A Love of Two Halves by P. J. Whiteley

Author:P. J. Whiteley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2019-09-15T14:00:00+00:00

21

I’m not shallow. Well maybe a little bit…

Of course, Joy was right. Not about everything – I wouldn’t credit her with that – but the extreme change to which I was subjecting Karen may just have been too great, and stretched the human spirit beyond the point of elasticity, even if it seemed to be in the right direction. I felt this as we arrived in Surrey together for the first time, and was witness to her reaction at the scale of my principal home. I had said nothing to prepare her. I even deliberately avoided a cue: when she expressed surprise that I still had the Mercedes convertible it suddenly occurred to me that I had disguised my net worth rather too well, and that she had perhaps been imagining that I had been struggling. Of course, I loved her all the more for that; that she could want me even as she thought I was worth nothing or even minus several thousand. But perhaps I had taken things too far. Karen was perhaps expecting to arrive at a three-bed semi in Sutton or Cheam, mortgaged to the hilt, the place stale with the bachelor odour of sporting sweat and take-away meals, unopened credit card bills and HMRC correspondence piling up on a dirty floor mat, and a sleazy lodger who didn’t always pay his rent. Perhaps she had been prepared to roll her sleeves up as soon as she got there, don the rubber gloves and help me give the kitchen a good clean-up.

As she stepped out of the car, she announced: ‘I want to get a good view of your place. I’m a very visual person. Whoops! Oh shit.’

One of her heels had become stuck in the gravel and she stumbled, falling onto all fours briefly, before quickly getting herself back up. Then I could see her eyes scanning the full width of the property like a camera lens whirring through its quarter circle for a panoramic spread. Her jaw actually dropped as her mouth opened; a gesture I had often read about but never, until that moment, witnessed.

‘So, is this, like, a huge apartment or have you got the upstairs as well?’

‘Yea, that’s mine too. We’ll get to that. Pretty soon, hopefully.’

‘Oh my God,’ she said, as we entered, and walked around the first of the two main reception rooms, about thirty feet by twenty, sequoia floor, hi-tech music system and TV. The art deco black and chrome sofa and chairs that Penelope had selected (after about three months’ deliberation), and glass coffee table, with books about architecture and Picasso. A framed printed copy of Mappa Mundi hung on the wall opposite the music system. Karen was correct about the map in her telepathic venture.

It was when we reached the kitchen that the tears began. We walked around the central island, just a few years old with specialist vegetable-cleaning sinks and the like. As we did so she ran her finger along the pure granite top,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.