‘Well, don’t marry Kit, whatever you do,’ I said. ‘You’ll only be liable for his debts, as well as your own. Do you not have anything you can sell?’

‘No. Nothing. If the bailiffs came, they’d take the clothes from our backs.’

‘If that happens, come round to Prospect Square and we’ll give you a room for the night. Meanwhile, I think we both need to buy a lottery ticket.’ I cuffed one of her wrists, felt the pulse quicken, and soon I was inside her again and doing my best to take her mind off her misfortunes, if only for the short term.

Later, in a smaller voice, more maudlin now than angry, she said, ‘I can’t have anyone I want. There’s something about me, something that puts people off.’

Her mind had looped back to what I’d said about bankers. ‘What do you mean? What thing?’

‘I don’t know what it is. If I knew, I’d eliminate it and bag a billionaire. Fuck feminism.’

Superficial though her desires were, I was nonetheless impressed with her self-awareness. Because she was right, there was something, something that might have brought pause to a man less devil-may-care than Kit: a sense that she would not be satisfied by convention. These men had had an instinct, perhaps, that there could be trouble long term.

We lay in silence for a while, staring at the ceiling. For all the house’s technological bells and whistles, the ceilings were featureless. No cornicing and ceiling roses, just the smooth blank lid of a box.

No, in this room, the only beauty, the only poetry was in Melia’s face. The line of her nose and jaw, the rich blaze of her eye. I thought, Doesn’t she realize being young is priceless? Clare had as good as admitted she would trade her fortune for a second stab at youth; unlike love, unlike happiness, you couldn’t buy it.

Only as we dressed and tidied up after ourselves did she abandon the subject of money – not that I was any keener on the next one.

‘She’s worried about you, you know. Clare.’

‘Is she? How do you know that?’

‘We had lunch yesterday and she confided in me.’

I frowned. ‘You had lunch, just the two of you? Now that we’re, you know, wouldn’t it be more politic not to do that?’

‘More “politic”?’ Her smile was mischievous. ‘Why? You think we’ll compare notes and plot against you?’

I couldn’t believe how cavalier she was. ‘But aren’t you worried you’ll slip up?’

‘I’m a good actor, remember? Seriously, don’t worry, she doesn’t suspect. She’s fixated on Kit, thinks he’s leading you astray with all the drinking.’

‘Really? Well, she told me you said Steve was leading him astray.’

‘I did say that, yes.’ Melia kissed me, long eyelashes skimming my skin. ‘Misdirection, darling. This Steve guy’s the big bad wolf. Doesn’t matter who it is, really, just so long as no one’s looking our way.’

Evidently, she’d come into this affair with skills honed. On the wall beyond, I caught her narrow smile in one of the mirrors. They were like cameras in the room, catching hidden angles, exposing guarded emotions. Making strangers of us.

12

April 2019

We had our first sun in April and there were colours in the river besides the familiar brown: metallics of silver, pewter and gold. The city’s magnolias were flowering and, when the boat’s doors opened, there was even the odd snatch of bird-song. As we sailed under Tower Bridge towards ultramarine skies, it was impossible not to feel the rejuvenating spirit of a new dawn. Not to mention the resurgent arrogance of a new adulterer.

Melia’s assessment was accurate: Clare had no idea. To her, Melia and Kit continued to be the younger couple we socialized with, the couple who were hedonistic, provocative, occasionally explosive.

I remember one scene at Prospect Square – it must have been several weeks into the affair – when we found ourselves refereeing a row between them.

Kit, obviously knowing which buttons to press the deepest, had made some admiring remark about Melia’s sister. There’d been a photo of one of her product lines in the previous weekend’s Sunday Times Style section. ‘Looks like I picked the wrong sister,’ he said, and even a casual bystander would have picked up on the goading.

‘Should’ve thrown your hat in the ring, see how you got on,’ Melia said, coldly.

‘Yeah, I should.’

‘You’d have soon found out she’s only interested in money.’ ‘Well, that doesn’t sound at all familiar, does it?’ Kit taunted her.

It was childish stuff, but soon Melia was weeping in the kitchen and being comforted by Clare, and he, claiming he wasn’t going to pander to her oversensitivity, went out to the front doorstep to smoke.

Instinct told me to even up the numbers. Outside, the wind was high and the tops of the lime trees shivered and swayed like cheerleaders’ pompoms, fanning the scent of a thousand spring evenings before this one: the stone underfoot, balsam from the trees in the square, the faint briny scent of the river.

‘Sorry about Me,’ Kit said, his mouth obscured by smoke. ‘She’s always been weird about her sister.’

‘Clare said something about that,’ I said, vaguely.

‘Actually, she’s weird about everything at the moment,’ he added.

I didn’t like to think when it was that the two of them had begun bickering, that it might have been about the same time that she began a relationship with me. Was she angry with him because he’d failed to notice he was now sharing her? The thought made me dizzy with unease. Why on earth hadn’t I made adjustments by now, manoeuvred Clare and myself into distancing ourselves from them as a couple? I suppose I feared it might have the opposite effect and stir her suspicions. It’s the classic giveaway, after all: avoid someone you’ve always got on with or act less relaxed when you’ve previously been perfectly at ease.

The problem was that all four of us were boozers and drinking together made it dangerously easy for either Melia or me to make some insider allusion we shouldn’t, or give an absentminded physical touch that just-good-friends never would.

I was saved from commenting on Melia’s ‘weirdness’ by racing clouds uncovering the moon, its soft light falling on the square in front of us and stealing Kit’s attention.

‘Do you need a key to get in there?’ he asked.

‘Yes. All the residents have one. It only opens to the public once a year on an open garden scheme.’ I had no idea if Melia had yet passed on the information that the house was owned by Clare’s family, but standing there on the old, broad steps, I felt as deep a sense of surrender as I ever had to the intimate power of my home square.

‘What are those trees, even?’ Kit said.

‘They’re “even” planes and limes. There’re loads of shrubs in there, as well. Some flowerbeds. We all contribute to a fund that pays a gardener.’

He sighed, exhaling a mix of awe and resentment. ‘How the hell do you get to live in a place like this? I bet there’s not a single resident here under forty.’ Sod’s law, a taxi pulled up at that very moment on the west side of the square, releasing a chorus of upmarket middle-aged voices.