“I know,” she said. “I know they did. They must have done.”

“Jessica–” I used her name for the first time. “Jessica. What happened?”

She looked at me for a long moment. “It’s a long, sad story,” she said. “How much time have you got?”

I opened my mouth to reply but, before I could, she suddenly sat up and shook her head. “Not now,” she said. “Not today. It’s too much. Tell me about you. Tell me all about you.”

“Oh–” I looked down at my nearly empty glass. “Where shall I start?”

Jessica smiled. For the first time since we’d met, I felt a lightening of the spirit, a feeling that perhaps I could cope after all. We were just two women sitting together outside of a pub on a winter’s day. It helped me to think that. Don’t think about Cornwall, and Mrs. McGaskill’s hand raised to slap me, and the search parties and the yawning empty window, and the constant, acid guilt. Don’t think about the nightmares running on an unending loop in my head, the closed door with the abyss behind it. Don’t think about people coming back from the dead. We’re just two women, having a drink, outside a North London pub.

"Tell me about your wedding," Jessica said.

"My wedding?"

"Yeah, you said you were married. Tell me about your wedding. Was it a big white thing? We always used to talk about having one of those, remember?"

"My wedding..." I looked down at the foamy depths of my cup. "God. It seems like a long time ago now."

"Was it?"

"Not really. Only three years or so. God - time flies."

"So what was it like?"

"It was - amazing. Well, you know, a bit stressful, and all that..." I trailed off. How could I begin to condense all those different emotions down to a couple of coherent sentences? "It was a bit surreal, really. I had a wedding planner for everything-"

Jessica exploded with mirth. "A wedding planner? Get you!"

I started laughing too. "I know, it's ridiculous, isn't it? Angus really pushed the boat out though, he insisted."

"I suppose, you being the only daughter and all that – it makes sense," said Jessica, still grinning.

"It was a great day, though," I said. The good memories made my voice soften. "But you know, it was weird, too. There were so many – I don’t know – so many undercurrents of emotion running under the surface.” I stopped, surprised at myself. Where had that come from?

I lifted the cup to my lips to hide the sudden tension in my mouth.

Jessica was watching me keenly. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” I said, and hesitated. Then I plunged in. “I remember during the service looking over and noticing this empty pew at the front. I mean, it was empty, right in the middle of mass of people.” I paused, unsure of whether to go on.

“Yes?” said Jessica.

I spoke slowly. “I had a thought – well, more like a wish, a fantasy – that – that you were there. That that was your pew. That you were sat there, with – with my mother. Except, it was empty because the two of you had just popped outside for a bit of air.” I could feel the heat coming up into my face. “It’s a bit stupid, I know.”

“No,” said Jessica, slowly. “It’s not stupid. It’s nice.”

I looked down at my empty cup, embarrassed. “Well–”

“I mean it,” she said. “Really, Maudie. I think it’s lovely.”

Her eyes had a suspicious shininess. I quickly looked back down at the table again, not wanting to draw attention to it.

“What’s your husband like?” she asked.

“Matt? He’s great. He’s a bit older than me but I think that works sometimes, you know?”

"You’re really in love with him?" she said, leaning forward slightly.

I was embarrassed again. I didn’t like quantifying things like that, I told myself, explaining away my discomfiture. “Well, of course I am. When I married him it felt like the biggest adventure of my life but also – also like coming home. Does that make sense?”

She nodded. There was an odd expression on her face, part wince, part smile. I suddenly felt as though I’d embarrassed her and felt awkward.

"Well, that's good," she said. She dug around in her bag for her cigarettes. "God, I smoke too much."

As she lit another cigarette, I thought of my wedding; my lovely dress; Angus's speech; Becca dropping the bouquet when I threw it to her and rolling her eyes; Aunt Effie’s discreet tears; Matt’s words to me in our wedding bed; all that crazy stress and anxiety wrapped up in a set of twenty four hours. It was ridiculous, really. One thing I hadn’t told Jessica was my overriding impression of the day was that it was happening to someone else. Perhaps that was normal.

“How’s your dad?” said Jessica.

I felt it hit me again, right in the pit of the stomach. How long does it have to be since a death, for that to stop?

“Oh – he died,” I said.

Jessica’s face twitched. “Oh, Maudie,” she said. She sounded close to tears. “Oh, no. How – how – I mean, when?”

“Just recently. This autumn, actually.” I surprised myself. I could talk quite matter of factly about it. There was something about her obvious distress that made me want to soften the blow.

Jessica ground her cigarette out. “That’s upset me,” she said, almost in a mutter. “That’s really upset me. I can’t believe it.”

I felt a little finger of cold nudge me in the ribs. If she reacted like that to Angus’s death, how would she react to the news of her own parents’ fate? I held onto my glass, feeling the condensation on the smooth curve of the bowl slip between my fingers.

“Yes,” I said, meaninglessly. “It was very quick, though. Quick and painless. I mean, relatively.”

Jessica smoked furiously, dragging on her cigarette as if it had personally offended her. I looked at her face, covertly, trying to drink her in, the concrete, flesh reality of her after so long in the ether. Her eyes were still shadowed beneath; marked with a smudge of darkness. With a shock, I realised she was beautiful. I watched her mouth close on the filter of her cigarette, the gasp inwards, the long wavering blue exhalation.

She felt my gaze and looked up, catching my eye.

“Sorry, Maudie,” she said. “This is just weird, you know? I mean, I knew it would be weird, but I didn’t know how much.”

“I know,” I said. We looked at each other, properly. In her eyes, I caught the first faint glimmerings of the old Jessica, my ten-year-old companion, the impishness that had once been there.

“Fuck,” she said, breathing out smoke.

“Fuck,” I said.

There was a moment’s silence and then we both began laughing. It was thin, wheezy, gasping laughter, the laughter at something that’s not particularly funny; just an outpouring of emotion with no other exit. I put my hand out over the table and touched hers. She flinched.

“You are real,” I said. I could hear myself, my wondering voice. “You are. I can’t believe it.”

“I came back,” she said.

“I knew you would.”

A car horn blared in the street and we both jerked in shock. She drew her hand away to pick up her glass.

“How many times can I say I can’t believe it?” I said.

I sat back on my bench, holding on to the edge of the table. I leaned back, looking up into the sky and breathed out. I felt suddenly filled with hope. “It’s a miracle,” I said. “That’s what it is. It’s the sort of thing the Sunday papers write articles about.”

Jessica looked alarmed. “I hope not.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “I’m hardly likely to go running to them, am I? Jesus, it’s as much as I can do to take it in.”

Jessica leaned forward. “Maudie,” she said, very seriously. “I meant what I said the other night. I can’t – I mean, I don’t want you to tell anyone. Not your husband, or – or anyone. It’s too – it’s too personal. To us. You understand. I’m not – I’m not ready to have anyone else know, you know? Do you understand?”