“Who is Davey, Dirk? What’s he doing? I guess I’d better come and learn how to fix the lights if they go out this often.”
“Good idea.”
I follow Dirk down the stairs, as if we’re children in an Enid Blyton adventure, down and down below the entrance level, down to where it’s spooky, with clanking pipes and mysterious old panels of switches. I creep closer to Dirk, close enough to smell his aftershave and a trace of moth repellent in his suit coat, close enough for a cuddle, but all the lights blink back on again, and all the magic evaporates.
I introduce myself to Davey, apologise, and go to hand the flashlight back to Dirk, but he presses it back into my hand and closes his fingers around mine.
“Keep it,” he says, his voice so low and close it’s my heart that lights up.
Davey shows us a switchboard and points at the place that shows the problem started at Forty One.
“Did you use a power board?” he says.
“A big one. It’s my business. Cottage industry. Lucy’s Lamps.”
Suddenly, we’re plunged back into darkness.
“That’ll be one of your lamps. Short circuit. Get a few boards with trip switches, will you? Can you go and unplug them all now?”
Dirk accompanies me up the stairs.
“Need a hand?”
“You’re so kind, Dirk. I know, you’d ‘do it for anyone’ but it doesn’t mean I’m not grateful.”
He laughs and stays silent, but he smiles down at me and I’m sure of it. There’s a buzz between us, a little spark, an excellent development. Dirk is almost flirting.
When the lights flicker back on again, and stay on, he comments on my handiwork, my lamps, my hobby-come-business that made me a reasonable income after Bart insisted I stop working for the network – so I could work exclusively for him, as it turned out. Until he found someone better; someone even more compliant.
“Quite unusual lamps,” says Dirk.
“Are you being rude about them?”
“They’re quirky. I like them.”
“This one’s for Jill. Would you like one, too? Swap you one for the flashlight.”
“They’re a bit ...”
“Creative? Unique? Interesting? Gorgeous? They’re works of art, Dirk. They’re quite popular. They sell quite well. What’s your favorite color? I custom make them in all colors, shapes and sizes. Show me your place and we’ll come up with something you love.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
“Not now. Another time, maybe.”
“Okay. But you’ll still join me for drinks this weekend?”
“That’s the plan.”
On Saturday evening, I twist my hair into a chignon and pin it in place with a simple mother-of-pearl clasp with three diamantes. My new cream silk blouse and dark pencil skirt stare back at me in the full-length oval mirror – demure, perfect good taste.
There’s that little patter of nerves I always get before hosting a party. All is cleaned and ready. Will anyone turn up?
My mother’s carriage clock strikes six, then a quarter past, and ticks on in the silence.
I rotate the gin and whisky bottles around and around on the shelves, adjust the champagne glasses for the fourteenth time, sigh and stare out the window. Nobody has RSVPd. How rude. I invited Dirk in person, and left the little notes under his and everyone else’s doors. Jill at least declined on the spot. Donna is upstate for a dog show. How could thirty two households be so uniformly inconsiderate?
