When I went to Hannah’s bedroom, she was standing by her window, looking down at the garden below. I said her name and she turned and regarded me, her beautiful dark eyes somber, just a trace of a smile on her lips. “Yes, Mummy?” she said. “What’s wrong?”
TWO
LONDON, 2017
Clara woke to the sound of rain, a distant siren wailing somewhere along Old Street, and the low, steady thump of bass from her neighbor’s speakers. She knew instantly that Luke wasn’t home—absent not just from their bed but from the flat itself—and for a moment she lay staring into the darkness before reaching for her phone. Four twelve a.m. No missed calls, no text messages. Through the gaps of her curtains, she could see the falling rain caught in a streetlamp’s orange glare. From below her window on Hoxton Square came the sudden sharp peal of female laughter, followed by the clattering stumble of high heels.
Another hour passed before she finally gave up on sleep. Beyond their bedroom door, the first blue light had begun to seep into the flat’s dark corners, the furniture gradually taking shape around her, its colors and edges looming like ships out of the darkness. The square’s bars and clubs were silent now, the last stragglers long gone. Soon the sweep and trundle of the street cleaners’ truck would come to wash the night away; people would emerge from their buildings, heading for buses and trains; the day would begin.
Above her, the repetitive beat continued to pound, and sitting on the sofa wrapped in her duvet now, she stared down at her phone, her tired mind flicking through various explanations. They hadn’t had a chance to speak yesterday at work, and she’d left without asking him his plans. Later, she’d met a friend for drinks before going to bed early, assuming he’d be back before too long. Should she call him now? She hesitated. They’d moved in together only six months before, and she didn’t want to be that girlfriend—nagging and needy, issuing demands and curfews. It was not the way things worked between them. He was out having fun. No big deal. It had happened before, after all—a few drinks that had turned into a few more, then sleeping it off on someone’s sofa.
Yet it was strange, wasn’t it? To not even text—to just not come home at all?
It wasn’t until she was in the shower that she remembered the importance of the day’s date. Wednesday the twenty-sixth. Luke’s interview. The realization made her stand stock-still, the shampoo bottle poised in midair. Today was the big interview for his promotion at work. He’d been preparing for it for weeks; there was no way he would stay out all night before something so important. Quickly she turned the water off and, wrapping herself in a towel, went back to the living room to find her phone. Clicking on his number, she waited impatiently for the ringtone to kick in. And then she heard the buzzing vibration coming from beneath the sofa. Crouching, she saw it, lying on the dusty expanse of floor, forgotten and abandoned: Luke’s mobile. “Shit,” she said out loud, and as though surprised, the pounding music above her head ended abruptly.
After a moment’s thought she clicked open her e-mail, and sure enough, there it was, a message from Luke, sent last night at six twenty-three from his work address.
Hey darling, left my phone at home again. I’m going to stay and work on stuff for the interview, probably be here till eight, then coming home—want to have an early night for tomorrow. You’re out with Zoe, aren’t you?
See you when I do,
Lx
—
An hour later, as she made her way up Old Street, she told herself to get a grip. He’d changed his mind, that was all. Decided to go for a pint with his team, then ended up carrying the night on. He couldn’t let her know because he was phoneless—nothing else to it. She would see him soon enough at work, hungover and sheepish, full of apologies. So why was her stomach twisting and turning like this? Beneath the April sky, gray and damp like old chewing gum, she walked the ugly thoroughfare that was already gnarled with traffic, with the brutal hulking buildings of the roundabout ahead and the wide pavements filled with commuters pressing on and on, clutching coffee, earbuds in, staring down at phones or else inward looking, unseeing, as they moved as one toward the white-tiled station entrance, to be sucked in, then hurtled forward, and spit out again at the other end.
—
The magazine publisher where they both worked was in the center of Soho. Though they were on separate magazines—she a writer on a finance title, he heading the design desk of an architectural quarterly—it was where they’d met three years ago, shortly before they’d started going out.
It had been her first day at Brindle Press and, eager to make a good impression, she’d offered to make the first round of tea. Anxiously running through everyone’s names as she’d sloshed water onto tea bags and stirred in milk and sugar, she’d piled too many mugs on the tray before she’d hurried out of the kitchen. The mess when it slipped from her hands and came crashing to the floor had been spectacular: scattered shards of broken crockery, rivers of steaming brown liquid, her carefully chosen “first day” dress soaked through.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It was only then that she’d looked up and seen him, the tall, good-looking man standing in the doorway, watching her with amusement. “Oops,” he’d said, crouching down to help her.
“Christ, I’m an idiot,” she’d wailed.
He’d laughed. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, then added, “I’m Luke.”
That evening, when her new team had taken her out for welcome drinks, she had spotted him by the bar, her heart quickening as she met his gaze, his
