August 2003
There was one time, when I was dating Lawrence, that I thought about asking Josh if we could try again.
It was August, two nights after Lawrence had overheard me telling Josh we were only a casual thing.
I rang Josh’s doorbell in the middle of a thunderstorm.
He didn’t say anything when he opened the door, just stepped aside to let me in. I was soaked through, without a coat or umbrella, my clothes moulded like fresh plaster to my skin. The rain had been a shock, but in a good way. A heavy, cathartic blast. I hoped clarity would follow.
‘Lawrence left,’ I said, after a couple of moments.
He nodded. ‘I mean, you hung up then switched your phone off. So I guessed it probably wasn’t good.’
‘Josh, I think . . .’
‘You think what?’ he said, fixing me with his dark, patient eyes.
But I found I couldn’t say what I’d gone there to say.I think I made a mistake.Because I knew that before I said those words, I had to be sure.
And I wasn’t, not completely.
A few things had changed at the flat, in the two years since I’d left. Décor and some furniture, our wedding photo no longer in the living room. But, small alterations aside, I knew the beating heart of the home we’d once shared was exactly the same. The slant of the light, the laboured clunk of the pipes. I pressed a footto the floorboards, to feel their familiar creak. The air smelt the same, too, of hand soap and soft pillows and Josh.
As he fetched towels and clean clothes for me to change into, I told him more about the fight I’d had with Lawrence.
‘Sorry,’ he said, reaching for a bottle of brandy, after I’d dried off and got dressed. ‘Kind of feels like it’s my fault.’
I shook my head. ‘No, it’s... I think we crossed wires. Me and Lawrence.’
‘In what way?’
‘He says he loves me.’
Josh didn’t reply for a while. He just measured out two fingers, passed me a glass. Then: ‘And you don’t love him?’
I hesitated, then said, ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t be talking to you about this.’
He didn’t comment, just poured one for himself, knocked it back.
I took him in for a moment – his jeans and creased T-shirt, his bare feet, the dark tidemark of his never-changing stubble. So different from Lawrence, who was always pristine in a way that came naturally to him but not me. He ironed everything – socks, boxers, bed sheets – and wore shoes indoors. Sometimes, he didn’t take off his work clothes until we went to bed.
Right then, Josh’s crumpled imperfection made me ache. I wanted to sink into it, shut my eyes and stay there.
‘Sometimes, when Lawrence is saying he loves me, it’s almost like... he’s actually trying to control me. Does that make sense?’
Josh nodded, but said, ‘At the end of the day, I don’t know him, Rach.’
I apologised again, though it came out as more of a gasp. As if I couldn’t believe I could be this confused.
‘Rachel. Don’t take this the wrong way. But why are you here?’
The question was gentle yet exposing. Like a breath parting water.
I suspected he was wondering why I wasn’t with Ingrid, or Polly, or Lola, or anyone else who didn’t have good reason to occasionally fantasise about Lawrence’s funeral.
‘I wanted a friend.’ Somehow, this felt like both the fairest and most cruel thing I could have said to him in that moment.
Outside, rain was twisting from the sky, battering the windows, relentless.
