Page 34 of Don't Let Him In

“God, Al, I don’t know. It’s all a bit scary.”

“Yes!” His eyes are laser bright. “It’s terrifying! I know! But, Martha, we need this. I need to get away from my bloody job, and you need more than this”—he gestures around the room, but is suggesting her current life—“to get your teeth into. This is the moment, Martha. You’re nearly fifty. I’m going to be fifty-six any minute. We’ve got another twenty good years. Let’s make them count. For God’s sake, let’s make them count.”

Martha smiles; her stomach feels soft.

Suddenly the dream that has recently felt so bruised and tarnished feels bright and new again. She nods. “OK!” she says. “Yes! I’m in.”

THIRTY-ONEFOUR YEARS EARLIER

I see a small bruise on Amanda’s cheekbone. I realize that it correlates with the exact location of my fingertips across her mouth two days before and I feel a twinge of guilt, but it soon dies away. It was for her own good, and what choice did I have? I am not a violent man; I have never, ever hit a woman.

“So,” she says, eyeing me from the door into the living room, where I have been sleeping on her sofa. She is wearing a voluminous T-shirt, her skinny bare legs pale and scrawny beneath. Her parched blond hair is in a pile on top of her head and there are dark smudges beneath her eyes. She used to be so beautiful, I’m sure she did. Or maybe Martha has ruined my concept of beauty forever. “What are you up to today?” she asks.

“Hospital appointment,” I say, feigning some kind of nonexistent pain as I bring myself up to a sitting position. “And then I have some business to attend to.”

“What sort of business?” Her eyes narrow as she looks at me.

“I’ve been back working in the restaurant industry,” I say. “For a few years now. And I recently met a guy who wants me to go into business with him, to help him run a new wine bar in Mayfair. I’ve invested a few thousand. I’m trying to raise a few more. So. We’re getting together to crunch some numbers.”

Amanda shakes her head, just once, a small gesture of disbelief. “What time’s your hospital appointment?”

“Eleven,” I say, and then wince again as I move.

“What is it that you’ve got?” she says, the distrust thawing slightly into concern. “Exactly.”

“Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Thanks, Dad,” I add for good measure.

“Is that what…?”

I flinch, suddenly blindsided by a flash of doubt. I’m usually so good at this stuff, but now I can’t remember what I told Amanda about my father. It appears from her response that I told her that he died of a heart attack, and I recover my cool and say, “Yes, that’s what killed him.” And then I remember our wedding back in 1998, how much Amanda had wanted my father to come, how she had wanted me and my father to be reunited in the glow of our romantic union, and I’d stupidly said I’d invite him, and she wouldn’t let it go, would not let it go, so in the end I told her he’d died. A massive heart attack.

She nods sadly, and I breathe a sigh of relief. Yes, I think. That’s right. That’s right.

Because meeting Amanda was such a long, long time ago, I was a young man and I was not as slick as I am now, I hadn’t learned the ways of the world, how to navigate riptides, how to manage sudden changes to the script. I have learned so much about life in the succeeding twenty-nine years. I have learned so much about people. I made huge mistakes with Amanda, but I never allowed her to fall out of love with me. That is the biggest lesson I have learned. Don’t let them hate you. Once they hate you, there’s no way back, and there always, always needs to be a way back.

“What’s the prognosis?” she asks. “Will you have to have surgery?”

“Hopefully not. Meds for now. Keeping an eye on it. And, of course, staying fit and healthy.” I pat my firm stomach and smile.

“You look good,” she says, and there’s a hint of sourness in hervoice, as if she is cross that I haven’t fallen apart as she has, that if anything I look better now than I did when we were together.

“I work at it,” I say, getting to my feet, letting her see the full grandeur of my physical form in boxer shorts and a fitted T-shirt.

“I like your hair white like that. Is that from your dad too?”

I laugh wryly. “Yes, in fact it is. He was quite the silver fox.”

“And now so are you.”

“I suppose I am.” I make my voice soft and sweetly surprised, as if the concept of seeing myself as physically alluring has never occurred to me before. “Except without the filthy narcissism and casual cruelty,” I add, reminding Amanda of my dark and traumatizing past.

She sighs, removes her hand from the door frame, and says, “Anyway. Let me get you a coffee.”

Tooting High Street is generally unprepossessing but is not as bad as it sounds. Most places in London these days are half-decent; where there are Victorian houses there is the chance of gentrification, and where there is even a touch of gentrification, there is at least one nice place to get breakfast. And that is where I go when I leave Amanda’s flat an hour later. It’s all sage green and hanging plants in raffia pots and matcha this and matcha that and I order a cappuccino and a slice of something with blueberries in it and sit in the window and enjoy watching the world go by for a few minutes. I was sure to take a spare key with me before I left Amanda’s flat and the ease with which she gave it to me shows me that I already have her trust. I’m really hoping that this sojourn with Amanda in her tiny flat, sleeping on her not-very-comfortable sofa, will be brief. I really hope that it won’t take long for me to nurture my relationship with Martha to the point that I can move in with her. But before I can focus on the next steps, I do still need to deal with the previous situation.

I told Tara I’d give her a week. I told her it was for her, this timeapart, to gather her thoughts, decide about our future, to give her the space to make choices. But it wasn’t for her, it was for me. I need a week to secure my future, away from Tara.

I know Tara’s schedule intimately, and I know that on Mondays she works from her company’s head office in central Reading, and I know that she leaves home at ten to be in at eleven for a coffee at her desk before a department meeting at eleven thirty, and then she works until six and returns home at seven. I know that the house will be empty all day and I will have all the time in the world to do what I need to do.