Page 56 of Love and Loathing

Aubrey listened, polite enough to let her ramble on, expose her madness. He’d probably be glad when it was all over.

“We planted bulbs, bought seeds. A garden centre even donated some compost and pots. I left for Spain at the start of the year, but it was all ready, waiting for the first seeds to be planted. They sent me pictures when they did. The kids planted sunflower seeds. They were going to have a competition, see who could grow the tallest one. The local paper came down.”

She paused, breath suddenly failing.

“And then what happened?” Aubrey asked. She was sure he already knew. The Bluedeen logo was on the boarding beyond her window, lit up by the harsh, halogen streetlamps.

“Then the cash-strapped council sold the site to a company called Bluedeen. And they bulldozed it all. So that Domnall White could get a little bit richer. And it was all your idea.”

Aubrey nodded. “I see.”

“That’s all you have to say?” She rounded on him, all her hurt and sadness turning into rage.

He shrugged, one hand still resting on the top of the steering wheel. He flexed his fingers, watching them straighten, then curve tight. “Am I meant to defend the indefensible? Does it matter if I try? You already know what you think of me.”

“You don’t care? You’re not even going to—”

“Apologise? You knew all this had happened already, didn’t you? The first time we met you mentioned a garden and Domnall. It explains why you were so ready to hate me. And I suppose you overheard me talking to Andrew just now, which reminded you who I am. The same person you met at Roscoe’s. I haven’t changed. It’s not my fault if you forgot.”

“How can you just sit there…?” She was incredulous, choking back her tears, her anger. “You won’t even saysorry?”

“What good would it do? What you want is for me to be someone I’m not.”

“You don’t evencare,do you?”

His only reply was to turn on the engine, his expression cold, bitter.

“Where are you going?”

“Zig’s house, of course. You can cry on his shoulder, and hate me, and call me a bastard to your heart’s content.”

“You are a bastard, Aubrey,” she spat. “You’re not even human. All those sob stories you fed me about Liv, and you’ve no heart at all.”

“You can think that, if it helps. If it keeps your nice easy delineation between good people and bad.”

She wanted to hit him, shake him, force him tofight.Swimming in pain as she was, she knew even now that, later, in the darkest part of the night, it was the fact he had so easily given up that would hurt the worst.

They were already pulling up by the flat. He got her bags out of the boot, handed them to her as she climbed shakily out of the car.

He looked at her once, eyes black under the streetlamp’s pale glow.

“It’s how this was always going to end, Evie. We both know it. For what it’s worth…I’m sorry.”

And he drove away.

TWENTY-THREE

A week later, onSaturday morning, Aubrey was woken by his flat’s doorbell at a hellishly early hour which turned out to be ten o’clock. He growled at the clock on his phone as though it was personally responsible for his nights of insomnia and walked stiffly to the intercom, imagining vivid ways of killing all delivery drivers everywhere.

It was Roscoe.

“Thought we were going for a run?” the man said when he walked into the flat so happily and healthily Aubrey wanted to hit him. He frowned at Aubrey’s crumpled pyjamas. “Rough night?”

“Week.”

“Work?”

“Women.”

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