—
How you holding up?” Dean kisses me on both cheeks. He smells of spicy aftershave, and I am suddenly conscious of my state of unwash. He passes me a coffee and a paper bag from Gail’s. “Thought you could use some sustenance.”
“Thank you,” I say. Gail’s is my favorite, but I’m not sure I can stomach cake at the moment. We head into the living room, where I sit down in an armchair, drawing my cardigan around me. It’s May now, warm, and London is at its gleaming best, exultant with early-summer skies and sun-dappled parks and drinking at dusk. But my mood is more suited to January: gray, cold, never-ending.
Like always, Macavity springs silently onto my lap. He’s been clingy ever since Max died, and I’m convinced he’s pining for his lost companion. I take so much strength from the warmth of his little body against mine, from the rhythmical, comforting percussion of his purring.He has loved Max too, I often think.He understands.Max’s hands have stroked the same patch of coat I am stroking now. Macavity is like my little lifebelt, tethered by time to the man I love.
It’s Saturday, I’ve realized—early afternoon, and another warm day. Sunlight is glancing off the furniture, my reward for having cleaned up. This time last year, Max and I might have been walking hand in hand through South Bank, the Thames shifting and heaving beside us like a serpent. We might have lunched in BoroughMarket, picked up some things for dinner, then meandered back to the flat eating our favorite gelatos, our hearts and bellies full.
I motion for Dean to sit, which he does, on the sofa. He’s wearing Ray-Bans pushed up onto his head and a T-shirt, his face faintly bronzed from the last couple of weeks’ sun. I suppose he’s been out somewhere with Chrissy and his daughter, enjoying some much-needed family time. Because it’s Saturday, and life goes on. Or at least, it does for Dean and Chrissy, and they’d be crazy not to make the most of every single second.
I’ve got to know them well over the past year or so. Chrissy works in television, is high up at a production company specializing in factual entertainment. We’d become quite a tight little foursome, hanging out at our flat or at their house in Chiswick; picnicking on the Common; enjoying long, lazy weekend lunches; walking the Thames Path on Sundays with their daughter Sasha on her little bike. It’s hard to know how our friendship will change, now that Max is gone. I suppose, inevitably, it will. I’m fairly sure there’ll only be so many times they’ll let me play gooseberry: that’s not how socializing’s supposed to work.
I messaged Dean after finding the ring. I had to know the story, and I was pretty sure Dean would have it. He and Max had become super close in the years since leaving uni—perhaps because as everyone’s friendships evolved, broke up, or moved on, they discovered they had even more in common as adults than they did as students.
“Can I see it?” he asks now.
I pass him the box. He lifts the lid, then smiles, like it brings back a warm memory. “That’s the one. I helped him choose it. Hatton Garden. It’s five carats, emerald cut—”
“When?” I whisper.
Dean is never lost for words, but he takes a really long time to answer. “The week before he died,” he says, eventually, his voice gentle as an echo.
“Did he say... how he was going to...?”
Dean smiles faintly, then shakes his head. His blue eyes look watery. He’s lost weight too, since Max died. Chrissy told me recently he’s been working nonstop. “He mentioned some ideas. Like doing it at the Observatory, or the Eye, or the Shard. But to be honest, I think he probably would have just dropped down on one knee right here in this flat, Lucy. He didn’t need to perform some grand gesture to prove how much he loved you.”
I shut my eyes, let his words swim through me. I would trade anything—anything—for Max to walk into this room right now, if only for a few moments, so I could give him my answer.Yes. Oh, I love you so much. A million times, yes.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before,” Dean says. “I didn’t know what was best. Chrissy’s been saying I should, but... I thought it might make everything worse.”
“No,” I say softly, shaking my head. “It’s the opposite. It’s like... me and Max have just had another conversation, and I never thought I’d get that chance.”
We don’t say anything else for a few moments, just sip from our cups, contemplating. I get that strange metallic taste on my tongue again, try to wash it away with the coffee.
On my lap, Macavity shifts, stretching and flexing a paw before tucking it neatly back where it came from.
“In case you ever doubted how much you meant to Max,” Dean says, eventually, “you should know, Lucy, that you were his whole world. He’d been so happy since you guys got back together.”
My eyes fill with tears, and though I can’t speak, I nod my thank-you.
Dean wipes away a couple of his own tears now, leaning forward to grab some tissues from the box ever present on the coffee table. He passes me one. “God, I miss him.”
I blow my nose, then decide that since Dean is here, I will ask the question that plagues me constantly. The one always flickering in my line of sight, like an insect I can’t dispatch. “Dean, do you blame me?”
Until the family liaison officer confirmed that Max had died twenty minutes after we’d finished speaking that night, I’d been tormented by the thought that our conversation on the phone had had a part to play in his death. To know the two events were unconnected didn’t make losing him any more bearable, but at least it put that particular fear to rest.
Still. Max had been on his way to see me, and I’d told him to turn around. If I’d said yes, got excited, seen it for the romantic idea it was, he would still be alive.
Dean already knows what I said to Max that night—in the immediate aftermath of the accident, I seemed to be on a mission to tell as many people as possible, maybe because I was seeking the punishment I felt sure I deserved. But he’s never displayed even the tiniest glimmer of resentment toward me for it. Still, the nature of grief is so fluid, so fickle. Perhaps now he’s had time to think about it, he’s realized I am partly culpable.
“Nobody blames you,” he tells me firmly, leaning forward so I’m obliged to meet his eye. “Nobody would, not ever. You couldn’t possibly have known, Lucy.”
I nod, then look away from him and down at my hands, which are dry and neglected, much like the rest of me. “But I just keep thinking... if only I’d said yes.”
Pippa’s been encouraging me to stop this—questioning everything, agonizing over every tiny decision I’ve ever made. Because, she says, even if I had all the answers I’m looking for, the reality of losing Max would be exactly the same.
Dean nods as though he truly understands. “That was Max all over, wasn’t it? Just wanting to help.”
