‘Perhaps it’s been a useful diversion from what real y happened.’ Guy’s hand squeezes the coins in his pocket together so that they make a screeching, scratchy sound, and I wince. ‘Sorry,’ he says. His face is unbearably sad, old and sad. ‘You know, we were young. The world was changing. We had our lives ahead of us. And then she died, and it altered everything. For a long, long time, I thought there’d never be anything nice or good in the world again.’
He holds out the diary, his hands shaking. ‘Read it,’ he says, his voice cracking. ‘Find out what kind of person she real y was.’
‘Who? Cecily?’
He shakes his head. ‘Read it.’
We walk through the silent, echoing shop. It is almost dark now. I have my hand on the door; the old bel jangles loudly. ‘I’l read it tonight,’ I say.
‘And cal me afterwards?’ His face is hopeful. ‘Don’t talk to anyone else, wil you promise me that?’
‘Promise. Goodbye, Guy.’
‘Natasha –?’ he says. ‘It’s lovely to see you again. You look wonderful, if I may say. I heard from your mother that you and Oli have separated,’
he says. ‘I’m sorry. But it obviously suits you.’
I think of the rumpled bed Oli and I had sex in this morning, the rain on the cobbles last night . . . Ben’s face as I walk away from him. ‘That’s unlikely. But thank you.’
I smile my thanks and suddenly his expression changes, as if he wants me gone, instantly. ‘Wel , I’d better get on—’ He looks around the shop and I take my cue and go for the door again.
‘Oh, let me get that.’ He comes forward and holds it open for me, and then suddenly he leans towards me and kisses me on the cheek as the bel jangles.
‘It’s great to see you, Natasha,’ he says. He smiles at me and I smile back. ‘And—’ He stops.
‘What?’ I ask. I’m standing on the threshold of the shop. ‘You do look so like her. Cecily.’
‘That’s what my grandmother used to say,’ I tel him. ‘Wel , it’s a compliment,’ he says. ‘She was beautiful.’ He stares at me curiously. ‘We’l speak. Please, I want to speak to you once you’ve read it.’
He shuts the door, suddenly. I am increasingly unsettled as I start off back home. I walk and walk, through the quiet Georgian terraces of Islington, down towards the canal, past the Charles Lamb pub, out towards Shoreditch. It is that curious time of day you get in spring when it is stil light but feels as if it wil get dark at any moment, that the day is over. It is dark by the time I reach the curious Victorian enclave of Arnold Circus and walk down Brick Lane.
I let myself into the flat. I make a cup of tea and sit down, thinking about my conversation with Guy. I look down at my lap, at the exercise book, so innocuous-looking in my hands, the schoolgirl handwriting and floral decoration around the border the same as a thousand others, before and since. It strikes me that I’ve always thought of Cecily as being a child. They always talked about her, when they talked about her, as a young child.
And she wasn’t, it seems, if what I found out this afternoon is true. She was a woman.
I open the diary, on my knees. The rest of the flat is dark, its cool loneliness is what I need. I feel my heart thumping, as if someone is holding it, squeezing it. I know once I start reading I won’t be able to stop. Voices echo in my head as I open the flimsy red exercise book, looking at the careful y scratched patterns on the front. ‘That was the summer she died . . . That was the summer she died . . .’
And I read.
Part 2
PRIVATE
