‘A couple,’ I say, and tell her about them too: first, Robbie’s face coming to life in Tim’s photograph; then, the absolute vividness with which I was transported on Saturday night out of my and Nick’s room, and into the burgeoning warmth of a clear summer’s dawn.
‘I was desperate to warn Iris,’ I say. ‘Make her realise how close the end was coming.’
‘She needed no warning,’ says Ellen. ‘There wasn’t a single person among us who didn’t live with the proximity of death hanging over them. Except perhaps Ambrose.’
‘Ambrose?’
‘Our adjutant. He never seemed to care about anything, except making life more unpleasant than it already was. Such a nasty little man.’ She gives a mirthless smile. ‘I was happy he didn’t get a mention in the book.’
‘You have read it, then?’
‘I have.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘No. It made me extremely angry.’
‘Really?’
I wasn’t expecting that.
In what way?I’m about to ask.
But she talks on, saying Ambrose’s omission fromThe Bomber Boysis, to her mind, the strongest point in its favour. ‘To my enduring regret, I pandered to his ego. I was silly and naive enough to believe I should do that.’
‘What about Iris? Did she pander to him?’
‘Not at all. Ambrose despised her for it, of course. Robbie too, for always being in her corner. Not that he’d have been anywhere else.’ She smiles again, more truly this time. Achingly so. ‘I was desperately envious. We were all a little in love with Robbie Grayson.’ Her eyes glimmer. ‘You of course know what it is to court a man who’s admired like that.’
I blink at her abrupt change in subject.
Shift in my seat.
‘I’m not sure that Nick and I are courting at all any more,’ I say.
‘No?’ She sounds genuinely surprised.
Clearly, she’s not one for browsing gossip columns.
‘You seemed to be getting on so well when I saw you in The Heaton Arms.’
‘That was the general idea.’
‘I am sorry, Claudia. You really must be in a great deal of pain.’
Miserably, I nod.
Because she’s not wrong.
I am in pain.
And so is Nick.
Other than for on set, we’ve barely spoken since Saturday night. He told me by text that he’s dropped the case against the clinic in Los Angeles (I’m sorry, Claude, it shouldn’t havetaken this for me to be able to hear you),and I suppose that’s something. Apparently, no one’s really talking about my misshapen uterus online any more either. They’re all too busy discussing Nick’snaughtiness, back at the start of this month, when he came to stay in Highgate, played chauffeur to Hannah and her friends, opened a tab for them in that London bar, and was pictured kissing a twenty-four-year-old woman.Notthe same one I’ve been obsessing over all these months. No, it turns out Nick’s been telling the truth about her. One of her friends confirmed that this week, tagging her (lou93) on a repost of Nick’s kiss that’s gone viral enough to hit the papers, quipping (with multiple laughing emojis) that Nick obviously has a thing for London girls.Too bad you never could persuade him to try homegrown, Lou. Hahaha.And, god, I wish I could claw back the emotion I’ve wasted since summer, staring at her face.
Now I have another’s to taunt me.
Chelsea, she’s called, and Nick was caught kissing her within touching distance of my sister.
