Söderberg was busy, outdoor tables on Middle Meadow Walk were always going to attract punters in the sunshine. Hannah watched people in the street, dappled in shade from the large trees. She recognised someone from her undergrad studies at King’s Buildings, a redhead her age, gabbing excitedly with a friend as she strode past. Did Hannah look that happy, did she exude vitality?
She watched the waitresses deliver pastries and coffees. She saw Olivia inside, hanging up her apron and collecting her things. Her hair was in a pleat that went around the top of her head like a bagel. Very Swedish for a Home Counties girl. Olivia left and Hannah waved a hand. Olivia spotted her and her face fell. She hesitated for a moment then came over.
‘Remember me?’ Hannah said as warmly as possible.
‘What do you want?’
‘We need to talk about José.’
Olivia was wearing the same hoop earrings and crucifix, which she touched nervously. She seemed to have more freckles than last time, was that possible? She twitched her nose like a rabbit.
‘Why?’ she said eventually.
‘I’m worried about him.’
That made her soften. She raised a hand to her forehead and pushed a strand of hair out the way. ‘Me too.’
Hannah waved a hand at the chair opposite. ‘Please.’
Olivia nodded and sat, placed her suede bag on the table, pushed her hands into the shaggy nap of it like it was a comfort blanket. She didn’t speak for a long time and Hannah kept the silence going to see if she would fill it. But she just looked down at her fingers massaging the bag.
Two toddlers chased a pigeon close to their table, giggling with their arms out. The bird hopped out of reach, then flustered its way into the trees. The mum of the toddlers called to them, but they stood staring at Hannah before leaving. She wondered if she and Indy would ever have kids. If they did, Indy would be the sensible mum.
‘How is he at the moment?’ Hannah said eventually.
Olivia looked up. ‘Not good.’
‘I spoke to him the other day.’ Hannah tried to remember when she’d been at the flat, but the days were blurring. ‘He seemed agitated.’
Olivia chewed her lip and looked down. ‘Yeah.’
Hannah put her hands on the table and leaned forward. She could smell Olivia’s sweat from the work shift, her perfume too, sharp and expensive. Her tanned skin was perfect and glowing. ‘When he first spoke to me he asked me to find out who was pranking him.’
Olivia nodded.
‘But now it’s like he wants me to prove it’s extraterrestrial. He wants me to believe.’
Olivia swallowed.
‘Was he like this before?’
Olivia looked up. ‘Before what?’
‘The last time,’ Hannah said. ‘Tell me about when he was sectioned.’
A middle-aged woman on roller-skates made a racket heading down the slope towards the Meadows.
‘I’m worried it’s going that way again,’ Olivia said.
‘Tell me.’
‘But he’s not confiding in me this time, he’s talking to you instead.’
Hannah tried the silent treatment some more.
Olivia touched the tiny blonde hairs on her forearm, then her earring.
‘He came back from the lab one day, said he’d been doing this extra-curricular stuff.’
‘The planet-hunter thing?’
Olivia nodded. ‘Said there was something odd in the data. I didn’t really understand, I still don’t. I get that he’s passionate about this stuff, and I really support him, but he gets so intense.’
‘What about the data?’
Olivia rubbed her bag again for comfort. ‘He didn’t think anyone was playing a trick on him, not back then, at least he never said so to me.’
‘Did he tell you what the message was?’
Olivia held Hannah’s gaze for a moment then looked around her. ‘They said they were waiting for him.’
‘What happened?’
‘He just got more and more lost in it. Stopped going into the lab, stopped washing and eating, rambled constantly, checking online for similar stories, analysing more data. He never left the house.’
She paused and Hannah looked at her closely. Nervous movements like a fox ready to run.
‘I had no one to talk to about it. We’re on our own here, don’t really know anyone.’
Olivia waved a hand at the people walking up and down the path.
‘And?’
‘It got much worse, I thought he’d lost his mind. He was obsessed. In the movies that’s portrayed glamorously, but it was horrible. I couldn’t get him to look at me or hold a conversation, he didn’t sleep for days, I was worried sick.’
‘Was he violent?’
‘Nothing like that. If that happened, I would’ve left.’
Olivia’s head and hands were trembling now. A tear dropped onto her bag and darkened the suede. She looked up, eyes wet.
‘I couldn’t handle it, I had my own shit to deal with.’
‘What do you mean?’
Olivia swallowed. ‘I’d had a miscarriage a few weeks before. It was early days, but still.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Just when I needed a supportive boyfriend. I couldn’t take it.’
‘What happened?’
‘I tricked him into visiting a doctor. He was babbling and hallucinating from lack of sleep. The doctor got him assessed by a crisis team, they put him into a ward at the psychiatric hospital in Morningside. They medicated him, stuck him on a drip. He was eventually diagnosed as schizophrenic, but that covers a whole lot of stuff.’
Hannah nodded, she’d had her own mental-health shit to deal with over the years.
‘He was only in for a few days,’ Olivia said. ‘Sleep and medication made a massive difference.’
‘Is he still taking the medication?’
‘As far as I know.’
An old woman with a crutch hobbled past, talking loudly to her husband about a knee operation coming soon. Olivia glanced at them.
‘I can’t handle it if he slides back into that shit,’ she said. ‘I can’t go through it again, especially not now.’
Olivia rubbed her crucifix between thumb and finger. Everyone needs support, whatever form it takes.
‘What do you mean, especially now?’
Olivia looked up at the trees, pigeons roosting in the high branches. She looked back at Hannah and placed a hand on her stomach.
‘I’m pregnant again.’