‘But what if I’m not?’
‘Surely we could find somewhere more comfortable to . . .’
‘But the excitement is all in the discomfort.’
‘Well . . .’
He looks at the door. His watch. ‘I mean, if you have other plans . . .’
‘Take off my knickers.’ She acts like this is a joke, could still just about be only a joke. ‘Right. OK. So I’m standing on the fire escape in the freezing cold with no knickers on. And then what?’
‘You put them in your mouth.’
‘I’m not doing that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, why should I?’
‘So that people are not disturbed by your moans of pleasure. Or pain.’
‘I’m going to feel really stupid anyway. I can’t . . .’
‘Well, just take them off then. I’ll pay and then come and join you in a second.’
‘And you won’t be long?’
‘No.’
She flushes a little and gets up. ‘OK. Don’t be long. I can’t believe . . .’
Is it always this easy? Yes, when you actually don’t care.
Afterwards, Charlie drives his green MG back to Hackney. The house is just off Mare Street on a long road of huge Victorian houses in various states of renovation. Charlie and his ex-wife Charlotte (how much fun that was when they met: ‘I’m Charlie,’ ‘Hey, so am I!’, although it became complicated later on when they started opening each other’s letters by accident and one of them was That Letter from Bryony) split the proceeds on their flat in Highgate in a way that only their lawyers understood, and he ended up with just enough for the deposit on the Hackney place. He worked out that unless he asked his father for money, he could just about afford to continue living in London only if he bought a tired old student let, did it up a bit, and advertised for some housemates. He took two weeks’ holiday and painted all eight rooms, including the ceilings, while a friend of a friend with a sander did the floors for a hundred quid. So now here he is, living with two art students, a fashion blogger and a jazz musician. The main problem with the place is that the previous owner, Mr Q. Johnson, who now lives next door, insists on Charlie still keeping garlic on all the windowsills to keep bad spirits out of the house, and drops in every few days to check that he does. He has also not changed his address with the Labour Party, Disability, Spin, Saga and various other companies, so most of the post that comes to Charlie’s house is for him. It seems particularly unfair that Charlie’s post often goes to Mr Q. Johnson for no reason at all, especially when it is clearly marked number fifty-six.
When Charlie gets in, the band is practising in the basement. He watches a bit of La Dolce Vita on BBC2, then makes a cup of fresh mint tea and takes it to bed. He should have left Nicola on the balcony without her knickers. It would have been a hilarious thing to tell Bryony next weekend. But, mainly out of politeness to Izzy, he gallantly went outside, stuffed Nicola’s knickers in her mouth and fucked her. She was quite pissed by then, so he managed to get his dick halfway up her arse before she realised what he was doing. But, again because of Izzy, he was super-polite and took it out like a nice, well-mannered boy and reinserted it in her vagina. Which is why he doesn’t understand the text message he now has from Izzy: How could you??? He texts back, Be more specific?, but does not get a reply.
It’s very complicated, trying to organise a wake. Fleur has no idea who is even coming to the funeral. But afterwards, everybody should be invited to Namaste House for food. Of course they should. But there could be ten people or a hundred. How is Fleur supposed to know who will come? If even Augustus and Beatrix are going to come then anything could happen. Oleander changed a lot of people’s lives over the years. But many of them must be dead now: dead, reincarnated and living completely new lives. Could you contact someone who . . . ? Fleur shakes her head. How stupid. Because it’s so complicated organising a wake she is watering all the plants in Namaste House for the second time today. This is something Oleander and Fleur used to do together each evening. Doing this makes Fleur feel almost as if she is Oleander, and of course you don’t have to miss someone if you are them, and . . .
The orangery is attached to the west wing. At this time of day it is filled with the soft colours of sunset with only a whisper of moonlight. Fleur has looked after the orchids in here since she was a teenager. Some of the ones she propagated are getting on for twenty years old, but there are others that are much older. Their roots reach out like the thin arms of the starving and desperate, although it’s all a big act because they know that Fleur knows exactly how they like to be misted, and when. Fleur waters the frankincense tree in the centre of the room, touches its bark, as she always does, her hand coming away smelling of the heat and damp of faraway places. The orangery is where the celebrities come to relax by day, to breathe air produced by rare plants and to look out at the orchard with its wise, old trees. The orangery is vast, but the celebrities won’t share it. If one celebrity finds another one already here then she, or more probably he – for some reason the residential ones are usually male – will instead go all the way to the east wing where they can choose the cool Yin room with the peppermint water fountain, the small, hot Yang room or the Dosha Den, full of black velvet cushions stuffed with down and dried roses.
Sometimes one of the newer celebrities will make an observation about the lack of a coherent spirituality in the house. The massages are Ayurvedic, because Ketki does them. Ish, Ketki’s husband, does both Ayurvedic and macrobiotic consultations, and is also a trained acupuncturist and cranial osteopath. The food is mostly Indian, sometimes Ayurvedic, and made by Ketki’s ancient aunt Bluebell. She specialises in kulfis – Indian ice creams made with condensed milk, cardamom pods and saffron – but which she often makes into the shape of Daleks. Everything else is a jumble of Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Hinduism, Wicca and who knows what else. Oleander famously believed in ‘everything’. There’s a tapestry halfway up the west-wing staircase with a profound religious significance that no one can quite pin down, not even the Prophet, who has an eye for such things.
After checking the first floor again, Fleur goes down the east-wing staircase – avoiding not just the tapestry but also the White Lady, who often comes out on a Sunday, or after someone has ‘moved on’ – and through the library with its huge peace lilies and rubber plants and that tarry, tobaccoey smell of old leather bindings, and she wonders where on earth Ketki could be. She checks the orangery again, and the kitchens, with their unmistakeable smell of fenugreek, coriander and, of course, the curry plants, which Fleur now waters for the third time today. All around are big Kilner jars of yellow split peas, red, brown and green lentils, four different types of rice, whole oats, sultanas and desiccated coconut. Silicone Dalek moulds, but no Bluebell. A half-drunk mug of Earl Grey tea, but no Ketki.
This is infuriating. There is, after all, so much planning to do. Ketki has said she’ll make curries for the wake if Fleur will help. She has also suggested that her two daughters might come up from their professional lives in London and do some cooking. Unlikely, frankly. And Fleur herself is actually going to be quite busy on the day of the funeral and . . . Fleur sighs. Goes up to the second floor, with its long corridor of guest suites with the original servant bells that she had mended years ago, and then to the third floor, to the original servants’ corridor where the ‘servants’ still live and in which the bells sometimes still tinkle, late at night, if one of the celebrities has overdosed, become enlightened or wants a cup of hot chocolate. Now, of course, it’s just Ketki, Ish and Bluebell up there, but years ago Fleur and her mother had their cramped little rooms at the north end of the servants’ corridor. And, after her parents’ disappearance, Bryony stayed in one of the old servants’ rooms for almost a year until James’s parents took her in. Ketki’s daughters – dramatically rescued from somewhere in the Punjab region, by Oleander, who saved them from almost certain abduction,