Now I don’t want to brag, but my English is actually fairly good, though I am prone to amusing ‘Dutchisms’. I’ll occasionally say things like: ‘he sat on a chair’ rather than ‘he sat in a chair’. But I have an ear for accents, so mostly I sound like a native. It defaults to a rather posh Oxford accent, though I wouldn’t be able to find either Oxford or indeed Cambridge on a map, but I can do regional ones as well. Katey loves that: she’s always testing me and teaching me new expressions. And then, while managing to sound as if I am born and raised in Liverpool or East London, I’ll come out and say ‘musea’ rather than museums. Because that is the Dutch plural. Or I’ll say elevator rather than lift, or write ‘waste’ instead of ‘waist’. I’m a visitor there at best, an impostor at worst. I don’t belong there.
Kate wasn’t letting go of her idea that easily, though. She never does.
“I can cover your debt, Martin. I’ve easily got enough and I don’t want interest.”
“Kate, grow up. If you have that kind of money, first of all you should be investing it in property. Second, you shouldn’t be giving it away. Four percent is very reasonable, especially because there are no other strings attached. He is doing me a solid.”
“At four percent? My bank only gives me one! I’d LOVE to make 1.1 percent!”
“Can we not talk about this anymore? I’d like to enjoy my food.”
“Okay,” she grumbled. And she did indeed manage to let it go for a little while, launching into one of her lurid stories about showbiz people I had never heard of doing sordid things in hotel corridors.
“No dessert for me, thanks. Just coffee,” I said when the waiter came around with the menu.
“Is this because you’re on the market again? I’ll have the eclairs. And two spoons.”
“Not really. It’s because this is not the time to invest in a new wardrobe. I eat when I am bored.”
“Were you very bored of late?” she teased.
“I know… Look, I’ve been under a lot of stress, okay? It’s what I do. At least Monique used to keep me in check with balanced meals.”
Kate grunted.
“That was about all she could do: starve people. Who marries a dietician, for fuck’s sake…”
“Chubby blokes. Now, how long are you in Holland for?”
“As briefly as possible, really.”
“Why, what brought you here?”
“My brother! Alone and unemployed! I came here to get you, you idiot. Why else am I here?”
“Really? You didn’t even call ahead.”
“Like you were going anywhere. I know my brother. Last day at the office, all alone, moping around. I couldn’t get an earlier flight or I’d have picked you up there. Look, at least come and stay for a week or so. It looks like I’ll have some time on my hands. We’ll go see mum and dad. You shouldn’t be alone. Please?”
I can’t say no to Kate. Not for long.
“What if I say yes?”
“Then this:”
She pulled out her phone and started typing in an app. After a minute or so she looked up at me.
“Did you renew your passport recently?”
“No. I’m good till 2019.”
“That’s the one I have here. Okay, here we go… And now I’ve booked us on the 12:10 from Schiphol, tomorrow. Open ended for you.”
“Well, thank you. It’s very sweet of you to be so concerned. How much is my ticket?”
“Why don’t you ask bleedin’ Shakira?” she snarled.
We had taken our time for dinner, so after dessert I asked her where she was staying. I just assumed she would be in a hotel near the airport. Driving to and from my house would take her forty minutes extra at least, but a bus ran to my ‘resort’ from this town so I’d be fine. When I asked, she huffed.
“I haven’t booked a hotel. I’m staying at your place.”
“Oh. I’m not really um… equipped for visitors.”
“You have a double bed, I have my trolley. It will be fine. We’ll pack up your sad-ass collection of rags and clown suits tomorrow and drive my rental back to Schiphol Airport. You can park that pussy magnet near a railway station on the way, okay?”
That sounded like a plan. Kate always had a plan, plus a backup for that plan. That was her job. We drove back to my house and she took a small, black flight case from the trunk.
“I’ll change the bed,” I offered. “Can you make us some tea?”
“At least you’re not in danger of becoming an alcoholic,” she said, seeming to know exactly where to find everything. Well, she had opened all the cabinets earlier today. I got out of my suit and changed the bed. It’s a double bed, which came with the house. I would not have been so optimistic if I had furnished the place myself.
I owned very little these days. A laughably old phone, a laptop that originally shipped with Windows XP, some clothes, a few CDs. Monique had all the nice stuff back at the house and I knew I could get it back if I asked her, but I just didn’t have the space for it.
“How long have you been here?” Kate asked, looking in on me wrestling with the sheets.
“About a year. It’s a rental owned by the parents of my accountant. There’s a lot of money to be made in emergency housing for the suddenly divorced, I gather. There’s a waiting list for this.”
She walked in and helped me tuck in the corners.
“Then why not get the hell out, give some other poor bugger a roof over his head? I mean, quite apart from anything else, we’re miles from anywhere. What job are you going to get in this area? They have milking machines now, you know.”
“I’m sure I’ll do better here than in London. Look, if I am suddenly hired by Cygnosis or Grant Laudon, all I need to do is make a phone call and they’ll come get my stuff and chuck it in a few boxes for me. And they can then torch those, for all I care. But I am not quite ready to commit to homelessness, okay?” I said, fighting the last corner.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m pushing too hard.”
I looked up. She seemed really sad all of a sudden.
“Hey, cheer up! I know you mean well. Now, let’s have tea.”
The house had a sofa that had seen better days sometime before Yeltsin had stood down, but that’s why they sell plaids. There was one other chair, but it was so terrible I mainly used it as a small desk for my laptop. And so we sat next to each other, legs pulled up, hugging mugs of tea.
“So, Casanova… When did you last have sex?” Kate asked. It’s one of her favourite questions. She asks everybody, except our parents. She didn’t ask me when I was married, though.
“You haven’t asked me that in fifteen years.”
“I’m asking now,” she laughed. “I figured the ice princess wasn’t overly keen on it. Was I right?”
“Yeah. She was okay at the beginning. But that went downhill amazingly fast.”
“Thought so. But you’ve been a bachelor for a year now, so… When did you last have a girl over?”
I just stirred my tea. It’s not something I care to discuss with my kid sister, even if she’s not a kid anymore. I just call her that because of the age difference. Plus, if I thought about the real answer too long, I might very well decide to headbutt a train.
“Does anybody ever give you an honest answer?” I deflected.
“Most people do. You are stalling. My guess is… six months. At least.”
“Oh really? And with whom did I have sex, then?”
“I don’t know, do I? You still had staff at the time. Annabelle worked for you until November.”