Invincible Summer (18 page)

E
VA, AS IT
happened, was at that moment otherwise engaged. She and Julian were spending the day together, as was their routine on Saturdays. They rose at nine for coffee and newspapers on the terrace, then strolled along to the gym where they each spent ninety minutes working out before reconvening in the spa for a lengthy wallow. After that there was the walk along to the bagel stand, where she would have rocket and tomato on toasted onion-seed and he would have cheese and pickle on sesame. The day was so predictable, and yet so utterly satisfying. There was a quiet bliss in mornings like this, she felt. Life was good. They had been living together for more than a year now, and after a certain amount of turbulence as they worked out exactly who was expected to load the dishwasher things had settled down and their home and relationship had become a haven from the pressures of her job. It all just worked.

Julian must have been thinking something similar as they wandered along the river, because he reached down to grab her hand. Noticing this, she deftly slipped her arm through his and squeezed it, thus avoiding the ickiness of public handholding without causing any upset. This, she thought, was just one example of how good she'd got at successfully navigating the pitfalls of the relationship. He had almost completely stopped calling her a minky, too, she noted with satisfaction.

‘Shall we go across to Greenwich and take a walk in the park?' Julian asked, breaking her train of thought.

‘What for?'

‘I don't know, whatever people take walks in parks on sunny days for,' he teased. ‘We are allowed to deviate from the routine and do something spontaneous, just for the fun of it.'

Eva grinned. ‘Why not?'

Squeaky-clean and damp-haired from the spa, they caught the DLR across the river and wandered through Greenwich Market and up past the Maritime Museum into the park. They sat down in the grass near to the old observatory where years ago, she remembered, her father had taken her to the Planetarium and shown her the night sky projected onto the inside of the dome. Her eight-year-old self had been awestruck, stunned by the realisation of the hugeness of it all.

‘How do you be someone who knows about planets and stars?' she'd asked Keith on the tube on the way home.

‘I think you'd need to be a physicist for that,' he'd told her. It had felt like a momentous day to her, the day she had decided what to be, and she'd thought about it all the way home on the train sitting beside an oblivious Keith, who would no doubt have been astounded to know the extent to which his casual answer was going to affect the course of his daughter's life.

Eva and Julian gazed out at the endless vista stretching down the hill, taking in the classical grandeur of the Queen's House before sweeping on past the English Baroque of Wren's Old Royal Naval College and across the Thames towards Docklands, the City and St Paul's beyond. The sun burnt down, making Eva's hair feel slightly itchy as it dried. Her skin gave off a faint smell of chlorine that mingled with the scent of recently cut grass. The air was almost still, the breeze only just perceptible as it trickled past her ears.

‘This view is to die for, isn't it?' Eva said. ‘I defy anyone to look out at all this and not fall in love with the city. I don't think I've ever told you this,' she continued, ‘but with hindsight I think that one of the really important events of my life took place here.'

‘You hadn't ever told me that,' he said when she finished telling him about the trip to the Planetarium. ‘But what changed? How come you ended up in banking instead of being a physicist like that mate of yours at CERN?'

She shrugged. ‘I didn't fancy another five years doing a PhD, piling up a load more loans and never getting out into the real world. It's all very well looking up at the stars when you're eight, but the real world's not quite like that, is it?'

‘I suppose not. But in any case, your story makes this the perfect place.'

‘What do you mean? Perfect how?'

‘Well, I'm hoping it's not the only life-changing event that you're going to have here. The thing is, I brought you here to ask you something.'

Julian shifted around until he was kneeling in front of her, down the hill slightly so that even though Eva was still seated on the grass he was just about looking up at her. For a few seconds she wondered idly what he was doing and allowed her face to arrange itself into an expression of mild inquiry before a sudden cold certainty snapped into shape in her mind as he carefully arranged himself on one knee.

He gazed up at her with shining eyes. ‘I know this is cheesy but I wanted to do it properly. Eva, you know how I feel about you. Will you marry me?'

Eva stared at him open-mouthed. She knew she needed to formulate a response but her mind seemed to have frozen. The harder she pushed herself to think, the more her mental gears refused to shift, as though an iron rod had been thrust into the cogs of her thinking machinery. She registered an elderly couple and their basset hound standing a short distance away smiling encouragingly at them, having stopped to watch the heart-warming scene unfold. Eva tried her hardest to force the wheels to turn but when they finally creaked into action they accelerated out of control, producing not some sensible response to the question of whether she wanted to marry the man down on one knee in front of her, but instead a series of increasingly fantastical imaginings in which the basset hound suddenly ran over and savaged Julian, or she herself levitated into a nearby tree, or a bomb went off hurling them down the hill, or a meteorite fell from the sky obliterating them and everything around them so that only a smoking crater was left.

Her mind was still spooling through this series of unlikely events that would prevent her from having to answer the question when the silence was finally broken by the tinny and unmistakable sound of the Crazy Frog song. The noise offered a momentary relief, an external distraction and an excuse to look away from Julian, still waiting on bended knee, and glance around until after a few seconds it became apparent that the sound was coming from her own pocket. She realised with an inward groan that she must have left her phone unlocked on her desk yesterday while Big Paul was around and he'd changed her ringtone to the most annoying tune yet produced by the twenty-first century.

‘Don't answer that!' Julian yelped as she stood up and reached into her jeans pocket.

‘I'm not, I'm just stopping it ringing.' She glanced at the number. Sylvie. Eva hit the Reject Call button and stuffed it back in her pocket. Julian remained looking up at her expectantly. The phone resumed ringing again almost immediately. Sylvie again. She silenced it and crammed it back into her pocket.

‘This isn't exactly going to plan,' Julian said. ‘But just so you know, this is the bit where you fall into my arms and tell me that you'd love to marry me.'

‘Julian, get up. I'm really sorry, but…just get up.'

She looked down at her feet as Julian's face slackened and paled and he clambered upright and brushed the dirt off his legs. The elderly couple hurried off towards the observatory followed by the basset hound, who turned away slowly with a mournful parting look.

‘So that's a no then,' said Julian quietly. ‘You don't want to marry me.'

‘Julian, it's not that I don't want to, it's not a yes or a no. It's just that I didn't see this coming. I haven't had a chance to think it through. I know this is awful but I can't just say yes on the spot if I'm not totally sure. Changing my mind later would be even worse than this.'

‘We've been together for two years. I'd say that's plenty of time to think about it. Where did you think our relationship was going? Oh, that's right, you haven't thought about it. You think about where your career is going, you have time to think about that, but not about where we're going.'

The phone started ringing again.

‘Julian, I'm really sorry but I'm going to have to answer this. It's Sylvie and she wouldn't keep calling if it wasn't urgent. She could have gone into labour early and Robert's in New York this week. I'm going to have to take this, okay?'

But he was already striding away from her down the hill and she had a sudden overpowering sense of
déjà vu,
remembering a time when five years earlier another man had strode away from her down a hill, and in the same moment realised that it didn't feel as bad this time, and wondered whether that was because it got easier the more times it happened or whether it was simply because she had wanted Benedict to stay so much more than she wanted Julian to.

She hit the Accept Call button on her phone. ‘Sylvie? What is it? Is the baby coming?'

‘No, it's not that. It's Lucien. Eva, he's in prison.'

E
VA SPOTTED HIM
as soon as she entered the visiting room, slouched on a plastic chair at a melamine table of the sort she remembered from her school canteen. He was wearing his own clothes, jeans and a hoodie, and looked skinnier than he had when she'd last seen him at Sylvie's wedding a few months earlier. At the table to his left, a weasely looking hard-nut with full-sleeve tattoos was growling at a lank-haired, sobbing woman. To his right, a boy with a crewcut and a shell-shocked expression on his face who couldn't have been much older than eighteen sat with what must have been his mum, trying not to look as petrified as he obviously felt.

It seemed incredible to her that Lucien could be forcibly held in this place. She hated herself for thinking it, knew that Keith would despise her for voicing such a thing, but most of the other men in that room at least looked like they belonged there. But Lucien? Sure, he was a rogue but he'd always been easy to forgive, because his penchant for mischief and his unreliability were inextricable from his sheer appetite for life, encompassing whatever passed before him: people, sex, drugs, alcohol, adventure, it almost didn't matter what, so long as it wasn't boring. Over the years she'd never quite managed to shake off the slight hunger he provoked in her with his reckless smile, full of mingled awareness and disregard for the spark that crackled between them which had never burst into flame since that one time, years ago, but had still prevented them from ever quite settling into the comfort of friendship. But Lucien wasn't laughing now, and he wasn't a loveable rogue to the police and the courts; he was just another bloke who'd been caught with a lot of class A drugs. He hadn't seen her as she entered the room and she watched him for a few moments overwhelmed by a rush something softer yet fiercer than she usually felt for him.

He stood up from his seat as Eva approached and for a moment they hovered, unsure how to greet each other in this unfamiliar setting before settling for a tentative hug. He smelt of stale sweat with a sharp chemical undertone.

‘Are we allowed to do this?' she mumbled into his ear.

‘What, hug? Yeah. I think so. I'm only on remand so things aren't all that strict. You get to wear your own clothes, that sort of thing.'

Lucien withdrew awkwardly from Eva's embrace and they sat down on the plastic chairs on either side of the table and for a moment neither of them knew what to say. He ran his fingers through greasy hair, and then drummed them on the tabletop.

 ‘So, have you bent over to pick up the soap yet?' Eva tried a joke, suddenly desperate for reassurance that he would laugh this off like he did everything else.

Instead he glared at her. ‘That's not as funny as you think it is. You've been watching too much
Law and Order.
'

They sat in silence for another moment or two until Lucien's frown softened.

‘Listen, thanks for coming. I didn't want to ask Sylvie, what with the pregnancy and everything,'

‘I doubt she'd have managed it to be honest. I don't know if you've seen her lately but she's the size of a house. I'm constantly on alert for a phone call saying the baby's coming. I thought that was what she was calling about actually, when she rang to tell me what had happened with you. It came at a bit of an awkward moment.'

Lucien grimaced. ‘If you were in bed with Mr Pecs I don't want to hear about it. I've got enough to worry about without that image in my head.'

‘Worse, actually. Or better, depending on how you look at it. He'd just asked me to marry him.'

‘Jeez. You're not going to are you?'

‘Why'd you say it like that? What do you have against Julian?'

‘Well, you don't love him for starters. And you're not going to thank me for saying this, but he's a bit of a plank. You know, no personality.'

His casual dismissal sparked a flare of annoyance in her. ‘Lucien, you've met him all of twice. How can you possibly pronounce on his personality? Anyway, you barely even know me these days, let alone who I do or don't love.'

‘Ok, well, you asked and I told you,' said Lucien, unruffled. ‘Maybe I'm wrong, but I reckon I know you well enough to tell how you feel about someone. We may not have seen all that much of each other lately, but we've got enough history for that.'

‘God, you're arrogant. You always bloody were.'

‘Well, you tell me. Do you love him? Are you going to marry him?'

Eva sighed and looked away towards the rows of tense or sad conversations playing out all around them.

‘I don't know,' she admitted. ‘How do you even decide something like that? I've told him I want some more time to think about it. He's not exactly delighted, but what can I do? I mean, there are so many reasons to say yes. He's got a good heart and we have a good life together. But when I think about spending the next thirty or forty of fifty years together I'm not…I suppose I'm just not excited. It feels like settling. Which of course is what people do, isn't it? They settle. Everything in life's a compromise and you're better off just accepting that.' She rubbed her eyes. ‘But the thing is, I can reason around it all I like but when I think about going home and telling him I'll marry him I feel like there's an enormous wall in front of me blocking my path. I can't even imagine saying it let alone actually doing it.' She stopped. ‘Anyway, why on earth are we talking about my love life? Lucien, I'm so sorry. How are
you
doing?'

‘Okay. Kind of.' He looked down at his hands and picked at a fingernail. ‘Actually, not really, to be honest. I'm shitting myself.'

Eva lowered her voice. ‘What happened? Sylvie filled me in but she didn't seem to know very much. You got caught with a load of coke?'

‘Yeah. Two kilos, to be precise. No chance of claiming possession instead of dealing, if that's what you're thinking. I'm going to plead guilty and hope I get a short sentence for a first offence, but it's definitely going to be jail time.'

‘God. What were you doing with two
kilos
of coke? I thought you were focusing on the promoting thing? I mean, I know you've always done a bit of dealing on the side but two kilos? What's that even worth?'

‘Thirty five grand wholesale, maybe a hundred retail. Yeah, I know,' he said, catching the horrified look on her face. ‘I don't need you to tell me I've screwed up.'

‘But why would you even take such a big risk? I mean, it's not like you need the money, is it, what with all the club nights?'

Lucien looked away with an unusually sheepish air about him. ‘Well, obviously I gave that impression. Particularly to you, seeing as you have this stellar career and everything. But the thing is, my promotions company never really took off. I never made what you could actually call a living from it. There's too much competition, every aging raver calls himself a promoter and the clubs cream off most of the money anyway. Whereas I've made a decent wedge selling drugs over the years. Blown most of it too, unfortunately. Anyway, I wouldn't usually have handled that much coke but I owed someone a favour. It was only supposed to be at my flat for one night. I don't know how but the police knew exactly what they were looking for, they kicked the door in less than twenty minutes after it had arrived. ‘

‘Do you know what sort of sentence you're looking at?'

‘Maybe five years, if I'm lucky. I'd do half of it in jail and half on license. So thirty months, minus the time I spend in here on remand. It's doable. I'll be somewhere low security, there'll be a library and a gym so I can spend my time reading and exercising. It won't be so bad.' His voice sounded strained and raspy.

‘No, of course it won't.' Eva tried to force her own voice to sound upbeat. ‘We'll visit you all the time, and it's not even that long till you'll be out.'

‘To be honest, I'm almost as worried about getting out as I am about being in here. What am I going to do then? Not sell drugs, that's for sure. You'd have to be a mug to land yourself in here twice, and I'll have a record for dealing so if I ever got caught again I'd end up doing serious time. And it's been feeling like the party's over for quite a while now anyway. I just didn't know what to do next and it's going to be even harder when I get out, because well-paid, life-enhancing careers for ex-cons aren't exactly in abundance, are they?'

‘Oh, Lucien. You can't worry about that now. We'll think of something, you've got us on your side.' Eva felt desperate for him to believe it, but in all honesty she wasn't sure what life would hold for him at the other end of a prison sentence. For a moment she thought that he might actually be about to cry, but with a visible effort he pulled himself together.

‘Listen, you're not here to be my agony aunt. There's a few things I need help with. Sylvie's not much use right now and I need someone I can trust.'

‘Of course. Tell me what I can do.'

‘Well, first up I'm going to need someone to sort out my flat and put my stuff into storage. It's rented and the landlord doesn't know about this yet. But the most immediate issue is Herbert.'

‘Sorry, Herbert?'

‘Yeah. My guinea pig. My next-door neighbour's got him, the cops let me take him round there after they arrested me. She's not willing to look after him for long, and anyway, she's keeping him in a cage and he's going to hate that. He's usually free range around the flat, you see.'

‘You have a guinea pig? You're a drug dealer with a pet guinea pig? Called Herbert?'

‘Yeah, well. I wouldn't have got him myself, it was Bianca. You know, that girl I was seeing? You met her at Sylvie's wedding? Anyway, she's too irresponsible to look after a pet properly. She went away for the weekend without getting anyone to feed him so I sort of confiscated him. I was going to find him a home but no one wanted him and he kept sidling up to me and giving me this really sad look and in the end it got to me and I decided he could stay. So now I need you to take care of him. Sylvie won't do it, she says she has a phobia of rodents which is ridiculous because Herbert's a guinea pig and they're only rodents on a technicality.'

‘I'm not sure my life's that pet-friendly either, you know.'

Lucien's features darkened. ‘Eva, I'm asking you to do one thing for me in really desperate circumstances. You don't have to, but if you don't then you'll have to take him to the vet and have him put down, because we can't leave him to die slowly in a cage with someone who doesn't want him and won't look after him. If you can live with that on your conscience, so be it.'

Eva held up her hands in surrender. ‘Okay, okay, I'll take Herbert. But I live in a flat and he should have a garden to run around in and maybe some guinea pig friends, so I'm going to have to try to find a better home for him when I can. You might not be able to get him back when you get out but I think guinea pigs have a pretty short lifespan so he may well not be around by then anyway.'

Lucien looked away and Eva realised too late how tactless she'd been. She wasn't sure whether it was the prospect of never being reunited with his guinea pig or the realisation that the world would keep turning as he sat in a cell day after day but she noticed his hand, the smallest two fingers gnarled with old scar tissue, trembling where it rested on the table before he saw her looking and stuffed it into his pocket.

Short of time, the remainder of the visit had been business-like. Lucien had given her the phone numbers of his landlord and his neighbour and a list of things he needed her to do, and then a bell had rung and they'd briefly embraced before being herded towards their respective doors at opposite ends of the visiting room, one leading into the bowels of the prison, the other to light and freedom. Outside the gate she'd found herself gulping the treacly London air into her lungs as though the odour of cheap disinfectant and desperation that hung heavy inside the prison had slowly been suffocating her. She couldn't imagine breathing that air for another hour, let alone weeks and months and years.