At about eleven, Aaliyah looked at her watch and said, ‘I need to go home now. To myfiancé. Ilovebeing engaged. What are we going to do with Meg?’
‘I can take her home,’ Tess said. ‘Although I do have a bit of a problem which is that I’m on an early shift tomorrow morning so I don’t think I’ll be able to stay with her. Are you working early tomorrow, Lily? If you aren’t, could you maybe take her home and stay? If you don’t mind?’
Lily thought about her planned Beachy Head trip. She could totally tell the others about it. And they’d understand. They’d more than understand. They’d be lovely to her about it. But she’d probably cry and this evening she didn’t want to be Poor Lily again, so she didn’t want to tell them. And Aaliyahobviouslyhad to go home to Patrick. And Tessobviouslyhad to go to work in the morning. And Lilycouldpostpone her trip.
Meg suddenly sat up and wailed, ‘Oh my God, what’swrongwith me? I’mnevergoing to get married. I thought he wasThe One.’
Yep, it wasn’t looking like Meg would get over this quickly. Lily was going to have to postpone.
Her phone vibrated.Pleaselet it not be Matt checking in again to see if she was okay.
God. Awful. She was actively not wanting to get messages from her boyfriend, who she really did love. There had to be something wrong there.
She pulled her phone out. The message was actually from a work friend asking if she fancied a cinema trip later in the week. Phew.
Oh. And therewasone from Matt. Asking how she was.
Great, thank you, she replied.Busy day at work. Out for a drink with Aaliyah this evening because… SHE AND PATRICK GOT ENGAGED!!!
She could see that he was typing foragesbefore his response actually came through:Wow – congratulations to them. Can’t wait to see you.
And she justknewthat he’d typed something about hoping she was doing okay and had then deleted it. She couldfeelhis concern emanating from her phone. He wassosolicitous at the moment. And always away. And the more caring-from-afar he was, the more she couldn’t talk to him. And the more she didn’t talk, the more she could see he was getting hurt. It was like a vicious circle they just couldn’t get out of.
Sheshouldtalk to him.
They probably just needed to spend more time together, to have the opportunity to talk properly. That would improve matters. Maybe.
Or maybe they actually just weren’t right for each other. Love probably wasn’t enough on its own if you couldn’t communicate the way your partner wanted you to.
No. She was overreacting, probably because she was upset this evening after thinking so much about scattering the ashes. Matt would be working in London for two or three weeks solid next month. They’d get the opportunity then to spend lots of time together and she’d talk properly to him then, and everything would be okay.
Eight
Matt
Then – eight years before
The flat was dark and empty when Matt opened the front door. He felt his face fall. He’d been hoping all the way home that Lily might have come over this evening to stay the night, knowing that he’d be back. They’d exchanged keys a couple of months ago and had been spending increasing amounts of time staying over with each other, although less time since Lily had lost her grandmother. Which kind of didn’t feel right; he’d been lucky enough not to lose anyone yet but he was pretty sure that he’d want to be around Lily more, rather than less, if he were bereaved. Although everyone reacted differently to things of course.
She’d been a little monosyllabic over the phone recently in addition to not being around so much. Like her bereavement had caused her to put barriers up between them. Maybe they needed to spend more quality time together.
Seriously. He was thinking like some kind of self-help manual.
He unzipped his suitcase and took his dirty laundry and stuck it and a liquid tab in the washing machine, pressed On, and then stood up and looked around the kitchen.
It was immaculate. Lily must have cleaned it again after he left last weekend. Since she’d lost her grandmother a month ago, she’d been on an extreme cleaning drive. She was always quite big on housework, definitely better than he was, but nothing on this scale normally. Like, she couldn’t sit down and relax. If she came over for a quiet night in, she didn’t actually sit and talk or watch TV, she cleaned. Anything. Like silver that he hadn’t even knownwassilver. In fact, it probably wasn’t. It was probably stainless steel. She’d scrubbed and polished her own flat to within an inch of its life too.
The over-cleaning was a little bit weird. It felt like she really wasn’t dealing that well with her loss. And that she should perhaps talk about it. But it also felt like every time he tried to talk to her, she retreated from him and he was driving a wedge between them. But how could they have a relationship if they didn’t talk?
He checked his watch. Quarter to midnight. He really wanted to hear her voice just for a couple of minutes but he shouldn’t call her because it was way too late. Hopefully he’d see her tomorrow evening.
‘That was so good.’ Matt put his knife and fork together sideways on his plate the next evening. ‘I want to take a third helping but I might actually explode.’
‘Yeah, don’t do that. You’d make a mess all over my lovely clean kitchen. Also, I have a lemon polenta cake for pudding that you have to try.’ Lily moved over to the worktop and took the cover off a serving plate with a flourish.
‘Wow. That looks amazing.’
‘If I say it myself, itwillbe amazing. My granny’s recipe,’ she said, her back to him as she took plates from a drawer.
