The Authenticity Project Read online

  “Exactly,” said Julian. “So, I thought, why don’t we do that once a week at Monica’s? We could invite anyone who has no one to eat with, for dinner around one big table. We could charge ten pounds a head, bring your own bottle. And I thought we could ask anyone who can afford it to pay twenty pounds, so anyone who can’t afford it can eat for free. What do you think?”

  “I think it’s brilliant!” said Alice, clapping her hands. Bunty laughed and clapped her hands too. “What does Monica say?”

  “I haven’t asked her yet,” replied Julian. “Do you think she’ll go for it?”

  “I’m sure she will! What will you call it?”

  “I thought maybe Julian’s Supper Club.”

  “Of course you did. Look, there’s Riley.”

  “Riley, my boy, sit down,” said Julian, handing him a glass of wine. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” said Julian. “It’s my birthday on the thirty-first of May, just a few days before you leave. I thought I’d throw a party, a send-off for you, and a thank-you to all of you for putting up with me. What do you say?”

  “That would be awesome!” said Riley. “You’re going to be eighty. Wow.”

  “But, Julian,” said Alice, “you said you were born on the day we declared war on Germany, and I know for a fact that was in September, not May.” Alice had won the history prize at school. It had been her greatest (and only) academic achievement.

  Julian coughed and looked a little bashful. “You do know your history, don’t you, my dear? Yes, I might have miscalculated the month slightly. And the year, in fact. I’m not going to be eighty, more like eighty-five. The day war was declared was actually my first day at primary school. I was furious that no one wanted to hear how it went. Anyhow,” he said, moving swiftly on, “I thought we could have a party in Kensington Gardens, between the bandstand and the Round Pond. I always used to have my birthday parties there. We’d gather up all the nearby deck chairs and fill large buckets with Pimm’s, lemonade, fruit, and ice, then anyone with an instrument would play, and we’d stay until it got dark and the Parks Police threw us out.”

  “That sounds like a totally perfect way to say good-bye to London,” said Riley. “Thank you.”

  “It’s an absolute pleasure,” said Julian, beaming. “I’ll get Monica organizing.”

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  Julian

  Julian couldn’t quite believe that Mary was sitting in his cottage, next to the fire, drinking tea. He scrunched his eyes up really small, to make his vision go blurry, and it was just like they were back in the nineties, before everything had gone wrong. Keith wasn’t quite as happy about the situation, though; Mary was sitting in his chair.

  Mary had come round to collect some of her things. She’d taken very little, saying it wasn’t good to immerse yourself too much in the past. This was a new concept for Julian. He steeled himself to have the conversation he knew was necessary. If he didn’t do it now, she’d be gone, and he might never find the right moment again.

  “I’m sorry about the whole death thing, Mary,” he said, not sure if that had come out quite right. “I honestly didn’t see it as lying. I’d spent so many years imagining you dead that I’d started to think it was actually true.”

  “I believe you, Julian. But why? Why kill me off in the first place?”

  “It was easier than facing up to the truth, I suppose. What I should have done, obviously, is spend every hour of the day trying to track you down and make amends. But that would have meant facing up to how awful I’d been, and risking more rejection, so I . . . didn’t,” he said, staring into his cup of tea.

  “Out of interest,” said Mary, with a slight smile, “how did I die?”

  “Oh, I toyed with a few different versions over the years. For a while, you’d been hit by the number 14 bus on your way home from buying groceries at the market on the North End Road. The road outside the studios had been strewn with apricots and cherries.”

  “Dramatic!” said Mary. “Although not terribly fair on the bus driver. What else?”

  “A particularly rare, but aggressive, form of cancer. I nursed you heroically through your final months, but there’d been nothing I could do to save you,” he said.

  “Mmm. Unlikely. You’d make the most terrible nurse. You’ve never been good with illness.”

  “Fair point. I’m quite proud of my latest version, actually. You were caught up in a shootout between rival drug gangs. You’d been trying to help a young man who’d been stabbed and was bleeding out on the pavement, but you had been killed for your kindness.”

  “Ooh, I like that one best. It makes me sound like a real heroine. Just make sure I was shot right through the heart. I don’t want a slow, painful end,” she said. “By the way, Julian.” Julian didn’t like it when Mary started sentences with by the way. Whatever followed was never casual. “On my way here I bumped into one of your neighbors. Patricia, I think she was called. She told me about the freehold, about wanting to sell up.”

  Julian sighed. He felt like he used to in the old days, when Mary caught him out doing something unsavory.

  “Oh God, they’ve been badgering me about that for months, Mary. But how can I sell? Where would I go? What about all this?” He gestured expansively at all the possessions crowded into his living room.

  “It’s just stuff, Julian. You might find that, without it, you’ll feel liberated! It’d be a new start, a new life. That’s how it felt for me, leaving all this behind.” Julian tried not to bristle at the thought of Mary feeling “liberated” from him.

  “But there are so many memories, Mary. My old friends are all here. You’re here,” he said.

  “But I’m not here, Julian. I’m in Lewes. And I’m very happy. And you’re welcome to come and visit us, any time you like. All these things, all these memories, they’re just suffocating you, keeping you stuck in the past. You have new friends now, and home is wherever they are. You could buy a new apartment and start afresh. Imagine that,” she said, staring at him intently.

  Julian pictured himself in an apartment like the one Hazard lived in, where he’d gone for tea the week before. All those big windows, clean lines, and clear surfaces. Underfloor heating. Pots filled with white orchids. Dimmer switches. The thought of himself somewhere like that was totally bizarre yet also strangely thrilling. Did he have the courage to clamber out of his rut at the age of seventy-nine? Or eighty-four. Whatever.

  “Anyhow,” Mary continued, “selling would be the right thing to do. It’s not fair to your neighbors to hold out. You’re messing up a lot of lives. Isn’t it time you thought about other people, Julian, and did the honorable thing?”

  Julian knew she was right. Mary was always right.

  “Listen, I have someone else I need to see, so I’m going to leave you to think about it. Promise me you’ll do that?” said Mary as she leaned forward to give him a hug and planted a dry kiss on his cheek.

  “OK, Mary,” he said. And he meant it.

  * * *

  • • •

  JULIAN KNOCKED ON the door of number 4. The door swung open to reveal an imposing woman with her hands on her hips and an inquisitive, but not friendly, expression.

  They both waited for someone else to speak. Julian cracked first. He loathed an unfilled silence.

  “Mrs. Arbuckle,” he said, “I believe you’ve been wanting to speak to me.”

  “Well, yes,” she replied, “for the last eight months. Why are you here now?” She spanned the word now out for several beats.

  “I’ve decided to sell,” he said. Patricia Arbuckle unfolded her arms and let out a long breath, like an airbag deflating.

  “Well, I never,” she said. “You’d better come in. What changed your mind?”

  “Well, it’s important to do the right thing,” said Julian, thinking that saying his new mantra aloud might help him to stick
with his resolutions, “and selling is doing the right thing. The rest of you have years ahead of you, and I can’t be the one to rob you of your nest eggs. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to accept it.”

  “It’s never too late, Mr. Jessop. Julian,” said Patricia, looking positively cheerful.

  “You’re not the first person to say that to me recently,” said Julian.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Monica

  Monica put Julian’s poster up in the window in exactly the same spot she’d posted her advertisement for an art teacher six months previously. She placed the tape carefully over the marks left by the last one, which she’d not been able to totally remove.

  ARE YOU FED UP WITH EATING ALONE?

  JOIN THE COMMUNAL TABLE

  AT JULIAN’S SUPPER CLUB,

  MONICA’S CAFÉ

  EVERY THURSDAY, 7 P.M.

  BRING YOUR OWN BOTTLE

  £10 PER HEAD, £20 IF YOU’RE FEELING FLUSH

  IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT, YOU EAT FOR FREE

  She remembered how Hazard had stolen her poster and photocopied it. She should ask him to copy this one and distribute it around Fulham by way of penance. She was just turning the sign on the door to Closed, when a customer arrived. Monica was about to tell her that she was too late, when she realized that it was Mary.

  “Hi, Monica,” she said. “I’ve just been visiting Julian, so I thought I’d drop in so I could give you this.” She put her hand into her bag and pulled out the book that had been left in Monica’s Café six months before. “I tried to give it to Julian, but he said it only reminded him how inauthentic he’d been, and that you should have it.”

  “Thanks, Mary,” said Monica, taking the book. “Would you like a cup of tea? And cake? I think this calls for cake.”

  Mary sat at the counter as Monica made up a pot of tea. “I’m sorry I gave you all such a shock, turning up here like that,” she said. “I’d thought I’d sneak quietly into the back of an art class and talk to Julian privately. I hadn’t expected to gate-crash a memorial service. Certainly not my own.”

  “Honestly, please don’t apologize!” said Monica, pouring the tea. “How on earth were you to know? I’m just glad I got the opportunity to meet you.”

  “Me too. I’ve realized that The Authenticity Project actually did me a bit of a favor. You see, I left the cottage without any explanations, or good-byes, and I left a bit of myself behind too. All that history. And Julian, who is deeply flawed but, as you know, extraordinary. Seeing him again has helped me put some things to rest.”

  “I’m glad,” said Monica.

  “By the way, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but have you sorted things out with that man who’s so passionately in love with you?” Mary asked.

  “Riley?” said Monica, thinking that “passionately in love” was overdoing it somewhat. “I’m afraid not. Quite the reverse, in fact.”

  “No, no,” said Mary, “not the sweet Australian boy, the other one. The one who was sitting right there”—she gestured over to the corner— “like a brooding Mr. Darcy, looking at Riley as if he’d stolen something that he desperately wanted back.”

  “Hazard?” said Monica, astonished.

  “Ah, so that was Hazard,” Mary replied. “That figures. I’ve read his story in the book.”

  “You’re wrong about Hazard, Mary. He’s not in love with me. We’re total opposites, in fact.”

  “Monica, I’ve spent a lifetime as an observer. I’m very quick to see things. And I know what I saw. He looked like a man who’s a bit complex and damaged, and I know all about those.”

  “Even if you were right, Mary,” said Monica, “isn’t that a very good reason to steer well clear?”

  “Oh, but you’re so much stronger than I was, Monica. You’d never let anyone treat you the way I let Julian treat me. And, you know, despite everything, I don’t regret one single day I spent with that man. Not one. Now, I must get going.”

  Mary leaned over the bar and kissed Monica on both cheeks, and then she was gone, leaving Monica feeling strangely elated.

  Hazard? Why was that thought not making her snort with derision? It was purely vanity. She was just enjoying the fact that Mary thought she was the kind of woman who inspired passion. Pull yourself together, Monica.

  Monica picked up the exercise book, which had come full circle, from the counter. It occurred to her that everyone, apart from Julian, had read her story, but she’d read none of theirs. That hardly seemed fair. She poured herself another cup of tea and started to read.

  SIXTY-NINE

  Hazard

  Hazard rang Monica’s doorbell. It was nearly ten o’clock, rather later than he’d meant to turn up, but he’d twice changed his mind about coming. He still wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing, but one thing he wasn’t was a coward. A tinny voice came through the intercom.

  “Who is it?” Too late to back out now.

  “Er, it’s Hazard,” he said, feeling like a modern-day Romeo, trying to declare his love for Juliet. If only she had a balcony rather than an intercom.

  “Oh. It’s you. What on earth do you want?” It was hardly Shakespeare. Or the welcome he’d been hoping for.

  “I really need to talk to you, Monica. Can I come up?” he said.

  “I can’t think why, but if you must.” She buzzed the front door and he pushed it open, then walked up the stairs to her apartment.

  He only had a hazy recollection of Monica’s apartment from the day he’d spent there after the disastrous wedding. He took in all the details, this time with a clear head. It was just as anyone who knew Monica at all would expect—neat as a pin and relatively conformist, with pale-gray walls, minimalist furniture, and polished oak floorboards. There were, however, a few items showing unexpected flair, much like Monica herself—a lamp in the shape of a flamingo, an antique mannequin used as a coat stand, and a wall dominated by a fabulous painting of David Bowie. The faint smell of coffee beans seeped through the floorboards from below.

  Monica was not looking at all happy to see him. This was obviously not good timing for his grand declaration. Backtrack! What other reason could he possibly give for turning up here so late? Think, Hazard.

  It was no good, he’d just have to go for it.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Er. Monica, I wanted to tell you how I feel about you,” he said, pacing up and down, since he was too nervous to sit down, and she hadn’t offered him a seat in any case.

  “I know exactly what you think of me, Hazard,” she replied.

  “You do?” he said, confused. Perhaps this was going to be easier than he thought.

  “Uh-huh. She has an intensity to her that I find off-putting to the point of terrifying. Does that ring any bells?” Only then did he see what she was holding. The book. She was reading his story.

  “Or how about this? She makes me feel that I must be doing something wrong. She’s the sort of person who arranges all the tins in her cupboards so they’re facing outwards and puts all the books on her shelves in alphabetical order. I wondered why you asked me about my bloody tins the other day!”

  “Monica, stop. Listen to me,” Hazard said, as he watched his dreams explode in a slow-motion car crash.

  “Oh, I can’t stop before the best bit! She has an air of desperation that I might be exaggerating in my imagination because I’ve read her story, but it makes me want to run for the hills.” And then she threw the book at him.

  “That’s the second time you’ve thrown something at my head. Last time it was a figgy pudding,” he said as he ducked. This wasn’t going well, but, God she was gorgeous when she was angry, a fireball of energy and righteous indignation. He had to make her listen.

  “Go on, Hazard. Run for the fucking hills, why don’t you? I’m not stopping you!”

  “When I wrote all that, I di
dn’t know you.”

  “I know you didn’t know me. So why did you feel qualified to make judgments about my kitchen cupboards, for fuck’s sake?”

  “I was wrong. Totally and utterly wrong. Not about the cupboards it turns out, but about everything else.” She glared at him. Humor wasn’t going to work, obviously. “You are one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. Listen, what I should have written was this . . .”

  He took a deep breath, and continued. “I went to Monica’s Café so I could return Julian’s book. I had no intention of playing his stupid game. But when I realized who she was—the woman I’d barged into a few nights before, I lost my nerve. I held on to the notebook and took it with me all the way to Thailand. I couldn’t forget her story, so I decided to find the perfect man for her and send him in her direction. But then I started to realize that the perfect man was actually me. Not that I’m perfect, obviously, far from it.” He laughed. It sounded hollow. Monica didn’t join in. “I totally realize I don’t deserve her, but I love her. Every last bit of her.”

  “I trusted you, Hazard! I told you things about my life that I’d told no one—not even Riley. I thought you, of all people, would understand, not mock me,” said Monica, as if she’d not heard a word he’d said.

  “Monica, I do understand. More than that, I love you more because of what you’ve been through. After all, it’s the cracks that let the light in.”

  “Don’t misquote bloody Leonard Cohen at me, Hazard. Just get out. And don’t come back,” she said.

  Hazard realized that he wasn’t going to get through to Monica today, if ever.

  “OK, I’m going,” he said, backing toward the door, “but I’ll be at the Admiral, next Thursday at seven p.m. Please, please, just think about what I said, and if you change your mind, meet me there.”

  * * *

  • • •

  HAZARD WAS WALKING the long way home, through Eel Brook Common. He couldn’t face going back to his empty apartment just yet. A man was sitting on a bench just ahead of him, lit up by a streetlamp and looking as miserable as Hazard felt. Hazard was sure he recognized him from somewhere. Probably the City. He was wearing the regulation bespoke suit, Church’s brogues, and a heavy Rolex watch.