فصل 29

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Margot told me I should go away for a few days to clear my head. When I said I wouldn’t, she asked me why ever not and added that I plainly hadn’t been thinking straight for a while: I needed to sort myself out. When I admitted that I didn’t want to leave her by herself, she told me I was a ridiculous girl and that I didn’t know what was good for me. She watched me from the corner of her eye for a while, her bony old hand tapping irritably on the arm of her chair, then raised herself heavily and disappeared, returning minutes later with a Sidecar so strong that the first sip made my eyes burn. Then she told me to sit my backside down, that my sniffling was getting irritating and I should watch Wheel of Fortune with her. I did as I was told and tried not to hear Josh’s voice, outraged and uncomprehending, echoing in my head.

You’re dumping me over a pair of pantyhose?

When the programme had finished, she looked at me, tutted loudly, told me this really wouldn’t do, and that we would go away together instead.

‘But you haven’t got any money.’

‘Goodness, Louisa. It’s immensely vulgar to discuss financial matters,’ she scolded. ‘I’m shocked by the way you young women are brought up to talk about these things.’ She told me the name of the hotel on Long Island that she wanted me to call, instructed me to tell them specifically that I was calling on behalf of Margot De Witt in order to get the preferential ‘family’ rate. She added that she had been thinking about it, and if it really upset me so much, I could pay for both of us. And there, didn’t I feel better now?

Which was how I ended up paying for me, Margot and Dean Martin to go on a trip to Montauk.

We caught a train out of New York to a small shingle-clad hotel on the shore that Margot had travelled to every summer for decades until frailty – or finance – had stopped her. As I stood, they welcomed her on the doorstep as if she was, indeed, long-lost family. We picked at a lunch of griddled prawns and salad and I left her talking to the couple who ran the place while I walked down the path to the wide, windswept beach, breathed the ozone-infused air and watched Dean Martin skittering happily around in the sand dunes. There, I started to feel, under the giant sky, for the first time in months, as if my thoughts were not infinitely cluttered by everyone else’s needs and expectations.

Margot, exhausted by the train journey, spent much of the rest of the next two days in the little drawing room, watching the sea or chatting with the elderly patriarch of the hotel, a weather-beaten Easter Island statue of a man called Charlie, who nodded along to her uninterrupted flow of conversation, and shook his head and said that, no, things weren’t what they were, or, yes, things sure were changing fast around there, and the two of them would exhaust this topic over small cups of coffee, then sit, satisfied by how awful everything had become and to have this view confirmed by each other. I realized very quickly that my role had simply been to get her here. She barely seemed to need me at all, except to help with fiddly items of clothing and to walk the dog. She smiled more than I had seen her smile for the entire time I’d known her, which was a useful distraction in itself.

So, for the next four days I had breakfast in my room, read the books in the little hotel bookshelf, gave in to the slower rhythms of Long Island life and did as instructed. I walked and walked until I had an appetite again and could quell the thoughts in my head with the roar of the waves and the sound of the gulls in the endless leaden sky and the yapping of a small, overexcited dog who couldn’t quite believe his luck.

On the third afternoon I sat on my hotel bed, called my mother and told her the truth about my last few months. For once she didn’t talk but listened, and at the end of it, she said she thought I had been very wise and very brave, and those two affirmations made me cry a little. She put Dad on and he told me he’d like to kick the arses of those ruddy Gopniks, I wasn’t to talk to strangers and to let them know as soon as Margot and I were back in Manhattan. He added that he was proud of me. ‘Your life – it’s never quiet, is it, love?’ he said. And I agreed that, no, it was not, and I thought back two years to my life before Will, when the most exciting thing that happened to me was someone demanding a refund at the Buttered Bun and realized I quite liked it this way, despite everything.

On the last night Margot and I had supper in the hotel’s dining room, at her behest. I dressed up in my dark pink velvet top and my three-quarter-length silk culottes and she wore a frilled green floral shirt and matching slacks (I had sewn an extra button in the waistline so that they didn’t slip down over her hips) and we quietly enjoyed the widening eyes of the other guests as we were shown to our seats at the best table by the big window.

‘Now, dear. It’s our last night, so I think we should push the boat out, don’t you?’ she said, lifting a regal hand to wave at the guests who were still staring. I was just wondering whose particular boat was being pushed when she added, ‘I think I’ll have the lobster. And perhaps some champagne. I suspect this is the last time I shall come here, after all.’

I started to protest, but she cut me off: ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. It’s a fact, Louisa. A bald fact. I thought you British girls were made of sterner stuff.’

So we ordered a bottle of champagne and two lobsters, and as the sun set we picked at the delicious, garlicky flesh and I cracked open the claws that Margot was too frail to manage and handed them back to her; she sucked at them with little delighted noises and passed tiny bits of flesh down to where Dean Martin was being diplomatically ignored by everyone else. We shared a huge bowl of French fries (I ate most of them and she scattered a few on her plate and said they were really quite good).

We sat in companionable, overstuffed silence as the restaurant slowly emptied, and she paid with a seldom-used credit card (‘I’ll be dead before they come looking for payment, hah!’). Then Charlie walked over stiffly and put a giant hand on her tiny shoulder. He said he would be getting off to bed but he hoped he would see her in the morning before she left and that it had been a true pleasure to see her again after all these years.

‘The pleasure was all mine, Charlie. Thank you for the most wonderful stay.’ Her eyes wrinkled with affection, and they clutched each other’s hands until he released hers reluctantly and turned away.

‘I went to bed with him once,’ she said, as he walked off. ‘Lovely man. No good for me, of course.’

As I coughed out my last French fry, she gave me a weary look. ‘It was the seventies, Louisa. I’d been alone for a long time. It’s been rather nice seeing him again. Widowed now, of course.’ She sighed. ‘At my age everybody is.’

We sat in silence for a while, gazing out at the endless, inky black ocean. A long way off you could just make out the tiny winking lights of the fishing vessels. I wondered how it would feel to be out there, on your own, in the middle of nowhere.

And then Margot spoke. ‘I didn’t expect to come back here,’ she said quietly. ‘So I should thank you. It’s been … it’s been something of a tonic.’

‘For me too, Margot. I feel … unscrambled.’

She smiled at me before reaching down to pat Dean Martin. He was stretched out under her chair, snoring quietly. ‘You did the right thing, you know, with Josh. He wasn’t for you.’

I didn’t respond. There was nothing to say. I had spent three days thinking of the person I might have become if I had stayed with Josh – affluent, semi-American, mostly happy even, and had discovered that, after a few short weeks, Margot understood me better than I understood myself. I would have moulded myself to fit him. I would have shed the clothes I loved, the things I cared most about. I would have transformed my behaviour, my habits, lost in his charismatic slipstream. I would have become a corporate wife, blaming myself for the bits of me that wouldn’t fit, never-endingly grateful for this Will in American form.

I didn’t think about Sam. I’d become very good at that.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘when you get to my age, the pile of regrets becomes so huge it can obscure the view terribly.’

She kept her eyes fixed on the horizon and I waited, wondering who she was addressing.

Three weeks passed uneventfully after we returned from Montauk. My life no longer felt as if it held any real certainties at all, so I had decided to live as Will had told me, simply existing in each moment, until my hand was forced again. At some point, I supposed, Margot would be either unwell enough or in debt enough that our contented little bubble would pop and I would have to book my flight home.

Until then, it was not an unpleasant way to live. The routines that punctuated my day gave me pleasure – my runs around Central Park, my strolls with Dean Martin, preparing the evening meal for Margot, even if she didn’t eat much, and our now joint nightly viewing of Wheel of Fortune, shouting letters at the Mystery Wedges. I upped my wardrobe game, embracing my New York self with a series of looks that left Lydia and her sister slack-jawed in admiration. Sometimes I wore things that Margot lent me, and sometimes I wore things I had bought from the Emporium. Every day I stood in front of the mirror in Margot’s spare room and surveyed the racks I was allowed to pick from, and a part of me sparked with joy.

I had work, of sorts, doing shifts for the girls at the Vintage Clothes Emporium while Angelica was away doing a sweep of a women’s garment factory in Palm Springs that had apparently kept samples of every item it had made since 1952. I manned the till alongside Lydia, helping pale-skinned young girls into vintage prom dresses and praying the zips would hold, while she reorganized the layout of the racks and fretted noisily about the amount of wasted space in their outlet. ‘You know what square footage costs now, around here?’ she said, shaking her head at our lone rotating rail in the far corner. ‘Seriously. I would be letting that corner as valet parking if we could work out how to get the cars in.’

I thanked a customer who had just bought a sequined tulle bolero and slammed the till drawer shut. ‘So why don’t you let it? To a shop or something? It would give you more income.’

‘Yeah, we’ve talked about it. It’s complicated. As soon as you’ve got other retailers involved you need to build a partition and separate access and get insurance, and then you don’t know who you got coming in at all hours … Strangers in our stuff. It’s too risky.’ She chewed her gum and blew a bubble, popping it absently with a purple-nailed finger. ‘Plus, you know, we don’t like anybody.’

‘Louisa!’ Ashok was standing on the carpet and clapped his gloved hands together as I arrived home. ‘You coming to ours next Saturday? Meena wants to know.’

‘Is the protest still on?’

The two previous Saturdays I couldn’t help but notice there had been a distinct dwindling of the numbers. The hopes of local residents were almost non-existent now. The chanting had become half-hearted as the city’s budgets tightened, the seasoned protesters slowly drifting away. Months after the action had started, just our little core remained, Meena rallying everyone with bottles of water and insisting it wasn’t over till it was over.

‘It’s still happening. You know my wife.’

‘Then I’d love to. Thank you. Tell her I’ll bring dessert.’

‘You got it.’ He made a happy mm-mm sound to himself at the prospect of good food, and called as I reached the elevator, ‘Hey!’

‘What?’

‘Nice threads, lady.’

That day I was dressed in homage to Desperately Seeking Susan. I wore a purple silk bomber jacket with a rainbow embroidered on the back, leggings, layered vests and an armful of bangles, which had made a pleasing jangle each time I’d whacked the till drawer shut (it wouldn’t close properly unless you did).

‘You know,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe you used to wear that golf shirt combo when you were working for the Gopniks. That was so not you.’

I hesitated as the lift door opened. I refused to use the service lift, these days. ‘You know what, Ashok? You’re so right.’

Out of deference to her status as homeowner, I always knocked before I let myself into Margot’s apartment, even though I had had a key for months. There was no response the first time and I had to check my reflexive panic, telling myself that she often had the radio on loudly, that Ashok would have let me know if anything was wrong. Finally I let myself in. Dean Martin came skittering up the hallway to greet me, his eyes askew with joy at my arrival. I picked him up, and let his wrinkled nose snuffle all over my face.

‘Yes, hello, you. Hello, you. Where’s your mum, then?’ I put him down and he yapped and ran in excited circles. ‘Margot? Margot, where are you?’

She came out of the living room in her Chinese silk dressing-gown.

‘Margot! Are you not well?’ I dropped my bag and ran to her, but she held up a palm.

‘Louisa, something miraculous has happened.’

My response popped out of my mouth before I had a chance to stop it. ‘You’re getting better?’

‘No, no, no. Come in. Come in! Come and meet my son.’ She turned before I could speak and disappeared back into the living room. I walked in behind her and a tall man in a pastel sweater, the beginnings of a belly straining over his belt buckle, rose from a chair and reached across to shake my hand.

‘This is Frank Junior, my son. Frank, this is my dear friend Louisa Clark, without whom I could not have made it through the past few months.’

I tried to cover my feeling of wrong-footedness. ‘Oh. Uh. It – it was mutual.’ I leant over to shake the hand of the woman beside him, who wore a white roll-neck sweater and had the kind of pale candyfloss hair that she might have spent a lifetime trying to control.

‘I’m Laynie,’ she said, and her voice was high, like one of those women who had never been able to let go of girlishness. ‘Frank’s wife. I believe we have you to thank for our little family reunion.’ She dabbed at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. Her nose was tinged pink, like she had recently been crying.

Margot reached out a hand to me. ‘So it turns out Vincent, the deceitful little wretch, told his father about our meetings and my – my situation.’

‘Yes, the deceitful little wretch would indeed be me,’ said Vincent, appearing at the door with a tray. He looked relaxed and happy. ‘Nice to see you again, Louisa.’ I nodded, a half smile now fixed on my face.

It was so odd seeing people in the apartment. I was used to the quiet, to it being just me, Margot and Dean Martin, not Vincent in his checked shirt and Paul Smith tie coming through bearing our dinner tray, and the tall man with his legs concertinaed against the coffee table and the woman who kept gazing around the living room with slightly startled eyes, as if she had never been anywhere like this before.

‘They surprised me, you know.’ Margot told me, her voice croaking a little, like someone who had already talked too much. ‘He called up to say he was passing and I thought it was just Vincent and then the door opened a little wider and, well, I can’t … You must all think me so shocking. I hadn’t even got round to getting dressed, had I? I’d quite forgotten until just now. But we have had the loveliest afternoon. I can’t begin to tell you.’ Margot reached out her other hand and her son took it, and squeezed it. His chin quivered a little with suppressed emotion.

‘Oh, it really has been magical,’ said Laynie. ‘We have so much to catch up on. I honestly think this was the Lord’s work bringing us all together.’

‘Well, Him and Facebook,’ said Vincent. ‘Would you like some coffee, Louisa? There’s some left in the pot. I just brought some cookies out in case Margot wanted to eat something.’

‘She won’t eat those,’ I said, before I could stop myself.

‘Oh, she’s quite right. I don’t eat cookies, Vincent dear. Those are really for Dean Martin. The chocolate drops aren’t actual chocolate, see?’

Margot barely drew breath. She seemed completely transformed. It was as if she’d lost a decade overnight. The brittle light behind her eyes had gone, replaced by something soft, and she couldn’t stop talking, her tone babbling and merry.

I backed towards the door. ‘Well, I … don’t want to get in the way. I’m sure you all have a lot to discuss. Margot, give me a shout when you need me.’ I stood, waving my hands uselessly. ‘It’s lovely to meet you all. I’m so pleased for you.’

‘We think it would be the right thing if Mom came back with us,’ said Frank Junior.

There was a brief silence.

‘Came back where?’ I said.

‘To Tuckahoe,’ said Laynie. ‘To our home.’

‘For how long?’ I said.

They looked at each other.

‘I mean how long will she be staying? Just so I can pack for her.’

Frank Junior was still holding his mother’s hand. ‘Miss Clark, we’ve lost a lot of time, Mom and I. And we both think it would be a fine thing if we could make the most of what we have. So we need to make … arrangements.’ The words held a hint of possession, as if he were already telling me of his greater claim over her.

I looked at Margot, who looked back at me, clear-eyed and serene. ‘That’s right,’ she said.

‘Hold on. You want to leave …’ I said, and, when nobody spoke, ‘… here? The apartment?’

Vincent’s expression was sympathetic. He turned to his father. ‘Why don’t we head out for now, Dad?’ he said. ‘Everyone has a lot to process. We certainly have a lot to work out. And I think Louisa and Grandma need to have a talk too.’

He touched my shoulder lightly as he left. It felt like an apology.

‘You know, I thought Frank’s wife was actually quite pleasant, though not a clue how to dress, poor thing. He had such awful girlfriends when he was younger, according to my mother. She wrote me letters for a while describing them. But a white cotton turtle-neck. Can you imagine the horror? A white turtle-neck.’

The memory of this travesty – or perhaps the speed at which Margot was talking – brought on a bout of coughing. I fetched a glass of water and waited until she recovered. They had left within minutes after Vincent had spoken up. I got the feeling it was done at his urging, and that neither of his parents really wanted to leave Margot.

I sat down on the chair. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘This must all seem very sudden to you. It was just the most extraordinary thing, Louisa dear. We talked and talked, and we may even have shed a tear or two. He’s just the same! It was like we’d never been apart. He’s the same – so serious and quiet but actually quite gentle, just as he was as a boy. And that wife of his is just the same – but then, out of the blue, they asked me to come and stay with them. I got the distinct feeling they had all discussed it before they came. And I said I would.’ She looked up at me. ‘Oh, come on, you and I know it won’t be for ever. There is a very nice place two miles from their home that I can move to when it all becomes too difficult.’

‘Difficult?’ I whispered.

‘Louisa, don’t get all sappy on me again, for heaven’s sake. When I can’t do things for myself. When I’m properly unwell. Honestly, I don’t imagine I’ll be with my son for more than a few months. I suspect that’s why they felt so comfortable asking me.’ She let out a dry chuckle.

‘But – but I don’t understand. You said you’d never leave this place. I mean, what about all your things? You can’t just go.’

She gave me a look. ‘That’s exactly what I can do.’ She took a breath, her bony old chest lifting painfully underneath the soft fabric. ‘I’m dying, Louisa. I’m an old woman and I’m not going to get an awful lot older, and my son, who I thought was lost to me, has been gracious enough to swallow his pain and his pride and reach out. Can you imagine? Can you imagine what it is to have someone do that for you?’

I thought of Frank Junior, his eyes on his mother, their chairs pressed together, his hand holding hers tightly.

‘Why on earth would I choose to stay in this place a moment longer if I have a chance to spend time with him? To wake up and see him over breakfast and chat about all the things I’ve missed and see his children … and Vincent … dear Vincent. Do you know he has a brother? I have two grandchildren. Two! Anyway. I got to say sorry to my son. Do you know how important that was? I got to say sorry. Oh, Louisa, you can hang on to your hurt out of some misplaced sense of pride, or you can just let go and relish whatever precious time you have.’

She placed her hands firmly on her knees. ‘So that’s what I plan to do.’

‘But you can’t. You can’t just go.’ I had started to cry. I’m not sure where it came from.

‘Oh, darling girl, I do hope you’re not going to fuss about it. Now, now. No tears, please. I have a favour to ask.’

I wiped my nose.

‘This is the difficult bit.’ She swallowed, with some effort. ‘They won’t take Dean Martin. They’re very apologetic but there are allergies or some such. And I was going to tell them not to be ridiculous and that he had to come with me but, to be honest, I’ve been rather anxious about what will happen to him, you know, after I’ve gone. He’s got years left, after all. Certainly a lot longer than I have.

‘So … I wondered whether you would take him for me. He seems to like you. Goodness knows why after how dreadfully you used to cart the poor creature around. The animal must be the very soul of forgiveness.’

I stared at her through my tears. ‘You want me to take Dean Martin?’

‘I do.’

I looked down at the little dog, who waited expectantly at her feet.

‘I’m asking you, as my friend, if … if you would consider it. For me.’

She was peering at me intently, her pale eyes scanning mine, her lips pursed. My face crumpled. I was glad for her, but I felt heartbroken at the thought of losing her. I didn’t want to be on my own again.

‘Yes.’

‘You will?’

‘Of course.’ And then I started to cry again.

Margot sagged with relief. ‘Oh, I knew you would. I knew it. And I know you’ll take care of him.’ She smiled, for once not scolding me for my tears, and leant forward, her fingers closing over my hand. ‘You’re that kind of person.’

They came two weeks later to take her away. I had thought it faintly indecent haste, but I supposed that none of us was sure quite how much time she had left.

Frank Junior had paid off the mountain of management charges – a situation that could be seen as only slightly less altruistic when you realized that this meant he could inherit the apartment rather than it being claimed by Mr Ovitz – but Margot chose to see it as an act of love and I had no reason not to do the same. He certainly seemed happy to have her with him again. The couple fussed over her, checking she was okay, that she had all her medication, that she wasn’t too tired or dizzy or feeling unwell or in need of water, until she flapped her hands and rolled her eyes in mock irritation. But she was going through the motions. She had barely stopped talking about him since she had told me.

I was to stay and look after the place ‘for the foreseeable’, according to Frank Junior. I think that meant until Margot died, although nobody said it out loud. Apparently the realtor had said that nobody would want to rent it as it stood, and it was a little unseemly to gut it before the ‘foreseeable’ so I had been awarded the role of temporary caretaker. Margot also made the point several times that it would help Dean Martin to have some stability while he adjusted to his new situation. I’m not sure Frank Junior felt that the dog’s mental wellbeing was quite as high on his own list of concerns.

She took only two suitcases and wore one of her favourite suits to travel, the jade bouclé jacket and skirt with the matching pillbox hat. I dressed it with a midnight blue Saint-Laurent scarf knotted around her narrow neck, to disguise the way it now emerged, painfully bony, from her collar, and dug out the turquoise cabochon earrings as a final touch. I worried that she might be too hot but she seemed to have grown ever tinier and frailer and complained of cold even on the warmest of days. I stood on the sidewalk outside, Dean Martin in my arms, watching as her son and Vincent oversaw the packing up of her cases. She checked that they had her jewellery boxes – she planned to give some of the more valuable items to Frank Junior’s wife, and some to Vincent ‘for when he gets married’ and then, apparently satisfied that they were safely stowed, she walked over to me slowly, leaning heavily on her stick. ‘Now. Dear. I’ve left you a letter with all my instructions. I haven’t told Ashok I’m going – I don’t want any fuss. But I have left a little something for him in the kitchen. I’d be grateful if you could pass it on once we’re gone.’

I nodded.

‘I’ve written everything you need for Dean Martin in a separate letter. It’s very important that you stick to his routine. It’s how he likes things.’

‘You mustn’t worry. I’ll make sure he’s happy.’

‘And none of those liver treats. He begs for them but they do make him sick.’

‘No liver treats.’

Margot coughed, perhaps with the effort of talking, and waited for a moment until she could be sure of her breath. She steadied herself on her cane and looked up at the building that had housed her for more than half a century, holding up a frail hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Then she turned stiffly and surveyed Central Park, the view that had been hers for so long.

Frank Junior was calling from the car, stooping so that he could see us more clearly. His wife stood beside the passenger door in her pale blue windbreaker, her hands pressed together with anxiety. She was apparently not a woman who liked the big city.

‘Mom?’

‘One moment, thank you, dear.’

Margot moved so that she stood directly in front of me. She reached out a hand, and as I held him, she stroked his head, three, four times with her thin, marbled fingers. ‘You’re a good fellow, aren’t you, Dean Martin?’ she said softly. ‘A very good fellow.’

The dog gazed back at her, rapt.

‘You really are the most handsome boy.’ Her voice cracked on the last word.

The dog licked her palm and she stepped forward and kissed his wrinkled forehead, her eyes closing and her lips pressed to him just a moment too long so that his wonky eyes bulged and his paws paddled against her. Her face sagged momentarily.

‘I – I could bring him to see you.’

She kept her face to his, her eyes shut, oblivious to the noise and the traffic and the people around her.

‘Did you hear what I said, Margot? I mean once you’re settled we could get the train out and –’

She straightened up and opened her eyes, glancing down for a moment.

‘No. Thank you.’

Before I could say anything else, she turned away. ‘Now, take him for a walk, please, dear. I don’t want him to see me go.’

Her son had climbed out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, waiting. He offered her a hand but she waved him away. I thought I saw her blink back tears, but it was hard to tell as my own eyes seemed to be streaming.

‘Thank you, Margot,’ I called. ‘For everything.’

She shook her head, her lips set. ‘Now go. Please, dear.’ She turned towards the car just as her son approached, his hand outstretched towards her, and I don’t know what she did next because I put Dean Martin on the sidewalk as she had told me and walked briskly towards Central Park, my head down, ignoring the stares of the curious people wondering why a girl in glittery hot-pants and a purple silk bomber jacket was crying openly at eleven o’clock in the morning.

I walked for as long as Dean Martin’s little legs could stand. And then when he stopped, mutinously, near the Azalea Pond, his tiny pink tongue hanging out and one eye drooping slightly, I picked him up and carried him, my eyes swollen with tears, my chest one breath away from another racking sob.

I have never really been an animal person. But I suddenly understood what comfort could be gained from burying your face in the soft pelt of another creature, the consolation of the many small tasks that you’re obliged to perform for its welfare.

‘Mrs De Witt off on vacation?’ Ashok was behind his desk as I entered, my head down and my blue plastic sunglasses on.

I didn’t have the energy to tell him just yet. ‘Yup.’

‘She never told me to cancel her papers. I’d better get on to it.’ He shook his head, reaching for a ledger. ‘Know when she’s coming home?’

‘Let me get back to you.’

I walked upstairs slowly, the little dog not moving in my arms, as if he were afraid that if he did he might be asked to use his legs again. And then I let myself into the apartment.

It was dead silent, already shot through with her absence in a way it had never been when she was in the hospital, dust motes settling in the still, warm air. In a matter of months, I thought, somebody else would live here, tearing off the 1960s wallpaper, scrapping the smoked-glass furniture. It would be transformed, redesigned, a bolthole for busy executives or a terrifyingly wealthy family with small children. The thought of it made me feel hollow inside.

I gave Dean Martin some water and a handful of kibble as a treat, then made my way slowly through the apartment, with its clothes and its hats and its walls of memories, and told myself not to think about the sad things but about the delight on the old woman’s face at the prospect of living out her days with her only child. It was a joy that had been transformative, lifting her tired features and making her eyes shine. It made me wonder how much all this stuff, all this memorabilia, had been her way of insulating herself from the lengthy pain of his absence.

Margot De Witt, style queen, fashion editor extraordinaire, woman ahead of her time, had built a wall, a lovely, gaudy, multi-coloured wall, to tell herself it had all been for something. And the moment he had returned to her she had demolished it without a backward glance.

Some time later, when my tears had slowed to intermittent hiccups, I picked the first envelope off the table and opened it. It was written in Margot’s beautiful, looping script, a remnant of an age when children were judged by their penmanship. As promised, it contained details of the little dog’s preferred diet, times of eating, veterinary needs, vaccinations, flea-prevention and worming schedules. It told me where to find his various winter coats – there were different ones for rain, wind and snow – and his favourite brand of shampoo. He would also require his teeth descaling, his ears cleaning and – I winced – his anal glands emptying.

‘She didn’t tell me that when she asked me to take you on,’ I said to him, and he lifted his head, groaned and lowered it again.

Further on, she gave details of where any post should be forwarded, the contact details for the packing company – the items they were not to take were to remain in her bedroom and I should write a note and pin it to the door to tell them not to enter. All the furniture, the lamps, the curtains could go. Her son’s and daughter-in-law’s cards were in the envelope, should I wish to reach them for further clarification.

And now to the important things. Louisa, I didn’t thank you in person for finding Vincent – the act of civil disobedience that has brought me so much unexpected happiness – but I’d like to thank you now. And for looking after Dean Martin. There are few people I would trust to do as I ask, and love him as I do, but you are one of them.

Louisa, you are a treasure. You were always too discreet to tell me the details but do not let whatever happened with that foolish family next door dim your light. You are a courageous, gorgeous, tremendously kind little creature and I shall be for ever grateful that their loss has been my gain. Thank you.

It is in the spirit of thanks that I’d like to offer you my wardrobe. To anyone else – except perhaps your rather mercenary friends at that disgusting clothes store – this would be junk. I am well aware of that. But you see my clothes for what they are. Do with them what you want – keep some, sell some, whatever. But I know you will take pleasure in them.

Here are my thoughts – though I’m well aware nobody really wants the thoughts of an old woman. Set up your own agency. Hire them out, or sell them. Those girls seemed to think there was money in it – well, it strikes me that this would be the perfect career for you. There should be enough there for you to start some sort of enterprise. Though, of course, you may have other ideas for your future, far better ones. Will you let me know what you decide?

Anyway, dear roommate, I will look forward to receiving news. Please kiss that little dog for me. I miss him so terribly already.

With fondest regards,

Margot

I put down the letter and sat motionless in the kitchen for a while, then walked through to Margot’s bedroom and the dressing room beyond it, surveying the bulging racks, outfit after outfit.

A clothes agency? I knew nothing about business, nothing about premises or accounts or dealing with the public. I was living in a city whose rules I didn’t entirely understand, with no permanent address, and I had failed in pretty much every job I had ever held. Why on earth would Margot believe that I could set up a whole new enterprise?

I ran my fingers down a midnight blue velvet sleeve, then pulled out the garment: Halston, a jumpsuit, slashed almost to the waist, with a mesh insert. I put it back carefully and took out a dress – white broderie anglaise, its skirts a mass of ruffles. I walked along that first rail, stunned, daunted. I had only just begun to absorb the responsibility of owning a dog. What was I supposed to do with three rooms full of clothes?

That night I sat in Margot’s apartment and turned on Wheel of Fortune. I ate the remains of a chicken I had roasted for her last dinner (I suspect she had sneaked most of hers under the table to the dog). I didn’t hear what Vanna White said, or shout out letters at the Mystery Wedges. I thought about what Margot had said to me, and wondered about the person she had seen.

Who was Louisa Clark, anyway?

I was a daughter, a sister, a kind of surrogate mother for a time. I was a woman who cared for others but who seemed to have little idea, even now, how to care for herself. As the glittering wheel spun in front of me, I tried to think about what I really wanted, rather than what everyone else seemed to want for me. I thought about what Will had really been telling me – not to live some vicarious idea of a full life but to live my own dream. The problem was, I don’t think I’d ever really worked out what that dream was.

I thought of Agnes across the corridor, a woman trying to convince everyone that she could shoehorn herself into a new life while some fundamental part of her refused to stop mourning the role she had left behind. I thought of my sister, her new-found contentment once she had taken the step of understanding who she really was. The way she had stepped so easily into love once she allowed herself to do so. I thought of my mother, a woman so moulded by looking after other people that she no longer knew what to do when she was freed.

I thought of the three men I had loved, and how each of them had changed me, or tried to. Will had left himself indubitably imprinted on me. I had seen everything through the prism of what he had wanted for me. I would have changed for you too, Will. And now I understand – you probably knew that all along.

Live boldly, Clark.

‘Good luck!’ shouted the Wheel of Fortune host, and spun again.

And I realised what I really wanted to do.

I spent the next three days collating Margot’s wardrobe, sorting the clothing into different sections: six different decades, and within those, daywear, evening wear, special occasion. I took out everything that needed repairing in any small way – buttons missing, gaps in lace, tiny holes – marvelling at how she had managed to avoid moths, and how many seams were not stretched, still perfectly aligned. I held pieces up against myself, tried things on, lifting off plastic covers and letting out little noises of delight and awe that made Dean Martin prick up his ears, then walk away in disgust. I went to the public library and spent half a day looking up everything to do with starting a small business, tax requirements, grants, paperwork, and printed out a file that grew day by day. Then I took a trip to the Vintage Clothes Emporium with Dean Martin and sat down with the girls to ask the best places to get delicate items dry-cleaned, and the names of the best haberdashers to find silk lining fabric for repair.

They were agog at the news of Margot’s gift. ‘We could take the whole lot off you,’ said Lydia, blowing a smoke ring upwards. ‘I mean, for something like that we could get a bank loan. Right? We’d give you a good price. Enough for a deposit on a really nice rental! We’ve had a lot of interest from this television company in Germany. They’ve got a twenty-four-episode multigenerational series that they want to –’

‘Thanks, but I haven’t decided what I want to do with it all yet,’ I said, trying not to notice their faces fall. I already felt a little protective about those clothes. I leant forward over the counter. ‘But I have had another idea …’

The following morning I was trying on a 1970 green ‘Judy’ Ossie Clark trouser suit, checking for rotting seams or tiny holes, when the doorbell rang. ‘Hold on, Ashok. Hold on! Let me just grab the dog,’ I called, scooping him up as he barked furiously at the door.

Michael stood in front of me.

‘Hello,’ I said, coldly, when I had recovered from the shock. ‘Is there a problem?’

He struggled not to raise an eyebrow at my outfit. ‘Mr Gopnik would like to see you.’

‘I’m here legitimately. Mrs De Witt invited me to stay on.’

‘It’s not about that. I don’t know what it is, to tell you the truth. But he wants to talk to you about something.’

‘I don’t really want to talk to him, Michael. But thanks anyway.’ I made to close the door but he put his foot in it, stopping me. I looked down at it. Dean Martin let out a low growl.

‘Louisa. You know what he’s like. He said I wasn’t to leave until you agreed.’

‘Tell him to walk down the corridor himself then. It’s hardly far.’

He lowered his voice. ‘He doesn’t want to see you here. He wants to see you at his office. In private.’ He looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable, as someone might, who had professed they were your best friend, then dropped you like a hot stone.

‘Tell him I might come by later this morning then. When Dean Martin and I have had our walk.’

Still he didn’t move.

‘What?’

He looked almost pleading. ‘The car is waiting outside.’

I brought Dean Martin. He was a useful distraction from my vague sense of anxiety. Michael sat beside me in the limousine and Dean Martin glared at him and at the back of the driver’s seat simultaneously. I sat in silence, wondering what on earth Mr Gopnik was going to do now. If he had decided to press charges surely he would have sent the police, rather than his car. Had he waited deliberately until Margot had gone? Had he uncovered other things I was about to be blamed for? I thought of Steven Lipkott and the pregnancy test and wondered what my response would be if he asked point blank what I knew. Will had always said I had the worst poker face. I practised in my head, I know nothing, until Michael shot me a sharp look and I realized I’d started saying it out loud.

We were discharged in front of a huge glass building. Michael walked briskly through the cavernous, marble-clad lobby, but I refused to hurry and instead let Dean Martin amble along at his own pace even though I could tell it infuriated Michael. He collected a pass from security, handed it to me, then directed me towards a separate lift near the back of the lobby – Mr Gopnik was plainly too important to travel up and down with the rest of his staff.

We went up to the forty-sixth floor, travelling at a speed that made my eyes bulge almost as much as Dean Martin’s, and I tried to hide the slight wobble in my legs as I stepped out into the hushed silence of the offices. A secretary, immaculately dressed in a tailored suit and spiked heels, did a double-take at me – I guessed they didn’t get too many people dressed in 1970s emerald Ossie Clark trouser suits with red satin trim, clutching furious small dogs. I followed Michael along a corridor to another office, in which sat another woman, also immaculately dressed in her office uniform.

‘I have Miss Clark to see Mr Gopnik, Diane,’ he said.

She nodded, and lifted a phone, murmuring something into it. ‘He’ll see you now,’ she said, with a small smile.

Michael pointed me towards the door. ‘Do you want me to take the dog?’ he said. He was plainly desperate for me not to take the dog.

‘No. Thank you,’ I said, holding Dean Martin a little tighter to me.

The door opened and there stood Leonard Gopnik in his shirtsleeves.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ he said, closing the door behind him. He gestured towards a seat on the other side of the desk and walked slowly around it. I noticed his limp was pronounced and wondered what Nathan was doing with him. He always was too discreet to discuss it.

I said nothing.

He sat down heavily in his chair. He looked tired, I noticed, the expensive tan unable to hide the shadows under his eyes, the strain lines at their edges.

‘You’re taking your duties very seriously,’ he said, gesturing at the dog.

‘I always do,’ I said, and he nodded, as if that were a fair comeback.

Then he leant forward over the desk and steepled his fingers. ‘I’m not someone, Louisa, used to finding myself lost for words, but … I confess I am right now. I discovered something two days ago. Something which has left me rather shaken.’

He looked up at me. I looked steadily back at him, my expression a study in neutrality.

‘My daughter Tabitha had become … suspicious about some things she’d heard and put a private investigator on the case. This is not something I’m particularly happy about – we are not, as a family, prone to investigating each other. But when she told me what the gentleman had found, it was not something I could ignore. I talked to Agnes about it and she has told me everything.’

I waited.

‘The child.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

He sighed. ‘During these rather – extensive discussions, she also explained about the piano, the money for which, I understand, you were under instruction to remove in increments, day by day, from a nearby ATM.’

‘Yes, Mr Gopnik,’ I said.

He lowered his head as if he had hoped against hope that I might dispute the facts, tell him it was all nonsense, that the private investigator was talking rubbish.

Finally he sat back heavily in his chair. ‘We appear to have done you a great wrong, Louisa.’

‘I’m not a thief, Mr Gopnik.’

‘Plainly. And yet, out of loyalty to my wife, you were prepared to let me believe you were.’

I wasn’t sure if it was a criticism. ‘I didn’t feel like I had a choice.’

‘Oh, you did. You absolutely did.’

We sat in the cool office in silence for a few moments. He tapped on his desk with his fingers.

‘Louisa, I have spent much of the night trying to figure out how I can put this situation right. And I’d like to make you an offer.’

I waited.

‘I’d like to give you your job back. You will, of course, receive better terms – longer holidays, a pay rise, significantly improved benefits. If you would rather not live on site, we can arrange accommodation nearby.’

‘A job?’

‘Agnes hasn’t found anyone she likes half as much as she liked you. You have more than proven yourself, and I’m immensely grateful for your … loyalty and your continued discretion. The girl we took on after you has been … well, she’s not up to it. Agnes doesn’t like her. She considered you more of … of a friend.’

I looked down at the dog. He looked up at me. He seemed distinctly unimpressed. ‘Mr Gopnik, that’s very flattering but I don’t think I would feel comfortable working as Agnes’s assistant now.’

‘There are other positions, positions within my organization. I understand that you do not have another job yet.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘There’s not a lot goes on in my building that I don’t know about, Louisa. Usually, at least.’ He allowed himself a wry smile. ‘Look, we have openings in our marketing and administrative departments. I could ask Human Resources to bypass certain entry requirements and we could offer you training. Or I would be prepared to create a position in my philanthropic arm if you felt that was something you were interested in. What do you say?’ He sat back, one arm on his desk, his ebonized pen loose in his hand.

An image of this alternative life swam before my eyes – me, dressed in a suit, headed to work each day in these vast glass offices. Louisa Clark, earning a big salary, living somewhere I could afford. A New Yorker. Not looking after anyone, for once, just pushing upwards, the sky limitless above me. It would be a whole new life, a real shot at the American Dream.

I thought of my family’s pride if I said yes.

I thought of a scruffy warehouse downtown, filled to the brim with other people’s old clothes. ‘Mr Gopnik, again, I’m very flattered. But I don’t think so.’

His expression hardened. ‘So you do want money.’

I blinked.

‘We live in a litigious society, Louisa. I am conscious that you hold highly sensitive information about my family. If it’s a lump sum you’re after, we’ll talk about it. I can bring my lawyer into the discussion.’ He leant over and put his finger on the intercom. ‘Diane, can you –’

It was at this point that I stood. I lowered Dean Martin gently to the floor. ‘Mr Gopnik, I don’t want your money. If I’d wanted to sue you or – or make money from your secrets I would have done it weeks ago, when I was left without a job or anywhere to live. You’ve misjudged me now as you misjudged me back then. And I’d like to leave now.’

He took his finger off the phone. ‘Please … sit. I didn’t mean to offend you.’ He motioned to the chair. ‘Please, Louisa. I need to get this matter sorted out.’

He didn’t trust me. I saw now that Mr Gopnik lived in a world where money and status were prized so far above everything else that it was inconceivable to him that somebody wouldn’t try to extract some, given the opportunity.

‘You want me to sign something,’ I said coolly.

‘I want to know your price.’

And then it occurred to me. Perhaps I did have one, after all.

I sat down again, and after a moment I told him, and for the first time in the nine months that we’d met, he looked properly surprised. ‘That’s what you want?’

‘That’s what I want. I don’t care how you do it.’

He leant back in his chair, and placed his hands behind his head. He looked off to the side, thinking for a moment, then turned back to me. ‘I rather wish you would come back and work for me, Louisa Clark,’ he said. And then he smiled, for the first time, and reached across the desk to shake my hand.

‘Letter for you,’ said Ashok, as I walked in. Mr Gopnik had instructed that the car should bring me home and I had asked the driver to drop me two blocks away so that Dean Martin could stretch his legs. I was still shaking from the encounter. I felt light-headed, elated, as if I were capable of anything. Ashok had to call twice before I registered what he’d said.

‘For me?’ I stared down at the address – I couldn’t think who knew I was living at Mrs De Witt’s aside from my parents, and my mother always liked to email me to tell me that she’d written me a letter just so I could keep a look out.

I ran upstairs, gave Dean Martin a drink, then sat down to open it. The handwriting was unfamiliar so I flicked the letter over. It was written on cheap copier paper, in black ink, and there were a couple of crossings-out, as if the writer had struggled with what he wanted to say.

Sam.