The next evening, as I sat down to write my email to Uncle Ian, I found it hard to know what to say. Should I lie and tell him that the evening had been called off? Or lie and say that the evening had in fact been a roaring success and that Gabriel and I were back together? Or should I not mention the previous evening at all and hope he wouldn’t remember that I had asked Gabriel over in a fit of hopelessly hopeful excitement? The one option I couldn’t contemplate right then was telling him the truth; that once again I had failed to get my life back on track. ‘Be happy, Eliza,’ he’d said. Could I not at least do that for him?
The phone went. It was Ruth. She sounded odd. ‘Ruth, are you OK?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t sound it.’
‘It’s probably the reception. I’m in the car. I’d like you to come over please.’
‘Come over where? I thought you said you were in the car.’
‘I am. But I’m in the car at home.’
Robert’s silver Mercedes was standing in front of the garage, the engine running. It took me a couple of seconds to register that two people, Robert and a woman I didn’t know, were pinioned to the garage wall by the front bumper of the large silver car. I ran up and pulled open the passenger door. Ruth was in the driver’s seat, her hands clutching the steering wheel, her foot hovering above the accelerator pedal.
‘Get her out of there.’ Robert’s voice was high-pitched with terror, but at least he was alive, as was his companion, because she kept opening and closing her mouth.
‘Ruth,’ I said, as calmly as I was able. ‘Ruth dear, why don’t you . . .’
‘Brrrm brrrm,’ said Ruth, as her foot played above the accelerator.
‘Brrrm brrrm, indeed. Absolutely, but why don’t you reverse, very slowly and carefully away from the garage door.’
Ruth poked her head out of the window and yelled to the woman. ‘You hear that, you stupid tart, it’s garage. Ga-ra-ge not garridge.’ She pulled her head back and smiled at me. ‘Sometimes you simply have to make a stand,’ she said.
I nodded. ‘Of course you do. But why don’t you just reverse ever so slowly . . . No, don’t touch the accelerator until you’ve put the gear in reverse. I said don’t . . . That’s right. Gently. Gently does it.’
It took some doing but I managed to persuade Robert and the woman not to call the police. Instead I got him to pack Ruth a small bag and then I told him that I needed to take the car to drive Ruth and me back home as I didn’t think she was in the right frame of mind for public transport.
Ruth did not say one word as we drove though the summer streets of London. I thought she was about to as we passed Camden Lock; for some reason Ruth had it in for Camden Lock, and just then I would have welcomed a comment or two about tattoos and graffiti and perhaps a small follow-on mention about the idiocy of the contemporary art scene. But nothing. Ruth sat bolt upright in her seat, her hands clutched in her lap.
‘Goodness,’ I said trying to entice her back to normality. ‘Will you look at that wall. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took it down and rebuilt it as an exhibit at Tate Modern.’ When still she said nothing, I pulled out my trump card. ‘It’d get the Turner Prize, I bet you anything you like.’ But still nothing.
Once back home I helped the silent Ruth into bed and brought her a mug of warm milk with honey. I was about to close the door behind me when she finally spoke. ‘Eliza, what shall I do? Where shall I go?’
I swallowed a sigh. ‘Don’t worry about that. You’re obviously welcome to stay here for as long as it takes. Would you like me to call Lottie?’
Ruth shook her head. ‘No, absolutely not. Anyway, she’s in Chile. What can she do from Chile?’
‘All right. I won’t.’ I took a step back into the room. ‘Do you feel like telling me what happened?’
‘No.’
‘Right. Fair enough. You try to get some sleep. We’ll talk it all through in the morning.’
I went out into the front garden. The night was warm and heady with the scent of mock-orange. I stood there for a while, my face raised to the sky, as I attempted and gave up counting the stars. I thought of the lady painter, Marguerite, and her sister Anna. I wondered how much of the garden and the view of the square were the same now as when they had lived here. I wished I could step though a gate in time and visit them. We’d have a cup of tea, discuss the artists of the day and comment on the beauty of our surroundings. ‘This is our house,’ I’d say. Yours and mine and everyone else’s who called it home. We all live on in the fabric of the house, our essence melded with the paints and the varnishes and the very bricks of the walls. Then, and before I took my leave, I would assure them that I would take the greatest care of our little house and pass it on, eventually, in the best possible state.
A lone saxophone began to play, a mellow, lazy blues. At first I couldn’t hear where the sound was coming from but as the music rose into a melancholy A flat I realised it came from Number 12. I couldn’t tell if someone was playing an actual saxophone, or just a recording, but the sound was good.
I turned my head at the sound of a window being thrown open and saw Archie Fuller’s head popping out from his third-floor window with such speed and vehemence I half expected him to call out ‘cuckoo’.
Instead he shouted, ‘I say, do have some consideration for those of us who are trying to sleep.’
The saxophone responded with a mocking riff – either Archie had made his protest at just the right moment or the music was live. There followed a few last lingering notes and then there was silence. Archie’s head was gone, back to bed with the rest of him, I assumed. The lights of Number 12 went out and I walked back inside.