11

she couldn’t stop her thoughtsdrifting to what lay ahead and she had little recollection of whole stretches of the journey. After the second near miss she pulled in to a petrol station and bought a double espresso from the machine, pacing the forecourt, waiting for caffeine and the sub-zero temperature to revive her. She glanced up at the spatter of stars. Orion’s Belt? Ursa Major? On one occasion Sam had lost patience with her when she’d said it was possible to join a few random stars and call it anything you liked.

Were she to draw a Venn diagram of her life, it would consist of two circles. Family and Modelling. The circles would not overlap, a fact she found empowering. Sam must have persuaded himself of the same thing. In his case there would have been three circles. Family, Work and Gambling. The difference being, of course, that Gambling had expanded until it not only overlapped with but consumed the other two. His secret had demanded every ounce of his energy. And his cunning. That was what got to her. His ruthless cunning. By comparison, her secrets were harmless.

She shoved her empty cup in the bin and returned to the car, unable to resist etching ME ♥ PC in the rime on the windscreen, swiping it away before fate or a CCTV camera had time to register it.

She called him. ‘I’ll be about forty minutes.’

‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘So when you reach the ring road, go straight across the roundabout—’

‘And take the second left, past B&Q. I know. I have your email on the passenger seat.’

‘Sorry. I’m fussing.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I shouldn’t have snapped.’

His painstaking directions led her to a development of small, pinched houses, each detached from its neighbour by no more than a couple of metres. Street View had shown houses grouped around cul-de-sacs named after birds. She parked outside 5, Sparrowhawk, switched off the headlights and unclipped her seat belt. A niggling pain had started up where she imagined her appendix to be and she shifted in her seat, hoping it would ease. While she waited, she checked her phone. go for it mum x. (No capitals, no punctuation.)

Naomi had said she was allowed to be happy, as if she were constantly punishing herself. Was that the impression she gave? A flagellating widow? That wasn’t her intention. All she wanted was to sever connection with the phoney life she’d lived with Sam. To start again. Ambitious, perhaps, but her expectations of this born-again life were modest. It was too late to embark on a different career even if she were able to summon the energy. But, thanks to Callum, she’d set off in an unforeseen direction – one that Sam couldn’t, in a million years, have imagined her taking. That, in itself, made it a victory. She’d been edging cautiously but steadily into her new future when Bing turned up. The past made flesh, as it were, phoning and texting and pressing her to visit. Surely they couldn’t pick up where they left off? And yet. Here she was, along with her fanciest underwear and sketchiest nightie, her stomach aflutter.

She glanced at the house and saw a figure silhouetted in an upstairs window. She waved and by the time she’d unloaded her case and locked the car, he was halfway down the front path.

‘Hello, you,’ he said and kissed her lightly on the lips.

The house was welcoming, filled with the smell of cooking. She shrugged off her coat and he hung it next to his. He was wearing the same navy sweater and brown cords he’d worn last weekend.

‘Journey okay?’ he said.

She yawned and shivered. ‘Not too bad.’

‘You’re bushed,’ he said.

‘I think I am. May I use the bathroom?’

‘Top of the stairs. Your room’s to the left.’

She’d forgotten what a child-free bathroom looked like. No soap splashes on the mirror. No bin brimming with heaven knows what. No slimy flannel on the rim of the bath. No fleet of plastic toys, puddled with last night’s bath water.

After using the loo, she washed her hands and splashed water on her face. The strip light above the mirror was unforgiving, lending her skin a sallow cast. Her scarf failed to disguise her scrawny neck. Leaning in closer she saw that her right eye was bloodshot near the tear duct. If she closed her eyes, she was floating on a gentle sea swell.

Her suitcase was waiting for her on the bedroom chair. She glanced around. Double bed. Sharp creases in the plain white, obviously-new linen. Blue towels – also new – on the bed. Unopened box of tissues and, a bizarre touch, the current issue of Homes & Gardens on the bedside table. Immaculate yet lifeless, like a hotel room. She flipped back the lid of her case. Everything she needed for tonight was to hand – toilet bag, nightdress, underwear for tomorrow, book (she’d chosen Dr Zhivago – a doctor, star-crossed lovers, a reunion).

His voice drifted up, easy and familiar. ‘I’ve poured your wine.’

‘Down in a sec.’

Pulling the tortoiseshell slide from her hair, she brushed it until it crackled. Loose or pulled back? The latter. (Nothing worse than pretending she was still a schoolgirl.) To counteract the schoolma’am look, she opted for frivolous earrings – cascades of silver stars and turquoise beads. She aimed a squirt of scent at each wrist and, lifting her chin, pulled herself up to her full height. Last night she’d scrutinised her body in the mirror, as she had before accepting Callum’s job offer, this time assessing the woman staring back at her as a potential lover. Bing had last seen her naked when she was twenty and blossoming into womanhood. Now here she was – skinny and slack – sliding into old age. An artist might consider bare flesh as ‘the body’s history’ – Callum’s words – but to lovers, it was foreplay not backstory.

The door across the landing stood ajar and she pushed it open. A reading lamp shed low light across a smallish bedroom. Clothes heaped on a chair. Mug, spectacles and a remote control on the bedside table. Television on top of a chest of drawers. Desk strewn with papers and journals. Laptop. Brief case. Pretty much what she’d expected – but for the single bed.

Bing’s room in the Crosby house had been her favourite place in the world. Once they were inside, door shut, no one else existed. But it was more than a hideaway. The room was enchanting and enchanted. Shabby furniture that might have started life in Russia or Morocco – certainly not the department store where her parents went for their prosaic G Plan stuff. The mishmash of games kit and schoolbooks, fossils and beer mats. A record player and records stacked upright in a wicker hamper. Sports trophies. Photographs of the Crosby family on the beach or in the garden. They’d lain on his double bed, dreaming of making this room their home – all they’d need was a kettle and a gas ring. (The room was never dusty although it had been hard to imagine Julia Crosby wielding a duster.)

Bing was in the kitchen humming along to Radio 3, surrounded by fallout from his cooking efforts.

‘Find everything?’ he said.

‘Yes, thanks. The room’s lovely.’

‘I can’t take the credit,’ he said. ‘Jenny sees to all that. She’s my cleaner-cum-miracle-worker. I couldn’t function without her.’

How he coped with the daily round – shopping, cooking, washing, cleaning – hadn’t crossed her mind. She felt an instant and fervent dislike for this indispensable Jenny who changed his sheets and tidied his underwear drawer.

He handed her a glass. ‘What shall we drink to?’

He would be expecting something consequential but all she could come up with was ‘To us.’

‘To us… and to the future,’ he said.

The future. They weren’t youngsters, starting from scratch. At their age and with their history, bumbling along, seeing how things panned out, wasn’t the way to go. Before long they would need to have a frank conversation about this, this… whatever it was.

‘Can I do anything?’ she said.

He patted the seat of a chair. ‘Talk to me.’

She sat at the table whilst he sliced carrots, occasionally reaching across to steal a piece from the colander, all the time watching and remembering. Flat, square finger nails. His habit of whistling through his teeth when he concentrated. The scar across his eyebrow. There was something of his father about him which hadn’t been there when he was nineteen. Maybe it was more in his manner – his confidence – than his anatomy.

He moved on to shredding cabbage, his knife tapping rhythmically on the chopping board. On the radio, a string quartet playing something slow and sad. Haydn? Schubert? Her hands were beginning to disconnect from her arms – the not-unpleasant sensation that sometimes preceded sleep.

‘Hey.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘Dinner’s ready.’

‘Resting my eyes,’ she said.

She hadn’t realised how hungry she was until she was well into her second helping of beef bourguignon. As they ate, the conversation jumped from this to that. Rosa and Max. A film they both wanted to see. A cold-calling scam that was causing a rumpus. Blizzards in America.

‘How was your week?’ he said.

She’d deliberated long and hard over what to tell him about her job. He knew she worked a couple of mornings at the college and how she spent her time there made no difference to anything. She would let it ride for a while longer.

‘Much as usual,’ she said. ‘Yours?’

‘Unremarkable.’

‘You’re a doctor,’ she said. ‘A real doctor.’

‘So they tell me.’

‘Aren’t you constantly worrying you’ll get it wrong?’

‘Ninety-nine percent of it’s straightforward. Hernias. Tonsillitis. Athlete’s foot. You could diagnose most of my patients.’

‘But aren’t you terrified you’ll miss something?’

‘When in doubt I refer them to a consultant.’

‘I’m sure there’s more to it than that,’ she said.

‘My parents said doctors were glorified mechanics. It was a case of identifying the knocking sound in the engine.’

‘Do you see much of your children?’ she said.

‘Blimey,’ he said. ‘We’re covering the ground.’

‘Do you?’

‘Not as much as I should.’ He frowned. ‘They seem to have decided their mother needs them more than I do.’

‘Where does she live?’

‘Lyon. But let’s not talk about her.’

‘What did your sisters do in the end?’ she said. ‘I liked them very much. I always felt they were on my side.’

‘Caroline died of meningitis. When she was twenty-four. That was really difficult for all of us. Then Helen got religion big time. She’s a nun, would you believe?’

‘That’s so sad. Don’t you ever—’

‘Can we do this on a need-to-know basis?’ he said.

The clock on the digital radio showed ten-twenty. She really should go to bed.

‘I told Dad I’d be with them for coffee.’ She paused. ‘I was hoping you’d come with me.’

‘Have you told them we’re in contact?’

‘I haven’t got ’round to that yet.’

He was gathering up the plates, scraping debris from the meal into the bin and he stopped what he was doing and turned to face her. ‘What happened last time… I don’t think I could go through that again.’

This reference to her parent’s rejection and, obliquely, to her betrayal was painful but he had every right to bring it up.

‘They’ve changed,’ she said. ‘Staying alive takes every jot of their energy. They’re selfish but they’re not stupid. They know if they fall out with me, they’ll be completely on their own.’

‘What happened to your brother?’ he said.

‘Danny? Remember he went off to America? Well, he never came back. One day I’ll bore you with the whole thing.’

‘You really want me to come?’

‘Could you bear it? You needn’t stay long. I’ll explain you’re on call.’

He looked sheepish. ‘About that.’ He picked up a J-cloth and made a few swipes at the work top. ‘I swapped with a colleague. I needed a reason why you had to come here.’ He worked at a blob of gravy. ‘Nice though they are, I didn’t think I’d be able to make love to you with your family under the same roof.’

She felt her cheeks burning.

‘Poor Mim. I’ve shocked you, haven’t I?’

‘No. Well. A bit.’

‘What did you hope would happen when you left that note?’ He spoke softly as if coaxing the truth from a child.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I think you do.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I hoped you’d get in touch, of course. But I wasn’t sure you’d want to. Not after the way I treated you.’

‘You were in an impossible position,’ he said.

‘Don’t be too understanding or I’ll cry.’

He caught her hand. ‘May I kiss you?’ he said. ‘Properly kiss you.’

The first kiss was tentative, questioning. The next, gentle at first then becoming greedier. He was holding her tight against him, crushing her breasts, his belt buckle pressing into her stomach. She smelled the earthiness of his hair, not quite concealed by tangy shampoo. The chemistry that had never failed was instant and potent.

‘Like riding a bike,’ he murmured, as if he could read her mind.

She placed a hand on his chest and pushed gently. ‘Maybe we should—’

‘Please don’t suggest we slow down.’

‘But—’

‘When I give patients the bad news, the first thing they ask is, “How long have I got”?’

‘You’re not ill?’ she said.

‘No. But neither of us knows how long we’ve got.’ He paused. ‘Sorry. That was tactless.’

He was imagining that she was still raw after Sam’s death. Another conversation they would have to have.

‘Go on,’ she said.

‘When you reach our age, I reckon it’s time to speed up not slow down. And it’s not as if we’re strangers. I know you can’t stand spinach and you fancy – or used to – Robert Redford. God I wanted to strangle that man.’

‘Spinach still makes me gag,’ she said.

‘See. I always remember the things that matter.’

‘Is it that simple?’

‘Yes.’ He folded her in his arms again and she relaxed against him. ‘This is a heart not head thing.’ He ran a hand up and down her spine. ‘You’re too thin.’

‘I love you,’ she said. ‘Shall we go to bed now?’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘I am.’