Downsizing (14 page)

“
God, Kitty. Are you sure?” Noah
ran a hand down his face, snagging his fingers on his briskly
chin.

“
Perfectly sure, thanks,
Noah.”

“
Well, just be careful. He’s
pretty riled right now. Be sure and let me know if you need
rescuing.”

“
Noah.” Joey had, understandably,
lost patience. “Would you please tell me what the fuck’s going
on?”

Noah did so, without going into detail about
why Kitty had come on board in the first place. Once Joey got over
his initial surprise, they talked about their revised work plan now
that they didn’t have to waste all day laboring for Watts, and
headed for Broad Street to put it into action.

It was ironic. They had all the time in the
world now to complete their project but were hand-tied until the
planners got their act together. Noah was starting to think that
someone had it in for him.

When he arrived home, close to ten o’clock,
Cassie was sitting up in bed.

“
Hi,” he said, sounding as
exhausted as he felt. “How did it go at the hospital?”

“
Fine, nothing to worry
about.”

He felt her eyes on him as he threw his dirty
clothes in the linen basket and headed for the shower. “I’d have
made the time to come with you. You didn’t have to go on your
own.”

“
Oh no, it was fine, Noah. You’re
too busy to worry about little things like that.”

“
It ain’t little,” he said,
emerging from the shower with just a towel wrapped round his waist.
“It’s our child we’re talking about here.”

“
Yes, but even so.” She paused for
a moment, plucking absently at her lower lip. “Noah, why didn’t you
tell me that Kitty Watts loaned you the money for Broad
Street?”

“
Because it happened before we
were together,” he said, wondering who’d been talking to
her.

“
Yes, but I still ought to have
known. I don’t like it when you don’t tell me things.”

“
You didn’t ask,” he said, sliding
between the sheets. “Anyway, she wanted it kept
confidential.”

“
Even from your wife?”

“
I didn’t have a wife at the time
and afterward it didn’t seem to matter. Besides, you’ve never shown
any interest before.”

“
Perhaps not but I feel stupid
knowing that another woman has financed my husband’s business
ventures. What are people going to think?”

“
Get over it, Cassie,” Noah said
with a heavy sigh. “I’m too tired for this.”

“
Why did she do it?”

“
Perhaps because she recognized a
good business opportunity.”

“
Perhaps.” But Cassie didn’t sound
convinced. “Noah, were you sacked?”

Noah sat up and looked at her, exasperated.
“Who’s been talking to you?”

“
Oh, Graham was here earlier, and
he mentioned something to Mummy.”

“
And how the hell did he
know?”

“
Well, if my own husband won’t
tell me what’s going on in his life, I’m glad I’ve got someone who
thinks of my interests.”

“
Look, Cassie,” he said, clinging
on to his patience by the merest thread. “Kitty and I entered into
a business arrangement before I was involved with you, but she
required it to be kept secret. I agreed to her terms, and don’t
make a habit of breaking my promises. She might well get involved
in my next project, too, so get used to the idea. And as for not
telling you that I was sacked, that happened because Ryan found out
about Kitty’s involvement in Broad Street and lost his rag, that’s
all. It only happened today, so I’ve hardly had time to tell you
about it.”

Noah wondered why Graham Spiller was so keen
to involve himself in his affairs. As a solicitor he’d know how to
get a look at the paperwork from the auction, but why would he
bother? The answer was obvious. He wanted to cause trouble because
he hadn’t got over his infatuation with Cassie and couldn’t stand
the thought of her married to someone who wasn’t
one of
us
.

“
But I still don’t understand why
Kitty should—”

“
And I haven’t got the energy to
explain.” He turned over, his back toward her. “Now, I’m knackered,
so can we please go to sleep?”

* * * *

The wind rattling against the window woke
Maxine with a jolt. She looked at the clock and let out a wail. The
alarm hadn’t gone off, and she had less than an hour to get to her
tutorial with Professor Makepeace. He was a stickler for
punctuality, and if she was as much as one minute late he’d cancel
the session and place a black mark beside her name.

Throwing back the covers, she ran for the
shower, not noticing that she didn’t add another bruise to her hip
when she forgot to turn sideways. Attending to her ablutions in
record time, she pulled on a pair of draw-string trousers and
borrowed a word from Noah’s vocabulary when they fell straight back
down again. Damn, the string must have broken.

But upon closer examination she found that it
hadn’t. Forgetting all about being late, she sat down on her unmade
bed, grinning like an idiot. She must have lost weight. A lot of
weight. More than she’d realized. This suspicion was confirmed when
she again donned the offending trousers, pulled the tie as tight as
it would go and they still wouldn’t stay up.

Until the day she’d left Colebrook her
masochistic daily ritual of getting on the scales always left her
feeling disgusted at her lack of will power, but since coming to
Cambridge she hadn’t once weighed herself. Partly because she
didn’t possess any scales but also because she had a thousand other
things on her mind. She’d
hoped
she was slimming down—her
clothes had certainly gotten looser—but she’d been too scared of
disappointment to check it out.

Recalling the time, she hastily pulled on
another pair of trousers and secured them with safety pins as a
precaution. As she cycled at a frantic pace into Cambridge, she
recalled Noah saying a little exercise was all that it would take
to sort out her weight. She’d never really believed it, but the
simple truth was that she just didn’t have time to think about food
anymore. She and Greg were always in a hurry, dashing from
tutorials, to lectures, to the library, to their study group. Sleep
was in short supply, and so breakfast for Maxine had become a
rushed cup of coffee and piece of fruit. Lunch was a sandwich
snatched as she scurried to her next class.

At home, chasing after the children took more
physical energy. Gwen and Derek made a point of eating healthily,
refusing to let the children fill themselves with junk. They seldom
bothered with deserts, a pattern which Maxine had been too
preoccupied to realize she’d started following as well. Without
being aware of it, she’d adopted a healthy lifestyle.

Feeling euphoric, she reached Professor
Makepeace’s study with seconds to spare. She greeted him with a
sunny smile, ignoring the fingers that drummed an impatient tattoo
on his open textbook as he pointedly looked at his watch. He was at
his most demanding and sarcastic today, but she had prepared well
and enjoyed his obvious frustration when he was unable to find
fault with her argument in favor of the litigants in the infamous
McLibel case.

She rushed to her next lecture and flopped
down in the seat next to Greg, a huge grin still splitting her
face.

“
Won the lottery, have we?” he
asked.

“
Better than that; I’ve lost
weight!” Seeing his incredulous look, she affected a hurt
expression. “Well, I have.” And she told him about her trousers,
which made him roar with laughter. “I don’t see what’s so funny,”
she said huffily.

“
My darling girl, you’re funny,
that’s what. You’ve been losing weight for weeks. Surely you must
have noticed?” When she admitted that she hadn’t, he cracked up
again. “I thought all women were obsessed about such things. Come
on then, ’fess up, how much have you lost?”

“
I don’t know. I don’t have any
scales.”

“
Well, that’s easily solved, but
first things first. At lunchtime we’ll buy you some clothes that
don’t require safety pins to keep them in place. Then after class
this afternoon, you’d better come back to my place and we’ll have a
ceremonious weigh-in.”

Greg took her to the local Oxfam shop and
picked out a pair of Levis for her to try.

“
Forget it, Greg, they’re a size
sixteen. Besides, they have a fixed waistband. I need
elasticity.”

“
Try them!” he ordered, thrusting
them into her arms.

Maxine had tears of delight in her eyes when
she emerged from the fitting room.

“
I have to buy them, Greg, because
I could zip them up without lying on the floor.”

He grinned, looking as pleased for her as she
felt, and steered her firmly away from the baggy T-shirts she
wanted to buy. Using his growing influence over her, he made her
buy tighter-fitting versions that showed off her reduced boobs. She
wore her new uniform to her first lecture of the afternoon. One or
two people who didn’t usually have much time for her exchanged
surprised looks and smiled at her.

Later, in Greg’s scrupulously tidy flat, he
made a great play of enacting a drum roll, inviting her to remove
her shoes and step onto his scales.

“
How much did you weigh when you
left Colebrook?” he asked, covering the digital display and
refusing to let her see it.

“
Two hundred and ten pounds,” she
admitted with a grimace.

“
Well, Miss Small, I am pleased to
tell you that since—”

“
Greg, stop it, this is killing
me!” She hopped from foot to foot, squirming with impatience. “Just
tell me.”

“
I was about to, before I was so
rudely interrupted. Stand still, you’re making the display go all
wonky. Right, that’s better.” He laughed when she barred her teeth
at him. “Okay, Miss Small, you now weigh twelve stone eight
pounds.”

“
No!” She leapt off the scales and
threw her arms round his neck. “I don’t believe it. There must be a
mistake.”

“
See for yourself.” He ushered her
back onto the scales.

“
But that’s thirty pounds in three
months.” Dazed, she had to sit down. “After all these years of
trying, I’m finally getting somewhere, and didn’t even realize
it.”

“
This calls for a celebration.” He
disappeared into his kitchen and emerged with a chilled bottle of
champagne.

“
Where did that come
from?”

He winked at her. “Emergency
supplies.”

As Maxine accepted a brimming glass, she
remembered the last time she’d drunk champagne, which took the edge
off her euphoria. She’d been with Noah in his van. The champagne on
that occasion had been warm, and the plastic cups had done nothing
to improve its flavor, but nothing had ever tasted better—not even
now, with the wine served properly chilled, drunk from delicate
champagne flutes that couldn’t possibly be part of the flat’s
inventory.

“
Here’s to the new, thinner you.”
Greg clinked glasses with her.

“
You don’t suppose I’ll put it all
back on again, do you?” she asked in a panic.

“
No, and I expect you’ll lose more
if you carry on the way you’re going.”

“
That would be nice, but I’ll
settle for this much.” She wrinkled her brow. “I knew I’d lost a
bit, but, Greg, how could I not have noticed how much?”

“
You’ve had more important things
on your mind.”

“
Don’t be silly. Nothing’s more
important! You have no idea how I’ve struggled.”

“
Wonder what they’d make of you if
they could see you in Colebrook now?” he speculated. “Why don’t you
ever talk about Colebrook, by the way?

“
Too boring.”

“
Liar! There has to be more to it
than that.”

“
Leave it, Greg! I don’t delve
into your secrets, and I know you’ve got some, too.”

He regarded her for a moment in speculative
silence.

“
All right then,” he said. “I’ll
tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, all right, why not?
But you have to go first.”

“
Okay. And I’m good value because
I’ve got two confessions.” He refilled their glasses, drew a deep
breath, and started talking. “First of all, my father isn’t as bad
an artist as I led you to suppose. In fact he’s quite famous
locally. But he
is
a piss-artist par excellence as well. I
didn’t mislead you about that.”

“
What happened to make him take to
the bottle?”

“
Well, when he couldn’t sell his
serious stuff to the big galleries, he got depressed, and started
drinking. The bills were coming in, and so he started painting
local scenes and flogging them to the tourists.” Greg took a swig
of wine and chuckled. “He calls it prissy, chocolate-box stuff. The
punters walk into his studio and watch him at work. He’s
appallingly rude to them, but they buy anyway. He finds it so
depressing that he goes on benders that last for weeks.”