“Yes,” I snuffle. “I’m fine. Just a bit… you know…”
“Do you want a hug?”
I nod, but then realize I need to say it out loud. “Yes. Please.”
The door opens slowly and Jessie walks in. She perches on the edge of the bed and opens up her arms and I fit myself into them and let her stroke my heaving shoulders and pat my back and I listen to the soft patter-patter of her kind heart through her cardigan and for a short while I feel calm again.
“Everything will be OK, André,” she says. “You’ll fight back. You’ll get back on your feet. This is just a small blip. You’re a brilliant man. You’ll find your way. I know you will.”
I bury my head deeper into her and I hold on tighter to her body, like I’m never going to let go.
Jessie makes us a lasagna. It’s not a very good lasagna, but I eat it with gusto. Crying makes me hungry. She talks about her adult children. They’ve broken her heart. She had them young and sacrificed a lot for them and now they’ve abandoned her. One lives in Australia. The other lives in Manchester. They are both workaholics and appear to find her annoying. I am empathetic and soothing and tell her that I’m sure they’ll come back to her, but inside I’m thinking, Fuck them, just fuck them. They don’t deserve you and they don’t deserve your money, so give it to me, for God’s sake, just give it all to me. With Jessie’s money, I could walk away from both of them, from fucking Martha and fucking Nina, and just start again. All I want is to start again. And all I need is money. And why are there so many stupid fucking bitches in this world?
I swallow down the last stodgy mouthful of lasagna with a slurp of white wine and I smile at Jessie. “You’re such a good person,” I say. “One of the finest I’ve ever known. You deserve the world. Shall I clear?”
I clear the table for her and I wipe down surfaces and load the dishwasher and top up Jessie’s wineglass, and then I tell her I’m going for a walk. It’s been dark for hours and the bright morning has faded into a frozen black night. My breath turns to clouds so heavy and dense they linger in the air as I walk the streets around the back of Jessie’s apartment block, past all-you-can-eat sushi buffets, microbreweries and pubs, boarded-up shops and clubs. What was Martha doing at Nina’s? I ask myself again. What was she planning to do or say if someone had answered the door? And where is she now? What is she doing? What is she thinking? Why hasn’t shecalled me? Or messaged me? All the unknowns make me want to pull my brains out of my head with my hands. I growl gently under my breath, and then I see a young girl across the street, looking at me strangely, her reaction to me triggered no doubt by my inwardly roiling demeanor.
I stop and glance at her, and then I start to follow in her wake. I see her turn a fraction to look at who’s behind her and pick up her pace a little, see her breath trapped in the small of her back. She’s wearing a camel coat, tied tightly at the waist to show the world how tiny it is, with fitted black trousers and shiny pumps. She’s come from an office, and I see her adjust her little handbag in that way women do when they’re feeling unsafe, like it’s somehow going to protect them. I’m about six feet away from her and I maintain this space. It’s optimum. The length of a man. The Covid safe space. Just enough to make her feel nervous, but not enough for anyone else to notice. She turns left and I follow her. I take my phone out of my pocket, and I pretend to look at it as I walk. I put my spare hand into my trouser pocket and let my fingertips graze the head of my penis, just slightly, and only once. I look at the back of her neck where the turned-up collar of her camel coat brushes the baby hairs escaping from her ponytail, then I close the gap between us by a foot and I make a small noise, halfway between a sigh and a groan. She stops and I continue until I am a foot away from her, when I swoop into her personal space, let my nose drop close to the collar of her coat, breathe in hard, instantly dizzy with the scent of her, of fear mixed with flowers. I straighten up and walk right past her, turning briefly to catch her staring at me with her mouth hanging open, not sure what to say, not sure what just happened, caught halfway between fear and uncertainty. Did she imagine it, the tall man walking too close to her? And surely, she’s thinking, surely not him? He looks too smart, too respectable, far too fucking handsome.
Meanwhile, I saunter onward, my engines oiled again, my head clearer, my resolve restored. I find a pub and I buy myself a cold pint of lager and I drink it slowly and methodically until I feel ready to return to Jessie’s spare bedroom, to the pile of stuffed toys and the cloying expanse of thick, thick carpets.
SIXTY-FIVE
There are two women in Martha’s shop the next morning. The first is an older woman with shiny dark hair cut into a blunt fringe, and the second a younger, fair-haired girl wearing a teddy bomber jacket and oversized jeans, a pair of headphones hanging around her neck.
Martha recognizes them immediately.
It’s the women from the photo she’d seen through the window of Paddy Swann’s house yesterday morning. Nina Swann and her teenage daughter—except the daughter is now an adult. Martha has no idea how they have found her here, but she is ready, so very ready for this to finally begin, to confront the other woman.
She keeps her features even and says, “Hi. Can I help you?”
The woman, Nina, is striking. She’s wearing black jeans and platform-soled boots, an oversized fluffy black jumper, and a leather jacket. Martha can’t imagine her side by side with dapper Alistair Grey; they seem mismatched, and for a moment she wonders if maybe she’s got it all wrong. Maybe Nina Swann is not having an affair with her husband? Maybe it’s something else? Maybe it really is just business? Paddy’s restaurants? Maybe Alistair is helping her to run them?
But if that’s the case, why lie? Why could Al not just say that he’s in Folkestone helping a newly widowed client run her dead husband’s restaurant empire?Why pretend to be in the Midlands helping his sick mother get back on her feet?
Nina Swann smiles and moves closer to Martha. Her face looks soft and almost charitable. She looks, Martha realizes, as if she is about to tell her something terrible, and surely, Martha thinks, surely she wouldn’t come all the way out here with her own daughter to tell her that she is fucking her husband. Who would do that? Nobody, that’s who. Is she—the thought stabs at her like a knife—is she going to tell her that Alistair is dead? Her body pumps out adrenaline and for a moment she feels dizzy, like she might pass out.
“Are you Martha?” asks Nina.
“Yes. I’m Martha. What’s going on?” Her voice comes out jagged and raw.
“Is there somewhere we could talk?”
Martha grips her elbows and nods, then leads them into the little office at the back of the shop, where there are three chairs arranged in front of her desk. She offers them tea and they say no.
Nina says, “Is this your husband?” and shows her a photo on her phone of a windswept Alistair on a beach somewhere.
Martha’s stomach churns and she nods. Al’s head is just turning in the photo, not looking at the camera, as though he didn’t know it was being taken. Typical Al. He hates having his photo taken.
Martha lifts her eyes to Nina. “What’s going on?” she says.
Nina and her daughter exchange looks and then Nina says, “Is he here? Is he with you? Do you know where he is?”
“He’s… I thought… I thought he was with you?”
Nina gives her a small, apologetic smile. “He was with me. Yes. And then you came to my house yesterday?”
Martha flinches with embarrassment and nods.