“Sorry,” she says, after a few moments. “That was all a bit insensitive of me. I did have fun last night.”
I take her in, wonder briefly if this is how it will always be. A series of half connections, nights devoid of true emotion. Never quite feeling the way I did with Callie.
“That’s okay,” I say, reaching for my jacket where I left it on the armchair last night. “I think we were both on the same page.”
She leans forward. “You’re such a nice guy, John. Honestly, there aren’t enough like you.”
I pull on my jacket and smile again. Well, the sentiment’s there, at least.
•••
“Don’t,” I say to Warren, when eventually I make it back to his place. (Long walk, bus, cab.)
He smiles. “Didn’t think you were in the market.”
“I’m not. What market? I’m not.”
Warren holds up his hands like I’ve whipped out a gun. “Forget I said anything. Listen, we still on for next week?”
Warren’s coming back to Eversford with me next Saturday for the barbecue Dad’s finally agreed to host. For the first time we’re all going to gather in one place and get to know one another. The whole family.
“Reminded Dad before I left.”
“It’ll be weird to meet him properly. In a good way, I hope.”
I don’t tell Warren that Doug is in fact my main concern, given his general inclination to behave like an arsehole.
Six months ago, with Tamsin’s and Warren’s encouragement, I eventually went to see a GP. I knew by then that I could never be anyone’s project, so had turned down Diana’s offer of help for good. But I had noticed a subtle uplift in my well-being simply from throwing punches at Steve several times a week. And there were people I’d told now supporting me. The timing felt right.
Far more understanding than my university medic, this GP listened properly. Referred me straight to a counselor. And now, gradually, by way of twice-weekly sessions, I’ve started working through the mess in my mind. Begun contemplating the idea of a future.
It’s been more challenging than even I thought possible. But in a way it needed to be, to stop me thinking about Callie. The idea of her death is like an insect in my mind, a moth that stirs at the merest hint of light. I can’t allow myself to dwell on what she’s doing now. Because if I do, I’ll be devastated by the thought of losing her all over again.
So instead I’m focusing on fitness, my mental health, and a rainbow of attendant benefits. Like improving things with my dad, and with Doug. Being a good uncle. The possibility of becoming a vet again. I’ve been gradually increasing the time I spend asleep each night, the end goal being not to fear it. I’m learning how to cook, cutting down on caffeine.
Callie would be pleased for me, I think. And that’s the desperate waste of it all. Yes, I can try to live a life Callie would be proud of. But it will always break my heart that my dream became a chasm so wide between us that we had no hope of crossing it.
Because although she decided against saving herself in the end, I’d never have been able to stop trying.
I miss her still. All the little things. Like anticipating her smile as I cracked a joke. The way she’d press her face into Murphy’s neck when she got home from work. How her head would nod and jerk as she fell asleep in front of the TV. Those first sky-high moments of kissing her. Stirring to hear her singing in the shower.
The last song she ever murdered in there was “I Will Always Love You” on our final morning together. Two days later, after Esther’s message to say Callie wasn’t coming home, I went into the bathroom and just stood there. Tried to conjure up the sound of her voice. Her towel had slipped off the rail, become a crisp crumple on the floor tiles. A bottle ofher favorite coconut shampoo was still balanced on the rack behind my shower gel, cap flipped open.
I picked it up and held it for a moment. Took a giddying breath in, before pressing the lid back down.
I did that for months afterward. Inhaled it every morning, so I could start each day with only thoughts of her.
79.
Callie—eighteen months after
I see him on the boardwalk every morning. We’re staying at the same site on the northwestern tip of Latvia, in rustic beachside cabins where pine forests end and the Baltic Sea begins. The place is tiny—there’s only around twelve of us checked in. I realized he was British when I overheard him chatting to a birdwatcher one morning, as I was returning from a stroll along the sand at dawn.
There are lots of birdwatchers here. I’m not among them, per se, but migrating birds often touch down at the wildest extremities of the earth. I can see why Liam loves it here so much—it’s mesmeric in its desolation, a place of arresting remoteness, of sweeping sands and sprawling forests, where sea segues into sky.
I’ve been in Europe for a fortnight—my first trip abroad since returning from Chile last autumn. I wanted to surround myself with solitude once again—the vast beaches I’d seen between the pages of books, the pine woods I’d pictured in daydreams. Ricardo, my guide from Chile, recommended an atlas’s worth of other destinations to me too, before I left South America, but they’ll have to wait until I’ve topped up my bank account. Esther and Gavin’s first baby is due in a couple of months, and they’ve asked me to be godmother, so I’m fitting in some time away now—because once the baby’s born, I won’t want to miss a thing.
We’re both early risers, Finn and I. When he introduced himself to the man in the gift shop yesterday, I was behind him in the queue and made amental note of his name. Two cabins along from me, he attempts to greet me in Latvian each time I pass him, the phonetic jumble that results about as amusing as mine. He’s here by himself—at least, I’ve not seen anyone with him.
