Free Something to Hide by Deborah Moggach Page A

you’ve just buried it.’
    My mood has changed; I’m feeling combative. Choosing the shirts has upset me, for reasons I don’t care to admit.
    And then, over tea in Bertaux, fairy lights in the window, he says: ‘Actually I did go to a shrink. When I was nineteen and started having nightmares. I booked myself with a woman in Acton.’ He straightens the fork beside his plate. ‘Don’t know if she was Freudian or Jungian or anything, you’d know more about that sort of thing. But she was very kind, though a little whiskery in the chin area, and she made me feel it wasn’t my fault.’ He raises his fleshy, tanned face and looks at me. ‘Know something? I’ve never told anyone that.’
    I feel a jolt of pleasure. ‘Nothing wrong with going to a shrink. Join the club.’
    â€˜That’s the second one today, can I get reduced membership?’
    I laugh. The mood changes, yet again. As we eat chocolate éclairs we talk about our favourite places and how they feel so fragile just because we love them. This magical, old-fashioned teashop, for instance – I keep thinking that one day I’ll walk down the street and find it’s become a Specsavers. It will all have been a dream. Cities reinvent themselves all the time, of course, dream upon dream, but Jeremy’s London is different. It’s not organic, it shunts forwards in a series of jolts. Suddenly it’s full of Nigerian money-changers and Albanian rickshaw-drivers and skyscrapers casting new shadows on streets that have themselves become unrecognizable. It’s like me with relationships – there’s no continuity.
    â€˜I can feel a routine starting up,’ says Jeremy. ‘Can we have tea every day? You can’t get a decent cuppa in Africa for love or money, tastes like floor sweepings.’ He grins. ‘I’ll get even fatter, of course, but what the hell.’
    A man comes in who Jeremy swears is Jack Nicholson. He sits in a corner table and rummages in a Hamleys carrier bag.
    â€˜That’s not Jack Nicholson.’
    â€˜Yes it is,’ says Jeremy in a hoarse whisper. ‘He’s bought toys for his grandchildren.’
    â€˜He’s not Jack Nicholson. Lots of people look like Jack Nicholson. He’s wearing dirty old trainers.’
    â€˜Bet you a fiver.’
    At this point the man takes out his mobile and starts speaking in Russian. This leads on to sightings of other allegedly famous people.
    â€˜I once saw Tina Turner,’ I tell him. ‘She was coming out of Fags and Mags in Frith Street.’
    â€˜Don’t be silly. It must have been an elderly hooker.’
    We mourn the disappearance of tarts from Soho. Property developers are cleaning the place up with the excuse that the girls are trafficked.
    â€˜I’ve never been to a prostitute,’ says Jeremy. ‘But it’s nice to know they’re there. Like church.’
    Talk of property developers leads on to my theory about greyhound racetracks and crooked vets. Jeremy is impressed by my suspicious mind, and admits to a certain lawlessness when he was young. The boldest one was pushing a car into a river to collect on the insurance. This doesn’t surprise me. Meanwhile, at the far table, Jack Nicholson is blowing his nose on a crumpled length of lavatory paper. Jeremy wordlessly passes me a five-pound note.
    It’s like yesterday. People come and go but we remain here, rocks washed by the incoming and retreating waves. We’ve lost track of time; when I look at my watch it’s six-thirty.
    â€˜Do you need to be anywhere?’ asks Jeremy.
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Good-oh. Shall we see some culture? We were hopeless yesterday. What about the theatre? Anything good on? My treat.’
    King Lear
is playing at the Donmar Warehouse, just down the road. I’ve read rave reviews. ‘It’s got a famous American film star in it,’ I say.