', Nathan said, 'Are you okay? Or would you like another drink?' 'I'm okay. I'm fine for the moment. Thanks.'
He could tell this was not her first drink of the evening. I' He said, 'Well, this is weird.'
She looked at him with an expression that Nathan should not have been able to understand. But he understood it, all right.
'What's weird ?'
'I've never been for a drink with my estate agent before.'
She smiled, but there was something dutiful and tired about it.
They watched the barman prepare Nathan's drink. When it arrived, with an unnecessary flourish, he took a sip, then said: 'Are you sure you're okay? You seem a little--'
'I'm fine. Really.'
'Tough day?'
She reached out and, as if he had asked her a child's question, patted the back of his hand. I 'It's not so much that.'
? He took another sip. He wished he'd ordered a gin and tonic. 'You can tell me about it, if you like.'
'Can I have a cigarette?'
'Don't ask me that. You gave up.'
'Go on. Just one.'
He laid the pack on the bar.
'Take as many as you like. But I won't offer you one.'
She took a cigarette, brushed a trailing lock of hair behind her ear.
She tipped her head sideways to light it and exhaled with great, grim satisfaction.
'Look . . .'
'What?'
'I don't really do this.'
'Do what?'
He grinned, as if he were exasperated. But really he was scared.
She said, 'I think you're a really nice man . . .'
'That's because you haven't got to know me yet.'
She chuckled, and then her eyes welled. She took another puff on the cigarette.
Nathan didn't know what to do with his hands. He laid them flat on the bar.
'It's just difficult at the moment,' she said. 'If the timing was better--'
'What? Are you married or something? Have you got a boyfriend ?'
She brushed back her hair again.
'God, I kind of wish it was that. It would be great, if all I had was a boyfriend.'
She stubbed out the cigarette and Nathan said, 'Okay, you've got to help me out here. Just a little bit.'
'May I have another cigarette?'
He pushed the pack towards her with his fingertips. They each lit a fresh cigarette.
Holly said, 'Look. I don't know how to say this. It's a bit weird.
Everyone I know already knows. So I've never actually had to tell anybody about it.'
Indecorously, she wiped her nose with the back of her hand and said, 'Okay. Say it. Four years ago. More than four years ago now, Jesus. Anyway. Four years ago, my sister . . .'
She couldn't bear to say the words, any more than Nathan could bear to hear them.
'Well, my sister sort of disappeared.'
It took strength to face her.
He said, 'Oh, Jesus. That's awful. I'm sorry.'
But she wasn't looking at him. He watched her profile. She wasn't seeing the bar any longer. She was seeing Mark Derbyshire's party.
'She went out one night. To a party. And she just never came home.'
'I don't know what to say.'
'The police searched for her. They even thought they knew who did it. But there wasn't enough evidence. And they never found her.
There was no body or anything. So really, we still don't know.'
They sat in silence and watched the barman, a handsome young Australian with an easy smile, shake a cocktail then pour three drinks for a cackling hen party at the far end of the bar.
'Jesus,' said Nathan.
Holly drained her drink. 'I'm sorry to do this to you.'
'Oh my God, don't be sorry.'
She stopped him. 'I had a boyfriend, at the time. Well, I say boyfriend. Fiance. We were supposed to get married. Three years ago, last June. Anyway. The strain was too much. You know, for the relationship.' She said this in an embarrassed, faux transatlantic accent and Nathan snorted in bitter complicity. 'It wasn't his fault, not really. I stopped being his girlfriend. All I could think about was Elise.'
'Well, what did he expect?'
She took his margarita and poured half into her own glass. Neither of them wanted to call back the Australian barman.
'It's easy to say that. But, you know, he's only human. And this thing, it sort of took over our lives: it was like there wasn't anything else in the world. It was impossible to do anything, to go anywhere, to, I don't know, have a conversation about something. It was like it was rude to be happy. So, anyway. We sold the house. I wanted to be close to Mum and Dad, so I left my job and moved back home.'
Nathan drained the last of the slush from his glass.
'I see.
'I'm sorry to lay all this on you.'
'Not at all. Don't be stupid.'
'So. This is really the first time I've done anything since.'
'Gone out with somebody?'
'Gone out, period.'
He stared into his empty glass.
'Right.'
'Anyway. So I told Mum about it--'
'About tonight?'
'Yeah. This is a new dress.'
'It's lovely.'
'Ha. Thank you. Anyway. I told Mum I was going out. I had to. I came home with this new dress and these new shoes. And, I don't know, I was excited. And so was Mum. She had this look in her eyes.
And she asked me who you were, how we met. So I told her, and she asked where we were going and where I'd bought the dress and how much I'd paid for it. . .' She re-tucked the stray lock of hair behind her ear. 'And then we both began to cry.'
'Right,' said Nathan.
Holly laughed at herself as she wept, then took a big, long sniff, and wiped her nose again.
'So you see. I'm sorry.'
'I don't know what to say.'
'It's all right. Nobody ever does.'
The passing barman set down before them two chrome bowls of green olives and peanuts.
'Okay,' said Nathan. 'What do we do now?'
Through the corner of his eye, he could see her as she lifted her handbag from under her coat. She fossicked around inside and withdrew a tissue and blew her nose. Then she quickly withdrew a compact, flipped it open, examined her puffy eyes and smudged make-up in the small mirror, said 'God', closed the compact, put it back in her bag and slipped the bag beneath the coat again.
She stood up, saying: 'I'm sorry to do this to you.'
