‘It wasn’t marriage I was after.’ He thought of Tara, his first wife, with her new children and husband, leaving him a millionmiles behind. ‘I knew I shouldn’t ask when you told me you were spending the week decorating your—’
‘My divorce shack.’
‘—your post-marital living quarters.’
‘“Quarters” is the right word. Quarters are what I feel my life has been cut into. I need to put the parts back together. I need some stability.’
‘I was trying to offer that!’
‘In your house on the edge of a cliff?’
‘Fair point. I would like to point out that the estate agent who sold me the house has yet to face justice.’
She smiled.
He said, ‘I just love you so much.’
‘Sweet boy. Reciprocated. What’s that?’
He was pulling the letter from his jacket. ‘I forgot this. Handed in at the radio station.’ He ripped the envelope open. Inside was a single sheet of lined paper torn from a spiral notepad.
‘Well?’
‘Makes no sense’ He held it up, the words facing Kim.
‘What on earth—?’
‘“Temmis, we are warning you, stop with your questions”,’ he recited, seeing the words back-to-front through the paper.
‘All in capitals, black marker pen.’
‘Someone’s angry.’
She said, ‘Bit difficult to stop asking questions in your job.’
‘This is what we had before social media. Letters slid under doors. So much better.’ Edward wanted to make light of it. He changed the subject. ‘Are you looking forward to being back at work on Monday?’
‘I’ve almost been back at work this week,’ she said ruefully. ‘In the sense that the office kept ringing me about a couple who wanted to buy a flat and I don’t want to sell it to them.’
‘You haven’t quite got the hang of this estate agent thing, have you?’
‘You know you can get a sense that something is off? A tall Asian lady in heels and this wobbling weeble of a guy, slicked back, red shoes and tubby in the waist. Wanting to pay cash for the beautiful penthouse on Thirdfield Terrace which I’ve lusted after. And it didn’t smell right.’
‘Red shoes and high heels?’
She stared at him. ‘I’m not making it up.’
He scratched his head. Stared at the carpet, trying to remember something that suddenly seemed important. ‘When I was trying to find your spare tyre,I looked everywhere and I ended up underneath it.’
‘Lovely man,’ she whispered.
‘And when I was underneath it, searching for a tyre that didn’t exist because Porsches are worse than Morris Minors, two people started talking right next to me. Man and woman. I saw their feet. That was your Asian lady, and that was your man. Red brogues.’
‘They returned to the scene? What were they saying?’
‘She sounded angry with him.’
‘She actually struck him, almost in front of me, can you believe that? Slapped him! When we were in the flat!’
