JESS

I can’t seem to get myself warm anymore. My shoulders ache where I’m holding them so tightly, my nose is permanently damp, my lips have taken on a lilac hue. Somewhere in the house I’ve some lipstick. If I can’t find it before work, I’ll take Eva’s. I know she has some stronger colors that she hides from me, called things like Tramp or Sassy Bitch. Poppy snitches on her quite a lot.

The girls are upstairs getting dressed for school, so it’s just me and Max at the breakfast table. I’m still cold, even though I’ve just eaten a bowl of porridge. Max hasn’t touched his yet. It’s steaming in front of him, but he’s too caught up in WhatsApp.

I’ve been thinking about him and his phone a lot over the past few days, especially since last night when Stephanie confronted me about why I haven’t shown him the letter.

That question bounced around in my head all night. I hated my evasive answer. Normally I’d have nailed it, had it been about anything but Max. But he’s my weak spot, always has been—my blind spot.

Am I blind? Have I been misled, fooled? As I drink my coffee, I look at Max in his fitted shirt, still absorbed with his phone. It’s always in his hand first thing in the morning: sport updates, messages from colleagues, WhatsApp notifications. Drives me mad, but it comes with the job, apparently. I’ve never run a company so wouldn’t know.

Two years ago, he got a message on WhatsApp that made me question him for the first time, except that I didn’t, not really. I let it go, for all the many reasons that we let a lot of things go as women. You can’t fight everything, everyone. You pick your battles because it’s a long life.

It was a photo of a woman’s genitalia, which I happened to see accidentally.

I voiced my shock, and he completely agreed with me, saying it was a different world out there now, that young people were less inhibited. The girl had sent the picture to her boyfriend, for his eyes only, not knowing that he would share it with his workmates on WhatsApp.

When I suggested that maybe he could ask not to be included, he said that would alienate him from his colleagues who he went to the gym with, but in future he’d delete them without looking.

I accepted it. I knew these sorts of things went on, especially in financial services. Maybe I was out of touch, working in a bubble at aesthetically pleasing Moon & Co.

Still, I can’t help thinking now that if he was unable to draw the line in his own company, in a position of seniority, then how would he have handled a situation thirty years ago, probably involving alcohol and peer pressure?

I’m staring at him, my heart pounding so hard, I’m sure he can hear it.

And then he looks up with those heavy-lidded eyes and I feel ashamed of my thoughts. “All right, baby?” He puts down his phone, stirs the porridge. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

He’s not wrong. It feels as though there are ghosts everywhere, all around us. They followed me home from the storage unit, those women in the paintings, and now they’re tracking me with their scooped-out eyes, waiting to see what I’m going to do next.

“Just tired,” I say.

“Well, maybe you should think about cutting down on your trips to your mum. It’s exhausting you, and it’s not like she knows you’re there.”

I tap my teeth silently. I’m not going to erupt. In his own clumsy way, he thinks he’s helping.

“But I know, Max.”

This feels incredibly meaningful. But a pinging sound announces the arrival of another message and he’s gone again, turning into work Max, gym lad; someone who lets things slide to fit in and save face.

The office is very quiet today. The photocopier is humming and a seagull cries plaintively as it circles the sky. It couldn’t be stiller out there either. It’s like the whole world is waiting for me to do something.

Mary normally makes a beeline for me or the potted rubber plant first thing. Today, the plant’s won again and I’m pleased about that. But on her way back, she stops at my desk and offers to make me an instant cappuccino. She always seems disappointed if I decline, so I tell her yes and give her a smile that makes my ears creak.

“Righty oh,” she says, beaming, straightening her cardigan.

She’s sweet, Mary, but I do wonder. She lives alone and probably should have retired by now. Maybe she doesn’t want to be lonely. I think she buys the coffee sachets especially. There’s only six of us at Moon & Co., including my boss, Gavin, so it’s quite intimate, family-like.

I’ve never admitted to him how little I know about art, although I’m sure he knows. When I need information, I tap Elliott, my cultured colleague. He’s so nice, with his waistcoats and French cinema blog—one of those men who women adore, while never actually picturing them naked.

“What can you tell me about doors, art-wise?” I lean against Elliott’s desk, blowing my cappuccino to cool it.

“Open or closed?”

“Good question... Closed.”

He nudges his specs into place, blushing slightly. It’s occurred to me before that he has a little crush on me, but this is probably arrogance on my part.

Besides, he’s not my type. Max is, I think...

“Aside from the obvious?” he says. “Dead end, confinement, no way out?”

Those things weren’t that obvious to me, but I nod as though they were. “Anything else?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I’ll admit, I’m disappointed, even though I didn’t really think those sketches were going to tell me anything.

I flit through my emails, unable to make anything stick. If I keep going like this, my work will slide, I’ll miss something big with the girls or Mum and will never forgive myself. I’ve already got far too much on my plate. The sandwich generation, they call us. I’d say it’s more like a kebab—lots of chunks skewered together. And we’re the thin wiry bit, holding it all together.

Max will notice soon that I’m giving him the runaround. He’ll get restless, skittish, and will flick through the diary, working out when we last slept together. Then he’ll notice I’m avoiding eye contact and that my lips are blue.

Priyanka’s attempt to clear things up didn’t work, not that I thought it would. If it were that easy, I’d have done it myself. It’s too he said, she said, making your head spin with doubt. I would have preferred her not to have said anything, in case it got back to Max. Yet I suspect that if a secret that big really had been buried for that long, they wouldn’t be in a rush to talk about it. All she’s done is create an urgency that wasn’t there before. I need to know the truth before Max finds out about the letter and starts inventing alternative realities.

I’ll have to come up with something to propel this forward. I can use Mum as an excuse for my absences from home. Max never presses me for details. If I were to test him, he’d guess that Beechcroft was the name of the country house hotel we stayed at in Sussex, 2015.

The idea comes to me over lunch, while Hannah Greene talks art. One of my favorite kookiest clients, she always has paint under her nails as though she clawed her way across a wet canvas to the restaurant.

“The aim,” she says, flicking her hair over her shoulders, “is to, like, paint as close as you can to the shape without actually touching it. Do you see what I mean, Jessie?”

“Yes. Hmm.”

I don’t always listen to the artists’ pitter-patter about technique and process. But something she said resonates with me and I replay it.

As close as you can...without actually touching it.

I smile at her. She’s a genius. I know just what to do.

“Your kids could have a go. It’s, like, so easy. And it’s an awesome way to get into the watercolor groove.”

Watercolor groove?

“That’s great, Hannah. I’ll remember that.”

I probably won’t.

As we part company outside the restaurant, rain is spotting the air. The Montague Club is only two streets away, in a Georgian square. I barely notice the journey, my mind crowded with thoughts.

I rarely have cause to go to this square, mostly a cut through for walkers en route to a car park. It’s deathly quiet, even at lunchtime. I’ve no idea what the buildings are for; they have such subtle markings, you’re none the wiser until you get really close, which is doubtless their intention. If you don’t know what’s there, it probably doesn’t concern you.

I know which one of the doors leads to the club, having dropped Max off here before. Like its neighbors, it doesn’t give much away. There’s a small coat of arms above the door and a faint M for Montague on the brass knocker, which I lift and rattle, cringing as the sound clatters around the rooftops.

Once inside, I’ll be as close to the past as I can possibly be, without actually touching it. Just like Hannah said.

Smoothing my hair, I take a deep breath.

Wait, this is nuts. What am I doing?

The door opens and a woman with lead-gray teeth smiles at me. She’s wearing a cleaning tunic and holding a feather duster. “Can I help you?”

“Hi. I was wondering if I could take a quick look around?”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She frowns, waggling the duster as she speaks. “I’m just the housekeeper. We’re closed Mondays.”

I knew that; Max told me at some point.

I lower my voice confessionally. “I didn’t want to look around with everyone staring at me. You know what it’s like.”

She doesn’t appear to. “Are you local?”

“Yes. I just moved down from the City.”

This doesn’t seem to mean a lot.

“Of London,” I add.

She looks me up and down, opening the door wider. “I don’t see the harm. But you won’t have long, I’m afraid. I’m locking up in twenty minutes.”

“No problem. Thank you so much,” I say, gushing. “I just want to get a quick feel for the place before I commit.”

Commit? To here? I gaze around the hallway, which is lit by brass sconces giving off a woozy amber light. The wallpaper is palm leaf, the fronds gargantuan, eerie. On the nearby console, a vase of stargazer lilies wafts soapy perfume.

Max likes this place? Why?

It’s nothing like home. We’re Ikea, light, minimalist.

“Do I go through there?” I ask, pointing to my right.

“Yes. That’s the Green Room. And over here...” She gestures in the opposite direction. “...That’s the meeting room, where they have talks and that.”

I point at the staircase. “And up there?”

“Nothing much. There’s a games room, but no one uses it. I barely have to go up there anymore.”

“Have you worked here long?” I try to sound offhand, but my heart feels as though it’s based in my ears.

“Twenty years or so.”

Not long enough to have been here in 1990, then.

“Well, I’d better be getting on,” she says, “but give me a shout if you need anything.” And she withdraws into the meeting room. Within seconds, there comes the sound of the vacuum cleaner.

I go through to the Green Room and stand at the edge of an Oriental rug, inhaling the smell of lemon furniture polish. The room isn’t green anymore. Maybe there used to be green bankers’ lamps, dark oak wall panels, a few mounted animal heads. But now it’s eclectic, bohemian. Rose gold wallpaper. Jewel blue velvet chairs. A stupid toucan lamp.

I hate the idea of Max being here, in his tight shirts, with his attentiveness. He likes to really look at a person when they’re talking. Does he sit on that bar stool and order Grey Goose for some gorgeous self-starter whose mortgage he’s arranging?

Or maybe he sits in a corner with Andrew Lawley and Daniel Brooke, drinking scotch through gritted teeth, the cloud of conspiracy hanging over them.

The vacuum cleaner has stopped. I listen, gripping my rucksack, hoping the housekeeper doesn’t come in and find me standing here in a sweaty stupor. But it starts up again, farther away.

Relieved, I return to the lobby, sneaking to the foot of the stairs, wondering why I’m drawn to that area. If I were a metal detector, I’d be beeping.

I touch the smooth banister, my eye running up the faded seashell-patterned carpet. The light reaches only part of the staircase, stopping halfway—a definite line, not to be crossed.

I try to imagine what it might have been like here in December 1990, just three days before Christmas. The warmth, laughter, mistletoe. Sneaking up creaking stairs, peeling off hats and gloves, static crackling through their hair. Max would be twenty years old, new to the club, there purely because of his father. Immature, excitable, everything to play for, everything to prove.

I gaze up into the darkness, my throat tightening.

Who was Nicola Waite? Was she a nice person, a good girl? Why does that matter? It shouldn’t. It doesn’t.

I need to know why she was here that night, though. How old was she? Was she a club member? Did she know Max and the others?

The vacuuming has stopped. I swing around, expecting to see the housekeeper looking at me suspiciously for creeping about, but the hallway’s empty.

I don’t want to be here anymore. I hate everything about this place.

Heading for the front door, I wonder whether to simply let myself out. “Hello?”

Nothing.

I glance at a portrait of the club’s founder, Sir Graves, in a fancy necktie and waistcoat. Max mentioned once that Sir Graves was from a family of merchant traders whose fortune was amassed by exploiting Chinese labor.

Suddenly, this feels like a much bigger deal than he made it out to be and I start to walk along the long line of paintings, spawned by their founder, generations of males wearing the same proud expressions.

I stop, stare at a framed photograph, my reflection gaping at me in shock.

It’s definitely, unmistakably, Max.

Checking the housekeeper isn’t in sight, I move closer to study the picture. He has a terrible perm and is standing with his arms draped around two men in the easy way of close friends. I estimate that it was taken round about the time I just imagined: the early nineties.

I recognize the others from the pictures I found of them online; they haven’t changed very much. Daniel has a military hairstyle, just like now; Andrew has skull-head eyes, even then, and a prominent vein on his temples as though his blood pressure’s high.

I can hear footsteps approaching. I have about two seconds to take a photo, dropping my phone into my pocket just in time.

“Seen enough?” the housekeeper asks.

“Absolutely. Thank you.”

“I think you can inquire online if you’re interested.”

“Perfect. Will do. Thanks again.”

A waft of damp air hits us as she opens the door. It’s still raining, but I’m happy to be outside. Smiling goodbye, I dart across the square as the door closes behind me, taking shelter underneath a large sycamore tree.

Trembling, I look at the image on my phone, zooming in on Max, taking in his green eyes, his handsome face.

The pain I feel is immense. It sears through me as I stand underneath that tree. I know this isn’t evidence. Of course it isn’t. But it may as well be, to me.

He knows these men. They’re inside the club, framed, a moment in time captured. Yet I’d never heard of them until Holly Waite wrote to me. They’ve crept around, keeping their distance from us and maybe from each other.

I know then that it’s true. I just know it.

“Oh, fuck, Max... What did you do?” I start to cry, my arms wrapped around my waist, chilled from my nose to my toes. My teeth chattering uncontrollably, I text Priyanka and Stephanie, sending them the picture.

That’s not going to work. I look up at the branches of the sycamore tree, thinking, and then try again.

Three kisses are too much. I delete two, press send.

Making my way back to work, I cry into my scarf, wishing I’d never opened Holly’s letter. My life is changing right in front of me, as though I’m not the one in control of it anymore. I can kid myself that I’m calling the shots, but in truth they were called years ago, the echo fading to a faint whisper, so faint that they thought we’d never hear it.

But we did.