Page 87 of The Lucky Escape

I did as instructed, crossing the road and ordering a couple of cups of chai, watching her talk animatedly on the phone to somebody through the window.

‘Okay, you’re actually annoying me,’ I said, handing her a tea and fishing about in the paper bag I was carrying too, bearing gifts of cake.

‘Ooooh, yes please,’ she said, taking both. ‘Right. All will be revealed in … three minutes. This way.’

We headed through the side of the park and off to some residential streets that looked vaguely familiar from my days of early morning runs. I hadn’t been out once since we’d got home – I hadn’t had the urge. I hadn’t worked out at all, actually. Unless sex counted, but even that was becoming a distant memory now.

‘I need to talk to Patrick,’ I said, after explaining to her that we’d barely had five texts between us. ‘I’m just trying to be responsible and make sure I’m making my choices for me, finally, but I think I pushed him away. I’m scared! Surely he gets that.’

‘I mean, I have heard rumours of couples directly communicating to each other about their issues,’ Adzo conceded. ‘It’s urban legend, but the notion has been floated.’

That made me laugh in spite of myself. ‘Adzo!’ I mock scolded. ‘Take this seriously! I don’t know how to fight! I’m not used to getting mad!’ It was true: I used to do anything to avoid confrontation. It was really uncomfortable for me to have any ongoing issues with Patrick, but I knew it was a strange kind of progress for me.

Adzo came to a stop. I looked around. We were in the middle of a street of Victorian terraces – the grand, roomy ones with high ceilings that cost a fortune if you own a full one, but most of which had been carved up into flats.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I can’t help on the Patrick front.’

I blinked.

‘But like I said … I can help,’ she continued, ‘on the house front.’

She marched through the powder green gate of the end terrace, down the short path littered with pots of green leaves that undoubtedly smelled amazing every spring. She tipped one of the pots closest to the bins up on its side, used her foot to slide out a key, and stood back up holding it aloft saying, ‘Ta-da!’

‘This is the one that’s in my budget?’ I said.

‘Babe,’ she replied. ‘You’re going to love it.’

‘What?! This is too fancy!’

‘Come on,’ she trilled, the key already in the lock and a foot inside the communal hallway.

The walls were chalky white with the kind of paint that’s expensive – I could tell by the way the light was absorbed instead of reflected. I happened to know a lot about paint because of Bri’s kitchen remodel. The carpet was a woven hessian finish, cosy and inviting, and a small table with a mirror above it bore two small piles of post.

‘That’s Mrs Archway,’ Adzo said, pointing to the first door we passed. ‘In the ground-floor flat. She’s about a hundred years old but did get told off for disturbing the peace a few weeks ago when she had some friends over and they got a bit rowdy on the old gin. She used to be a theatre actress, and has got stories that make even me blush.’

She pressed on up a flight of stairs. I smelled spices. Somebody was cooking something scrumptious.

‘That’s Brigitte. She’s a food blogger, and likes to leave food parcels on everyone’s doorsteps because she makes so much. You’ll like her too – she just came out of a relationshipwith her long-term girlfriend three months ago, and is oddly well-adjusted about it, which is fascinating.’

We climbed another set of stairs.

‘And this,’ she said, putting a key in the door and turning it with ease, ‘is for you. If you want it.’

I eyed her suspiciously and headed past her and into a hallway very similar to the one downstairs: same chalky paint and knotted hessian carpet. It led to an empty bedroom to the left, and a compact bathroom to the right with a black and white tiled floor and a frosted glass window, and a tiny alcove that could probably fit a single bed and not much else.

I walked into the main part of the flat, an open-plan kitchen and living room area. At one end of the living room was a huge bay window overlooking the street, and the space was about big enough for a sofa and coffee table, maybe a tiny dining table. The kitchen was narrow but because it was connected to the living room felt spacious, too, especially with the massive windows and the lightness of the carpet and walls.

‘What is this place?’ I marvelled. ‘Why do you have a key?’

‘I know a guy who knows a guy.’ She shrugged, and I shot her a look as if to say:You’re going to have to do better than that.

‘Okay fine,’ she elaborated. ‘Remember the guy I dated who wanted to take me to the Dominican Republic over Christmas break two years ago? The one with the handlebar moustache and predilection for quoting lines fromThe Godfather?’

‘Oh my gosh, I do! You really liked him, didn’t you?’

She nodded.

‘I can’t even remember why you broke it off with him now.’

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