Love Always

‘He chucked a twenner at you?’ I say. ‘Like you’re a prostitute and he’s paying you in cash for letting him feel you up?’

‘Exactly!’ she shouts. ‘I mean, I think it was for the cab, but you know – wow, way to make me feel cheap!’

‘Who paid for dinner?’

‘We split.’ There’s a silence. ‘I don’t think that means anything though.’

‘Me neither. What does he do?’

‘He’s a . . . wel . He’s a dancer.’

‘He’s a what?’

She takes a bite of her quiche. ‘He’s a dancer.’

‘What kind of a dancer?’

‘He’s in The Lion King.’

‘He’s a dancer in The Lion King,’ I say. ‘You snogged a dancer in The Lion King.’ I’m nodding. ‘What part does he play in The Lion King?’

Cathy stil isn’t looking at me. Her voice is shaking. ‘I think he’s a giraffe.’

We both col apse with laughter, and my stool rocks alarmingly. I steady myself with one hand.

‘And you don’t think he’s . . .’

‘He’s not gay!’ Cathy says in indignation. ‘He’s bloody not! He says that’s real y irritating, that everyone always assumes he must be, and that it’d be much easier for him if he was!’ She pauses. ‘Apart from with his parents. They’d disown him.’

‘Why? What’s with his parents?’

‘They’re very strict Baptists. They think homosexuality is a sin.’ Cathy shakes her head. ‘They sound kind of awful. Very repressive. He grew up in Rickmansworth,’ she adds, as if the two are connected.

‘Right,’ I say, though I now have severe doubts about Jonathan the dancing giraffe from Rickmansworth with the repressive Baptist parents.

‘Wel , maybe he’s just shy . . .’ I trail off. ‘How was the snogging?’

Cathy looks around again. ‘It was OK. You know? Sometimes it’s just not that great. And we were quite drunk.’

‘But you like him?’

She stares into space. ‘Yeah, I do. He’s real y funny. And we have nothing in common. I like that. He’s different from me.’ She shifts in her chair again. ‘Everyone at work’s just like me. Always in suits. Serious. Reads the FT.’ She pushes her lips out. ‘That’s why I liked his profile, and when we were emailing. He just sounded real y fun.’ She stops. Her voice is soft. ‘I just want to meet someone, you know? And it’s hard.’

I remember the last date I went on before I ran into Oli. A man with a signet ring and fat, sausage-like fingers, talking about himself al evening and how his friends thought he was ‘completely crazy, up for anything, me!’ Yel owish blond thin hair, red face like a baby, eyes that looked anywhere but into mine, and I sat there in silence and thought to myself, Perhaps he’ll do, perhaps I’m being too picky, that’s what everyone says.

‘I know,’ I say. ‘I know it’s hard.’

‘Ha.’ Cathy looks at me. ‘Like you’d know.’

‘Oi,’ I say. She claps her hand over her mouth. ‘Shit, Nat, I’m real y sorry!’ Red stains her white cheeks. ‘That’s so tactless of me!’

I lean forward on my stool and pat her head, which is al I can reach. ‘It’s fine! Honestly, don’t worry. I wouldn’t know, anyway. I haven’t been out there for ages.’

‘Do you think you wil be, soon, then?’

‘Don’t know,’ I say, stretching my fingers out in front of me. ‘We need to talk. He keeps cal ing, he wants to meet up again. I just haven’t wanted to see him.’

‘He wants to come back, doesn’t he?’ Cathy asks. I nod. ‘Of course he does!’ she says, relieved. ‘You and Oli – you’re together for ever! I mean, you can’t split up!’

‘He slept with someone else,’ I say. ‘Don’t you think that’s a big deal?’

Cathy knits her hands together. Normal y so sure of herself, she looks around. ‘Yes, of course it is. But if you’re asking me if it’s something to end your marriage over . . . I don’t know. I’m not in it.’ She smiles, knowing it’s a bad answer. ‘I can’t make that judgement.’

‘Wel , I am in it, and I have made that judgement,’ I say. ‘I just don’t know if I can be with him again.’

‘Wow.’ Cathy opens and shuts her mouth. ‘Seriously? But your life – together.’

‘I know.’ My throat is dry. ‘Weren’t you going to start trying for a baby soon, too?’ Now I am knitting my fingers together. I can’t look at her, I don’t want to lose it. I push down the sound I want to make, push it back down somewhere at the back of my throat. ‘No.’

‘Oh. I thought you were.’

‘Wel , we’re not. He doesn’t want to. He said he wasn’t ready.’

Cathy flicks a look at me from under her lashes, and doesn’t pursue this. Instead she says, ‘Do you think he’s sorry?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I say. ‘I think he’s very sorry he’s been chucked out of his nice flat with the big TV and al his DVDs and crap and someone who knows how he likes his coffee in the morning. I think he misses that a lot.’

‘Come on,’ Cathy says. ‘It’s more than that.’

I’m not sure it is for him, and I can’t blame him either. Your relationship is in your home. Your home is where the two of you are for the most part.

And your home is where you have your stuff and where you chil out after a bad day. Even after everything that’s happened, our flat is stil our flat. It’s where I have my books, where my clothes hang in cupboards, where I keep the letters Granny wrote me, the postcards Jay sent me, the Zabar’s mug I bought in New York with Cathy. I liked having space to put stuff, letting our things mingle together. In Bryant Court, Mum and I improvised almost everything. Her chest of drawers was the trunk she had at boarding school and our clothes hung on a wire rack she bought at a fair; the shelves in the kitchen were too narrow to store anything other than smal spice jars, which was ironic as neither of us ever cooked and we lived on takeout or ready-meals and occasional y pasta. So our plates and glasses and mugs were al stacked in a corner, the cutlery in a large patterned glass jar she’d got in Italy.

‘It’s a marriage, not just a home,’ Cathy says sternly. ‘For both of you.’

We had a home together, the two of us, until Oli went and ruined it. But the thing is, I think I want that home, I want us to be together. I don’t want to be out there again. I think I do stil love him. That’s the trouble.

Chapter Twenty-Three

After Cathy leaves, I do some tidying up and sorting out. I put things away, I arrange my tools in my drawer under the workbench. I update my contacts folder on my laptop (a new state-of-the-art Mac, which I convinced myself – helped by Oli, it’s true – I had to have for work, when any old computer would basical y have done). I email a few shops, some friends who are fel ow jewel ers to find if they’l be at the next trade fair, in ExCel in May, and I get an application form from Tower Hamlets for a grant. Though even this feels wrong; I don’t think I deserve the money.

What I need to do, I know, is keep on like this. Keep doing things. Keep coming to the studio and actual y making stuff, having a plan, having tea with the others, instead of using this place as an escape from the lonely, echoing flat, fil ed with Oli’s stuff. I open the unopened letters from the bank, putting them in a pile. I make a list of things to do. And as I stand up and stretch, slinging my bag over my shoulder, I put my sketchbook in the centre of the table, so it’l be the first thing I see when I come in tomorrow. Feeling suddenly hopeful, I close the door behind me.

As I walk past Ben’s studio I’m about to knock, but I can hear him and Tania talking so I pause, listening for a second.

I can tel by the tone of their voices – slightly louder and higher than usual – that it’s not the kind of conversation you want to interrupt. Normal y I’d knock anyway, or cal out ‘Bye’ but perhaps I need to stop hanging out with them instead of going home. Yes, I’m going home.

I say goodnight to Jamie and as I have my hand on the door I open my bag, quickly, just checking. Yes, Cecily diary’s stil there, nestling at the top of my things, folded up inside my sketchbook.

One of the weirdest things about my ‘situation’ at the moment is the label ing of it. Do I stil say ‘we’ when I’m talking about where ‘we’ live or how long ago ‘we’ bought the new flat-screen TV? It feels so odd, yet to say ‘my status-TBC-husband and I’ is also weird. ‘We’ live on Princelet Street, off Brick Lane, a couple of minutes’ walk from my studio.

When I first left col ege I worked for two years on a stal in Camden Market and lived in West Norwood, so I know what a long commute is like. I was only there in the mornings, too – in the afternoons I’d do my own stuff – so it was nearly three hours of travel ing for three hours of work, not a good exchange system. I had about fifty pence a week left to play with, if that.

We moved here after much negotiation. Oli flatly refused to cross the river, especial y not to live that far out. He wanted to stay in North London.

We compromised on East London, and it was one of our better decisions, because I can’t imagine living anywhere else now. I have lived in West, East and South and worked in North London, and this is where we both wanted to be. I don’t know what ‘we’ think about that any more, but I love it here, and though East London isn’t everyone’s favourite biscuit, I wouldn’t live anywhere else. I know where I want to be. Until a decade ago or so round here, Spitalfields, Shoreditch, Whitechapel, al of it was a real no-man’s-land, abandoned since the days of Jack the Ripper, but now it is quite hilariously trendy. The slums they cleared people out of in the sixties, moving them into new-builds, are now Georgian terraces sel ing for half a mil ion quid.

My road is not as posh as the great Huguenot weavers’ houses on Fournier Street, which is now almost al private houses or museums masquerading as private houses, each front door now a tasteful olive, dark grey or black, shutters immaculately reproduced in the original style and painted to match. Our street is one block up, a bit quieter, the houses a bit more dilapidated. If you half-close your eyes, you real y can imagine some weaver hurrying back along the cobbled street through the mud and rain and opening the dark, sturdy front door to be greeted by a blaze of light and a warming fire. It feels less like something out of a film set and more like a place where people have lived and stil live now. People like us.

I walk home that afternoon, past the guys pushing the empty rails from Petticoat Market, past the sweet Victorian primary school where it is home-time. Children are flooding out in their blue sweaters, throwing themselves against their parents, jabbering excitedly to each other. Two little girls are in a minibus, kissing each other and playing with each other’s hair, while an adult shovels more children in next to them. I stand and watch them, smiling, until one of the parents stares at me. Embarrassed, I walk on, pul ing my scarf more tightly around me in the cold, hitching my overnight bag onto my shoulder.

I skid on a puddle and nearly slip. ‘Mind how you go,’ says one of the ever-present waiters who stand outside the curry houses al day, trying to entice punters inside. ‘It’s cold, freezing, be careful, yes?’

It is freezing, I feel it now. I am sick of this winter. It’s been never-ending. It’s almost March, and stil so cold. I look up at the grey-white sky, heavy with cloud. The contrast with Cornwal is total, in fact. There are no trees on Brick Lane, only brightly il uminated signs, flashing LED lights, misleading banners (‘Winner of Best Curry Restaurant’ – Where? When? According to whom?), comforting, spicy smel s which make my confused stomach lurch with nausea and at the same time growl with hunger.

It is past five and getting dark. It is a night for staying in, for going to the Taj Stores opposite and loading up on poppadoms and chutney, it’s a night for wrapping oneself in scarves and blankets and curling up on the sofa. I think how nice a takeaway from the Lahore Kebab House would be.

If Oli was here perhaps he’d get it on his way back from work. If Oli was here we’d watch a few more episodes of Mad Men on the new flat-screen TV, and then I’d put my head in his lap and half-read a book while he watches the footbal .

I turn into Princelet Street, waving at another waiter, standing outside the Eastern Eye Balti House. ‘How was the funeral?’ he says, bowing his head slightly as if acknowledging it. He wears a pale blue waistcoat and shirt. He must be freezing.

‘It was . . . fine,’ I say, touched. I wil never know how to answer that question properly. It was . . . funereal, thanks for asking.

‘That’s life,’ the waiter cal s after me, nodding philosophical y. ‘Life and death.’

Just as I am getting into the flat, my mobile rings. I struggle with my overnight bag and my scarf, getting tangled up as I delve into my handbag to find the phone and press it immediately to my ear.

‘Hel o?’

‘Hel o? Darling? Where are you?’

It’s my mother. I freeze. ‘I’m at home,’ I say, after a moment. I dump my overnight bag on the floor. ‘Er – where are you? Are you stil in Cornwal ?’ I stare at the bag.

‘Yes,’ says Mum. ‘Off tomorrow evening.’

‘Um—’ I don’t know what to say to her. There’s a silence. ‘So . . . how’s the clearing up going?’

‘It’s OK,’ she says. ‘Fine. We’re seeing the solicitors tomorrow, to sort out the foundation and the funding. Archie and I.’

‘Oh, yes. Is – is Louisa stil there?’

My mother lowers her voice. ‘God, yes. Of course she is. I wish she’d just leave, to be honest, but no . . .’ She pauses, as though she’s looking around. ‘She’s stil here. Pretending to be the dutiful daughter, even though she’s not.’

I am recasting everything in my mind, now: everything I thought I knew. I knew my mother and Louisa didn’t get on that wel , but I thought it was simply because they’re so different. Now I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what actual y happened that summer, after al , but I can tel Mum was difficult even then, based on just a few pages of her sister’s diary. Does my mother know what they say about her? That behind her back people whisper about her, like those old friends of Granny’s at the funeral, that they say, You know, it was never proved, but Miranda . . . yes, that one over there, you know they always had trouble with her. They say she kil ed her sister. Oh, it wasn’t an accident . . .

It occurs to me, as silence fal s between us, that she does, always has done, that she has always known that’s what they say about her.

Are they right, though? And if so, why? Why would she do it? What happened?

‘I didn’t ring for that, though,’ Mum says. ‘I rang to see how you are. Um—’ She pauses. ‘I can’t believe you didn’t tel me about you and Oli.’

‘Look, Mum, I’m real y sorry about it,’ I say. ‘I feel awful, but it was only three weeks ago, and I wanted to keep a lid on it until I knew what I was going to do—’

‘Oh, Natasha, you always want to bottle things up,’ she says. ‘You never talk about things! You should have told me. It was awful, finding out like that. At the same time as Louisa! And Mary Beth. I mean—! When do we ever see Mary Beth? Who is she?’

I am not in the mood for her amateur dramatics, her sighing and hair tossing. ‘I had my reasons,’ I say. ‘I told you that. I’m sorry if you feel left out.’

She pauses. ‘Wel ,’ she says, sounding slightly flattened. ‘Anyway – oh, darling. I don’t know what to say.’

There’s a silence. I don’t know what to say either. We can’t help each other, my mother and I, we never have been able to. The ties that bind us together are so tight there’s no room for friendship. We’ve put up with the cold, with crappy one-bed flats, with creepy landlords and no money, too-smal winter coats, meal after meal of pasta or baked beans, watching a tiny TV with a coat-hanger aerial, and spending night after night in each other’s company, always making out to our family and friends that the life we lived was bohemian, carefree, simple and al the more tasty as a result. We don’t run towards each other’s company now. We don’t real y have anything in common, now we’re both adults. Whoever my father is, he and I must be pretty alike. I often think we’d probably get on like a house on fire. My mother and I haven’t real y had that luxury. Instead we’ve tried to respect each other, and we don’t go into any more of it than that.

Now, everything has changed, and I don’t know what we do. Perhaps she’s trying to be a good mother. And I don’t believe Octavia, I don’t believe my mother is responsible for Cecily’s death. But then I’m beginning to realise I don’t know anything.

‘Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tel you,’ I say.

She sighs. ‘It’s fine, honestly, darling. I know it’s been a hard time for you.’

It’s very odd, hearing her voice. ‘Wel , it has for you, too, Mum,’ I say. ‘Granny’s only just died.’

‘I know.’ She sighs again. ‘A lifetime and a week, a week and a lifetime.’

‘What?’

My mother gives a smal laugh. ‘Nothing. I’m feeling a bit mad at the moment. Being with one’s family wil do that to one, won’t it?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I say. ‘It’s just hard, packing away the house, knowing we’re leaving it empty, leaving al these memories behind.’ She sounds tired.

‘Al these lovely pieces in the house, and I don’t know what to do with them – whether Archie’s right about it al . I’m sure he is, but – wel , there’s Louisa.’ Her voice hardens again. ‘Bossing us around.’

‘You should talk to . . . I don’t know, someone who knows a bit about that stuff.’ I remember back to that scene in the kitchen. ‘Guy, perhaps.’

‘Guy Leighton?’ Mum stops me. ‘No. I don’t like Guy.’

I remember how angry she was with him in the kitchen, just before I left last night. Only twenty-four hours ago. ‘Why not? He seemed quite nice.

As if he knew what he was talking about.’

‘Wel , he’s not nice,’ Mum says. ‘He makes out he’s nice as pie, al sticky-up hair and glasses. He’s worse than the rest of them. No, I’m not having anything to do with him.’

‘But don’t you have to, if Granny asked him to be on the committee?’ I ask.

She clears her throat. ‘Believe me, Natasha,’ she says. ‘Guy Leighton is not what he seems. Just steer clear of him, if you can.’

‘What?’ I say. ‘What does that mean?’ I wind a strand of hair tighter and tighter around my finger. ‘What’s he done?’

She seems to hesitate. ‘Wel . He was a complicated fel ow.’

‘Yes?’ I say expectantly. ‘And?’

There’s a silence. It’s so long that after about ten seconds I think she must have been disconnected, and I say, ‘Mum? Are you stil there? What did he do?’

‘Oh.’ And then she sighs. ‘Perhaps I’m being unfair. I haven’t seen him for years and years. It’s a long time ago. Forget it!’ She trails off. ‘I’d just rather do it at my own pace, and Archie agrees. Jesus.’ She breaks off, and suddenly says, ‘By the way, did Arvind give you anything? Yesterday?’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Yes . . . Sorry. He gave me a ring.’

The instant I say it I know I shouldn’t have. I know it’s a mistake.

‘A ring?’ Mum says instantly. ‘What ring? Arvind gave you a ring?’

‘Yes, Granny’s ring, the one with the flowers.’ I hear her inhale sharply. ‘Sorry, Mum, I didn’t think to tel you.’

‘Wel , I wish you had.’ She sounds real y cross, agitated even. ‘We’ve been looking through Granny’s things today, and I couldn’t find it.’ She hesitates. ‘Nothing else? He didn’t give you anything else?’

I take a deep breath and lie. ‘No. Nothing.’

I am wary of her now. I know what she can be like. And I feel, al of a sudden, as if we are playing a new game, one we’ve never played before.

‘It would have been good if you’d told me, Natasha.’

‘I didn’t realise,’ I say, nettled. ‘I didn’t think it was your ring to give away. Of course, if you want it, I don’t want—’ It’s stil round my neck and as I touch it I know suddenly I absolutely won’t give it to her. I know Arvind didn’t want Mum or Archie to have it, though I don’t know why. ‘It was in Granny’s bedside table,’ I say. ‘He said Cecily wore it. On a chain.’

Her sister’s name feels like a heavy stone dropped into the sentence.

‘She did wear it, I’d forgotten,’ Mum says. ‘Mummy said she could borrow it. She took it to school but then she lost it. We couldn’t tel Mummy, she’d have been so cross. Cecily was distraught, I’ve never seen her so upset. We looked absolutely everywhere. It was a freezing cold winter, the coldest on record, that winter before . . . she died.’ She clears her throat. ‘And do you know where we found it?’

‘No, where?’ I say. The steam from the kettle is fugging up the kitchen window. I take a mug off a hook and put a teabag in it.

‘The pipes froze solid and the sink fel off the wal in her dorm.’ Mum laughs softly. ‘When they took the sink away it slid out. She’d dropped it down the plughole and it was frozen in water. Like a stick of rock, with a gold ring in the middle.’

‘No way.’ That ring, the one round my neck. I smile. Mum gives a gurgle of laughter. ‘It’s true! But that was Cecily. Oh, she was funny. Such a drama queen. They al said I was – hah, she was! Such a prima donna. She swore she’d never take it off again. So she wore it round her neck on a chain. And then Mummy found out, and made her give it back. She was absolutely furious.’ She stops. There is a silence, and I hear a funny sound and realise she’s crying.

‘Oh, Mum,’ I say, instantly feeling guilty for taking her on this path, even if she was going there herself. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry—’

‘No, no,’ Mum says. Her voice is real y wobbly, as though it’s been put through a distorter. ‘No! Oh, Jesus. I never talk about her, that’s al . It’s only . . . She was so young. It’s hard now . . . when I think about then . . . and now. I wasn’t very nice to her. I wish I could take it al back.’

‘Oh, Mum, that’s not true,’ I say. ‘You don’t know,’ Mum says quietly. ‘I keep thinking about her, you know. Especial y lately, with Mummy’s death. I wonder what she would have been like now. She’d be middle-aged, not a girl any more. She real y was lovely . . .’ And then she makes a strange sound, half sob, half moan. ‘Oh, God,’ she says. ‘Cecily. No. Let’s talk about something else. It upsets me too much.’

‘Was it real y the coldest winter on record?’ I say, after a quick think. I make the tea, wrapping my fingers round the thick mug for warmth, and go into the sitting room.

‘The winter of ’62, ’63?’ Mum sniffs loudly. ‘Oh, yes, darling. It snowed from December to March, Natasha. Two feet of snow outside. Three feet! There was no gas, no heating. We had to burn old desks at school, because we ran out of wood. We were snowed in for about a week.’

‘Wow,’ I say, sitting down on the slithery leather sofa. ‘A whole week?’

‘I’m serious,’ Mum said. ‘We were al so cold, al the time. And I remember – gosh, it’s al coming back now—’ She trails off.

‘What?’ I say, intrigued, tucking my feet underneath me. I adjust the phone, hugging a cushion to keep me warm. The huge sitting room is always chil y.

‘Our headmistress,’ Mum says. ‘Stupid bloody bitch. Do you know what she said to me and Cecily? In front of the whole school, at assembly?’

‘No, what?’

Mum recites, as though it’s a lesson. ‘“Girls like you with darker skins wil feel the cold more than the English girls.”’

I’m so shocked I don’t know what to say. ‘Real y?’

‘I hated that school, hated it. I was useless. They hated me, too. You know, one of the mistresses at school, she made me wash my mouth out with bleach. Made me scrub my skin with it, too. Said it’d lighten my dark hair.’

‘No, Mum.’

Mum is such a drama queen, but for some reason I believe her.

‘It’s actual y true. Hah.’

‘What happened?’

‘I’d final y had enough when that happened.’ Her voice is dreamy, as though she’s tel ing a fairy story. ‘I went to ring up Mummy that evening in floods of tears, to tel her to take us away. But the phone lines were down,’ Mum says flatly. ‘And I had to stay anyway. There wasn’t anywhere else for me to go. When I did final y get through to Mummy, she wasn’t pleased. Said she didn’t know why I always had to mess things up, that I deserved it. Oh, I behaved real y badly that term. I nearly got expel ed. Awful.’

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. How you are. If you’re OK.’ He nods.

Suddenly I can feel anger rushing into me. ‘Wel – I’m not OK, no.’

He looks a bit surprised. ‘Real y?’

‘Oli, what do you expect me to say?’ I drop my hands into my lap and look at him, wil ing him to understand. ‘Of course I’m not OK. My business is on the verge of going under. My grandmother’s just died. My whole family’s going into melt-down –’ I begin, and then stop, I’m not getting into that now. ‘And my husband’s left me.’

‘You threw me out, I didn’t leave,’ he says promptly, as if it’s a quiz and he knows the answer.

‘Grow up, Oli,’ I say, feeling a release of anger and riding it, loving the sensation of feeling something, anything again. ‘Is that al you’ve got?

Stil ? “You threw me out.”’ I am mimicking him. ‘You’re such a fucking child.’

He stares at me and shakes his head. ‘Nice.’ He looks as if he’s about to say something else, runs a hand through his floppy brown hair, stops.

‘Never mind. I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have said it, OK?’

‘No.’

‘No, it’s not OK? Or no, I shouldn’t have said it?’

‘Both. You pick.’

It has become so easy for us to start sniping at each other, these past few months. I don’t know where it came from. We know each other too wel and take no pleasure in that familiarity. It’s little things but they grow. I am bored witless by his al eged devotion to Arsenal. I don’t believe it either, he was never into footbal at university or when we were friends in our twenties, and al of a sudden he’s their number one fan, along with every other media wannabe in his office. No chance he’d support Grimsby Town, for example, who happen to be the nearest team to the vil age where he grew up – no, not nearly sexy enough.

While we’re on the subject, I hate the way he always orders pints now when he’s with blokes. He doesn’t like beer that much. He likes wine. He actual y used to love cocktails, but he has to be seen to be one of the lads, to fit in with the metrosexual guys in his office who think it’s fine to look at porn and find Frankie Boyle hilarious. I think that’s pathetic. Be a real man. Have the courage of your convictions and order a damn Southern Comfort and lemonade, you big pussy.

I shake my head, ashamed I’m thinking these things, and I look at him. He has his arms crossed and his face is blank, as though he’s shutting down, just as he always does when we have a row. Perhaps he doesn’t want to push it, but I can’t help it.

He changes the subject, wisely. ‘How’s your mum?’ he says. ‘Is she al right?’

Oli is very good about my family. He gets it. His father left his mother when Oli was eight, and she raised him pretty much by herself.

‘Mum’s OK. Ish.’ I wonder what’s going on at Summercove tonight. I hope Mum is keeping it together and hasn’t gone mad and attacked Louisa with a silver candlestick. Like Cluedo. I smile, and then I think, That’s not funny. I feel a bit mad al of a sudden. I look at him, at his face, the face I know so wel . His glasses are crooked, his hair is sticking up on end. I smooth my skirt with my hands. ‘She’s Mum, you know. A bit of a nightmare. But I think she’s holding it together. I hope so.’

Oli gives me a curious look. ‘You don’t have to always hold it together, you know,’ he says. ‘Everyone gives her a hard time. I feel sorry for your mum.’

I’m on my mettle. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’

‘I do, because you’ve told me. Many times,’ he says, and then he bites his tongue, clamping his mouth shut. There’s a silence again, and I can hear my heart beating.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve obviously been real y boring about it,’ I say snappishly. I hate the tone in my voice.

Oli blinks impatiently. ‘Come on, Natasha,’ he says, as if to say, You’re being childish now. He jiggles his legs im patiently. ‘I probably don’t know what I’m talking about. Your family is a mystery to me.’ He has his palms out in a conciliatory gesture and though I know he learned this on a negotiation training course a couple of months ago I nod, because he’s right, though it irritates me.

‘They’re a mystery to me, too.’

‘I’m sure they are.’ Oli smiles and shakes his head.

I wish I could confide in him, with an ache that surprises me with its intensity. I wish we were here and it was normal again.

I would tel him about the meeting at the bank. Work out what we were going to do about it, the two of us. I would tel him about the diary and what Octavia said. Maybe we’d sit at the table and read it together. I could ask his advice, talk about where we both think the next part is, whether Mum knows about it, what I should do. I would ask about his day, about the little things that have been bothering him: whether the ad agency was happy with the campaign they put together for a new brand of peanut, or the pitch they’re doing for a big trainer company, and how the new guy from Apple who’s joined them is working out, and what he had for lunch that day and whether he remembered it’s his moth-er’s birthday in a week’s time, and . . .

We were so close, we used to joke about it. I hated it when the door closed behind him as he left for work in the mornings. I missed him al day.

He made the demons go away and the happy, sane Natasha I wanted to be stay in the room. I was even glad when he had the stomach flu and was off for two days, isn’t that dreadful? I didn’t go into the studio for two days either, I stayed at home with him and we watched Die Hard and Hitch, his favourite films, and I made him chicken broth. We both longed for the weekends, forty-eight hours together, just the two of us, Oli and Natasha, walking down Brick Lane hand in hand, cooking up a storm in the kitchen, bickering over what shower curtain to get, what dish was nicest at Tayyabs, whether to watch The Godfather Part II again or The Princess Bride.

We were our own unit of one. Joined together to make one. Both from broken families, both looking for love and reassurance, both wanting to make a home of our own, a new family, a fresh start.

So how did it come to this? That he has slept with someone else, broken my heart, kil ed our dreams stone dead? That we can’t say a kind word to each other, that we actual y dislike each other sometimes? How the hel did we get here?

My eyes roam round the room, as though I’m searching for something to say next. I find myself staring at the photo of our wedding day, almost the same as the one I have in the studio. It stands proudly in a silver frame on the lowest shelf by the TV. We are smiling. I stand up and look at it more closely. There is glitter on my dress; it sparkles softly in the evening light. Oli fol ows my gaze, and we look at the picture together.

‘Look at us,’ he says. ‘Funny, eh.’

‘I know,’ I say, closing my eyes, not wanting to look any more.

‘Where did it go wrong?’

When you fucked someone else. I pause, the quick retort on my lips, but I bite it back. ‘I don’t know.’ I shake my head, look down at him, his hair fal ing into his face.

He nods, as if acknowledging what I haven’t said. ‘I stil love you,’ he says, ‘but . . . I just . . . It’s been hard.’ He scrapes his knuckles along the wooden floor, stretching his arms out from the low chair.

‘I know that too,’ I say. ‘I don’t know when it started being like that. Before—’

‘I think it was a long time before,’ Oli says. ‘Long time?’ My eyes fly wide open at this. He puts his hands out again.

‘Not a long time, but a few months now, you know? Because when it started, and for a long time, you and me, wel – hah.’ He is smiling. ‘I thought we were the perfect couple. I think the problem is we changed. Both of us. And we didn’t notice. I think we’ve become different people from the people we wanted to be at university, the people we were then, and that’s the problem.’

‘Perhaps it has,’ I say slowly. He’s right. He’s changed. So I probably have too. ‘I haven’t been easy.’

‘Neither have I.’ He smiles. ‘But it didn’t used to matter, did it?’

‘No.’ I smile back. ‘It didn’t.’

Oli looks into my eyes from across the sitting room, and suddenly the distance is nothing. ‘I loved everything about you, even the stuff I didn’t agree with, the things I didn’t understand.’

‘Me too,’ I say, clasping my hands in front of me and looking at him. ‘Ol, do you think that—’

‘I don’t know,’ he says simply. ‘I don’t know where it’s gone, and I don’t know if we can ever get it back.’

I take a deep breath. ‘You had a one-night stand,’ I say. ‘One night. You know – perhaps it’s – OK. Perhaps we just agree to move on . . .

Perhaps we just say it’s not the end of the world.’

Oli puts his head in his hands. He gives a little groan. Someone is shouting something outside in the street. I watch my husband, fear inside my head, in my heart.

‘Oli?’ I say gently. ‘Oh, God. Natasha, that’s why we need to talk. I didn’t want to say it like this.’

I swal ow. ‘Why?’

‘Come on . . .’ His eyes peer at me through his fingers, like bars on a window. ‘It wasn’t a one-night stand. You must know that.’

‘What?’ I rock on my heels. I feel as though he’s just punched me.

‘Chloe and I – it wasn’t just once. It’s more than that – it’s, wel . It’s been going on for a while.’

‘But—’ I shake my head. ‘No, Oli—’

‘That’s why I’m here, Natasha,’ he says, getting up, struggling out of the chair and standing in front of me. ‘I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t what you want to hear.’

I clear my throat, and when I speak, I am surprised by how calm my voice is. ‘You think – you think we should split up. Permanently.’

Oli tugs his hair, hard, and then looks straight at me. ‘I don’t know. Probably. Yes.’

Chapter Twenty-Five

‘Hi, Nat. Same again?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Flat white coming up, my dear. Sit back down, it’l be ready in a minute.’

I sit down at the counter, watching the organised mayhem behind as Arthur, the owner, and his two cohorts juggle with beans, huge silver machines belching steam, frothing milk, and paper cups, as people stand patiently waiting for their orders to come through. I watch the world go by, the smel of fresh bagels from the shop next door wafting tantalisingly in, as Brick Lane slowly comes alive again. I love the early mornings here, before the tourists and the hungry hordes arrive, when it’s just people who live here, work here.

I have been here since it opened at seven, sitting on a tal stool, staring out of the window and trying to read the papers, but I can’t. I haven’t slept yet. It is just after eight.

‘Nat?’ someone behind me says. ‘Hey, I thought it was you.’

I turn round slowly, and look up. ‘Oh, Ben. Hi.’

Ben stares at me. I must look delightful, unbrushed hair, no sleep, bump on forehead, in an assortment of crazy clothes. I had to get out of the flat. ‘How weird.’ He stares at me. ‘I was just thinking about you. We didn’t see you yesterday after lunch. Wondered if you were OK. Tania, look—’

He pats his girlfriend’s arm and Tania looks up. She smiles when she sees me. ‘Nat, how are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ I say. They both look me over. ‘You don’t look fine,’ Ben says. ‘Natasha . . . ?’ I look through the window. Oli is staring at me. He pushes open the door. ‘Where the hel did you go?’ he says angrily. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you, you just ran off—’

‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ I say. I push my hand through my hair.

Ben and Tania are stil staring at us, with increasing discomfort.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Oli, you’ve met Ben. And this is Tania.’ I wave my arm limpidly at them, as if it’s fil ed with heavy liquid.

Ben steps forward. ‘Hi, Oli,’ he says. He stretches out one thick, blue jumper-clad arm. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

‘Thanks,’ Oli says, pumping his arm back heartily. ‘Ben – yes, it’s good to see you. We met at that open studio night a few months ago, didn’t we? You’re a photographer, aren’t you, I real y liked your stuff.’

This conversation is unreal. I want to pinch myself. ‘Hey. Thanks. Thanks a lot.’ Ben smiles at him, and turns back to me.

‘Tania’s Ben’s girlfriend. She works with him,’ I say. ‘Not any more,’ Tania says hurriedly, as if she wants to fil the void. ‘But we used to.’

Oli waves his hand to attract Arthur’s attention. ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know that. I’m sorry.’ How could I not have noticed she wasn’t working there any more?

‘No, it’s fine,’ she says, smiling. Ben drums his fingers on the counter. ‘Look, we should go,’ he says. ‘Um – good to see you both. See you around, I guess,’ he says to Oli.

‘Sure, mate,’ Oli says, not real y listening. ‘Nat – see you at the studio.’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘See you – see you soon.’ I watch them go, Ben striding down the street, Tania next to him. It occurs to me then that they didn’t order anything.

‘Weird guy,’ Oli says. ‘Got a crush on you.’

‘No, he hasn’t,’ I say, picking at a napkin. ‘He has. He’s the one who likes Morecambe and Wise, isn’t he?’ He laughs. ‘That hair, and those big jumpers . . . Weird guy.’

‘He’s not weird,’ I say tiredly. ‘He’s lovely. I’ve known him for years, remember. He’s a good man.’

A good man. That’s what he is. I think it now, and I turn to Oli, turn and stare at him. Is he a good man?

‘I’m starving,’ Oli says, patting his pockets. ‘I’m going to order some food.’

Arthur’s voice rises with pleasure. ‘Oli, great to see you again, it’s been a while now. Where you been?’

Oli smiles and pul s out his wal et. ‘Working too hard, I guess.’

‘Neglecting your beautiful wife?’ Arthur is shaking his head. ‘You want to be careful. I’l snap her up if you don’t watch it!’ He laughs and, of course, we laugh merrily back. ‘Same as usual?’

Oli nods. ‘Yeah. Same as usual.’ He comes back, and sits on the stool next to me. ‘I thought you might be here.’

Before al this, we virtual y lived at Arthur’s, which is at the top end of Brick Lane. It’s a little bit Brooklyn New York wannabe, with simple wooden tables, chalked menus, and every third person owns a MacBook, but the food is delicious and the coffee is great. And Arthur is friendly and genuine, and it’s locals of al ages here, not just tourists, and we could sit here happily for hours and read the papers. It’s very lifestyle section. Our life together was, I’ve been realising, very lifestyle section.

I nod. ‘Sorry. I needed to get out. You were stil asleep.’ Oli touches my hand. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘You can’t just run away again. We need to talk about this.’

‘We talked about it last night,’ I say, knowing I am being ridiculous.

‘We didn’t!’ Oli raises his voice and people look round. ‘I just didn’t want to talk about it any more,’ I say. ‘Wel , locking the bedroom door on me and going to sleep isn’t exactly—’

‘I didn’t sleep,’ I say. ‘I just – I didn’t want to talk about it. Any more.’ I couldn’t. I got into our bed, staring at the ceiling until he stopped knocking, and then there was silence in the sitting room, fol owed by snoring, and I lay there for the rest of the night, looking at nothing, not crying, not feeling anything. I don’t know why, even. Perhaps I was afraid of what I’d do if I let go, of al the tension, the fear, the rage inside me.

‘You shut the door, Nat. You locked it.’ Because our flat used to be an office, it has locks on the doors. ‘What was I supposed to do, just leave?

Don’t you understand what I was saying last night?’

‘Yes, I understand,’ I say in a quiet voice. ‘You want us to split up. Do you want a divorce?’

‘I don’t know . . .’ He runs his hands through his hair. ‘Oh, shit. I don’t know.’ He looks at his watch as he says this and I absolutely know he’s wondering how late he’s going to be for work. Oli is not a workaholic: it’s more than that. He genuinely loves his job. Loves the office, the environment. It’s like a stage for him. He should have been an actor. Last year, he missed his own birthday dinner because he was working. ‘We need to talk, though . . .’ Oli taps my arm, trying to get me to look at him, not out of the window. ‘You do see that, don’t you?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I don’t see what there is to talk about, real y,’ I say, my voice very smal . I am so tired. ‘You’re in love with someone else, you want a divorce, and there isn’t much I can do about it.’

Oli crunches up one of those shiny brown napkins in his fist. ‘Natasha. Don’t you want to know why?’

‘Not real y,’ I say, trying to stay calm. ‘Because look at it from my point of view. I was just going along thinking every-thing’s fine, and the next thing I know everything’s crumbled around us, and I don’t understand why.’ I bite my lip, and I can feel the tears wel ing up, water swimming in front of my eyes and then pouring down my cheeks, almost as if it’s unconnected with me. ‘I – I know everything wasn’t perfect, but I love you, Ol. So I don’t understand . . .’

He makes a clicking sound with his tongue, and puts his hand on mine. ‘Oh, God.’

I wipe the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand, but they keep fal ing, fal ing onto the pile of brown napkins, into my coffee. ‘I just – I mean, how long’s it been going on?’ I look at him, and see his eyes are ful of tears too.

‘I don’t know. Not long. Since that night we had together.’

‘And you real y – wow.’ I shake my head. ‘You’re leaving me for her. For Chloe.’ I exaggerate her name.

‘Natasha, babe – it’s not like that.’

‘What’s it like, then?’ I say. It’s so depressing, the clichés, the questions you’ve heard asked on TV shows and films a mil ion times before. In a minute, he’s going to say, I love you, but I’m not in love with you, and then I real y wil lose it.

At this exact moment Arthur puts the coffee and toast down in front of us with a smile. ‘Here you go, guys!’ he says.

I turn my head away til he’s gone, waiting for Oli to speak. He runs his tongue nervously, quickly, over his cracked lips, and he says, ‘What’s it like? It’s like, I think our marriage was over a while ago. And we didn’t see it.’ I open my mouth, but he shifts his stool closer to mine and says, ‘I’m gonna say al this now, while I’ve got the chance, before you kick me out again. You’re a hard woman, Natasha. You’re a hard woman to live with. I don’t think you love me, and you don’t respect me. I don’t know if you ever did.’ He has his hand on his heart and his face is only a couple of inches away.

‘You think I’m hard?’ I say in a whisper. ‘Yes – no.’ Oli’s expression is agonised. ‘Maybe it’s because of your mum. Your family.’

‘They’ve got nothing to do with it!’

‘Real y?’ Oli says. ‘Honestly? You’ve got this obsession with Cornwal , with the house and al of them, with your grandmother and al your family living this wonderful life that you can’t replicate.’

I tear the napkin in half. ‘That’s crap.’

He sighs. ‘Maybe it’s your mum. Or because you don’t know who your dad is. Maybe you need to find out. I just feel like you’ve grown this shel around you, and I can’t get through to you any more.’

‘You think this is about me?’ I can’t believe it.

Oli’s voice is hoarse. ‘I know what I did was wrong. I slept with someone. I lied to you about it, I carried on seeing her. Me and Chloe – it’s different. It’s new, it’s clean, we don’t have al this baggage that we bring to it—’ He mimes a circle around the two of us.

Someone brushes past us, at our cramped window counter, cal ing out a farewel to Arthur. I lean in towards Oli. ‘Do you love her?’ I can’t believe we’re sitting here, and I’m asking this question. Again, it’s such a cliché. I hate it.

He nods, and says simply, ‘I think so, yeah.’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘Right then.’

‘But it’s different . . .’ He shakes his head. His big blue eyes are ful of tears again. ‘We can talk about work, we’ve got loads in common . . . but she’s not you, Natasha. She’s fun and sweet and she can drink me under the table, and she’s lovely. And she thinks I’m great, and it’s great.’ He says this without irony, and I feel a flush of shame at this. ‘But – I don’t know – she’s not you.’

‘No, she sounds much better than me,’ I say. ‘I’m amazed you’re stil here, to be honest.’

He ignores this, and frowns. ‘That’s the thing.’ He swal ows. ‘You know something? I never even tried that hard to keep it a secret. I wanted . . .’

He stops. ‘No.’

‘What?’

‘No, I’m not going to say it.’

‘Go on,’ I say. I nudge him. ‘Be honest.’

Oli looks at me. ‘I almost wanted you to find out. So you’d show some emotion. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to be hurt.’

He looks at me with a kind of expectation, like, That’s it. I get up, a tear running down my cheek. ‘I’m not listening to this.’

He pul s me against him. ‘You’re not leaving now. Dammit, Natasha!’ Arthur looks over at us, blank surprise on his face. ‘You’re so fucking afraid of anything dark or depressing or real, you can’t admit it into your life at al . You can’t even talk about it.’

‘I cried, night after night for you,’ I hiss at him, wrenching out of his grasp. ‘I bloody fainted at my grandmother’s funeral. I don’t sleep, I haven’t done for weeks. Al I can do is think about you, about us, about where we’ve gone wrong. Everything is dark and depressing and real, that’s why I’m crying about it! That’s why I don’t sleep! Ben asked me if I was OK the other day, how things were.’ My voice cracks. ‘He did just now! When do you ever ever say, What are you thinking, how are you?’

‘Al the time,’ Oli says. ‘You just don’t want to tel me.’

‘Who are you?’ I say. I push his hands away and stand there, looking at him. ‘I don’t know you any more.’

‘I don’t think you do.’ Oli looks up at me, and his smile is ugly, his teeth gritted. ‘Because you saw what you wanted to in me, and you took it,’ he hisses. ‘You never saw the real me. You were looking for someone, I don’t know, a daddy replacement? Someone your mum could fancy too?

Someone you could live out your little sophisticated London I’m-not-like-my-mother fantasy with. You’re so fucking hard, Natasha! You won’t let anyone in!’

‘That’s not . . . true.’ I am speaking in a whisper. ‘It is true! I feel like a fucking Italian, you’re so un emotional! Why do you think I asked you for a divorce? To get a reaction out of you, let you know how serious I am about this! You keep everything to yourself, you put this appearance on al the fucking time that it’s al OK! And it’s not! You have to be in control, this goddess no one can touch.’

‘Shut up,’ I say. ‘Shut up, Oli, it’s not true.’ I want to put my hands over my ears.

‘You treat me like a little boy, Nat, like a stupid little boy with a sil y job. And I’m not.’ I am shaking my head, and he breathes in, his nostrils flaring. ‘I’m not, not any more. Most people don’t look at me that way. OK?’

‘Most people like Chloe?’ I say, picking up my coffee. I walk out into Brick Lane. He runs after me.

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I mean you’re my wife, and you look at me like I’m a piece of shit.’

‘You are a piece of shit, that’s why.’ I keep on walking, my bag swinging over my arm. ‘Go off to your meeting. Go away. I don’t – I don’t want to see you ever again.’

Oli says practical y, ‘Nat, you have to give them the mug back. You can’t just walk off with it.’

I realise I have stolen Arthur’s coffee mug, but I try to brazen it out. ‘I don’t fucking care.’ He raises his eyebrows; Oli knows as wel as I do that I am the most bourgeois person in the world and I would no more go off with a mug than I would walk down the street naked.

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Fine.’

Some men driving a white van are coming towards us as I stride down the middle of the road. ‘Natasha, move onto the pavement.’

‘No.’ I carry on, hating myself. ‘Natasha, move!’ Oli says. The men are beeping their horn. One of them raises his fist at me, like a thwarted cartoon vil ain. Oli runs across and pul s me off the road onto the pavement, grabbing my arm, and the mug flies out of my hand, bouncing and then smashing into thick pieces on the kerb with a crunching sound.

‘For God’s sake,’ Oli says. ‘Nat, what are you doing?’

I’m sick of this.

I’m sick of hating him, of feeling like this, of the way our world has col apsed around us so quickly, when we should be building things together, not pul ing them apart. He is gripping my elbows, glaring furiously at me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. And I mean it. ‘I do put you down, I know I do. I don’t know when it started.’ I shake my head, and I can feel my whole body shaking as I do. ‘I don’t know how that makes you feel, it’s like I don’t care.’

‘How it makes me feel?’ he says. ‘Knowing that you despise me? That you think you love me but you don’t? You real y want to know?’

‘Yes,’ I say, taking a deep breath. ‘I want to know.’

He says quietly, ‘I don’t feel anything.’

There’s a silence, just the soft tread of pedestrians walking past us on either side and the wind whistling through the grey streets. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I nod.

‘Yep,’ Oli says. ‘I don’t feel anything at al .’ He looks at me, raising his eyebrows with a sad look of triumph. ‘And I don’t think that’s good.’

He turns and walks away and I fol ow him, like a dog at his heels, along the street. ‘Where are you going?’

‘I think I’m going to go to work now,’ he says. ‘Oh – OK,’ I say. I’m terrified. ‘Are you coming back?’

‘I don’t know,’ he says, but he looks at me, and his eyes are blank. I want to run to him, hug him, but I don’t know him any more. That’s when I realise.

‘I just don’t think you want to be happy, Natasha,’ he says. ‘And I can’t help you.’

I think back over the years, how I’ve known him for over ten years now, together for five of those. I think of my twenty-fifth birthday, at Jay’s flat, where we got together, how he walked me back home, al the way to West Norwood, on a warm May Sunday morning. Of our wedding night, how we were so drunk we passed out and couldn’t stop laughing about our hangovers the next day. How wel I thought I knew him, and how I look at him now and I – I think we’re completely different.

‘We used to be a good fit,’ he says, putting his wal et in his back pocket. ‘I don’t think we’re a good fit any more. Do you?’

‘Yes,’ I say, but I’m lying, and he nods sadly. ‘I think I’d better go now,’ he says, and he walks away down the street.

I watch him until he disappears around a corner. I don’t know what to do next. What happens next. I turn and walk towards the flat, leaving the broken pieces of china in the gutter.

Chapter Twenty-Six

When I get back to the flat, something is wrong. Oli has left the door open, and the skylight outside is also open. The wind has knocked over the coat stand, which has fal en against the hal table, shattering a glass. There are papers everywhere, takeaway menus, minicab cards, fluttering around, scattered on the floor. I bend down to pick the coats up, and I right the stand again, patting it as if it’s a person, and I look around me at the mess left behind.

I have screwed everything up. I think about Granny’s coffin being inexpertly loaded into the ground. About Oli’s face when he first said, ‘I think I need some space.’ (What a cliché, what a fucking pathetic cliché.) Clare Lomax yesterday morning, tel ing me that she was extremely concerned about my ‘ability to sustain a viable business’ . . . Cecily’s diary, Arvind’s face, Oli’s face, Ben being nice to me, my bedroom in our flat at Bryant Court, al of it is going round and round in my mind as I stare at our huge, empty apartment and I can’t break the circle of thinking about it. I’m so tired of feeling like this, of wanting not to feel like this, of tel ing myself I’m being stupid – because I am stupid.

I keep trying to feel better, but these things keep punching me in the face. The col apse of our marriage: he’s probably right, it was col apsing long before Oli’s infidelity. The business going under. And Granny’s death, and what it has started to uncover. Now, it feels as though something fundamental has shifted, as if al my efforts to make everything nice in my life are coming to nothing. My marriage is a sham, it’s over. I can’t make a living doing the only thing I’m any good at. And Granny is gone, the person whose approval I most wanted, whose presence I most often missed, she is gone.

Shutting the door, I start picking up papers, but then I stop and lean on the table and start to cry. I realise I can’t stop myself. I turn around and sink to the ground, staring helplessly at nothing. The tears pour out of me, dripping like little streams onto the floor as I rock against the wal , hugging my knees. Everything is open, nothing can be concealed any more, and it is terrifying. I cry and cry, for Oli and me, for the end of our marriage, for how happy I wanted us to be; how wrong I was, the life I’ve got ahead of me now – I can’t see it, don’t know what I’m here for, what I should do, in my self-pity can’t remember anything worth working for. I cry for Granny and Arvind, for their lost daughter, for our weird, fucked-up family, for my difficult and strange mother, the father I don’t know. The wooden floor is covered with dark circles, my tears.

I cry until there aren’t any more tears left and I am sobbing softly, and after a while the roaring in my ears grows quieter and I look up and around me, expecting to cry again, but I don’t.

It’s very stil . I hug myself again, blinking, my swol en eyes smarting.

It is strange, like coming to after an anaesthetic. I blink again and wipe my nose on my hand.

A car honks in the street. I look at my watch. It’s stil only ten in the morning. It could be midnight. I stand up, staggering slightly, and I lean against the wal , breathing hard, as if I’m out of breath. I feel dizzy, but as though something is clicking into place in the stil ness of the room. As if this is the bottom, I’ve hit the bottom, and now I can start to climb back out.

I stretch my arms out over my head, to ease my cramped back. I’m on my own, now. I understand that. Oli isn’t coming back. He real y isn’t. I look round, and I rol my head back and forth. OK. I’l cal Jay and Cathy. I’l ask Ben and Tania if they want to come to supper. Perhaps I should find some money from somewhere and go with Cathy to Crete this summer, she mentioned it a couple of weeks ago. If I’m not in limbo any more, I can start to plan for the future, can’t I? I think of the sketchbook in the centre of the table in my studio. My fingers itch, something they haven’t done for ages.

Is it possible that out of this something good might come? Immediately, doubt floods over me again, and I look helplessly around me. At first I see nothing. And then I spot Cecily’s diary, sticking out of my stil -unpacked bag in the sitting room. It’s weird. In that peculiar brightness of an overcast day, against the brown of my bag, it is bright white. It is folded, and it looks as if it would like to spring out flat. I rub my eyes tiredly, go over and pick it up, and I stare at the pages once again.

‘What happened to you, Cecily?’ I ask out loud. ‘What happened, to al of you?’

There’s no answer to this. But I feel better for having asked the question. I look around the big, empty apartment, and I don’t recognise it. This isn’t my home any more. Perhaps it never was, not in the way Summercove was.

As I think this, I catch myself and it brings me up short. I glance down at those first few pages again, and stand stil .

I remember the first time I took Oli to Summercove, being so immensely pleased that he liked it, that Granny liked him. Driving back to London, I turned my head away with tears in my eyes when he said he loved it. Wel , of course he did. It’s not difficult to like a beautiful house by the sea, is it?

I got that wrong. I got Oli wrong too. I got a lot of things wrong, it seems. Standing here now, I feel a fog start to lift in my mind. I’ve always thought Summercove was my real, spiritual home, the place where I longed to be for most of the year and where I was happy when I was there. I always liked the thought that Granny was the de facto head of a sprawling family, who didn’t al get on perhaps one hundred per cent, but who, like me, loved being down there, felt it was the place where they could escape from al their problems. I felt that was where the heart of my family stil was.

So it turns out I was wrong. I’ve never questioned it before, but I never questioned a lot of things, and apparently I should have done. I stand there for a long time, lost in thought.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I spend the rest of the day in the flat. I don’t speak to anyone, I don’t know how to ring up Jay or Cathy and say the words out loud. ‘We’re splitting up.’ What happens next? Do we get a divorce? A solicitor? What happens to the flat, should we sel it, rent it, should I move out? The sun has barely come out al day, and it is dark by six. I have a glass of wine, and then another, and it goes straight to my head. And the more I think about things, the more I start to wonder, and the more I find myself thinking, just how blind was I? I think again about Oli’s birthday last September, the fact that I’d booked us into the Hawksmoor for dinner, and he didn’t show up til ten. The boys from work had taken him out for lunch, and in the evening he’d had to have a drink with a client. He was drunk, I knew it, though he tried to pretend otherwise. I’d been in the studio most of the day and then at home, waiting for the evening, waiting for him. I remember it now, as I pour myself another glass of wine and sit on the floor. I don’t know if he was sleeping with Chloe by then, but in a way it doesn’t real y matter. The fact is, he didn’t want to be with me. Because it wasn’t an isolated incident, it happened at least once a week, more like two or three times before he moved out and I just accepted it. I didn’t pretend to understand his job.

Was I so cold, so unresponsive, so uncaring of him? Am I real y this hard, hard person, who’s built a shel around herself so she can’t get hurt?

Is he right, have my family screwed me up so much? Should I try and find my dad? Should I confront my mum? Is Cathy right, did I want Granny’s approval too much, did we al ? It’s so strange, these events at the same time: Granny’s death, the end of my marriage. It feels like the end of things, and yet as this long, strange evening goes on, and I just sit there and think and think, my bottom sore from the hard floor, my eye keeps fal ing on the diary, and I sort of have to admit what I haven’t real y wanted to since I came home.

Perhaps Arvind is right. Whatever happened that summer in 1963, our family is poisoned, and one of them must know what happened, they were al there. But al I have is ten pages of a diary and that tel s me very little. So the question is, what happened to the rest of it?

Just before nine o’clock, I stand up. I make myself a sandwich and drink some water, and then I pick up the phone and dial.

‘Hel o?’

I hesitate. Of course she’s stil there. ‘Louisa?’

‘Yes. Who is this?’

‘Louisa, it’s – it’s Natasha. Hel o.’

The voice softens a little. ‘Natasha! How are you, darling?’ Her voice is comforting, it makes you feel safe. For a second, I wonder if I’m just being stupid. I take a deep breath, feeling light-headed from the wine.

‘I’m OK. OK. I was just ringing to see how Arvind is doing. Is he there?’

‘He’s here, but he’s pretty tired – we were about to go to bed.’ Apparently Louisa does not think this sentence sounds weird. She says loudly,

‘Weren’t we.’

I smile to myself. ‘Fine, I’m sorry. I know it’s a bit late to be cal ing. I only wanted to say hi. How’s – how’s it al going?’

‘OK, you know,’ Louisa says. ‘Oh, yes. We got a lot done yesterday, and today, we’re real y clearing a lot out, and the solicitors have been very efficient too, you know, it’s al going pretty smoothly.’ She clears her throat; she sounds tired. ‘It’s so sad, though.’

I feel a stab of guilt. ‘Why don’t I come down and help you? I feel awful I had to skip off on Wednesday.’

‘Oh, no, it’s absolutely fine, darling,’ Louisa says. ‘To be honest, Natasha, it’s actual y easier to just get on with it by myself.’ She pauses. ‘I mean, of course, your mother’s done a lot, so has Archie, but the nitty gritty – you know, I’m an old busybody! I rather like sorting it al out.’ She’s trying to sound light-hearted but I can hear that note in her voice again, and I’m not sure I believe her.

I wish I could go back and search through the house for the rest of the diary. But even my befuddled, tired brain knows it would look highly suspicious if I turned up again, so soon after leaving abruptly, to go through Granny’s things. And that’s not how I want to see Arvind again anyway, or the house. I feel like a criminal. So I say, trying to keep my voice casual, ‘Have you found anything interesting?’

‘Like what?’ she asks. ‘It’s al being properly catalogued, Natasha. There are a lot of items that need to be valued, and Guy’s coming down soon to do it . . .’

‘No, I don’t mean it like that—’

‘With a sinking feeling, I wonder what Mum’s been saying to her. ‘Just interesting things about the family, you know. Photos and al that.’

‘Oh.’ Louisa unbends a little. ‘Wel , there are a couple of things. Let me think. Oh – yes! I’ve found some old clothes of Miranda’s. Al just bundled up in a cupboard.’

I sit down on the sofa, hugging a cushion against my body. ‘How do you know they’re Miranda’s? I mean, Mum’s?’

‘Wel , I remember she bought them with the money her godmother sent her. She’d never real y been a clothes horse before, and suddenly she started turning up for dinner in these absolutely amazing dresses and things. And they’re al there, just stuffed into a bag and hidden in the back of a cupboard. I’d forgotten al about them! And there’s an hilari ous picture of Julius and Octavia I found in a kitchen drawer, when they were children down on the beach, covered in sand and wearing buckets on their heads. Ever so funny.’ Louisa laughs heartily, and leaves a pause for me to laugh heartily too which I do, even though my heart is beating so fast it’s painful.

‘Oh, that’s funny,’ I say unconvincingly. ‘Anything else?’

‘No,’ says Louisa. ‘Franty, your grandmother, she was a very organised woman. There’s hardly anything left, real y. I think she got rid of a lot . . .

a lot of things.’

I think back to my room at Summercove, which used to be my mother’s and Cecily’s, and know Louisa is right. When I think about it, it is rather odd. There is nothing in the wardrobe now – I know it by heart – apart from an old backgammon set, some old books, and a moth-eaten fur that Granny never wore. Certainly no diary. And yet somehow this makes me even more convinced she must have kept the rest of it somewhere. Out of sight. I take a deep breath.

‘What about the studio? I went in, just before I left.’

‘Wel , it is strange, having it open again, being able to go in,’ Louisa says. ‘I was never al owed to before. But no,’ she says, ‘nothing there real y either. So, you’re OK then?’ She changes the subject. ‘Al al right? I was worried about you, Natasha dear.’

When I was thirteen, I was running back towards the house from the beach and my newly long legs betrayed me, and I fel over, dislocating my shoulder in the process. The pain was excruciating, but Louisa took me to the hospital as I wailed and screamed loudly, al pretence at maturity abandoned. She waited with me for a doctor for what seemed like hours, and fed me sweets and read out extracts from her new Jil y Cooper novel to keep me entertained. I’m sure she’s forgotten it, but I never have. I don’t want her to worry about me, but it’s comforting to know she cares. Like I say, she is a comforting person, and I feel real y guilty about how mean I’ve been about her, these last few days.

‘Actual y – Oli and I have split up. Permanently,’ I say. ‘You and Oli? What?’ Louisa makes a querying sound at the back of her throat, as if she doesn’t understand. ‘When?’

‘Earlier today.’ It seems longer ago than that, this morning. Like a morning from a week ago, a year ago.

‘Oh, Natasha,’ Louisa says, her voice sad. ‘Oh, that’s awful.’

‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘Real y, it is. I mean, it’s not, but – you know.’

‘My dear. Where are you, at home?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘On your own?’

‘Yes,’ I say again. ‘That’s not very good. Do you want – should I get Octavia to come round? Keep you company? She’s only in Marylebone, you know.’

Yes, I want to say. Do send Octavia round. Her cheery face and happy modes of passing the time are just what I need. ‘Oh – that’s very kind, but don’t worry. I’m better off on my own.’ This is probably true. I’m on my own, for the first time in years. ‘I need some time by myself.’

‘Have you told your mother, or Jay, or anyone?’

‘No, actual y,’ I say. ‘Er – you’re the first person. Sorry, I didn’t mean it to be that way. I was real y just ringing to find out how Arvind is and – I don’t want to bother you with it al .’

‘It’s not a bother,’ she says. ‘Darling, it’s no bother at al . You poor thing.’ I have to remind myself that Louisa’s not a fusser, though she so often acts like one. I wish again that I’d known her when she was eighteen, before she became this person who does things for other people al the time, when she was the pretty girl in Cecily’s diary with a new lipstick and a scholarship to Cambridge, dreadful y ambitious and clever. And it occurs to me now that I’ve never heard her mention Cambridge or university or anything like that. Did she not go in the end? Where did she go, that girl?

She’s always pretended she loved her Tunbridge Wel s life. What if she didn’t? What if that wasn’t the life she’d expected for herself?

‘Look,’ she says, breaking into my thoughts. ‘Your grand-father’s just about to go to sleep, and he’s going into the home on Monday. I want him as rested as possible before then, it’s going to be strange at first, I’m sure.’

‘It is,’ I say. ‘I mean, I’d love to stay down here longer, but you know, I can’t. I’ve been here for two weeks, and he can’t stay here on his own, it is for the best,’ Louisa says, al in a rush. ‘Frank needs me back at home, too, I don’t like being away from him for too long either.’

I can’t believe she feels guilty about it. ‘Louisa, you’ve been amazing,’ I say, and it’s true. ‘Please! What are you talking about?’

‘Not everyone feels that way,’ she says. ‘I’ve been accused of – wel , it doesn’t matter.’

‘Do you mean Mum?’ I say reluctantly, though this could easily apply to me, too.

‘I’m afraid I do,’ Louisa’s voice hardens. I wish I’d never asked. ‘I suppose there’s no need to keep up a pretence at civility, now your grandmother’s dead. She’s made that quite clear, anyway.’

‘Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t mean it,’ I say desperately. ‘She’s very grateful, I’m sure.’

‘Natasha –’ she starts. ‘Your mother—’

‘Yes?’ I say.

‘Wel . . . she’s a complicated person. OK?’

‘I know that,’ I say careful y. ‘She always has been.’

‘Yes, but—’ She stops. ‘Never mind. There’s no point.’ Tel Octavia that, I want to say. I know what you’re getting at. It’s too late.

‘Wel , I’m very grateful to you, anyway,’ I say instead. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without you.’

‘It’s my pleasure,’ Louisa says simply. ‘I’d have done anything for Franty. She knew that. I loved her very much.’

After I’ve said goodbye to Louisa I feel reassured somehow. At the very least, Arvind is al right. My mother is unpredictable, and I never know how she’s going to react to certain situations. It’s true, often those situations were connected with Summercove or the people there. When we were going, when we were leaving, who was going to be there, how long she’d stay. It’s only now I remember that I said I’d go round for supper with her next week. I don’t quite know what I’l say to her when I see her. About anything, real y.

I make some tea, and I get into bed. It’s cold. I hug the same cushion against me for warmth and comfort, and I take out a pen and write a list.

1. Get a solicitor? – Ask Cathy. File for divorce??

2. Flat. Mortgage? Move out?

3. Trade fair. x3 applications to diff. ones by end of week.

4. Call/visit x10 shops by end of week.

5. Jay: update website?

Fatigue gives me a curious focus and it’s easy to write these things down. Closing my eyes briefly, I think about what else I need to sort out. I write:

6. Mum.

7. Find diary.

But I don’t real y know what to do about those two. I put the list by my table, so it’s the first thing I see in the morning, and turn off the light. I sleep. I sleep for ten long hours, a heavy, velvety sleep, where nothing and no one troubles me, no dreams come to me, and when I wake up the next day and blearily blink at the dark room, I realise how tired I’d been. I feel new, different. I pul back the curtains, it’s another grey day in London. But it’s not so bad, maybe.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It has been such a long winter, it’s sometimes felt as though it’d never end, but final y spring seems to be arriving. That cutting chil in the air that turns your hands red and numb and stings your face has gone, and though it’s stil cold there is something in the air, a sense of something new.

It’s a cliché, therefore, to talk about new beginnings, especial y as they don’t feel very new, but by the time a couple of weeks have passed and March is wel under way, things are already different. Outwardly, nothing much has changed: I am stil alone in the flat, not real y sure what comes next. But there’s a difference this time. I keep making lists, and it helps. I’ve realised I have to keep myself busy, not just for my sanity, but for my business. As wel as checking the post obsessively – no more ignoring letters from the bank – I have a filing system at the studio, where I careful y document every last piece of expenditure, and I like it; I feel virtuous, glad to be in control of this, at the very least.

I haven’t been in the studio much. I’ve been out meeting people, having coffee with PRs for free advice, dropping in on old friends, fel ow jewel ers, designers and people from round here who can help me, listening out for new shops and new shows that might help me. More green shoots. A company in China has been putting in a few orders with my friends, five-hundred-a-time T-shirts and hairbands, they might do the same for me one day, just with one necklace or bracelet and then I’m off again, and it’l be al hands on deck. Liberty have been scouting around for some new, edgy designers, so I hear. A couple of shops are looking for different stock, and I’ve been visiting them, leaving my card, dropping back the next day with a stock list and some photos. Even though I’d rather be curled up in bed, or slouched on the sofa in baggy trousers and four jumpers, I always choose my outfits with care, put on heels and blow-dry my hair, press my cardigan and skirt so I look neat and fresh. I’m asking these people to buy into me, as wel as the jewel ery I make. It’s sometimes hard to have a smile and seem enthusiastic, but I just keep tel ing myself if I act as though it’s a new start, perhaps it’l feel like that, after a while.

A week after that fateful morning at Arthur’s, I pop into the studio after walking back from Clerkenwel , where I’ve had a meeting with a woman who sel s vintage and new jewel-lery. I’ve been walking everywhere lately, my shoes in a cloth bag in my satchel. I kick off my wet, muddy trainers and lean against the counter, going through my emails. In amongst the spam and the special deals from wholesalers there’s an email from Nigel Whethers, the solicitor Cathy put me in touch with.

Further to our telephone conversation, I would be happy to meet with you to discuss your filing for divorce. I enclose a breakdown of costs. I look forward to hearing from you.

Seeing it written down like that, I realise I’m not quite ready to reply to him, not just yet. I let out a sigh, which sounds like a long plllllllllllffffffffffffffff. A voice outside says, ‘ Pllllllllllllllffffffffffff.’

‘Ben?’ I cal . I run my hand over my forehead; it’s clammy. ‘Is that you?’

‘No, it’s Ivor the Engine,’ the voice says. ‘Who’s that? Thomas the Tank Engine? Is that you? I love the sound of your piston engine. Can I buy you a drink, handsome?’

‘Har de har,’ I say, as Ben comes in. He shoots me a cautious, quick look, and then as it’s clear I’m not in tears or rocking on the floor, he smiles. ‘You al right, sunshine? What’s up?’

‘Nothing much,’ I say, putting my sheepskin boots on. ‘Just got an email from a divorce lawyer, that’s al . Kind of weird to see it there in black and white on the screen.’

Ben puts two rol s of film down on the counter and leans next to me. ‘Sorry to hear it, Eric,’ he says. ‘That’s awful.’

‘I’m Ernie,’ I say. ‘You were Eric.’ I point at the photo of us as Morecambe and Wise on the board. ‘Remember? You borrowed Tania’s glasses and you couldn’t see a thing?’

‘Yes, yes.’ Ben rubs the bridge of his nose. Tania, like most people in East London, has black-framed glasses, perfect for ‘doing’ Eric Morecambe and other assorted old-school comics. Who knew? He pats me on the back. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m OK,’ I say. ‘I’m keeping busy. Think that’s the most important thing.’

‘Sure is,’ he says. He drums his fingers on the surface. ‘Look, do you fancy going for a drink tonight?’ There’s a pause, and he amends what he’s saying. ‘Not just with me. Er – it’s me, Jamie, Les and Lily – we’re going to the Pride of Spitalfields, do you fancy it?’

‘Oh.’ I don’t know what to say. ‘What about Tania?’

‘She’s busy. And – wel , you know.’

I’d forgotten; she told me that awful day at Arthur’s, that she wasn’t working with him any more. I should have remembered. I just haven’t seen them. I blush. ‘Of course, sorry.’

But I feel awkward, I think because I don’t want to go. The idea of going out and having a good time at the moment is a bit of a step too far for me. It’s hard enough during the day, slapping on a smile and being professional. In the evenings I just want to eat and sleep. ‘Er – no, thanks,’ I say.

Partly to avoid another long pause, I add, ‘You won’t miss me. Or Tania, if Jamie’s there. You can flirt with her to your heart’s content.’

Ben narrows his eyes and looks as if he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t. Instead he clears his throat. ‘I don’t have a crush on Jamie, for the fiftieth time.’

‘You do,’ I say. ‘You show her your teeth whenever she hands you the post. And you say, “Oh, thanks! Jamie!” Like she’s just split the atom.’

He pushes me. ‘You’re just jealous I’m spending the evening with Les. He’s promised to tel me al about his blank-verse poem set on the outskirts of Wolverhampton.’

‘No, seriously?’

‘Yes,’ Ben says. ‘It reminds me of that bit in Adrian Mole, where Adrian starts to write a novel, cal ed—’

‘ Longing for Wolverhampton,’ I finish. ‘Absolutely.’ There’s a noise outside in the corridor and we laugh, quietly.

Ben stands up. ‘No worries,’ he says. ‘I’d better go, anyway. Just wanted to check you were OK. Let me know if there’s anything I can do.

Anything in the flat needs someone tal to get at, or whatever. I know you’re having a bad time. Just want to say I’m around. Al right?’

I nod, my eyes prickling with tears. I’m surprised by them. ‘Yep. Thanks. Thanks – a lot.’

‘No worries,’ Ben says. ‘Bye, Eric.’

‘ Ernie,’ I cal , but he’s gone, and I go back to staring at the computer screen, then start checking my diary for a time to meet Nigel Whethers.

It’s the strangest thing, but al the time, I’ve been drawing too. Walking through Spitalfields, watching the way the bare branches arch against the light in London Fields, the snow-drops struggling through the ground. Watching the buds on the trees, the pansies in the window box opposite that have flowered al through winter, the little sparrows that hop away from me along our street. It al feels new and exciting, al of it, it always does at this stage, and I know once I start working out how to make it a reality it’l be depressingly problematic, the designs wil look flat and dul , and I’l have to discard many of them. But I can’t worry about that now. I have to get on with it.

So after a couple of weeks go by, I’m surprised to find myself looking back and realising that I’m coping. I like being by myself, if I’ve got work to do. I like the chal enge of it al . I was never sure about hiring the PR and giving up the stal , and I know I should have listened to my instincts now.

The bank thinks my husband is stil around to bankrol things and so they’re off my back for the moment. It’s going to be tight, but I know what I’m doing each day and why I’m doing it. And that feels good.

I haven’t seen Oli since last week, when I watched him walk away. We have spoken, though, briefly. ‘How are you?’

‘OK, yeah. You?’

‘Good, OK, yeah.’ He’s going to come round sometime and pick up some more of his things, and we’l talk then. For the moment, the space is good. When I think about his face, laughing in the kitchen as I try to make scrambled eggs, or the hot, humid day we moved into Princelet Street, how we had sex in the kitchen, hurriedly taking each other’s clothes off, amazed that we had done this, that we were living together, for ever we thought, or even just doing karaoke together, singing Heart’s ‘Alone’ – his favourite song, Oli has a penchant for a bal ad – sometimes I think I’m going to start crying, about how sad I am, how much I could miss him if I let myself. But that’s not how it happened. He left, he has given me this month’s rent, and moreover, he’s loaning me five thousand pounds to pay back the bank, and for that, at least, I am truly grateful, as wel as for the memories we have. I just – I’m just not ready to total y move on from them yet.

There are two things on my list I stil haven’t sorted: the diary, and Mum. Something is going on with her and I haven’t faced up to it. I was supposed to be having dinner with her the week after Oli left for good. She cancel ed me at the last minute, and hasn’t been in touch since, though I’ve tried her every day. She’s great at being unavailable, she’s doing it now and I don’t know why. Does she know I’ve got the diary? What Octavia said? Does she real y just not care that much? I’ve cal ed her again this morning, and there’s no answer. ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said, my voice keen and bright.

‘Just at the studio, cal ing to say hel o! Hope you’re wel . . . Um, OK then! Bye.’

Actual y, part of the reason I’m cross is because I’m relieved. I don’t like going to Bryant Court. I’d do a lot to avoid it, in fact. Since I left for col ege, twelve years ago now, I haven’t been back much. I’d spend holidays with friends or my col ege boyfriend or at Archie and Sameena’s in Ealing, or mostly down at Summercove. Bryant Court is my past, and I don’t like it much.

It’s not how smal it is, or how dingy. It’s not how the outside of the thirties block looks rather stylish and then you get inside and it’s damp and musty-smel ing, with an under-tone of something rotten, and always too hot or too cold. It’s not that when you arrive, you get the feeling Mum wants you to leave. It’s al those things and more. It’s the sense of detachment I feel from it – I lived there for almost twelve years of my life.

I look back on those years now and try and make sense of them. Was I just an uptight kid? Probably. But lately, when I look at my list of things to do, which I stil keep by the bed, I see ‘ 6. Mum 7. Find diary’ and I realise how far I am away from doing those things. More and more as the days go by, I find myself thinking about Mum and the flat and our lives together there, and how strange it was. It doesn’t seem strange when you’re in it.

It’s starting to, now.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

A fortnight after the funeral, one Wednesday afternoon, I am in the studio. I have ticked several items off my To Do list for that day, and I’m feeling virtuous. I’ve cal ed Mum: no answer. I’ve sent Arvind a New Yorker cartoon card to his new home, the one with the two snails and a remarkably similar-looking tape dispenser, and the first snail is saying to the second snail, ‘I don’t care if she is a tape dispenser. I love her.’ I have spoken to Clare Lomax today, to let her know I’ve made my first monthly repayment. I’ve phoned a couple more shops about the possibility of them taking my pieces and I’l go and see them tomorrow. I’ve had two more orders today, and I’m extremely pleased. I need more to show them, though. And it needs to be great, real y great.

As part of the new col ection I have been trying to work on a new version of the jewel ed headbands I did wel with a couple of years ago, based on a photo I saw of a headband worn by a Maharani of Jaipur. The bands are black silk, and clasping gently on to the side of the head are grey and palest pink velvet floral shapes studded with diamanté. They can be worn to a wedding or a birthday party. They are real y beautiful, at least they wil be if I can get them right, but every time I try to add the diamanté it just looks tacky, amateurish. My fingers get covered in the glue, I prick my thumb twice on the needle as I try to sew them on, and eventual y groan in frustration. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

I start to sketch alternatives. I flick through the V&A book of jewel ery that I have by my side. Ben and Tania gave it to me for my birthday last year. I get out my cardfile of postcards, pictures of different pieces of jewel ery, different paintings and images that inspire me, everything from Rita Hayworth to a portrait of a very cross-looking Medici duchess, decked out in the most beautiful rubies. I jab my pencil into the soft paper and stop, looking up around me, blinking hard.

It’s quiet here this afternoon. The writers’ col ective is meeting in the basement this evening, and they are always extremely raucous –

apparently they have a lot to be angry about, and it often involves drinking a lot of beer. I can hear people pul ing rails of clothes over the road in the market below but that’s it. My eyes are heavy, with a sense of peace, but I’m not especial y tired. My hand steals to my neck as I stare into nothingness and I realise I’m clutching Cecily’s ring.

I’ve taken to putting it on every day since I got back, I don’t know why. I like wearing it. It’s unusual. Moreover, I like the fact that it was hers, and that Granny wore it al those years. I know nothing about Cecily, except from those pages of the diary, but I have this and I like wearing it.

I pick up my pencil and start sketching the ring from memory as I can’t see it, nestled in the hol ow at the base of my neck. The flowers are so pretty – simple and attractive. I join the tiny gold buds studded with tiny diamonds together, linking them together like a daisy chain, in a row. It is one of the most pleasing things I have done for a while, but I’m not sure I can execute it myself – it’s too elaborate, and I may have to hire someone else to work it out. A section of it would work as a pendant, as wel . A charm bracelet?

Necklace? My pencil skates busily over the white paper, and the scratching sound echoes in the silence, broken only by the occasional noise from the street below. There’s something there, I don’t know what it is. The links . . . the flowers . . . Cecily’s ring, perhaps I should use the ring as the centrepiece? My pencil is getting blunter as I push heavily down onto the pad, sketching, rubbing out, resketching . . . My mind is clear of everything else troubling it. I love this, the fact that you can escape into your imagination, use a part of your brain that isn’t affected by everything else in your life. I lost it for a while. It’s so good to have it back; even if what results is rubbish, just to know I stil love doing it is the most important thing. And the voice in my head, sounding remarkably like Clare Lomax, that has been tel ing me I ought to give up the studio and save on the rent, is silenced. I need a place to come to, to work. This is my job, and if I’m going to take it seriously, I ought to have an office. If Oli’s not coming back we don’t need the flat, do we? I’d give that up before the studio. Somehow, that clarifies things for me.

And suddenly, as I am drawing furiously, there comes a soft tapping at the door.

‘Natasha, are you there?’ a voice cal s.

I unfurl my legs, stiff and aching from the cold and from being in the same position for so long. I rol my head slowly around my neck, and it crunches satisfyingly.

‘Who’s that?’

‘It’s me,’ says the voice. ‘Mummy.’

What’s she doing here? The hairs on the back of my neck stand up; my hand flies to my throat. ‘Come in,’ I say, after a moment.

She peeks around the door, her dark fringe and long eyelashes appearing first, like a naughty child, her green eyes sparkling. ‘Hel o, darling.

My little girl.’

‘Mum?’ I say, standing up. ‘Wow. I’ve been cal ing you for days. Hel o! What are you doing here?’

‘I was in the area,’ she says. ‘I wanted to see you. I’ve been rather un-loco parentis lately.’ She gives a tinkling laugh. ‘Awful joke. I’m sorry, should I have cal ed?’

‘No, of course not,’ I say, sounding ridiculously formal. My heart is beating fast, and my palms are slick. ‘It’s fine. I’ve been wondering where you were. I haven’t seen you since the funeral and—’

Mum frowns. ‘Wel , I’m here now, aren’t I?’

She advances into the room, arms outstretched. She looks fantastic, as always, skinny jeans tucked into brown suede leather boots, a thick grey cardigan-coat and a long floral scarf wrapped many times round her neck and tied in a knot. Her skin is gleaming, her nails are beautiful, her hair is shining and soft. She wraps me in her arms.

‘Poor girl.’

She squeezes me tight. Her scent is heavy; it makes me nauseous. Suddenly I want to push her away. I’m repulsed by her.

I step back. She clutches my hands, then reaches into her large canvas bag. ‘Bought you a little something,’ she says, handing me a box of tiny, very expensive-looking cheese crackers in a beautiful y printed box.

‘Thanks,’ I say, bemused by this gift, which is so like Mum – there were months when we thought we wouldn’t be able to pay the rent in Bryant Court, but she would think nothing of buying a free-range chicken from Fortnum & Mason for fifteen pounds and then not know how to cook it. I put the biscuits down on the little sink. ‘Have you eaten? Do you want some coffee – or tea?’

‘Tea would be lovely,’ she says, and I suddenly realise what’s been bothering me. She’s nervous too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her nervous.

‘Great.’ We are silent for a moment. We don’t know how to do this. I look around for a distraction. Luckily, I remember Ben has borrowed my teapot.

‘I’l get the teapot.’ I get up. ‘Back in a second.’ She is looking around the room, and she hums blithely in agreement when I say this. My hand is on the door and I say, ‘Mum – we do need to talk, you know.’

Mum’s expression does not change, but there’s something in her eyes that I can’t define. ‘Oh, darling, real y?’

I realise this is a stupid way to begin. ‘Yes, real y. Look, hold on.’

I dash down the corridor and knock on their door. Ben flings it open.

‘Aha,’ he says. ‘Hel o there.’

‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Sorry to disturb you. Have you got my teapot?’

‘Oh, right. Yeah, of course,’ he says. ‘Sorry, forgot to put it back. Hang on a second.’ He comes back with the pot and a teacake, wrapped in blue foil. ‘We’ve got one spare,’ he says. ‘Have it.’

I take the teacake. ‘Thanks.’

‘Was going to drop by later. We’re going for a drink.’

‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘Mum’s just turned up. Soon, though. I haven’t seen you for ages.’

‘I know, you’re busy,’ he says. ‘But it’s good.’ He smiles, and I know he knows. ‘Just checking you’re not rocking at home in a bal by the radiator.’ He scratches his curly hair and it bounces; I smile.

‘Wel , thanks again,’ I say. ‘I’m OK. I’m not going to start gibbering and weeping al over you.’

‘You’re al owed to, you know,’ he says. ‘You’re so in touch with your feelings, Benjamin,’ I say. ‘I’m a cold-hearted bitch, however. So bog off.’

He smiles, and then I hear Tania’s voice in the background. ‘Hi, Nat. How you doing?’

In the back of my buzzing brain this confuses me. I thought she wasn’t working with him any more. Perhaps she’s just popped over to see him, he is her boyfriend after al . ‘I’m good,’ I cal back to her.

‘See you guys later then,’ I say. ‘Coolio. Sorry about tonight.’

‘No probs,’ he says equably, sticking a piece of toast in his mouth. He reaches out and pats my shoulder. ‘Hey. You’re not cold-hearted. You’re lovely. Remember that. Keep your chin up, Nat.’ His voice is muffled as he closes the door, almost abruptly, and I’m left standing in the corridor. On the front of the door is written, in black marker pen:

Ben Cohen

Photographer & Male Escort

I’ve never noticed this before and it makes me smile. I’m stil smiling as I walk back into the studio. Mum is looking at my drawing pad, the sketch of the ring and the necklace; she jumps guiltily.

‘Oh,’ she says. ‘You gave me a fright.’

‘Sorry,’ I say. I fil the kettle up and then I take a deep breath and turn to face her. The unexpectedness of this encounter makes me bold. I haven’t had time to worry about it. ‘So where have you been? I’ve been wanting to talk to you.’

‘Yes, I know.’ Mum runs one hand careful y through her hair. ‘Look, I’m sorry. It’s been hard for me.’

‘You should have cal ed me.’

She smiles, almost sweetly. ‘Darling, you don’t understand.’

‘I don’t?’ I say, looking at her.

‘No, you don’t. Sorry, Natasha.’

‘Try me,’ I say, opening my arms wide. ‘You’ve lost your mother, I’ve lost my grandmother. My marriage is ended. You’re my mum. Why can’t you talk to me? And why can’t I talk to you? I’m not saying I’m a great daughter, but . . . where’ve you been?’

‘Because . . .’ She shakes her head, scrunching up her face.

‘Oh, you don’t understand. You don’t! I know you think I’m a terrible mother, but –’ her voice is rising into a whine – ‘you don’t understand!’

A kind of despair tugs at me – this is my mother, my mother. ‘Octavia said you were the last person anyone would ask for help,’ I say icily. ‘She was right, wasn’t she?’

‘Octavia? We’re listening to what Octavia says now, are we? Right.’ Mum’s eyes dart around the room, undermining the bul ish tone in which she says this. ‘Funny, darling, I thought you and I were in rare agreement about Octavia. She’s the last person I’d ask for help.’

This is going wrong, al wrong. ‘She just said it, that’s al . I’m not saying I like her, it’s—’

Mum interrupts. ‘Listen, Natasha. She’s her mother’s daughter. And her father’s. Hah. I don’t care for their opinions, to be honest. Neither should you.’

I’m standing behind the counter. She is facing me. ‘Octavia said something else, too,’ I say, nodding as if to wil myself along, and her eyes meet my gaze. ‘Octavia said . . .’ My voice breaks. ‘Mum, she said you pushed Cecily that day. You pushed her down the steps.’

My mother’s eyes widen a little, and she says, with a catch in her throat, ‘OK, OK.’

She paces around, two steps forward, turns, two steps back. I watch her. ‘You think I kil ed her,’ she says. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

‘They al think –’ I begin, but she interrupts me again. ‘Not them.’ She holds up her hand. ‘Not them, Natasha. You. Answer me. Is that what you’re saying?’

I wipe my hands on my jeans. It is so quiet. Downstairs, a door slams. She is looking right into my eyes.

When it comes, the word slides out of my mouth quietly. ‘Yes,’ I say, not looking at her. ‘That’s what I’m saying.’

* * *

My mother doesn’t react immediately. We face each other in the cold, darkening room. ‘Wel , that’s very interesting,’ she replies. ‘Very interesting. I guess I always knew this moment would come.’

She says it lightly, as if it’s of moderate interest, and hugs herself a little tighter, her head on one side. She looks so beautiful, but I am suddenly revolted by her cool, ravishing beauty, her cunning hooded eyes, her total lack of trustworthiness, and I remember how good an actress she real y is, has always been.

‘You knew this moment would come?’ I say. I back up, stand against the wal , my hands on the cool white plaster.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘When you final y went over to their side.’ She looks at her watch. ‘Nearly a month since Mummy died, and you’ve done it. I knew it.’

‘I’m not on anyone’s “side”.’ I swal ow. ‘It’s just they say that—’

‘“They”?’ my mother says, smiling. ‘Who are “they”, please?’

‘Wel –’ I stutter. ‘Octavia and – Louisa, and – the rest of them.’

She nods. ‘Exactly.’ Her eyes flash a little as she sees my expression. ‘That’s very nice. And my own daughter believes them.’ She leans back on the counter. ‘Louisa has no evidence, you know. This is a land grab, don’t you see that?’ She raises her eyebrows so they disappear into her tinted fringe. ‘They’re al trying to ruin me, to make themselves feel better, now Mummy’s gone.’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t think Louisa’s trying to – to do anything, Mum. She just said—’

Mum’s face is flushed. ‘Oh, if you knew what I know . . .’ She stops. She is almost laughing; her mouth opens without sound. Then she says,

‘What I’ve put up with, since I was a little girl, from al of them. You don’t know what it was like.’

I find that al my fear of saying these things I’ve never wanted to say has gone. Al the thoughts I’ve been bottling up over the past weeks, over the past thirty years. ‘That’s rubbish!’ My voice is loud, harsh. ‘You’re always trying to be horrible about Granny. Al she ever tried to do was look after you.’

Mum gives a weird shriek, something between laughter and hysteria. ‘Her? Look after me! Oh, that’s a joke.’ She shakes her head. ‘Yes, that’s funny.’ She stops. She looks at a nail and cautiously bites the edge of it. Then she mutters something to herself, something I can’t hear.

‘Octavia said I should ask Guy,’ I say calmly. ‘She says he knows what happened.’

My mother is pul ing a smooth ribbon of her hair through her long fingers. She stops at this and laughs. ‘Guy again?’ She bites her lip. ‘Oh, he’s everywhere now, isn’t he? He’s real y crawled out of the woodwork! Go on, ask away! I’d be interested to see what he has to say for himself.’

‘What does that mean?’

She is speaking so fast she can’t quite get the words out. ‘Listen to me, Nat, darling. In al this, there’s no one I hate more than Guy Leighton.’

‘Oh, come on, Mum—’

Her eyes are burning. ‘He’s ful of shit, always has been, and he hides behind some kind of nice-guy liberalism – I sel antiques, I live in Islington, I like Umbria more than fucking Tuscany.’ She is almost spitting, and the red spots on her cheeks are spreading. ‘He’s fake. He’s worse than the Bowler Hat. At least you know the Bowler Hat’s a lazy fucking right-wing lech. Guy’s worse. He’s the biggest hypocrite of the lot.’ Her expression is twisted and her face is ugly. ‘I’m the one in this family that everyone hates and you know why? Because it’s easier to hate me than look any deeper at them. She slipped, the path was slippery, fine, it wasn’t my fault. But I stil saw it. I saw her die, and she was my sister, and it ruined my life. No one understands that.’

I don’t know what to say to her, she’s so ful of self-righteous anger. She has that quality that a lot of people like her have in spades: I have to be right. Suddenly I find my courage. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Mum,’ I say. ‘Start taking responsibility for things.’

She bares her teeth at me and lifts her head slightly. And she looks at me with such naked contempt I almost step back. This woman is a stranger, I don’t know her. ‘Oh, you were always a self-righteous little prig, Natasha, even when you were little,’ she says clearly, an edge of cold anger in her voice. ‘God, I loathe that about you. Al this – it’s just so you can have a go at me, accuse me of being a bad mother and blame me for your own little life going off the rails. Isn’t it?’ And then her eyes fil with tears. ‘It’s been hard for me,’ she says. ‘You don’t know what it’s like. They al hated me.’

‘Oh, Mum, they didn’t.’ I am sick of this play-acting. ‘No one hated you. You just . . .’ I trail off, I don’t know what to say. You’re just not very nice?

You’re a bad person?

‘Mummy hated me, Cecily hated me.’ Her voice is rising, whining like a dog’s, and it’s horrible. She moves towards me and I step back again.

‘I was al on my own, with a baby, for years.’ She wipes a tear away. ‘You do have to accept me for how I am, darling. I’m not some fifty-something housewife with a middle-aged spread and a store card at Marks and Spencer.’ She shakes her hair a little, with some kind of assumed bravado.

‘I’m not that kind of mum. I’m different.’

It’s only then that I can feel myself losing it. It’s the shake of her hair, the artificial way she’s talking, the character she’s constructed for herself –

she claims it’s for survival, and I am sure it’s to cover something up. At any rate, I can feel rage bubbling just underneath me. ‘You’ve never been a mum at al !’ I shout at her. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I tried to do my best by you . . .’ Her voice is like a whimper. ‘And then you went and got married, you total y rejected me . . .’

I hear my voice screaming at her, as if it’s someone else. ‘ Why do you think I got married? I wanted to get away from you!’ I am shaking, adrenalin is pumping through me, and I don’t care any more.

‘Oli liked me!’ she hisses, coming closer towards me. I laugh, as though this is the crux of the argument.

‘Of course he did,’ I say, smiling an ugly smile, blinking slowly. ‘You’re exactly the same, that’s why. I can’t believe how stupid I was, I married to get away from you and I went and married someone exactly like you.’ I put my hands to my burning cheeks and slide them up so I’m covering my eyes. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying al this. This is not the point. We’re not discussing me, we’re talking about you.’

‘About me!’ She laughs, eyes flashing. ‘What, with your cheating husband and this stupid, freezing studio with your necklaces no one wants to buy, just so you can get Granny’s approval?’ She rubs her arms with her hands, her eyes practical y popping out of her head; it’s so strange, how I real y don’t recognise her any more. I see – for the first time, real y? – that she is old. There are wrinkles round her eyes, her neck is saggy. I never real y noticed before. ‘I just wanted you to do wel for yourself. That’s al I ever wanted, so you didn’t end up like me, penniless, pregnant, abandoned by everyone, with no one to love you.’

‘That’s not going to happen!’ I shout at her. ‘I’m not you!’

‘Oh, yes, yes. Of course.’ She nods sarcastical y. ‘What a relief, you’re not me.’

‘I’ve got a proper life, a grown-up life, it’s not perfect, but it’s OK. And I don’t want you in it!’ My cheeks are burning hot. I won’t cry. ‘Stay away from me! I don’t want you in my life any more!’

We are facing each other, her with her arms folded. She registers no emotion whatsoever: my momentary loss of control is enough for her to assert herself again, and the mask is back in place.

‘I know you’re lying, Mum,’ I say softly. ‘I know it must be awful, but I know you did something bad that summer. I know you did.’

‘Wel , I’m sorry you think that,’ she says, smiling the catlike smile again. ‘I wish there was a way I could persuade you otherwise.’

‘Did you know Cecily left a diary?’ I say suddenly. ‘Have you seen it?’

‘Wel , that’s very interesting,’ she says. ‘Have I seen it? Have I seen it? I could ask you the same question. But I know what I know, you see, and I don’t know if I feel like tel ing you, now.’

‘You have seen it?’ I say. ‘You – Mum, tel me.’ I drum my fingers on the counter, almost wild with desperation. My hands are outstretched.

‘Please, Mum. I have to know. Have you?’

She looks at me almost brazenly, like the bad girl at school who’s just got away with something. Ignoring the question, she slings her bag over her shoulder. ‘I’d better be off,’ she says, as I blink in astonishment. ‘I’m meeting an old friend for drinks. I don’t want to be late.’ She shakes her head, her hair making a slippery sound, like a stream, as it slides over her shoulders again. She walks to the door. ‘Can I say something?’

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Natasha – one day you’l understand,’ she says. ‘I know you think it doesn’t make sense now. But it wil , al of it. One day.’

And then she’s gone, and I am left staring into space. I look up and out of the window at the street. I see my mother leave, fumble in her bag for something, and then take out a lip gloss and apply it. She walks off, tossing her hair again, as I watch her through the dirty window.

Chapter Thirty

I meet Jay at Ealing Broadway station, and we double back one stop, to Ealing Common. It’s Sunday lunchtime, and when we get off the Tube the Uxbridge Road is jammed solid. We walk along the main road in silence, our steps exact. I keep looking up at the sky, expecting it to rain.

‘Come for lunch at Mum and Dad’s,’ Jay had said that morning, when I’d answered the phone the third time it rang. ‘Dad asked me to ask you.

Mum’s made loads of food.’ Jay has been away for work – he has a big job on in Zurich and had to go there almost straight after the funeral. So this is the first time I’ve seen him.

It’s five days since my showdown with Mum and we stil haven’t spoken, but I bet she’s told Archie everything, she always does. I get the feeling I’m being summoned to Ealing so he can waggle his finger at me and try and do his head-ofthe-family bit. Wel , he can try, I told myself as I sat on the Tube. I know al about you, uncle. You can try and act like the big head honcho, but it doesn’t wash with me, not now I know you used to peek at your cousin while she was getting undressed, and your own sister thought you were pretty odd.

We don’t talk much. There’s a faint drizzle, it’s misty and cold. Jay is silent, grumpy, I think he was out late last night.

As we turn into Creffield Road, Jay’s stride lengthens and I have to skip to keep up with him. ‘How was Zurich then?’ I ask. ‘I missed you.’

‘Yeah, it was good.’ Jay is walking faster, his face set with determination like a mountaineer on the final stretch. ‘Fine. Hard work. Sorry I didn’t cal properly.’

‘It’s fine,’ I say. ‘Hey. Jay—’ I put my hand on his arm. ‘Stop a second. Stop!’

‘What?’

‘Before we get to your mum and dad’s, I need to tel you something.’

‘What?’ He shoots me a half-look, almost nervous. ‘I split up with Oli. It’s permanent.’ We face each other in the quiet suburban street. I am standing on a cracked paving slab; one side rocks when I put my weight on it. ‘It’s not a big deal. I just wanted you to know.’

‘I know,’ Jay says. ‘You know I split up with him?’

‘Yeah.’ Jay carries on walking. ‘Oh, right,’ I say. ‘Did – your dad told you then?’

‘Yes, course. He spoke to your mum.’ There’s a pause. ‘We’re nearly there,’ he says. ‘I am so hungry, man.’

We turn into the smal driveway of Archie and Sameena’s house. It’s almost silent on their street; it always is. The occasional car rumbles past but otherwise al you can hear is the sound of birds. Jay knocks on the door.

‘Aah.’ My uncle opens the door with a flourish. ‘You’re here.’ He kisses his son, then me. ‘Natasha. Glad you could come. Good to see you.’

He’s in his Sunday relaxing outfit, which is nearly identical to his weekday work outfit: pink striped shirt with navy chinos. In summer they’d be khaki chinos. His hair is perfectly combed, his smile is welcoming, but he reminds me so much of my mother: there’s something behind his eyes that I can’t quite define.

We walk into the plush hal , with the gold leaf mirror and the enamel card table, hung with beautiful old prints of scenes from the Ramayana. The cream carpet is soft and springy under my feet. Archie takes our coats and hangs them, then he turns to us and rubs his hands together.

‘Your mother is making a feast today, Sanjay,’ he says. ‘A feast.’

He ushers us jovial y into the kitchen. Though I used to come here al the time, I haven’t been here for a good few months, and I stare around me, impressed. ‘Is this a new kitchen?’

Archie nods. ‘Oh, yes. Look at the conservatory.’ We walk through the gleaming, ochre-coloured, marble-topped kitchen and out through the French windows. There is a huge conservatory, with matching wicker furniture, china bowls fil ed with plants. Archie presses a button. ‘Natasha.

Look.’ Automatic blinds slide up and down the glass ceiling. ‘Look,’ he says, pointing again, this time at the terracotta floor. ‘Under-floor heating.’

He smiles. ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’

‘It sure is.’ I smile back; his enthusiasm is infectious. Jay is smiling too.

‘Dad, you’re such a show-off,’ he says. ‘Nat doesn’t care about the under-floor heating.’

Archie’s face clouds over. ‘Don’t be rude, Sanjay,’ he says sharply. ‘Here’s your mother. Go and say hel o.’

Sameena makes everything al right, she always has done. She bustles into the kitchen, putting the phone back on its cradle. ‘I am sorry. I was just talking to my brother,’ she says. ‘Hel o, my darling children!’ She gives us both a big hug. ‘How are you, Natasha? We are so glad you could come today, on such short notice. There is so much food!’

We sit in the conservatory. Archie has a gin and tonic and we both stick to Coke. Sameena shouts out questions to her son from the kitchen about his trip, what did you eat, what was the hotel like, was the work worthwhile? Archie tel s him about the time he went to Zurich, to negotiate a new fleet of cars for ‘an international y renowned hotel in the centre of the city’ and Jay nods politely and I watch them al , fascinated.

Because I haven’t seen them al together for a while, and especial y of late, what with the end of my own marriage, and because of my huge, horrible row with Mum on Thursday, they are even more interesting to watch than normal. Except for Bryant Court I probably spent more time here as a child than anywhere, at least one day a week after school, and often I’d stay the night. It was so easy for me to get on the Piccadil y line and come over that when I got to be about ten or so I’d do just that, if I knew Mum was going to be out late and I didn’t want another night in by myself.

The house has changed innumerable times over the years, barely a season goes by without Archie having something redecorated at vast expense, but Sameena and Jay have always been there.

During the school holidays, Sameena would often take me and Jay with her to Southal to meet friends, do the shopping for the week – it isn’t far from Ealing Common on the Tube and the train. Sitting in the conservatory I watch her now in the kitchen as she prepares the food, making a huge feast for us al , handmade potato patties, crisp and sweet onion bhajees, fragrant fish curry, with huge plates of dhal and rice, the bangles on her wrist clinking together as she shakes the rice, humming a song to herself and looking out of the window. There are fresh, fat bunches of parsley and coriander on the gleaming marble counter of the beautiful new kitchen. Delicious spices fil the air – I’m used to them from Brick Lane but here they’re better. Jay used to joke that I moved to Brick Lane so I’d be subconsciously reminded of Sameena’s kitchen, and in some smal way it’s not a joké, maybe I did.

Why do I like it round here? Because often, Archie would be away for work and it’d just be the three of us. That’s a terrible thing to say, but it’s true. Sameena is not like my mum. She is a doctor at a local surgery, the kind of person you’d want in a crisis. She can talk to Arvind about home, tel him about Mumbai, a city he loves. She is an amazing cook, a proud Indian woman, and when I’m with her and Jay I feel Indian. It’s not something I often feel – I’m a quarter Punjabi, and I grew up not real y questioning where I’m from, because of not knowing about my dad.

Summercove was what I clung to, where I wanted to be from. Watching Sameena now, as she pops a piece of spring onion in her mouth and tastes some sauce in a pan, it strikes me that I’ve always been welcome here.

‘How is the business, Natasha?’ Archie hands me a bowl of crisps. ‘I understand you’ve been having some problems, is that true?’

I don’t ask how he knows. ‘Yep,’ I say, nodding. ‘It’s been pretty bad. But I hope I’m on the right track now.’

‘The bank is involved, yes?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

He frowns. ‘It won’t look good if you don’t respect your relationship with them. Be careful.’

‘I am,’ I say. ‘I’ve sorted it out. I hope.’

I’m in no position to get cross about any of this, but I don’t particularly want to discuss it. For the first time in a long time, I don’t like thinking about work at the weekends, which I take as a good sign. It means I’m working during the week, like someone in an office, someone with a proper, organised job.

‘Have you thought of getting Jay to take a look at the website again?’ Archie says. ‘Maybe there’s something there you can do.’ He removes his cufflinks and rol s up his shirtsleeves, sniffing the air hopeful y. Something is sizzling, deliciously, in the kitchen.

‘I’d be happy to,’ Jay says. ‘It’s changing al the time, the way you reach the customer.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’ Archie looks at me. ‘Natasha?’

‘That’d be great,’ I answer. ‘Thanks, Jay.’

‘And maybe, have you thought of advertising in those free local business newsletters? They have one in Spitalfields.’

‘They do,’ I say, in surprise. They stock it in al the local shops and restaurants, it’s about the area, who’s keeping bees, who’s got an art gal ery opening, who’s organising a vintage tea party club night – it’s very Shoreditch / Spitalfields. ‘That’s a great idea. Thanks, Archie.’

He’s a good businessman, and he learned by himself – he certainly didn’t pick it up from his parents. Archie nods, as if he’s agreeing with me about his own greatness, which is probably true. ‘I picked up a newsletter in a restaurant last time I was over in the City, having lunch with an – wel , I can’t say who he is. Let’s just say important client.’

Sameena is standing at the door. She rol s her eyes. ‘Come on, you and your important client,’ she says. ‘Let’s have our lunch.’

We sit in the sumptuous dining room, with green watered-silk wal paper, a glass dining table, elaborately cut crystal goblets – I remember when I was little thinking this must be what the table at Buckingham Palace was like. Archie munches slowly and steadily, like a grazing cow, not saying much. Sameena asks me and Jay how we’re getting on, we talk about my jewel ery, about the new places in Columbia Road. We plan a trip for her to come East soon. I ask about her family, whom she’s just been visiting in Mumbai, her sister Priyanka who is having dialysis, her little nieces and nephews. She only sees them once a year.

‘Were you lonely when you first moved here, Sameena?’ I ask, thinking of my grandfather. ‘It’s so far away.’

Archie doesn’t look up, but he’s listening to her.

‘A little,’ she says. ‘The weather got to me, you know?’

‘How old were you?’

‘I was young,’ she says. ‘Oh, twenty-five. We had no money, did we, Archie?’ Archie doesn’t meet her eye. He nods briskly. ‘We were living in Acton. In a tiny flat. I’d been to England but when I was a child, and I couldn’t remember it that wel . I’d invented what it’d be like. In my mind, you know? I thought it was palaces, very elegant people in tea dresses. Instead, it rained al the time, like this—’ She gestures out of the window, at the faint patter that has started to sound on the conservatory roof. ‘Dog mess everywhere, cracked pavements, no one friendly. The old lady next to me, she was from Delhi, she would go to the shops in her shabby old duffel coat, covering up her beautiful sari. At home she wouldn’t have had to put her coat on and cover up her lovely colours, be drab. That’s what I remember most of al .’

Jay looks at her. ‘I didn’t realise that, Mum,’ he says. ‘Oh, yes,’ Sameena says, pushing a bowl of dhal towards me. ‘But you know, these things pass. And then I was very happy. It’s my home, now. My home is with you. Al of you,’ she adds hurriedly, looking at me. ‘You and your mother too, Natasha.’

There’s a silence. We al eat some more. Sameena glances at her husband.

‘Are you looking forward to going back for the launch of the foundation, Natasha?’ she asks. ‘It sounds like a wonderful day. You know, they’re cal ing people up about it already. And everyone’s saying yes.’

‘I don’t real y know much about it,’ I say. ‘Mum hasn’t told me a lot, and – wel , Guy’s the other trustee. I don’t real y know him either.’ I look down at my plate.

‘We’ve been contacting people about it al week,’ Archie says. ‘Very notable people.’ He sighs. ‘It’s going to be impressive, I think. Only two weeks to go.’

‘Do I need to do anything?’ I say. ‘Oh, no,’ he says. ‘Louisa’s got it al under control.’

I take a spoonful of sauce from the fish curry. It is delicious. The chil i puckers my tongue. ‘I guess I stil don’t know why it’s been so fast,’ I say.

‘Our mother wanted it that way,’ Archie says. ‘Wanted it to start as soon as she died.’ He shrugs his shoulders. ‘She spent a lot of time planning for it. And you know, the Tate Gal ery had already scheduled a major exhibition of her work, in 2011. Before she died. I don’t think she wanted it to go ahead. It’s strange.’

‘Why did she plan it out so much?’ I say. I remembered how pleased she was, but also a little agitated. She won’t be here for it now.

He sighs again. ‘I think she liked the idea that after she was gone, people could start to appreciate her paintings again, without her there. And you know, the foundation wil help young artists too, like she and Arvind were helped. He was funded to come over to Cambridge, she had patrons when she was younger. People looked after them. I think she wants to help others, now – now she’s gone.’

Sameena nods. ‘Very noble. It’s wonderful.’

‘Of course, that’s where most of the money’s going,’ Archie says. ‘We shal see.’ He looks at me, and at Jay. ‘Her children, we get very little.

That is what distresses me, on your mother’s behalf. The solicitors say—’ He stops, as if he’s gone too far. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says formal y. ‘Not suitable.’

‘No, go on,’ I urge. He frowns. ‘Natasha, it’s not your concern.’ I feel as though I’ve been slapped for being naughty. ‘She wanted you involved, she had her reasons, I’m sure. But for the moment you don’t need to do anything. When the estate is settled, and we know what the money is, we’l be able to consider applications, and you’l be involved then, vetting the applicants, their suitability. Perhaps talking to people, visiting their studios .

. . I don’t know.’

‘How ironic,’ I say. ‘Can I apply for some money?’ I’m joking.

Archie doesn’t smile. ‘You’re going?’ I ask him then. ‘Next month, back to Cornwal ?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he says. ‘Have you seen Arvind?’

Jay shoots me a glance. Stop asking these questions. It occurs to me then that’s why he’s been in a funny mood today: he knows my uncle is displeased with me, and Jay, close as we are, is much more respectful of his parents than I am of my mother.

‘I have not, no,’ Archie says. ‘We are going next week.’

‘Louisa’s been down there,’ Sameena says, and I’m sure it’s an innocent remark but Archie obviously doesn’t want to hear it.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘She’s been wonderful.’

‘She has,’ Archie says. ‘We are lucky.’

Suddenly I can’t resist. ‘Archie, can I ask you something?’

‘Yes, Natasha?’ Archie breaks another poppadom between his fingers.

‘Why – wel , why doesn’t Mum get on with her? Louisa’s been wonderful through this, organising the funeral, getting Arvind sorted, the foundation . . .’ My voice is loud in the silent dining room. ‘I don’t know what we’d al have done without her. And Mum – she thinks Louisa’s after her in some way.’

I know this is dangerous, but it is as close as I can get to asking Archie about the diary, about what happened to Cecily, and I don’t want to, here in front of Sameena and Jay, these people I love. I don’t want to start throwing accusations around about my mother when I have no real evidence myself.

Archie breaks the poppadom piece in half again. ‘You just said it. Louisa and your mother don’t get on. Never have done. That is al .’

I want to laugh, inappropriate as it seems. That’s only the beginning of it, I want to say.

But then he goes on: ‘Look, when we were growing up . . . it was a long time ago. We don’t real y talk about it much, because of the tragedy of my sister.’ He raises his head, and a lock of careful y combed hair fal s in his face, making him look much younger al of a sudden. ‘The truth is –

they were very different. You know? Louisa was – wel , I found her rather insufferable at times. Always offering to help. Much better behaved than us, our parents loved her. Always doing wel in her exams, good at sports.’ He stops and rubs his arms. He seems surprised he’s saying al this, and then he ploughs on. ‘I was fascinated by her. So was your mother. She was everything we weren’t. We weren’t good at anything in particular. No artistic prowess, we weren’t intel ectual. No good at sports. We weren’t blond, hearty. My mother was . . . disappointed with us. Always felt she’d rather Louisa and Jeremy were her children, not us. And Cecily, of course. She loved Cecily.’

He trails off. I know he’s tel ing the truth. He speaks in a low, clear voice, not very dramatic, just simply stating facts. The four of us are stil . What he says and the way he says it, makes me so sad, but I can’t reach out and touch him, I know that.

‘That’s why –’ Archie begins, and then stops. He clears his throat and looks at Jay, then at me. ‘Wel . Now that is why I have always been very pleased that you two – you cousins got on so wel . That these things don’t matter, these days. As has your mother.’

‘Have you spoken to Mum?’ I ask him suddenly. I’ve cal ed her since our row, several times, but once again she’s gone completely off radar.

‘Oh, yes,’ he says. ‘Where is she?’ I ask. ‘Is she around?’

‘She’l be back in time for the foundation launch,’ Archie says. ‘Her work is important to her.’

He raises his chin, and nods expectantly at me. ‘We had a row –’ I hear myself say. ‘I know you did.’ Archie puts his napkin down. ‘Natasha, you upset her a great deal. I don’t think you realise how much.’

‘She –’ I begin, and then I stop. I look at Sameena and Jay, eating their curry in silence.

‘She’s your mother,’ Archie says. ‘You should respect her, no matter what.’

‘No matter what?’ I say.

He looks at me, then at his wife and child. ‘Yes.’

I can’t push this any more; I’m in their home.

The contrast between brother and sister strikes me again. Archie may be a bit pompous, but he’s made his own life for himself, him and Sameena and Jay, and it’s not like Summercove. I can see what he did – I tried to do it myself, with Oli, create a world different from the one I grew up in. I think of Archie with his parents, how he’s never real y present, like his sister. He turns up, bosses people around, shows everyone his flash new car or his nice new watch, and then he’s gone. It’s funny to read about him in those pages of Cecily’s: the idea that he’d have gone to Oxford or Cambridge isn’t real y him at al . I don’t know whether he took the exams or not, but I know he went away for a long time, went travel ing, like Mum.

He got a job working in a car dealership, in the mid-sixties when I guess it stil had a modicum of glamour attached to it. Archie worked his way up; his business is now pretty successful. You’d know it, even if he didn’t tel you. He lived al over the world, in Singapore, Tokyo. It was in Mumbai that he met Sameena.

I ask just one more question. ‘You don’t know where she is, though?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘As I said, she’l be back.’

She’s always flitting off somewhere, with no notice, and usual y you’re lucky to get a text. When I was about ten, she went to Lisbon for a week, and I only found out when she rang the school on her way to the airport and told them my aunt would be looking after me while she was away . . . I remember this now in light of what I know, sitting at the Kapoors’ table, as Sameena and Jay nudge each other and she laughs about something, and Archie helps himself to more mango chutney and I sit watching them. I feel very alone, al of a sudden. Archie got out, he got away from whatever it was. Poor Mum, dancing off around the world to find some freedom, some space, running away from her own thoughts, her own life.

Like I say, it makes me sad.

Chapter Thirty-One

On Thursday, the week after lunch at Archie’s, my alarm doesn’t go off and I wake up late. I lie in bed for about ten minutes, annoyed because the day is already off on the wrong foot. I have become very good at keeping myself busy with my lists and my actions and I know that lying in bed being annoyed isn’t the way to keep myself from going mad. Do something, anything. I get up, shower, get dressed and clean the flat from top to bottom, tidying things up, putting some more of Oli’s things away, dusting, scouring, scrubbing, singing along to the radio.

In the afternoon I head out for the studio, eager to stretch my legs, get outside. In the hal way I see the post has arrived, which even though it’s nearly three is stil something of a miracle. I pick up the bundle and sort it out, putting the post for the two other flats in our building into their rightful pigeonholes.

I know he’s not coming back now, but some days events conspire to make it more difficult than others. This morning the post consists of a council tax demand, Oli’s Arsenal fanzine, one of his many gadget magazines, and a reminder to Mr and Mrs Jones that we have to renew our home contents insurance, which seems particularly cruel. There’s also a smal , thick, stiff envelope, with my name written in handwriting I don’t recognise. I put the rest of the post in his pile – Oli is staying with his best friend Jason and his wife Lucy, nearby in Hackney, which is where he went before. He comes by the flat to pick his post up, just lets himself into the hal and goes again, we don’t see each other. I open the envelope addressed to me.

YOU ARE INVITED TO THE LAUNCH OF

THE FRANCES SEYMOUR FOUNDATION

A CHARITY FOUNDED IN MEMORY OF FRANCES SEYMOUR

TO SUPPORT YOUNG ARTISTS

THURSDAY 9TH APRIL

2.30PM CHAMPAGNE RECEPTION & BUFFET LUNCH

3.30PM SPEECH BY MIRANDA KAPOOR, FRANCES’S

DAUGHTER

3.45PM PRIVATE VIEW OF EXHIBITION OPENS

At Summercove,

Near Treen,

Cornwal

RSVP

rsvp@seymourfoundation.org

Overleaf: ‘Summercove at Sunset, 1963’

On the back is a painting, one I have never seen before. ‘Summercove at Sunset, 1963’ must have been painted from behind the white house, which is nestling against the black trees in the lane behind, the lawn and the terrace sloping gently towards the cliffs, the countryside lush and green, the grey terrace echoed by the grey-green of the lavender against it. There is a lone figure on the lawn, a tal man with a towel around his neck, walking towards the sea. It is very stil , almost dreamlike; no feeling of movement in the branches or the lavender or the grass. The light is pale gold, casting long shadows. The man is striding but you feel he’s been frozen mid-step by the artist, that they wanted to capture this moment in time.

I stare at it, in the fading afternoon light; I’ve seen Granny’s paintings at Summercove, in gal eries, in catalogues and books, but I’ve never seen anything like this before. It feels like a new approach, only it was one of the last things she ever painted. I turn the invitation over in my hand, letting the corners of the hard cardboard press into my palms. Who sent this out? Louisa, of course. It wasn’t Mum, that’s for sure.

It’s been over a week now since Mum and I had our showdown, and I stil haven’t heard back from her. I don’t know what comes next. This gives me another reason to be in touch, I suppose. Tapping the invitation thoughtful y against my hand, I walk towards the studio.

The sun is – sort of – out, a silvery sheen of cloud covering the sky but there are shadows on the ground and it’s kind of warm, for the first time this year, over halfway through March. I am lost in thought as I walk round to Fournier Street and out at the back of the Hawksmoor Christ Church, its looming, sinister bulk casting the streets into shade. I need more time to think.

Cathy often says in her wise way that your life is made up of three sides of a triangle: home (where you live and how settled it is), relationships (friends, family and of course romantic), and work (having a job, having a fulfil ing job, one that doesn’t make you cry every night or mean you’re a sex worker). Cathy’s triangle dictates that you don’t have to have al three sides working to be happy, but you need two sides to be able to function properly. We used to discuss this in the long evenings around the time of Horrific Ex Boyfriend Martin, three years ago – a psycho doctor who kicked her out of her flat and changed the locks, the week after she lost her job in her previous company. No home, no boyfriend, no job. No sides of triangle: bad. But strangely, it was OK, because it was relatively easy to get two sides of the triangle up and running again. She got a job quite quickly, bucking the trend of my other friends at publishing houses or law firms or smal start-ups who suddenly lost their jobs: it was obviously some kind of slow period in the actuary recruiting world. She stayed with Jay, who has a spare room in his flat, and whom she has known almost as long as me, and the weird thing is that we remember that period with a lot of happiness. We were out a lot, loads of us, drinking in Spitalfields and Shoreditch, there were great new bars opening up each week and it wasn’t a stop on a tourist trail the way it is now. Oli and I were getting ready for our wedding, and finding the whole thing surreal and weird: Cathy and Oli and I al went to a wedding fair at ExCel, and had to leave after five minutes when the first stand we came across was a production company that wil make a DVD of your wedding day set to a song that is special y composed for and about you; it was next to a stand that sold you fluffy toys with the pet names you and your partner cal each other embroidered on for you to give away to guests as wedding favours . . . We went to Summercove for a fortnight, the four of us, and I remember we ate fresh crab nearly every day, with pools of garlic butter and fresh bread. We helped Granny clear out Arvind’s study while he was away giving a lecture at Bologna, one of his last trips abroad, and threw out a huge amount of papers. I have since wondered what we threw out . . . probably the secret to happiness in the Western Hemisphere, or a cure for cancer, but it’s hard to tel when you’re confronted with a box containing a copy of Woman’s Own from 1979, two packets of crisps that went out of date in 1992, and assorted scraps of torn-up paper, which is what it mostly seemed to be. I remember Granny so wel that summer, laughing over boxes, a scarf tied over her hair like Grace Kel y. She would have been in her mid-eighties then and she stil looked like a star.

* * *

It seems a long time ago, that period in our lives. Rose-tinted spectacles, perhaps, but I look back on it now and smile. I clutch the invitation in my hand, bending the hard card over into the shape of a tear.

At the studio, I put it on the little shelf by the safe. I stare at the painting on the back, thinking. It is very stil ; starting to get dark outside and the traffic seems distant. I shake my head. Where is the damn diary? Where is it? I feel as if I’m no nearer to finding out. I should have gone back to look for it and now I’ve made things worse, not better. I feel like a failure. I’ve let Cecily down.

There’s a knock on the door and a deep voice says, ‘Nat, hi.’

‘Ben! Hey,’ I say, and though it’s hardly a shock to see him, I’m particularly grateful for the diversion this morning. ‘I was just coming to ask you

—’ I turn round and stop, open-mouthed. ‘Wow. Your hair! What happened to you?’

‘I had it al cut off.’

‘When?’

‘Last Thursday. You just haven’t been in since then.’

‘I was out visiting shops and stuff. My goodness. Why?’ He rubs the top of his head rueful y. ‘Um – I decided it was time for a change.’

‘Al your lovely curls!’ I say. ‘And the stubble! Al gone!’ He looks sad. ‘I know. My head feels cold.’ He is running his fingertips lightly over his scalp. I watch, transfixed, as his long fingers push through the thick short stubble of his hair and move down towards his smooth chin.

‘You look completely different,’ I say. ‘Strange.’

‘Oh, thanks,’ he says. ‘No, I don’t mean you look strange.’ I rush to correct myself. ‘It’s strange, I mean. You look – it’s like Samson.’

‘He lost al his strength and got murdered,’ Ben says. ‘You’re making me think I should put a bag on my head. Is it that bad?’

‘It’s real y not. In fact it’s the opposite.’ I hear Cathy’s voice, it seems ages ago, that lunch – If he had his hair cut . . . Wow, he’d be absolutely gorgeous – and I can feel myself starting to blush. ‘You look great. Real y – it real y suits you. You look much better – not that you looked bad 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 pockets and pul s out a tenner. I watch him, smiling. ‘Let me take you for a drink,’ he says. ‘A nice lime cordial.’

I look at my watch. ‘But Ben, it’s not even five yet.’

‘Exactly,’ he says cheerily. ‘We’l get a table at the pub.’ He sees my face. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Give yourself a break for once and stop worrying about everything. Let’s get a drink.’

Chapter Thirty-Two

We go to the Ten Bel s, which is one of my favourite pubs. It’s on Commercial Street, in the shadow of Hawksmoor’s magnificent Christ Church, and features on the Jack the Ripper trail, tediously, because two of his victims are known to have drunk there. It’s been around since the 1700s and it’s always real y busy, but unlike other pubs round here it’s not too touristy or ful of City types, and there’s a good laid-back vibe. Perhaps it’s because the loos are absolutely disgusting. I think they do it deliberately. There is no way Fodors or Dorling Kindersley could recommend a pub with bathroom facilities like that. We manage to squeeze onto a sofa squashed in by the bar and I check my phone while Ben gets the drinks.

There’s a text from Oli.

Hi. Can I come and pick up more stuff tonight? 9ish? Be good to see you. Ox

Immediately I know if I don’t reply right away I won’t be able to think about anything else. It’s not that I’m obsessing over him, it’s just to keep myself sane. I text back.

Gone for drink with Ben so text me when you’re near. In Ten Bel s.

I put my phone back on the table as Ben reappears. ‘Hey, thanks,’ I say, slightly too enthusiastical y as I take my vodka, lime and soda off him.

‘This is great.’

He glances down at the phone. ‘It’s my pleasure. You need a night out I reckon. Tough couple of months.’

‘Maybe you’re right. A gin and tonic,’ I say, changing the subject. ‘Nice.’

He laughs. ‘You a fan of the gin and tonic then?’

‘You don’t see men drinking gin and tonic enough these days, in my opinion,’ I say. ‘It used to be a classy, Cary Grant-ish thing to do and now hardly anyone has one. They have pints al the time.’

Ben looks amused. ‘Glad you’re pleased.’

‘Wel , I like a man who drinks gin and tonics,’ I say. ‘Do you now.’ Ben gesticulates to an imaginary person next to him. ‘Waiter! Four more gin and tonics here, please!’ The woman opposite looks at him as though he’s a lunatic.

I laugh: Ben is real y funny. Then there’s an awkward silence, in amongst the noise and chatter of the pub. I start picking at a beer mat.

Ben watches me, and then he says, ‘So, tel me about it, then. The family stuff, I mean. What’s the deal with them?’

‘It’s a long story.’ I stare through the great glass windows of the pub, out at the church, at the traffic roaring down Commercial Street. It has started to drizzle, and the light is already fading. ‘It’s boring.’

‘It doesn’t sound boring,’ Ben says. ‘It sounds pretty interesting, if you ask me. Fire away. It’s a choice between this, doing my taxes, or watching the big match.’

‘Oh, what’s the big match?’ I ask. ‘Absolutely no idea. I was trying to sound blokeish. Actual y, there’s a Hi-de-Hi! marathon on UK Gold I recorded last night.’

‘ Hi-de-Hi! ?’ I fal about with mirth. ‘You’re joking me.’

‘No, I’m not,’ Ben says. He is a bit red. ‘I love Hi-de-Hi! , it’s my secret shame.’

‘No, I love it too,’ I say. ‘Real y love it.’ Ben is the only person I know who has a genuine penchant for cheesy British sitcoms. ‘I kind of love ’ Allo

’Allo! , is that wrong?’

‘It’s sort of wrong, but I’m with you,’ Ben says. ‘You know, I went through a brief phase when I needed cheering up when I actual y used to record As Time Goes By.’

‘No way.’ I stare at him. ‘Me too.’

He shakes my hand. ‘It is a fine programme. Nothing wrong with it at al in my opinion. Geoffrey Palmer is a comedy genius.’

I smile. ‘Wel , great minds think alike.’ Then I ask, tentatively, ‘Do you also like Just Good Friends, with Paul Nicholas?’

Ben gazes at me. ‘Oh, Nat. You poor thing. No way.’

‘Oh, right.’ I am downcast. I actual y have VHS tapes of it in one of the cupboards at home but I’m not going to say that now.

Ben shakes his head, more in sorrow than in anger. ‘There is a limit, you know.’

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

‘ Just Good Friends? I thought you were a woman of taste.’ He exhales sadly. ‘Right, let’s move on. What were we discussing? Yes, what I’d be doing if I wasn’t here with you. So make it juicy. Tel me the secrets of your family, which I’m hoping are that you’re al half human half wolf, or you’ve got Jesus’s heart stored in a safe in the vaults of your ancestral home.’ He widens his eyes. ‘Latin quotation here. But I don’t know any.’

‘No, I’m afraid not,’ I say. ‘Although there is a Knights Templar society that meets regularly in the gazebo headed by Lord Lucan.’ He laughs politely and there’s a pause, during which I check my phone again and say, ‘So is the footbal on tonight, or not?’

He looks at me as though I’m insane, and he’s not wrong. ‘Er – like I just said. I don’t know. Yes? No? Probably?’

I can feel myself blushing, and it’s so embarrassing. I scratch my cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Just thinking Oli’l probably be watching it if there’s some big footbal thing on.’ My voice is too high. ‘He might – he said he might pop over later, pick up some stuff.’

‘Oh, right,’ says Ben, and he looks out of the window as if he’s trying to spot him. ‘Have you seen him lately, then?’

‘No,’ I say, too quickly. ‘But it’s not a big deal. His things are al stil in the flat. It’s fine if he picks them up. Just . . . I just was wondering.’ I stop.

‘Sorry,’ I say, sounding more normal. ‘It’s OK, it’s just everything’s stil quite weird at the moment and when I hear from him—’

‘Yes,’ Ben says. ‘Nat, of course it is. I’m sorry.’ He pats my arm.

I have an overwhelming urge to put my hand on his, to feel human contact, but I stop and instead run my hands through my hair.

‘So shoot, Kapoor,’ Ben says, changing the subject. ‘Back to the diary. Tel me al about it, my creative col eague.’

So I tel him from the start. About going back to Summercove for Granny’s funeral, and being given the diary by Arvind, about Cecily – what I know about her, that is – and what Octavia told me about Mum; and I tel him about how I’ve tried to talk to Mum about it and how awful it ended up being, and when I get to that bit Ben whistles. ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘That’s a lot of stuff.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘And what with me and Oli – I didn’t take it al in at the funeral. I was so worried, about Oli and the business.’ I pause. ‘It’s just now I’ve started real y thinking about it al , and looking at – everything, I guess, and it’s driving me mad.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like . . .’ I am searching for the right way to describe it. ‘I spent every summer of my life in the house in Cornwal . Mum used to drop me off there as soon as the holidays began and go off somewhere afterwards. I loved it. It was where I thought of as home. But it’s where Cecily died. They were al there, that summer.’

‘Your gran dying, that must bring it to the surface,’ Ben says.

‘Wel , yeah,’ I say. I pick at the beer mat again. ‘Arvind told me something, at the funeral. He said I looked just like Cecily. And it explained quite a lot. Why she was sometimes cold, off with me.’ I pile the shreds of cardboard into a pyramid. ‘I sometimes felt she didn’t want to be there at al , like she hated us al , she’d chosen the wrong life.’

Ben looks interested, and I am relieved; I don’t want to bore him. There’s a large part of me that thinks this is al in my head. ‘The wrong life?

Why do you think that?’

‘Don’t know.’ I shrug. ‘I think it probably started after Cecily died, but who knows?’ I chew my lip, trying to explain. ‘I can’t explain it, but it was sort of like she was play-acting her own life a lot of the time.’

‘How?’

‘Like she was going through the motions,’ I say. ‘As if she stopped being herself when Cecily died, when she gave up painting. She stopped being that person, for whatever reason.’

‘That can’t have been easy for your mum, whatever the truth is.’ Ben stares into his pint.

‘Wel , that’s true,’ I say. ‘And Archie’s done OK for himself. Mum hasn’t. She’s never quite worked out what to do with her life. If she hadn’t had an income from my grandparents, back in the day, she’d never have been able to survive.’ I give a short laugh. ‘Me either.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Granny and Arvind, they gave them both an al owance, when times were good,’ I say. ‘Not much, just enough to pay the rent. Archie used it to set up the car business, he provides fleets of cars for hotels and things, and he deals in classic cars too.’

‘Real y? Wow.’

‘I know.’ I think back to Sunday lunch, the brand new kitchen, the warm under-floor heating, the comfort, the security of it al .

‘He’s done real y wel for himself. He sort of left them behind.’

‘What about your mum?’

‘Mum – wel , I don’t know. She doesn’t real y have a career or anything. I don’t know why.’

‘I thought she worked at some interiors shop,’ Ben says. ‘Wel , yeah, but it doesn’t pay much. It’s in Chelsea, she knew the owner back in the good old days and she gets to hang out with posh, glamorous people al day and go on buying trips. Believe me, it’s never been enough.’ I don’t say what I want to, which is that one term at school she wouldn’t buy me new shoes, because she said my feet were growing too fast and I’d just need another pair in a few months. It sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud, but it was kind of normal back then. ‘I guess she’l have some money from the sale of the house now,’ I say. ‘And she’s got the committee, too.’

‘What committee?’

I pul the invitation to the opening of the foundation out of my bag and show it to him. ‘Wow,’ he says. ‘That’s fast.’

‘That’s how she wanted it. Like she wanted people to remember her as soon as she’d gone. It’s weird, when she was alive she didn’t seem to care about al that, her reputation as a painter. Almost like, I’m dead now, you can start looking at me in the way I want.’ I shake my head. ‘That’s what my uncle said, too.’

‘Who’s on the committee?’

‘Louisa, Octavia’s mum. She and Mum aren’t exactly close.’ I pause and check my phone. Ben watches. ‘Me. And Guy.’

‘Guy?’

‘He’s the Bowler Hat’s brother.’ He looks blank. ‘Louisa’s brother-in-law. He’s a nice guy.’ I snort at this unintentional pun; Ben shakes his head. ‘And that’s it.’ I stop and raise my hands, to buy some time. Two girls behind us at the bar shriek with laughter, and I look over at them; they’re both in vintage pin-tucked shirts, jeans and boots, and one, who has her hair in a loose bun and wears an apple-green cardigan, has a beautiful gold necklace hung with about five different antique charms: a bird, a heart, a little apple. I take a mental picture of her.

Ben puts his drink down. ‘So, what about your mum? What are you going to say to her?’

I push the pieces of the beer mat away and turn to him, admiring again – as I do each time I look at him – the new, hair-free Ben. ‘Wel , perhaps it’s the funeral, perhaps it’s everything with Oli, and trying to keep the business together, but I’ve sort of realised I can’t be that person in her life any longer. I just can’t do it.’ I raise my shoulders and drop them again. ‘She makes me . . . Agh. Never mind.’

‘Makes you feel what?’ Ben’s voice is soft and kind. I find myself struggling not to cry.

‘She makes me feel not very good about myself sometimes,’ I say in a soft whisper. ‘But that’s – that’s family, I suppose.’

‘No, Nat,’ Ben says gently. ‘It’s not. Not in that way.’

As I’m speaking, the iPhone buzzes and a text appears in a box, lighting up the screen. We both look down, force of habit.

Ben the beardy guy who fancies u?! Bel you laters. Ox

I snatch the phone up and shove it in my bag, but I know it’s too late, that Ben has seen it already. I gabble, to say anything, anything.

‘Anyway, I suppose, yeah. You start to realise you have to distance yourself sometimes, and that’s just the way it is, I guess.’

‘Yes,’ Ben says. ‘I think you do.’

I raise my head, look at him. Ben finishes his drink in one long gulp. ‘Ah, I’m going to get another drink,’ he says, standing up. A wave of embarrassment crashes over me. It’s real y hot in here, crowded with a yeasty, hot, old-man smel , and suddenly I wish we hadn’t gone for a drink, that I was at home in my bedsocks on this cold night and didn’t have to wait for Oli to turn up, whenever that might be.

But when Ben comes back, carrying a pint this time, he looks thoughtful. He puts my drink and some crisps down on the table. ‘Hope you like bacon. Tania loathed bacon crisps, I haven’t had them for ages.’

‘That’s my favourite,’ I say, ripping into the bag. ‘Thanks. So . . .’ I eat a few more crisps, trying to sound casual, and I change the subject.

‘When we met in the coffee house that day a couple of weeks back, when Oli and I were . . . I didn’t know Tania wasn’t working with you any more.

Why’s that?’

Ben looks blank. ‘We’re stil working together.’

‘She said she wasn’t. I introduced her to Oli and said you were her boyfriend and you worked together and she said, Not any more.’

‘Oh,’ said Ben. ‘Bit of a misunderstanding then. She meant we’re not going out any more. We’re stil working together, yeah.’

He says it as though it’s not a big deal. I gape at him. ‘You guys – you split up? I didn’t know that.’

‘Wel , yes.’ He scratches his shoulder, reaching behind with his arm and real y concentrating, as if it’s important to scratch it properly.

‘But – you never said. How – when? When was it?’

‘A month ago,’ Ben says. ‘Yeah.’ He looks down into his pint. ‘It’s pretty sad.’

‘Was it – was it a bad break-up?’

He looks up and around the crowded pub but doesn’t meet my eye. ‘It wasn’t good.’

He won’t look at me. Even though Ben is pretty chil ed, he’s stil a bloke. There’s a lot of stuff you just don’t get out of them.

‘How long –’ I begin, but he says quickly, ‘Yeah, two years. It was painful. But we get on, that’s why we’re stil working together. It’s weird sometimes, but . . . it’s for the best, I suppose.’

‘Can I ask what happened?’ I push the mess I’ve made with the new mat out of the way, embarrassed.

‘Nothing real y.’ He looks at me now. ‘Just that . . .’ He pauses. ‘We were together for two years and . . . Yep.’

‘“Yep”?’

Ben smiles. ‘Wel . . . I’ve come to realise – we both did – that it’s better to be alone than be in a relationship that’s not right.’

I nod emphatical y. ‘Sure.’

‘And if you know you don’t want to be with that person, that you don’t love them any more, it’s best to do something about it sooner rather than later.’

‘You don’t sound like most boys I know,’ I say. ‘Most of them stick with it but they behave so craply the girl eventual y has to dump them.’

Ben looks cross. ‘I hate the way people just assume al men are going to be like that.’ He mimics a busybody with a quavering voice, ‘“Oh, he’s such a useless man!” Real y pisses me off. Girls do it, mainly. Girls shouldn’t do it. They shouldn’t assign gender roles. They know what it’s like.’ He frowns, so deeply that I laugh.

‘Hel o, second-wave feminist!’ I hold up my hand. ‘You go, girl!’

‘Everyone should be a feminist,’ Ben says. ‘I don’t understand people who say, “I’m not sure I’m a feminist.” It’s like saying, “I think I might be racist.” You get my mum on the subject. Wow.’

Ben’s mum is a professor of history at Queen Mary and Westfield Col ege. She is amazing – what my friend Maura who lives round the corner cal s a Necklace Lady – one of those cool fifty-plus women with big frizzy hair who wear draped jersey and huge, bold, signature necklaces.

‘My mum doesn’t believe in al that,’ I say. ‘Which is so weird, when you think about it. She acts like a young ingénue in a Jane Austen novel when any man speaks to her, al batting eyelashes and trembling voice. And she’s tough. She raised me on my own, hardly any money, without a dad.’

‘Do you ever wonder who he was? Your dad?’ Ben asks. ‘You never talk about it.’

‘A bit more lately, what with everything,’ I admit. ‘It’s made me think about al that stuff more. Where you come from, who your family is.

Etcetera.’

‘Just “Etcetera”?’ He smiles, and I think how nice it is to talk about this with someone, I never do.

‘Have you ever thought it might be someone you know?’

‘No, not real y,’ I say. ‘I think it real y is just some guy she never saw again.’

‘I know, but—’ Ben puts his pint down and wipes his forehead. The noise in the pub seems to go up a notch, al of a sudden. ‘Your mum – I mean, you don’t necessarily believe what she says al the time, do you?’

‘I don’t, sadly. Why?’

‘Wel , it must be something you think about. Half your family tree is missing. Where you come from, isn’t it interesting?’

‘I suppose so,’ I say. ‘Like your grandfather – you’ve always been interested in his family, the Muslim side.’

‘He’s not Muslim, he’s Hindu.’

‘But I thought he was from Lahore, from Pakistan?’

‘Yeah, but he’s not Muslim. There were loads of Hindus there before Partition,’ I explain. Everyone always assumes Arvind is Muslim. I don’t blame them, but his name alone should show he’s not. ‘You’re right, I’d love to go there. I am interested in it. But it’s only a quarter of me, you’re right. There’s another whole half. Look at Jay,’ I say. ‘His mum’s from Mumbai, his dad’s half Indian – he’s three-quarters there. Me, I’m only a quarter there. I used to wonder a lot about the other half.’

‘I would, if I was you,’ Ben says. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘If you ever want some help with it,’ Ben says. ‘Just ask.’

‘What, have you got a DNA database in your studio?’ I ask.

He grins. ‘I mean it. Just – anything I can do. Just someone to talk to.’

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘Thanks, Ben.’

We smile uncertainly at each other in the crowded bar, and there’s a pause, though everyone else around us is laughing and having a good time. Perhaps I should go. I don’t want to, though. I glance at my watch, just as he says, ‘One more drink?’

And I don’t say, No, I’l be off. I look at him, and I think about being at home, waiting for Oli to turn up or not, when I could be here, and I push my glass towards him, and I say, ‘Yes, please. Same again.’

‘Coming right up,’ he says, and we sort of know it’s not going to be just one more drink.

Chapter Thirty-Three

So we have another drink, and another, and it’s seven o’clock and then it’s eight-thirty, and we talk about a new commission Ben’s just got, a photo-essay on a Countryside Al iance march taking place next week, and about my new col ection, and about Les and the writers’ col ective with whom we are both obsessed, and about Jamie’s love life – Jamie being the slightly more amenable of the two receptionists whom I think Ben has a crush on, mainly because she is beautiful, Sophie-Dahl-style, but also fascinating because her boyfriend is an extremely short pockmarked Russian guy, not obviously rich but we think he must be.

Then we have another drink and talk about what we’re working on, and I point out the two girls at the bar and how one of them is wearing this beautiful necklace made up of different charms, and how I want to copy it, and Ben goes up to them super-politely and asks if we can take a photo of her necklace. And he manages to do it without sounding creepy, and the girls are real y lovely, and he snaps away a couple of times because he has a little camera he always carries around with him. Then we have another drink, but somewhere along the line we’ve forgotten we got to the pub early, and nine-thirty seems deceptively early, and we’re so pleased about this we have another drink. In al this time Oli doesn’t cal , and after a while I put my phone in my bag, because I’m sick of checking it every five minutes.

At ten-thirty we are both very hungry, and we know we have to go, and we stumble out of the Ten Bel s onto the street, waving bye to the girls, who are cal ed Claire and Leah and who are lovely.

The road is slick with rain and it is stil freezing cold. It’s mid-March, and this winter feels as though it wil never end. We set off down Fournier Street; I’m just round the corner. As we walk, Ben hums to himself. He always does, I realise. I can hear him in his studio, sometimes, if the window’s open. I don’t think he knows he does it.

‘What are you humming?’

He makes a noise like a scarily authentic trumpet. ‘“When the Saints Go Marching In”,’ he says. ‘It’s a good song to keep you warm. I’m cold.’

‘Me too,’ I say. He puts his arm round me and pul s me tight. He has one of those large, sensible puffa jackets like security guards wear and it is nice and comforting. I lean my head against it as we walk, remembering how comforting he is, though we are walking slightly unevenly.

We’re on the corner of Wilkes Street, and then I’l be home. Ben stops and says, into my ear, ‘Natasha. I’m glad every-thing’s turning out OK for you. I real y am.’

‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure it is, but thanks. I’m glad you think so.’

‘I was worried about you, for a while there.’ His breath is on my ear; it is dry and warm.

I stop, and he nearly trips over me. ‘Ah, that’s nice. Why?’

‘Wel . . .’ Ben says. ‘I just meant . . . Oh, shit.’

‘What?’

‘I’m about to be rude. I’ve had a lot to drink. It’s taken the edge off.’

I close my eyes. ‘I’ve had six vodka lime and sodas. Possibly seven. Eight. Nine. Go on.’

Ben says, ‘I meant you and Oli.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I just didn’t . . . didn’t see you staying together. I know we only met a couple of times, but – just watching the two of you together, the way you talk about him – I always thought he wasn’t good enough for you.’ He nods politely. ‘OK, I’l be off then. Off to bang my head repeatedly against a rock.’ He walks off and I fol ow him.

‘I know,’ I cal . He stops. ‘What?’

‘I know you think that,’ I say. ‘Real y?’

‘Real y,’ I say. ‘I know you didn’t like Oli, Ben.’ He starts to protest but I carry on. ‘I’m not stupid. But he was my husband.’

‘OK.’ Ben nods and runs both his hands over his shorn hair, his kind face smiling at me. ‘You’re right. I’m being a dick, Nat, I’m sorry. It’s just I want you to be happy.’

‘But I was happy,’ I say. ‘We were happy, for a while.’

‘Right,’ he says, but there’s a note of disbelief in his voice and for the first time I feel myself getting angry.

‘We were,’ I said. ‘I loved him – I – I don’t know, perhaps I stil do.’

When I say this out loud, I realise how long I’ve been wanting to say it.

‘You don’t deserve him,’ Ben says. He is staring into my eyes. ‘You should be with someone who wants you to be happy, Nat. Who it’s easy to be with. Easy. Like . . . like it is with you and me.’

He leans forward. I don’t say anything. I just move towards him, resting my head on his shoulder. It is so nice to be held by someone again after so long. He puts his arms round me, and I give in to it, sinking into his comfortable jacket and the comfortableness of him, how lovely he is, how kind, how handsome . . . how my head fits into the crook of his neck the way it’s supposed to. The way it’s supposed to.

I look up at him and he moves his head towards me just enough, so his lips are touching mine. And he whispers, so his lips brush mine, ‘You and me.’

He pushes his mouth against mine, and I close my eyes, feeling the wetness of his tongue sliding into my mouth. He moves against me, and he sighs, and pul s me towards him; his lips are hard on mine, his fingers are on my neck, and it’s as if I’m coming alive again, tingling al over.

His skin is so sweet, the touch of his kiss is so alarmingly exciting, I push myself against him for a few glorious moments. I want him to pul me tighter towards him, to total y sweep me up, to carry on kissing me, feeling his hands on me, holding me close, it is amazing . . .

And then my phone rings. I should ignore it, I should stop. But in the quiet street it is loud. As if I’m coming awake, out of a dream, I pul away from Ben, step backwards. I push him away, my palm flat on his chest, and snatch the phone out of my bag.

‘Ol?’ I say. I pause. ‘Where are you? You’re – now? You’re coming now? OK – um, yeah, that’s – that’s fine. See you in a minute.’ I put the phone away, my eyes stil locked with Ben’s. I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand and look at my fingers, as if he’s poisoned me. He is staring, standing stock-stil , in the shadow of the huge church, the cobbles shining in the moon and the rain.

‘So Oli’s coming over, then, is he?’ Ben’s voice is cold. ‘You’re running off. He says, “Jump,” you say, “How high, Oli?”’

My stomach is churning, I think I’m going to be sick. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, breathing heavily, my heart pounding almost painful y in my chest. My hair is fal ing over my shoulders, around my face, and I back away, staring into his face. ‘I have to go, we should never – I’m so sorry . . . we should never have done this.’

‘Why?’ he says. He’s almost smiling. He reaches out to touch me, and ends up cupping my elbow in his palm. His hands are big and strong.

‘Natasha, you must have known this was going to happen.’

‘No!’ I say, pul ed towards him by his hand on my elbow, and by a huge desire to kiss him again. I shake my head at him. ‘Absolutely not, Ben, no!’

And then the doubt that can almost immediately cover the bravado of taking an action like this comes over him. ‘But—’

I put my hand underneath his and remove my arm from his grip. ‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘It’s too soon. It’s too soon. Oli and I, we only just split up, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, and—’

‘You do know!’ he says, almost impatiently, and he steps forward again, as if to touch me, but instead he clenches his hands into fists by his sides, his knuckles white with frustration. A passer-by scurries alongside the wal of the church, and we both turn. Ben lowers his voice. ‘Natasha –

can’t you see? He’s never going to change, what are you waiting around for?’ He trails off. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’

I stare at him again. ‘That’s horrible.’

‘Not horrible.’ His voice is low and soft. ‘It’s because I want you to be happy. It’s because – God, can’t you see it? I’m in love with you, Natasha

– I have been for a while.’ And he reaches up to his chest, and touches his heart with his fingers. I don’t think he realises he’s doing it.

‘You’re what?’

‘I’ve fal en for you. What the hel . I have fal en for you. Your smile, the way you bend your head when you’re embarrassed, your long legs . . .’ He opens his hands, his eyes burning into me. ‘How talented you are, and you don’t see it, how tough you try to be, how sad you are, and how happy you deserve to be. You’re so strong al the time and you don’t always have to be. You need someone to look after you.’

‘Stop it, Ben,’ I say, and I’m trying not to shake. ‘Stop it.’

‘You deserve everything, Nat.’ He nods. ‘And you don’t deserve him. You deserve someone much better.’

‘What? Like you?’ I practical y spit the words out, sudden anger coursing through me. ‘How dare you,’ I say. ‘Just because you’re single again, and you don’t like Oli, and you think you know me – you don’t know me, Ben! We’re col eagues, we’re not . . .’ I shake my head, looking for the right words. His eyes are stil on me, searching my face. I think again how naked he looks without the beard and hair. Defenceless. I don’t want to hurt him. ‘Look, I’m sorry. It’s probably best if – I’m going to go now.’

‘Nat – don’t go –’ he cal s. I turn and run up the street. He is fol owing me.

‘Please, just leave, just let me go!’ I am almost hysterical. I turn in to my road, which is completely dead, and as I do I look back down Wilkes Street. Ben is standing there, watching me, a lone figure, dark in the yel owing lamplight. He turns and walks away.

My phone rings again and I pick it up, unlocking the front door.

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘You’re back already?’

‘Yes,’ Oli says, his voice so familiar it beats a tattoo in my head. ‘Let myself in. Is it OK? ’S’not too late? For a visit?’

He’s drunk. I’m drunk. I know what I’m about to do. Slowly, I shut the door and go upstairs, wondering where the hel that came from, whether it’s always been there, and wishing, with a desire I tel myself is completely childish, that Ben were stil here now, that I was in his arms, my head on his broad, comforting, safe chest, feeling his heart beating underneath. His heart.

Chapter Thirty-Four

When I get upstairs, the flat is a tip again. Al evidence of the tidying up I did that morning, so long ago now, is vanished. Oli is standing in the centre of the room, his hands in his hair. He is swaying slightly. As I shut the door, he turns round. He’s been crying. His eyes are ful of tears.

‘Natasha –’ he says, and he pads over towards me. ‘Natasha. It’s so good to see you, babe.’

‘Hi, Oli,’ I say wearily, putting my bag down on the hal table. Suddenly I wish he wasn’t here, that I was alone. ‘What do you want? It’s late.’

He stands in the doorway to the sitting room, hands on either side of the door frame, pushing himself backwards and forwards. ‘I wanted to see you,’ he says.

‘Has Jason kicked you out?’ I ask. ‘Why are you here now? I – I don’t want to see you,’ I say brutal y. I think of Ben, walking through the wet, icy night, back home, alone. Instantly guilt rushes over me.

‘Just miss you,’ Oli mumbles. He holds out a hand. ‘C’m’ere.’

I take his hand, and he pul s me towards him. And I stil want him. Oh, the smel of him: yeasty, beery, sweaty, but spicy too, something to do with his aftershave. His hair, so soft and floppy. His scratchy stubble on my cheek. He’s my husband, he’s the man I thought I was going to be with for the rest of my life. I know it’s fucked-up, I know he’s drunk, but so am I, and hey, isn’t that what we should have done a while ago? Get drunk and just say what we think? With a mighty effort, I pul away.

‘You seeing Chloe again then?’ I ask. ‘What’s going on?’ Oli doesn’t say anything, he turns and goes into the bedroom. ‘No,’ he says. ‘Sort of –

yeah. No.’

I don’t know whether to be pleased by this news or not, or even whether to believe it. I don’t know what I think. I am real y tired, drunk, my hair is wet from the rain, my feet are hurting, and I just feel sad, sad about Ben, sad about this. I should press him on it, but I don’t want to hear what he says.

Oli flops down on the bed. ‘Look,’ he says. ‘Honestly just came t’get some more shirts and stuff. I know it’s late, I know I’ve had too much to drink. I was out with the boys from work, and they al went off early, and I suddenly . . .’ He looks up at me, I am standing against the chest of drawers looking at him. ‘I just real y wanted to see you. To hold you. Sleep in our bed just once more. You know? No, you don’t know.’ He struggles to stand up again and he mutters under his breath. ‘’S’Natasha, remember?’ Then he says, ‘You hate me and you want me to go. It’s fine.’

Cold-hearted Natasha. I push him back down on the bed, just as I pushed Ben away, the same hand, the same gesture. ‘You can stay,’ I say.

‘It’s fine. But nothing’s going to happen. I’m tired.’

‘So am I,’ he says. He smiles. ‘I miss you. I saw Mad Men the other night, with – with Jason and Lucy, and they didn’t understand what was going on. Kept wishing you were there.’

As romantic scenarios go, it’s not exactly up there with Casablanca. But it’s Oli. He’s my husband. And it’s late, and we’re both tired. I brush my teeth and hastily wash my face, and when I crawl into bed next to him, he’s practical y asleep anyway. He snuggles against me, holding me in his arms and I look at the alarm clock, blinking on the bedside table. 11:02. His hand is heavy on my ribcage. My eyelids are heavy too. In seconds, we are both asleep.

I have been dreaming a lot lately, vivid dreams about Summercove, something I haven’t done since I was a little girl. When I was younger, at least once a week I would dream I was there. Perhaps Jay and I would be crouched on the beach, picking out shel s, our bottoms wet from the sand as the sea crashed around us. Or we’d be on the lawn, chatting with Granny as she deadheaded the roses or picked the lavender. Or playing backgammon with Arvind, at the old table on the stone patio. Sometimes the sound of the sea would rush through my head so loudly I would rise into consciousness, a powerful sense of disappointment coursing through me, as I realised I was back in the flat in Bryant Court, dark and smel ing of damp and fish, the dul light of a cold West London morning creeping in through the curtains.

I felt safe in Cornwal . I felt safe with my grandmother. She wasn’t afraid of anything, and I think, more importantly, she understood her daughter.

One summer, when Mum eventual y joined us in Cornwal , Granny had found out – I don’t know how – from Jay about the week in Lisbon, and more stuff, like the parties she’d have, how she used to leave me alone in the evenings, and she slapped her. Actual y slapped her.

It was late at night, on the terrace; I was trying to sleep in my bedroom high above the house, but their voices woke me. I could hear them, whispering at first, then gradual y louder.

‘She’s terrified, don’t you ever leave her again,’ Granny hissed. ‘You selfish little—’ I think she cal ed her a bitch.

‘Why don’t you mind your own business,’ my mother spat back at her, and I could hear it in her voice, that she was drunk, her words slurring slightly. Mum didn’t often drink much; she couldn’t hold her alcohol, stil can’t. ‘Why don’t you leave me to bring up my daughter my own way.’

‘I’d love to.’ My grandmother’s voice was silky. ‘Believe me, I would love to.’

‘Listen. I don’t need your help – you’re the last person I’d go to for help on how to bring up – up . . . bring up their children.’ There was a pause.

‘I mean, we both know that. Don’t we?’

The only answer was my grandmother laughing, low, heavy. ‘You’re drunk, Miranda.’

‘I’m stil better than you. Even after everything I’ve done. I’m stil better. And I know it, and it kil s you, Mummy.’

Slap. A slicing sound, like the crack of a whip, in the dark. I lay there, completely stil , terrified they would notice the open window above them, know I could hear them . . .

When I open my eyes again, it’s morning, or so I think, and I realise I’ve been in the middle of a dream about Summercove again, listening to Mum and Granny argue. I am instantly wide awake, clutching the sheets, rigid, as I remember where I am and who’s with me. I give a little moan.

Oli stirs in his sleep, rol ing towards me and scooping me up so he is curled against me and we are like two prawns. I can feel his morning erection through his boxers, poking against my thighs. He clutches me to him, and I turn my head to see his eyelashes fluttering. He makes a sound, like ‘Mmm?’ but I slide gently away from him.

‘Hey, hon,’ Oli murmurs. ‘You OK?’ He’s stil half-asleep. ‘Good,’ I whisper softly. ‘Just a dream.’ I kiss his ruffled hair, and curl into his chest, and close my eyes again, my hangover from last night kicking in. Just a dream, a false memory of something that you misremembered, you don’t need to worry about it.

‘Tha’s al right then,’ he says croakily. He takes my hand and squeezes my fingers, kissing them gently, and then kisses my neck, my ear, as I lie against him, my head on his shoulder.

Oli moves my hand down his torso, so my fingers bump against his erection. It’s done so seamlessly I’m almost surprised. He smiles, his eyes closed, pushing his thumb against my fingers, opening them up and guiding them so they curl onto his hard cock. ‘Good morning,’ he says again.

His other hand slides over my vest and then under, and he squeezes one of my breasts, his hands clutching my flesh, warm and sweaty. He sighs. ‘Oh, Natasha . . . babe . . .’ He arches his back against my hand, trying to rouse himself even further. ‘Mmm,’ he murmurs again.

I am stil half-asleep, can stil hear the voices of my mother and grandmother shouting at each other. My brain is not ful y in gear, not questioning everything, and so I don’t think, I just carry on stroking him, loving the feel of him again, the warmth of the bed, of his body next to mine. It just feels good.

He stops and pul s the duvet over us, and at the same time he takes off his boxers and pul s my pyjama bottoms down, sliding them off seamlessly, curling himself against me afterwards, so I can stroke him, and he can kiss my skin, rub me with his fingers. He pul s my vest aside again, nibbling on my nipple, and then he stops, and I stop, and he looks at me, panting, under the duvet. I want him. I know I want him.

‘Come inside me,’ I whisper, and he grins, boyishly, and nods. ‘Lie back, babe,’ he says. With barely any preamble he’s between my legs, rubbing his cock against me. He does this for a minute, and then wraps his hand round himself.

‘Oh, Natasha,’ he says, his slight frame shuddering as he pushes inside me. ‘Oh. Oh.’ He buries his head over my shoulder, and I can’t see his face.

Suddenly, everything’s changed. I feel nothing. I am wide awake now, and it’s different. Oli leans down to kiss me. His breath is stale, rank, his mouth is open, his eyes are half-closed. I can’t do it, I can’t kiss him, I pretend to arch my back and tilt my head. He puts his hands on my hair, pul ing it, and I cry out.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘You’re pul ing my hair, darling,’ I say. I look down, and see I’m stil wearing my thick green bedsocks, as he moves inside me.

He hasn’t noticed.

‘It’s so good, you’re so good,’ he tel s me. ‘I’m so close . . . how about you?’

I want to shout with laughter at the idea that I too am on the verge of orgasming wildly after thirty seconds of sex, but instead I pul his fingers away from my hair. I just want it to be over. He puts his hands either side of my head and pumps away. I count in my head. One . . . two . . . three . . .

four . . . five . . . six . . . seven . . .

‘Ooooh!’ Oli comes, crying out, his voice high, rising at the end of his shout. He always shouts, incredibly loudly, I’d forgotten because it’s been a while; in fact, it’s been over two months since we had sex. He lies on top of me, panting. I can’t feel him inside me. He’s squashing me. I am thinking about this, and then I suddenly realise that the last time he had sex was with someone else. He has done this with someone else more recently than with me. Been inside another woman. Kissed her, stroked her, fucked her.

He pats my back, his hands moving gently across my skin, as his penis slides out of me, and his fingers are warm and soft on my spine.

‘That was good,’ he says, elongating the last word. He blinks, smiling. ‘Thanks, darling. Thanks a lot.’

He is so sincere, and his fingers are lovely, knobbling the bones in my back. I am going to be sick. I rol away as he’s stroking my breast with his other hand, and I stand. Oli looks up at me, surprised. ‘I’m going to have a shower,’ I say. I walk out as he flops back onto the bed, his slimy cock like a slug against his pubic hair as if crawling away in disgust. I go into the bathroom and shut the door, and then I throw up.

Chapter Thirty-Five

‘So – what have you got on today then?’

Oli stands in front of me, decked out in a new change of clothes, showered and shaved. I pul my knees up so they’re under my chin, hugging myself. I desperately want him to go, but I say politely, as if we’re old friends catching up, ‘I’m seeing someone about doing my stal again, and I’m meeting Cathy for lunch. Working on the new col ection.’ I remember the photos Ben took last night, the girls in the bar with the lovely necklace. My stomach swoops, my head pounds. What have I done? On both counts, what the hel have I done?

We both pause, and neither of us says anything for about five seconds, which is a terrifyingly long time when it’s a silence like this. Eventual y, Oli says, ‘I’d better go—’

‘Yes,’ I say, and I nod eagerly. ‘So—’

‘Yes,’ Oli says. ‘Look, Natasha, about last night—’

‘This morning, I think you mean,’ I say. ‘Wel , both,’ he says. ‘I was drunk when I rang you. I’m sorry. I know you were angry, and I know you didn’t want me to come round, and I should have understood that.’

God, he’s clever, apologising for it like this. ‘Look,’ I say. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t have done it. But—’ I hold out my hands. ‘Oli, you know what? It was real y good to see you.’

Oli shuffles on his feet, as though he doesn’t quite know what I’m getting at, what my move is, but I’m just tel ing the truth. The truth is, I’m lonely. I stil miss him, it’s surprising to me that I do. But then, if it was up to me this wouldn’t ever have happened, and then I realise we’re back to where we were, two weeks ago, and nothing’s changed. Except . . .

A jolt of memory passes through me.

Except I kissed Ben last night, and I don’t know if that was an even bigger mistake. I rub my forehead, wishing . . . wishing I hadn’t done it. Is that what I wish? Because Ben was one of the few good things in my life, a friend, someone who I could talk to about anything, who made me laugh, who got my family, my situation, my life. And now he’l probably never speak to me again, and I don’t blame him. I blink and screw my eyes up, remembering what he said to me last night. I can’t go over it again in my head, it’s too – it’s too painful.

‘You OK?’ Oli says. ‘I’m fine.’ I clap my hands together gently. ‘I’m just a bit hungover, that’s al .’

He doesn’t ask how my evening was, or what’s going on with my family, or anything else, and I’m not sad about this, I’m glad. He walks towards the door, takes out his phone and starts texting. I fol ow him, and he stops and says, ‘I’l see you soon, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. I reach out to pat his back. But I don’t. I stop. ‘Bye,’ I say. ‘And Oli – I think it’s best if you arrange when you’re coming round in advance next time,’ I add.

‘Oh,’ he says, turning round in the doorway, his satchel over his shoulder. He puts the phone away. ‘Wel , I might need some stuff next week, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Just – cal . Let me know.’

‘Sure,’ Oli says. He steps forward to kiss me, but I step back. ‘So I’l see you then, then.’

Another week of waiting for him to cal , wishing he’d come round, wondering if we should sleep together or not. I know he won’t think about it like that. I know he’l just pitch up and try it on if it’s possible, not if it isn’t. I say, ‘Wednesday’s good for me. Come then. We should talk some more about what to do. About the flat. We should get an estate agent in, to value it.’ I want to mention the solicitor I’ve emailed about the divorce, but it doesn’t seem right, not when I can see the bed over his shoulder where we just had sex. But I wil , next week. I’l make a list, and put that on it.

1. Estate agent to value flat for rental/sales too.

2. Email lawyer about setting divorce in motion.

3. Tell Oli about it next Wednesday.

‘You think we should? Start doing that now?’

‘Yes, Oli,’ I say simply. ‘I need to sort out the money side of things, otherwise I’l be declared bankrupt. You’re best off out of it.’ I rol my eyes mock-seriously.

‘OK, fine.’ He takes my hand. ‘Bye, Natasha. Have a great day. I’m sorry for being a shit.’

The door shuts and I stare at it, listening to his footsteps on the stairs, blinking with surprise and looking round the flat, as though it was al just another dream, something I invented. But it wasn’t.

Cathy and I are meeting at the place with the thin pizzas on Dray Walk. I leave the flat a little early, at twelve, and pop into Eastside Books to buy myself a new Barbara Pym, after which I walk up the lane past the Truman Brewery. It’s quiet round here in contrast to Sunday when al the markets are out, the vintage clothes, food stal s and the stal s sel ing cheap cotton plimsol s and huge packs of batteries. (It’s a sign that Brick Lane is going too far upmarket, in my opinion, that you can take your pick of stal s to buy beautiful y branded Brazilian churros doughnuts, organic apple and pear juices and hugely expensive chai teas, but you can’t get hold of a simple onion.) As I am about to turn into the studenty chaos of Dray Walk my phone rings. It is a number I don’t recognise, and I am just debating whether to answer or not when I touch my screen by mistake and a tinny, vaguely familiar voice says, ‘Hel o?’