He rubbed at his chest where he’d felt that arrow strike.
‘Got my hair done,’ she said. ‘And I went to Wagamama’s.’
‘On your own?’
There was silence on the line. The waves broke on the shore and retreated all the way out again, dragging a hundred thousand tumbling pebbles, dragging the breath from Harri’s lungs. He shouldn’t have asked that.
‘Was there something you needed?’ she said.
Harri didn’t know why he’d called.
‘Are you all right, Harri? Is Annie there?’
Nowshe sounded like the Paisley of recent months. It woke him fully. ‘She’s at the bookshop. Listen, Paisley, can I ask you something?’
‘All right.’ There was caution in her voice.
‘Did we just… fall out of love?’
This brought a small gasp, and silence again.
He wasn’t going to chicken out now. ‘It’s just, I don’t really know what happened, and now I’m wondering if…’ He had no idea what the right words were.
‘If we got to the end of us?’ Paisley said.
‘Right. Did we?’ His throat thickened with the need to sob.
He let her think, listened to her breathing. Eventually she said, ‘I think so.’ She sounded so sad.
‘Do you think we could have stopped it? CouldIhave stopped it?’ he asked, fearing the answer.
‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Actually… no. Probably not.’ He hadn’t expected her to laugh at this, but she did, and it sounded good and wry, like they were moving past something.
‘I wasn’t the best…’ Harri began, but she cut him off.
‘We both did our best. We were kids.’
‘Nearly thirty-year-old kids?’
‘Naw, we were doing our best with what we had.’ There was no mistaking she was crying now and trying to keep it out of her voice.
‘Paisley,’ he began, wondering where his tongue was taking him. ‘I don’t think I’ll be coming home, to Port Talbot, I mean.’
‘You took most of your stuff,’ she said. ‘I didn’t think you were coming back.’
He let silence fall between them. The sky seemed bluer over his head. The air sharper. He pressed the phone closer to his ear. She was listening too, no need for words. It felt absolutely natural to be quiet together for a while. Harri realised his face was wet from tears. They stayed like that for a long time.
Eventually, Paisley asked if he’d let her hear the beach sounds, so he held out his phone to the shore.
After a while they said a few words about the weather. Her mum and dad were doing fine, thanks. She’d had her hair bobbed that day and he told her he was sure it suited her. She guessed he’d already had fish and chips and extra mushy peas, and he’d swallowed the lump in his throat.
‘Paise, did I waste your twenties?’ he said suddenly.
‘Not unless you think I wasted yours.’ She was so assured when she said this, it took away a little more of the dull arrow’s ache.
‘I need you to know, I was all in.’
There was silence on the line. A dart of panic went through him.
