Yes, I want to say. I know al about what you did. About you and Annabel Taylor, about how you nearly kil ed her. A shiver runs through me. I don’t know whether to be proud of her for her bravery, or afraid. My God. I realise I don’t know her at al .
Mum says, ‘Then we got home for the summer, and . . .’ There’s a silence. ‘And what?’
‘Wel , that was the summer she died,’ Mum says. ‘August 1963.’
‘Oh. Of course. I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘So—’
‘Natasha?’
I am completely absorbed by the conversation and her voice in my ear, but the noise, someone cal ing my name, somewhere nearby, makes me jerk upright and I remember. I didn’t close the door.
‘Hel o?’ I cal suddenly. There are feet in the hal way, and I hear a sound I haven’t heard for a long time: the clatter of keys being thrown onto the hal table.
‘Who’s that?’ Mum says. ‘Hel o.’
Oli appears in the doorway. I draw back. ‘The door was open,’ he says.
I stare at him. ‘Mum – look. I have to go.’
‘Is that Oli?’ Mum says. ‘Yes,’ I say, staring at him, at his trainers, his jeans, his smart shirt, his jacket, his face, his ruffled, boyish hair. This is my husband, this is our home. ‘I have to go,’ I say, as Mum starts to say something else.
‘Why don’t you come round next week?’ she says. ‘Come and have some supper here.’
‘OK,’ I say, my hand on my cheek, not real y listening. ‘Look—’
‘Wednesday, darling. Come round next Wednesday?’
‘Yep, yep,’ I say. ‘See you then. I’l come round on Wednesday. Yes. Bye.’
I put the phone down and turn to him, my heart thumping almost painful y in my chest.
‘Hi,’ I say.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I’ve seen Oli once since he left. We had a drink two weeks ago at the Pride of Spitalfields on Heneage Street, down the road from us. We picked a
‘neutral spot’, like characters in a TV soap. It was awful. It’s one of my favourite places, a friendly, old man’s pub, an oasis in the increasing Disneyfication of Spitalfields, and people kept saying hel o. ‘Hi, you two, haven’t seen you in here for a while, what have you been up to?’
Oh, this and that! I wanted to answer. Oli shagged someone else and I’m working on a new autumn/winter range of bracelets, thanks for asking!
Then, Oli was broken, quiet, weeping, wanting to know how I was. I said I needed time. Trouble is I didn’t use that time. And now I am no closer to knowing what on earth comes next.
‘How did you get that huge bump on your head?’ Oli asks now, shoving his hands deep into his jacket pockets, his thin shoulders hunched. It is such a familiar gesture that I want to laugh. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh. That.’ I keep forgetting about it. ‘I fel over. It’s fine.’
‘You fel over?’
‘Yep.’ I bend over a little bit, miming the act of fal ing over and he nods, as if this clarifies it for him.
We’re both standing in the doorway, as though neither of us wants to be the one to control the situation, suggest a move somewhere else. I am terrified of offering an idea in case it’s the wrong one.
God, it is so weird, seeing him again. I know him so wel , better than anyone. I’m married to him. I love him. I loved him so much before this happened. When we were first together, five years ago now, I used to lie awake worrying about him. What if he got knocked off his scooter on the way in to work? What if he developed a terrible degenerative disease? What if I did? Why would someone give me someone, give me this happiness? To take it away, that’s why. I would listen to him in the night, his light snuffling breathing like a baby, and stare up at the ceiling, praying that he’d be al right, praying that we’d make it, that I was worrying for nothing.
‘Glad you’re OK.’ Oli nods. ‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Nothing serious, honestly.’
As if by mutual consent, we go into the living room. He looks round. There is no way to describe how bizarre it is, how we should just be chil ing out on the sofa, not standing up awkwardly. It’s our sitting room, it’s both of ours. There’s a big red rug from a junk shop near Broadway Market on the floor, a rubber plant in a wicker container on the floor nearby, a blue corduroy sofa, deep and comfy, and the huge red and blue abstract print by Sandra Blow that we bought in St Ives, the first time I took Oli to Cornwal . The wal by the door is lined with our books and CDs and DVDs. It’s stuff like that. It’s our home, our life together. It would be real y hard to unpick.
‘Do sit down,’ I say politely. ‘Thanks,’ says Oli. He sits on one of the oatmeal low-slung armchairs, which look as though they should be in the lobby of a seventies LA hotel. He loves those chairs. He looks round the sitting room, his hands restlessly stroking the fabric of the arms. The rain has started again. There’s a silence.
‘Look, Natasha—’
‘Yes?’ I say, too quickly.
He stops. ‘Wel , I wanted to see you. Find out how you are, al that shit.’
I half-stand up. ‘Do you want a drink—?’
Oli waves me down, almost crossly. ‘No, thanks. So – how’s it going?’
I touch the bump on my head. ‘Oh, fine, as you can see.’ He sounds impatient. ‘I meant yesterday. I mean you.
