Colton snorted. “As if.” He slouched in the general direction of the door.
When it was closed upon his departure, Carver said to Barbara, “I’m having a lager. You?”
“Too early for me. A glass of water’ll do it.”
“Give me a minute,” and he disappeared round the corner of the room into what she assumed must be the kitchen.
She walked to the window. She wanted to open it as the room was tipping the scale at ten degrees beyond stifling and her deodorant was sending extremely threatening messages from her armpits, but she reckoned the smell from the farm might knock both of them over. She said, “You ever able to open these?” with reference to a set of glass doors to her left. They gave onto a balcony. It held at least two dozen taped-up cardboard boxes, a bicycle, and a set of free weights.
He came back to her, a bottle of water in one hand and a Stella Artois in the other. He said, “I signed the lease in the dead of winter. Rain keeps the smell down at that time of year, and I didn’t notice. I was in a bit of a hurry. And now?” He indicated vaguely towards the south. “I’m going back to Streatham.”
“Back to Teo’s flat?”
“It was ours together when we were together.”
“You’ve been packing.” She nodded at the balcony with its boxes.
“I never unpacked.” He took a swig of his lager. “I always hoped I wouldn’t have to. Teo wanted the split. I didn’t. I hoped she might have me back.” He used the cold of the bottle against his forehead. Barbara wouldn’t have said no to sharing it, if only for that purpose. “You wanted to talk to me about her.”
Barbara plunged her hand into the depths of her shoulder bag to bring out her spiral notebook and a mechanical pencil that she’d nicked from Nkata’s desk. As she did this, she followed Ross Carver to what went for the sitting room: four deckchairs positioned round a card table. He was, she thought, a real minimalist. The only additional piece of furniture was a floor lamp. There were no bits and bobs—presumably they’d never been unpacked—no magazines, no tabloids, no broadsheets, no umbrellas, no discarded shoes or articles of clothing. There were photos, however. Photos galore. Most of them stood along one wall. Some of them looked like wedding shots of him and his estranged wife.
She said, “C’n we sit?”
He said, “Help yourself. The accommodations are spare.”
“Not so the photos,” she noted.
He looked at them, ranked like soldiers at the Trooping of the Colour. He said, “Teo didn’t want them when we split. But I like looking at them. They’re reminders.”
“Of what?”
“Who we were. Happier times. What you will.” He gave the photos a glance. “We grew up together. Our parents were friends from before we were born.”
“How’d they get connected?”
He seemed to think about this for a moment, after which he said, “You know, I haven’t the first clue. It seems like they were always there, Teo’s family. I can’t remember a time when they weren’t. It can’t have been a church thing. My parents—all of us really, and by that I mean my family, not Teo’s—we’re lifelong unbelievers. Teo’s family, they were—they still are—Roman Catholic.”
“Teo herself?”
“Christmas and Easter and only then if she was invited to attend with her parents and her sister. Otherwise, no. Teo doesn’t . . . She didn’t like the trappings of anything.”
“She seemed to like the trappings of a wedding,” Barbara noted, acknowledging that particular set of pictures.
“Most women do, I expect, even if they start out thinking it’s all fuss and nonsense. Besides that, her mum insisted. I would have preferred just the registry office and lunch in a fancy restaurant afterwards. Champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. But Solange—Teo’s mum—she likes tradition, and it was easy enough to please her.”
“How’d she react to your split, then?”
“The same as everyone else. Surprised. Sad. We’d been together so long that TeoandRoss had become one word to our families.”
“To you as well.”
He looked at the bottle he held and, after a moment he nodded slowly. “Like I said, I didn’t want the split. But at the end of the day, I’m the one who caused it.”
“Some other woman?”
He shook his head. “There’s always been only Teo for me.”