before.
You always look good . . .’ I trail off. This is just pathetic.
His eyebrows pucker together and he frowns. ‘I don’t know if you’re trying to get yourself out of a hole or dig yourself into one,’ he says. ‘But I’l console myself with the thought that it’l grow out and I’l have my shaggy-dog hair again soon.’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but give this a chance. Honestly, it suits you.’ He nods and smiles.
‘OK. I wil .’
‘What happened to the jumpers?’ I say. ‘It’s official y the first day of spring tomorrow,’ he replies. ‘Back of the wardrobe with the jumpers.’
‘Wel , the new you is so handsome I daren’t be seen out in public with you. You’l have young girls throwing themselves at you. You’re like Jake Gyl -what’s-his-name.’
‘Who?’ He scratches his head again. ‘Oh . . . no one.’
There’s an awkward pause, as silence fal s over the bantering conversation.
‘I was going to come and see you,’ I say eventual y. We’d normal y pop in and see each other mid-morning, for a coffee or a chat. We are easily distracted, it’s terrible. ‘What are you up to?’
‘I’m doing paperwork.’ He sounds tired. ‘It’s real y boring.’ He advances into the room and then he stops, looks down. ‘Nat, this is beautiful.’
He holds up a piece of paper. It’s the design I was sketching last week before Mum arrived, the daisy-chain necklace. I’ve left it there, not quite sure what it needs, because I can’t think about it without thinking about Mum afterwards. ‘Oh, thanks,’ I say, blushing. ‘It’s nothing, it’s just a rough idea for something.’
‘I think it’s real y lovely.’ He smiles, and I watch him, his bones under his skin. He has a vein curling into the side of his temple, it throbs as he speaks. ‘Real y simple, beautiful, complex at the same time.’
‘Oh, no, it’s not.’ It’s been so long since anyone’s praised my work that I don’t know what to say. I sound like a pantomime vil ain. ‘But – that’s real y kind of you.’ I’m flustered, and look around the studio. ‘Right. Best get on.’ I run a hand over my forehead. ‘Sorry. I’m operating real y slowly today.’
‘What’s up?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Just – stuff.’
‘Oli?’
‘Wel , yeah. Everything real y.’
Ben puts the sketch down and leans on the workbench. ‘It must be real y hard.’
‘I know. It’s just I don’t know what comes next. You know – when do they ring the bel , say it’s official y over?’
‘I guess when you sign the final divorce papers,’ he says, and then holds up a hand. ‘I mean, if that’s what you want to do.’
‘Yes—’ I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. Probably. It’s so – freaky though.’ I pause. ‘There’s a lot going on at the moment. Other stuff.’
‘Like what?’ Ben says. ‘Are you – OK?’
‘I’m fine. It’s family stuff.’
‘Heavy?’
‘Pretty heavy. I found a – I found a diary,’ I say irrelevantly.
‘Aha.’ Ben rubs his hands over his hair again. ‘Some childhood diary you don’t want anyone to see? Or your diary of the studio and how you’ve got a crush on Les?’
Les is the leader of the writers’ col ective downstairs. He is a large, fleshy man who loves talking about his days in the Socialist Workers’ Party and using words without pronouns, as in ‘Government needs to do this’ and ‘Council aren’t pul ing their weight,’ just as wannabe trendy people say of the Notting Hil Carnival, ‘I’m going to Carnival this weekend.’ I know for a fact that he is from Lytham St Annes.
I nod at Ben. ‘Yes, it’s true,’ I say. ‘I am in love with Les and this is my journal of that love.’
‘Les is definitely More,’ Ben says, and we laugh, slightly too hilariously, as if to break up the atmosphere.
‘No,’ I say, looking round again. I don’t know why I feel as if someone might be watching us. ‘It’s weirder than that. It’s the diary my mother’s sister was writing the summer she died. In 1963. She was only fifteen.’
‘Wow,’ says Ben. ‘That is heavy.’
‘Yep,’ I say. ‘My grandfather gave the first part to me at the funeral. It’s just pages stapled together. But there’s more, I just don’t know where. I think my mum knows something, but when I asked her –’ I trail off.
‘I heard you guys shouting last week,’ Ben says simply. He pushes himself off the table and stands up. ‘Didn’t Sherlock Holmes say when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?’
I smile at him. ‘That is correct. I just don’t know what the truth is . . . I feel like if I can only read the rest of it I’l know. It’s like I’ve hit a brick wal .’
‘Sherlock Holmes is usual y right,’ Ben says, brushing his hands together. ‘So what remains is, someone’s got the rest of it, and they don’t want anyone to see it, for whatever reason.’
It’s true, but strange to hear it out loud. ‘That’s probably right.’
‘It’s a mystery. It needs solving, and you shouldn’t be sitting here stewing about it.’ Ben sticks his hands in his
