royal, or the live debate at the Assembly Rooms on the city's relevance to modern architecture. Why is it considered somehow lacking to want to sit alone with your thoughts or a good book?
Margot’s owner, Davina, an overworked event planner who keeps the kind of hours that would kill me in less than a week, will be at her office by now. I let myself into her ground-floor apartment and immediately trip on a trail of odd shoes that includes a stray flip-flop, a filthy trainer, and a scuffed school shoe, its sole flapping open. I follow them like breadcrumbs down the hallway into the kitchen, where Margot’s bed is and where domestic chaos reigns. Whoever paid for this kitchen obviously has very good taste, and if you took away the dog and the lived-in family mess it’s exactly the sort of room you might see under a Pinterest search for stylish family living spaces. It has chalky coffee-colored walls, impossibly high ceilings, and a central island that this morning is barely visible under the clutter. The sink is piled with breakfast dishes and half the cutlery didn’t quite make it that far. There are opened pots of jam and peanut butter, their lids discarded, littering the counter-I can’t help myself, I wipe them off, close them, and pop them back in the fridge-and a saucepan on the hob with porridge crusted around it, which won’t be the most appealing welcome home later on. I can’t leave that either. I wash it up and pop it back in one of the bespoke wooden cupboards, the sort I know I’ll never own. No one thought-or had time-to turn the radio off and I can see tiny greasy fingerprints all over the low lights that hang above the island. It’s Monday so the usual stack of Sunday papers sits on the kitchen table, still cellophane-wrapped and unread. An optimistic attempt at some weekend downtime that never came.
Davina's must be the largest apartment in our town house, with uninterrupted views of the shared rear garden from the floor-to-ceiling sash windows in the kitchen.
I stand for a minute and take it all in, as I have many times before. It's staggering how much you can learn about people from the space they inhabit. For a start, there are never any men's shoes. Willow and Maggie, Davina's daughters, claim the lion's share of the apartment and its air space. I've heard the unbridled laughter and the shrill arguments that can erupt at any time of the day or night. I first met her elder daughter, fourteen-year-old Willow, when I moved in about a week after the new year. Small talk doesn't exist in Willow's teenage world. She speaks only when she thinks she has something worth saying. I could tell the day we met that the excitement of Christmas had already receded. Davina was back at work and Willow's handwritten Post-it notes had begun to build up on the kitchen work surfaces, her preferred, perhaps only, means of communication. Just as I am letting go of my own mother more, Willow is trying to claim a larger stake of hers. Sometimes they're reminders that I've run out of toothpaste or Have you signed the school forms yet? But occasionally they tug at my heart a little stronger. Will you be home for dinner tonight, Mum? or Will you have time to finish watching the movie with me this evening? The really sad ones-I've forgotten what you look like! or Remember me, your daughter?-I am tempted to dispose of to save Davina the hurt, but I know I mustn't. I just do a bit of extra tidying or make it clear I am available for more dog walks if she needs me, anything that might give her a little more time with her girls.
