Chapter Twenty One

"Where the hell did you go?"

I'd had Becca bleating in my ear for five minutes now. I was on the arm of the living room sofa, staring out of the window at the grey day beyond. I took the phone away from my ear for a moment. I could still hear Becca.

"I came back from the bar and you'd just gone-"

"Alright," I snapped. "I said I'm sorry."

“I was worried.”

I was silent.

"Oh well," she said, after a moment. "Doesn't really matter. It actually turned out okay, you know. I met a man."

There was an exultant kind of giggle in her voice. At any other time, I would have shrieked enthusiastically and pressed for details. Now, I struggled to sound interested.

"Oh yes?"

"Yes, he's lovely. His name's Martin and he's a whole seven years younger than me. A proper toy boy! It's very exciting-"

She went on talking but I'd tuned out. I watched a pigeon flap its slow way across a sky that looked like curdled milk. I was thinking about Jessica.

 After she'd left me at the party, I'd left the venue myself five minutes later. I could barely walk to the taxis massed outside, my legs were shaking so much. I'd let myself into a cold and empty flat - Matt was staying at his cousin's house that night - and lay in bed, hugging my knees to my chest and listening to my teeth chatter.

In the morning it seemed even more unlikely. I kept checking the street outside, nervily, expecting to see her standing there in her black coat. All the time I was showering, forcing down some breakfast, flicking listlessly through television channels, I kept asking myself the same questions. I went back over our conversation, our meeting, until I couldn't remember what had really happened and what I'd imagined happening.

"Are you alright?" Matt asked me over the dinner table.

It was the first time either of us had said a word since we'd sat down. I came to with a start, realising I'd been staring off into space, my fork held aloft.

"Sorry," I said, blushing a little. "I was miles away."

"So I can see." He poured himself another glass of wine and took a long sip. "You were so far away you almost disappeared from view."

I hesitated, wondering whether to tell him. But I couldn't - I'd promised...

Later, I lay beside him in the dark, staring up at the ceiling and listening to his breathing. After a while, I got up and went through to the living room and straight to the window.  A plastic bag fluttered along the pavement in the wind like a small, ragged ghost. No Jessica. I walked away from the window, rested my hand on the back of one of the armchairs and walked back. Surely this time - but there was nothing, just the orange tint of the streetlight and the massed ranks of the parked cars jammed against the pavements.

Becca invited us over for dinner the following night. She owned the basement flat in a terraced house in Hackney; being sensible, fiscally prudent and all the other things that I was not, she’d bought it for tuppenny-happenny, or thereabouts, back in the early nineties. She’d lived there for so long the flat seemed to have grown around her - it was now the very essence of Becca; warm, chaotic and loud. The rooms were painted in unexpected colours, her bedroom hung with swaying Chinese lanterns, the walls bedecked with sari silks. Once in a while you came across something truly startling, like the fake skull she’d stolen from a client’s Halloween party on the mantlepiece in the sitting room.

As Matt and I arrived, Becca’s equally Amazonian sister Lauren and her positively gigantic brother Sam were just leaving. There was a confused scrum in the tiny hallway as we all attempted to greet and say goodbye to everyone else at once.

“Don’t worry about this lot,” said Becca, as if there were hundreds of relatives cluttering up the place. “They’re leaving. They were just dropping off the vino for tonight.”

“Haven’t seen you two for ages,” said Lauren, kissing both Matt and I. “Married life treating you well?”

Matt and I both laughed and I made some sort of noise indicating agreement. Sam patted my shoulder as I squeezed past him.

“Phew,” said Becca, waving them off and then ushering us into the kitchen. “Sorry about that. This place isn’t really big enough for more than one of my family to visit at any one time but Sam just kind of turned up after the football and stayed on... anyway, vino? Lauren's got us some fantastic champagne. Matt, would you do the honours?”

Matt popped the cork of the bottle she proffered while I sat down at the table. The kitchen was at the front of the house and, from one side of the table, you could see up to the street and watch people’s feet walk past the railings, rather like being in the burrow of a voyeuristic mole. I sat down and looked up, clutching my wine glass. I had a feeling that soon a pair of feet would come into view, feet framed by the edge of a long black coat. I was sure she would appear.

Matt raised his glass to Becca. “To our gracious hostess,” he said. “How’s things? Who’s this new man Maudie was telling me about?”

Becca laughed. “That would be Martin. Has Maudie told you he’s a whole seven years younger than I am? How about that?”

“A youngster?” cried Matt in mock anguish. “What for? You don’t want one of those, you want a sugar daddy, just like Maudie.”

Becca grinned. “So you say. Perhaps all the good ones are taken. Hey, Maudie?”

“What?” I said, pulling my gaze away from the dark street.

Becca enumerated Martin’s good qualities for the next half an hour, clattering about with pots and pans as she talked. She only drew breath to drag on her cigarette, finally grinding it out with a decisive jab before she bought the plates to the table.

“Disgusting habit, smoking while cooking,” she said. “Sorry. Anyway, Martin wants to take me to Paris for the weekend. It’s so nice to have a bit of romance in a relationship for a change. Don’t you think, Maudie?”

“Yes, right,” I said. Despite the steaming plate of food in front of me, I suddenly had to get up and walk about, I felt so jittery. I walked over to the window again and looked up. Nothing; just the railings and the trailing fronds of a dusty ivy plant in view. I turned back to find both Matt and Becca watching me with concern.

“Is there a problem, Maudie?” said Becca.

I tried to laugh. “No. It’s just–” I couldn’t think of an adequate explanation for my nerves, not one that would suffice. I forced myself to walk back to the table and sit down. I poured myself some more wine, spilling a little over the side of the glass. I could see Matt watching me. He was frowning very slightly and I saw his eyes meet Becca’s, just for a moment, a split second of unspoken communication.

“I’m alright,” I said, with more emphasis. “I didn’t sleep so well last night. I’m just a bit tired. For Christ’s sake, everyone stop treating me like I’m a baby.”

My voice went up sharply at the end of the sentence. There was a moment of silence.

“Okay,” said Becca, rather brightly. “Matt, tell me about you. What’s been happening?”

Matt put his knife and fork down.

“Rebecca, sorry, would you excuse me a moment?”

“Sure,” she said, eyebrows raised.

He turned to me. “Maudie, could I have a word? In private?”

I nodded. He led me into the hallway and closed the kitchen door gently. I stared at him, my chin up.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“What do you–” I began, hotly.

He took me by the shoulders, not quite shaking me. “Don’t ask me what I bloody mean. What is wrong with you? You’re jumping at shadows, you keep looking for something or someone. You’ve got bags the size of suitcases under your eyes.”