“If you’ll allow me, Mr Lucas,” he said, reaching past me and giving the door next to the intercom a solid push. It creaked open and I shouldered my way past with a muttered ‘thanks’. So,thiswas how Henry got in. Not exactly the most secure building in London. For some reason, the thought of tiny Kira living in a block of flats in Brixton with a defunct intercom and no security whatsoever was giving me the kind of heartburn I usually only associated with parliamentary speeches. Christ, over the last few weeks this woman had introduced more stress into my life than all the stubborn idiots in the Cabinet put together.
I took the stairs two at a time, trying and failing to ignore the faint smell of urine, then I stopped outside a purple door. Ofcourseher door would be purple. I knocked and it simply swung open. Scowling at the useless excuse for a door, I pushed through into the tiny cluttered corridor, which was jammed with vast assortments of colourful coats and shoes.
She hadtwopairs of psychedelic, flower-power wellies.Two pairs. She lived in London for fuck’s sake – who needs two pairs of wellies in London? I managed to squeeze past all the clutter, and ducked down to avoid the light fitting that dangled from the low ceiling. I felt my head tighten as the migraine ratched up a notch – I’d better get this over quickly. Laughter was coming from behind the door at the end of the corridor, so I strode over and yanked it open.
“Pizza!” Kira cried as she jumped up from sitting with her hands straight up in the air and turned to me. Her face dropped when she saw who was actually filling the doorway. Her hands fell to her hips. “Oh,” she said, pressing her lips together and flicking a glance over to Henry. “If you’re doing a big brother check-up, Henry’s fine.” She sank back down onto the massive furry . . . blob in between Camilla and Libby, two of the women from that poker night, so that she was facing away from me. I sucked in a deep breath and took a moment to survey the living room-come-kitchen.
Beanbags.
The place was full of beanbags. The purple furry one that the girls were sharing was just the tip of the iceberg. Henry was sprawled over a neon yellow one. Another two girls from the book club, I think their names were Tara and Claire, the exotic dancers if I remembered rightly, were sharing a leopard print one. The surgeon guy, Martakis, and the huge camp man, Mark, both had their own bags in the same pattern as Kira’s crazy wellingtons. A guy I didn’t recognise was sitting on the only piece of furniture in the room – a small straight-backed chair, which was painted the same purple as the beanbags. In the middle of the circle of beanbags, there was a large bowl full of Wotsits and a collection of beer bottles.
Large swaths of ethnic patterned material hung from the walls. Interspersed amongst the material, there was space made for mismatched frames containing photos. Some were of scenery – the African savanna, Mayan ruins, colourful Indian streets; some were of people, including a younger Kira in school uniform hugging Libby, a more recent picture of a whole group of them at Camilla and Pavlos’s wedding, then one of Kira with a couple of young kids. But the largest was of Kira standing with her arms around a woman who must have been her mother; she was in a flowing Kaftan and had the same auburn hair as Kira, except she had streaks of grey rather than pink. They were both beaming at the camera. In the background, I could make out a stage and other indications that they were at some sort of music festival.
My eyes flicked around the rest of the room. There were candles burning everywhere. The first thought that went through my mind wasfire risk. The second was that between the heady heat of the candles and the general colour explosion that was going on, this room was a recipe for either an epileptic fit, or (appropriately enough) a migraine.
“What are you doing here?” Henry asked, pushing up off his beanbag and walking over to usher me back out into the corridor. “Listen,” he said in a low voice once he was in front of me. “I told you she doesn’t want to see you. I know you worry about me, but I’mfine.”
I let out a huff and raised my eyebrows.
“Okay, okay. I’mgoingto be fine. I like these people. My old friends …” Henry trailed off and shook his head. “I just can’t . . . I’m not ready to see them yet. So, don’t come here and fuck this up for me, okay?”
I clenched my jaw in annoyance. Henry wouldn’t even have Kira et al in his life in the first place if it weren’t for my efforts. All of that had been conveniently forgotten, as so often happened with the youngest Lucas. But Henrywaslooking better. There was no denying the change in him, and the last thing I wanted was to ‘fuck it up’. I didn’t bother to tell Henry that the logistics of even getting him to Brixton so he could sit on a ridiculous beanbag in a tiny hippie hovel had been seriously painful. When Henry had announced that Kira ‘no longer felt comfortable’ coming to the house, in order to ferry him around I’d had to hire an entirely new security team with very little notice. Of course, Henry didn’t know that. Henry, who hadn’t left the house in months, other than to go to the hospital, wasn’t aware of any need for security. He just took one of my town cars with a driver as he often had done, even before his downward spiral. The lazy bastard hated the tube and scoffed at my tendency to cycle to parliament, but was blissfully unaware of either the car that followed them, or the two guys who were right now hanging with my own security outside the building.
“I just need to talk to Kira,” I explained. “I’ve tried to apologise and I have no other way of getting in contact with her. The woman doesn’t seem to have a functioning mobile, and don’t get me started on her email.”
“You can start with a bloody good apology, right?”
I sighed and looked up at the ceiling in frustration. “I’mtryingto apologise, you prick. I’ve been trying to apologise for two bloody weeks. If you could get out of my goddamn way, I can try again.”
Henry eyed me for a moment and then gave a short nod.
“Just remember that you used to have a personality, right?” he said, bitterly. “Before all this politics stuff you were a bit of an uptight arsehole, but nothing compared to now.”
“Lovely. If you’ve finished slagging me off can we please get back into that tiny fire-disaster-waiting-to-happen so I can apologise to her and bloody well sort this out.” There was laughter and a couple of shouts coming from behind the door. Henry smirked at me, the spark I hadn’t seen for such a long time back in his eyes.
“Not sure you can handle her, bro,” he told me, looking way too pleased with this revelation. “She’s a loose cannon.”
My fingers went up to rub the pounding at my temples. This was not going to be easy.
When we re-entered the room, I blinked, twice. The source of everyone’s amusement became clear. An upside-down Kira was performing a headstand in the middle of the beanbags. Her orange jumper had ridden up to expose her flat stomach, while her firework-patterned, legging-covered legs were peddling furiously to try to keep her balance. She collapsed as I pushed further into the room, both her legs falling onto Mark’s shoulders either side of his head. Everyone in the room applauded and Mark hauled her up into a sitting position in front of him. She turned to face me, collapsing back to use Mark as a human chair.
In general, I tended to be in control of my emotions – Mum often said I wastoocontrolled. But for some reason, the sight of Kira’s bare stomach a moment ago, and her red-faced, crazy-haired appearance now short-circuited my brain. My mouth fell open and I couldn’t seem to form words. Pure and simpleneedwashed over me. It felt savage, primal, and totally unfamiliar.
Mark’s arms closed around Kira and he gave her a squeeze; the gesture caused a wave of almost rage-level annoyance to sweep through me. I could hear my pulse beating in my ears. Mark, whom I was slowly learning not to underestimate, flicked a glance down at my white knuckles and cocked his head to the side, a curious smile quirking the corners of his mouth.
“Face it, Ki Ki,” Mark said, giving Kira’s temple a quick kiss. “You’ll never be Cirque du Soleil material.”
Kira was watching me, but she broke eye contact to elbow Mark in the stomach.
“That wasn’t the bet, you big fanny-badger. All I said was that I could do a headstand for ten seconds, and I did.”
“Actually, it was eight point seven five,” Millie’s quiet voice piped up from the sofa. Kira shot her a frustrated look. “Um . . .” Millie continued, shifting on the furry beanbag and biting her lip, “sorry, I meanttenpoint seven five . . . at least.”
“You’re a crap liar Prof X,” Kira said, but her tone was soft. “Don’t worry, I’ll just try it again.”
Anxious to prevent yet more stomach disclosure – Mark might be gay but the other two men staring at Kira certainly were not – I cleared my throat.
“I’m sorry to interrupt but I . . .” It appeared my brain was still non-functioning. You wouldn’t think that public speaking was a huge part of how I made my living. “I really need to speak to you for a moment, Dr Murphy.”
