‘Ah great, that’s great.’ It was a woman’s voice, cosy and overly familiar. ‘It’s Linda here, from the USA. I’m on the night-time security desk and you have a visitor.’
‘I’m sorry?’
I glanced through the doorway into the living room where Maurice had taken up residence on his favourite mustard-yellow armchair.
‘A visitor. She says you’re expecting her. Her name is …’ There was a ruffling sound on the other end of the line and he heard the woman speak to someone, but more distantly this time, as if she were holding the receiver away from her. ‘Cosima Fitzmaurice.’
As I say, it was the last thing I expected.
And now here she is, bedraggled and stubborn-looking, standing on my doorstep with a horrid backpack and wearing those heavy, military boots.
‘Cosima,’ I say. ‘What are you doing here?’
She raises her hand, in a gesture that reminds me instantly of Ben. Part of his politician’s patter, along with the y’knows and the I-hear-yous and the if-you’ll-just-let-me-finishes.
‘I’m sorry, I knew you’d say that. But I just … didn’t know where else to go.’
She looks at me in the same beseeching way Maurice does when I’m opening a can of tuna. I am intrigued, it’s true, but I also don’t particularly want her hanging around. My cottage is not open to guests. I’ve never had anyone over for dinner in the seven years I’ve been living here. The idea appalls me. Stacking plates slippery with uneaten lasagne, trying to make small talk as the wine grows tepid amid guttering candlelight. Just awful.
‘I’m not equipped for guests,’ I say.
She twiddles the ends of her hair with one finger.
‘Could I maybe just stay the night? I promise I won’t be any trouble. You don’t have to talk to me, or make a bed. I’ve got a sleeping bag. I’ll sleep on the floor.’
I lean against the doorframe, arms crossed, assessing.
‘Why can’t you go home?’
She shuffles her feet.
‘Long story.’
‘Does it have to do with … what you shared with me?’
She shakes her head.
‘No. It’s more that they hate everything I stand for and I hate everything they stand for, so …’
The thought lapses.
So, obviously, I have to invite her in. It’s not just my curiosity, I’ll admit. There might be an opportunity here too, although what shape this will take has not quite clarified itself in my mind. I stand aside and beckon her into the hallway. She casts her eye over the stacked towers of old newspapers and the unopened mail – brown envelopes and pizza delivery flyers, mostly – and I see her turn away quickly. It strikes me that I’ve let things get a bit unwieldy on the domestic front. When we walk through to the sitting room, I notice that apart from Maurice’s chair and the side of the sofa I’ve been sitting on, every other surface is covered with books and bits of paper. There is a mustiness to the air – perhaps it’s the wilting peonies I have yet to throw out or maybe it’s something Maurice has unwittingly dragged in. But I can’t tackle it now so I open the window instead, to let in the night air. Maurice starts at the noise, leaping off the chair.
Cosima stands in the centre of the room, holding her backpack in her hands, while I clear the scrapbooks I’ve left on the leather armchair. They are bulging with all the press cuttings I’ve collated over the years – articles profiling Ben, news stories with mentions of his career, the glossyHomes & Gardensspread they did last year at Tipworth and so on. It’s probably best she doesn’t see them.
She plonks herself down on the armchair.
‘Thanks,’ she says, shrugging herself out of her jacket.
‘Do you want a water or something?’ I ask, my arms still full of papers. ‘Or, I don’t know … a tea? Do you drink tea?’
She laughs.
‘Yes. Why wouldn’t I?’
‘One never knows what’s “in”’ – I mime quotation marks – ‘with young people these days. What’s been cancelled and what hasn’t.’
‘OK, boomer.’
