Now that the search for a new home was complete – she’d lost entire evenings to viewing some tragic dumps: landlords must think people were desperate; Deni had begun to think she was – Deni swung her attention back to embracing as much of London life as she could…
Wake-up call didn’t even come close; it was more like a klaxon call for an exodus. Maybe it wasn’t on the scale of the Oscars gaffe, but it was in its own way serious and Marcus was solely accountable…
When a relationship ends, unless either party leaves town, you prepare to encounter your ex without notice. Even in London, where the population size means the odds are against it…
“Can you meet me at Victoria at six?” he’d said on Friday morning. “Thought I’d treat you to a weekend Brighton.” Bree had been ecstatic!
If you said Deni was out of her comfort zone, you’d be wrong because this year’s rule was to be at ease anywhere in London…
Marcus took another contemplative sip. “I’m still at the thinking stage. With Deni it was simple. The kitschest card, the sparkliest gift…
Crazy to think she wasn’t allowed a history, given the obligation to confront Marcus’s past on an almost daily basis. When Bree spent nights here in Brixton, she’d often overlap with Deni, his ex, who’d arrive for work just as Bree was leaving. Deni’s apologies about intruding sat uneasily because she didn’t come across as a regretful kind of person. She was confident and ambitious.
His work defined him. Deni usually introduced them as “Deni and Marcus from The London Idea,” with the emphasis on the magazine’s name. People misheard it as ‘ideal’ or ‘Idyll’ or even ‘Lidl’ – not that Marcus would have minded working for the supermarket chain which was about to start paying the living wage. He doubted he earned much more.
Back up from the café downstairs on a freezing cold February afternoon, Scott passed through reception, and stopped with a smile.
The day hadn’t started well. Deni’s train got pulled at Peterborough so she’d had to change, which led to delays not long enough to warrant compensation, but still resulting in a late arrival to Kings Cross. Then she’d made off with an unpaid-for Big Issue thinking it was only Time Out. When she realised her error she thrust some coins at a busker on the other side of Euston Road, hoping to restore some good karma.
