‘Just let me ring him, OK? He said he wouldn’t be late, would just be out for a couple of hours. So you never know.’
She rings back to say he’s coming, so I make tea and wait. Twenty minutes later, a taxi deposits Nate at my door. He’s been drinking and he looks even more piratical than normal, dark hair ruffled, smelling of strong woody eau de cologne and brandy. He’s wearing a suit too, although he’s loosened the tie. These are clearly important clients, which is why he’s dressed up so much.
‘You’re home early,’ I say. I haven’t any energy for conversation. The buzz of the evening out with Piers has worn off. I wish I’d made it just drinks so I could pick up Luke instead of letting him sleep at my mother’s. The house feels so lonely without him.
‘Oh, I managed to pawn them off,’ he says. ‘Some of these people would wreck your head, Bea, do you know that?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘Listen, Nate, far be it for me to refuse an offer of you coming to help me with my plumbing but you’re plastered. What good are you going to be? Really kind of you and everything, but let me call you a taxi and send you home, OK? We’ll manage tonight and I’ll send Finn a text in the morning, he’s normally up early on Sundays.’
‘I can handle a boiler just as well as Finn, drunk or not.’
Nate is always the most competitive person in the room. He has macho running through his body like whorls of writing through a seaside stick of rock.
‘Come in,’ I mutter, ‘and let’s get you a cup of coffee while I call the cab.’
I need this like I need a hole in the head. It’s time for the emergency plumber.
‘No,’ he says, taking off his suit jacket and hanging it on the newel post. He loosens his tie and undoes the top three buttons. ‘You just need to shut the water off, silly, and yes, coffee would be good. They were throwing wine into us earlier.’
He follows me into the kitchen. My cottage kitchen is big enough for possibly three people at a stretch, but only if they’re small people. I’m tall and Nate is altogether too big for my kitchen. I try to think of the last time he’s actually been here alone without Marin, and I can’t. It was the way it was. My friendship was with Marin now, and when I saw them, it was as a couple. Finn drops over from time to time, but that’s different. Finn’s a friend, but Nate, leaning against the door jamb watching me intensely, feels weird tonight.
‘Show me your tool bag,’ he says.
‘How’d you know I have a tool bag?’ I ask.
‘Because Marin told me. She says you are brilliant, you can do everything. Except think to turn off the water.’
I open the cupboard under the stairs, where I keep the tools along with the vacuum cleaner, the ironing board, ancient bits of discarded sports equipment of Luke’s. And all sorts of other odds and ends that I’m always meaning to tidy out but never get round to.
Nate pulls the bag out.
‘All right,’ he says, examining it all like a surgeon looking at new theatre equipment. ‘I can fix whatever’s wrong. I’m pretty handy around the house, you know.’
‘Have your coffee,’ I say, handing it to him, ‘and forget about the leak. I’ll cope till tomorrow.’
But Nate’s already pulled off his suit jacket and is under the sink, strong shoulders and arms reaching in and doing whatever it is that men do when faced with plumbing problems.
‘Look, just leave it, will you, you’re plastered.’
‘I think it’s nothing more serious than a burst pipe,’ he says.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, it’s obvious.’
I stifle the urge to slap the back of his head.
‘Bet you I figured it out quicker than Finn.’
‘God, you’re so competitive,’ I say, laughing at him, because it reminds me of him all those years ago.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ he demands. ‘Men are competitive, Bea: it’s testosterone. Evolution, etc., etc.’
He takes a slurp of coffee and grins suddenly.
‘Can you stick a bit of whiskey in it?’ he asks. ‘And a dollop of cream?’
I raise my eyes to heaven but give in. As he fills a couple of big saucepans with water and then searches for the stopcock to turn it off until the morning, I make two Irish coffees. It’s probably last Christmas since the bottle of whiskey came out in this house, I think, as I take a sip of mine.
