I go into the bedroom. The camomile tea tastes like cardboard. The flat is silent. I climb into bed. I pick up Cecily’s diary again and flick through it – it seems the only real, concrete thing in my life. Words, phrases, jump out at me.
Mummy doesn’t like Miranda being beautiful.
Dad has lived most of his life in another country. It’s a part of me, and I don’t know it.
We’re not the family I thought we were.
I real y can’t write what I saw.
I think it’s too late, for him and for me.
I think it’s too late, for him and for me . . .
I can’t read the last couple of pages again. They’re too painful. I stare at the diary, and the words swim in front of my eyes, and soon I slide into sleep, propped up by pil ows.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
That is Friday. On Monday morning, I wake up and I know I can’t stay in the flat by myself any more. It’s not just the loneliness: I’ve been lonely for a while, I realise. It’s that every time I look around there’s something else to remind me of something I don’t want to be reminded of. It just holds bad memories for me, as if sitting there in the darkness as I read Cecily’s diary somehow released them al . I can’t do it any more. Perhaps I was holding on to some tiny hope that Oli and I might get back together again, but I know now that’s never going to happen; this has clarified everything.
We need to sort the flat out, and we need to crack on with the divorce. First things first, I need to get out of here. I ring up Jay, and ask to stay with him.
The great thing about Jay is he doesn’t ask questions, and he doesn’t fuss. He is waiting there when I turn up at his flat in Dalston an hour later, with a hastily packed suitcase. He gives me a cup of coffee and makes me some toast.
‘I just don’t want to be there any more,’ I say. I wipe a tear away from my cheek.
‘Why now?’ he says. ‘I mean, you’ve been on your own there for a while.’
I don’t want to tel him about the diary. If I tel him, he’l want to read it, and he’l find out about our grandmother. Now I can see what Mum has been doing al these years, in her own way: protecting Granny’s reputation, for the sake of others. We are sitting in his light, roomy, first-floor Georgian flat, just off De Beauvoir Square, and as I look out of the window I notice the trees have buds on them. There are no trees on my street.
‘It just – got a bit much,’ I tel him. ‘It’s pathetic, I know.’ Jay makes a little sound at the back of his throat, and he shakes his head. ‘Oh, Nat. You poor thing.’ He shakes his head. ‘Oli. Wow, that guy. What a tool.’ He sees my expression. ‘Sorry.’
‘He’s not a tool,’ I say. ‘It’s more than that, it took me a while to see he wasn’t coming back and it’s over, and yep – now I know it, I just can’t be there any more. I needed a bit of limbo there, I guess. But it’s over now. We need to rent it out and I’l move somewhere cheaper. I just needed to see it, that’s al .’
‘Stay here,’ Jay says. ‘As long as you want. I’ve got the study, but I’m working in the Soho office mostly these days.’ I hold up a hand to protest.
‘Nat,’ he says patiently. ‘I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.’
I know he wouldn’t, and I nod. ‘Thanks, Jay.’
‘I know it won’t be as nice as Princelet,’ he says. ‘The bathroom’s got damp and it’s wel shabby round here, not like you’re used to.’ He smiles, and I grin at him.
‘Believe me, it’s nicer,’ I say. I raise my coffee cup to him. ‘Thanks again. Seriously.’
‘No problem,’ he says. He pauses. ‘Dad rang me last night. You spoken to your mother yet?’
On Saturday and Sunday, I rang Mum. I rang Guy first, but then I rang Mum. No answer from either of them. I left tentative messages, but it’s hard to know what to say. ‘Hi . . . ! I’d love to speak to you . . . ! I . . . I read the diary . . . Give me a cal . . . !’
What do I do next? I don’t want to rock the boat. I can’t do anything for the moment, so I smile at him, and try not to look mad.
‘I left her a message again this morning,’ I say. ‘I’l cal her again, later on.’
‘That’s good,’ Jay says firmly. He is pleased. I am touched by his concern for her. It strikes me once again how craven I was, wil ing to believe what Octavia told me over what Jay believes. Al he knew from Archie is that Miranda is above reproach, and he listened to what his father said. He may not agree with him one hundred per cent, but he’s his father and Jay respects him.
He gets up. ‘Look, I’d better go to work,’ he says. ‘You know where everything is. Do you want me to help you get more stuff from the flat this evening?’
‘That’d be great,’ I say. I chew my lip. ‘I guess I’d better cal Oli, let him know too. We should start sorting it out . . .’
‘I bet he’l want to move back in,’ Jay says perceptively. ‘It’s much more him than you, that place.’
I think of the money Oli gave me as a loan. Because perhaps this would be the perfect way to pay him back, temporarily. Strange, strange, I think, that it was only Friday morning when I woke up and he was there with me, and we had sex, and then I knew, undoubtedly, that it was for the last time, and that it’s over. It’s over when you don’t feel anything. It’s over when you don’t want to live there any more. It’s over when you want the other person to be happy more than you want them in your life. Sitting in Jay’s living room, which is decorated – a loose term – with nothing more than slightly peeling oatmeal wal paper, a few photos, and many video games scattered across the floor, I feel more at home here, on the comfy, worn blue sofa, than I have in my own home for a long time.
‘You’re right. He’s welcome to,’ I say, and I mean it. ‘Thanks again, Jay.’ I lean forward and pat his arm.
