‘I can understand that.’
Rose scoffed. ‘Can you?’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said.
‘Do you enjoy it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This life,’ she said, holding her fingers up in quotation marks.
‘I think we need some wine first before we start asking the hard questions.’
He led her into the kitchen, which was the size of her bathroom at home. There were a few more dying houseplants on the counter and several water bottles with his name on them by the sink. The shelves were lined with vitamin jars, most of which looked empty.
‘Why do you live here?’ she found herself asking.
‘What?’ He looked shocked, popping the cork out of the bottle of wine.
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean …’ she trailed off.
‘It’s okay. I know it’s a dive. This is actually just the mews flat. The main house is across the courtyard over there …’ He pointed through the window.
All Rose could see was the back of a very tall, very cream building that must have been the house from the article. There were French windows throughout. It was hard to make out anything inside except for a few ladders and some paintings in ornate gold frames.
‘Picasso,’ said Milo from over her shoulder.
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Yes, Rose. I’m kidding.’
‘I paint, you know.’ She instantly regretted saying this.
‘Do you?’
‘I mean, I used to. I went to art college.’
‘You continue to surprise me, Rose.’
‘I could say the same about you,’ she replied, gesturing around his student digs.
‘Look, Sasspot, I only just bought the place. It’s one of those old draughty Victorian townhouses where everything could be beautiful if it wasn’t falling apart.’
‘Sure,’ replied Rose, still peering through the window, trying to get a sense of the actual place where this man lived, or would one day live.
‘I’m getting a lot of work done to it. Stripping floors, redoing the ceiling, new fireplaces. All that sort of stuff. So for now, when I’m in London, which is hardly ever at the moment, I’m here, in the mews.’
‘How’s that?’
‘Charming,’ he said lightly in a way that made it impossible to ascertain if he was being serious or not.
‘Show me around then.’
‘Why with pleasure, m’lady.’
In truth, there wasn’t much to see. Aside from the kitchen and living room, the only other spaces in the mews were the bathroom, which had paint peeling off the walls and a bath that looked like it hadn’t been used (or cleaned) in weeks, and his bedroom. It was the only space in the entire flat that had been paid some attention.
The walls were a dark olive green, the kind you often get in countryside hotels that serve complimentary afternoon tea, and the bed looked king-size, which meant it took up most of the available space. On the walls were two black and white photographs of the Rolling Stones Rose had never seen before. She looked closer and realised they were both personally signed.
‘What do you think?’ he asked, leaning against the wall outside his bedroom, taking a long sip from his wine.
‘Charming,’ she replied, smiling.
They drifted back into the living room and settled on either side of the velvet sofa. At some point, music started playing from somewhere. A soft, quiet beat that you might expect to hear in the lift at a museum.
Milo asked about her painting. She found herself divulging everything she hated about art college – the pretentious professors, the superiority of the students, and the way she was constantly pushed to work with new materials when all she wanted to do was paint people’s faces.
He asked about her previous jobs, her family, her daily routine at Firehouse. Rose answered everything in detail as it became clearer that Milo had no interest in talking about himself, either because he was fed up with having to do so or because information about him had capital in a way it didn’t for Rose, and he might not trust her yet.
She quickly realised that asking him direct questions only ever resulted in opaque answers; it was best to let him offer up personal information on his own terms. And he did begin to open up as they moved on to a second bottle of wine from Milo’s cupboard. It was from 1982. So, he had expensive wine, and it tasted like a completely different drink compared to the bottle Rose had bought. That was one learning. Another was that he was more of a dog person than a cat person. And that he did have control over his own Instagram but had turned off all notifications and swore to never really look at them. How, then, did he see her message?
‘I might have looked you up on Instagram after that night,’ he confessed.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Oh.’ Rose sifted through her entire Instagram profile in her head, trying to see what Milo had seen. ‘Why would you do that?’