I stand and watch them for a few moments, my new boyfriend and my daughter, having a conversation I know she will never remember. But one that I will, for the rest of my life.
For the first time in a long while, I feel my heart relax.
It’s all going to work out.
Just stay away from Josh,I think,and everything will be okay.
54.
Josh
March 2008
‘Good news?’ enquires a soft voice behind me.
I snap my laptop closed.
‘What’s that about a pill?’
‘Nothing,’ I bristle. ‘It’s private.’
Sitting up in her bed, Charley scratches her long neck, the same neck I was kissing less than five minutes ago. She says nothing.
Briefly, I shut my eyes. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’
She shrugs as I look over at her. Light is lancing through her bedroom blinds. She is slight and startlingly pretty, with a dark pixie cut and huge, expressive eyes.
For a moment, I imagine – as I sometimes do when I meet someone new – telling the truth. Confessing that, in fact, I am nearly a whole decade older than she thinks I am, and then explaining why.
But I resist the urge to get into that conversation, which would be long and complicated, and would also – I’m fairly sure – paint me as the guy who took a pill so he could trick women into bed.
Last night went pretty much how these encounters always do, for me. Surface-level pleasure. No real connection, or sense of a spark that might endure. She told me about her job at the Serious Fraud Office – ironically enough – and I ran her through what I enjoyed about being a writer, a reader, a half-decent cook. I sprinkled a few jokes in there too, so as not to bore her stupid, though the jury’s probably still out on that.
Charley leans over to take the cigarette I’ve half-smoked from between my fingers. ‘I think you should probably go now, Josh. I’ve got work to do.’
This is the first time I’ve seen Charley, but I already know it will also be the last.
Is this how it’s always going to be now? Unable to get close to anyone, because of the secret I am keeping?
Most likely, unless I start telling the truth, which I’ve no plans to do. So I simply nod and pull on my T-shirt, find my jacket. Cast around for my wallet and phone. Check my watch is still on my wrist.
Just before I leave, I hesitate.
‘Absolutelynot,’ Charley says, pre-empting any parting acts of idiocy from me, like suggesting we hug goodbye.
Outside, while I’m waiting for my cab, I dial the number for Wilf’s old colleague Hester. She gave it to me in her email responding to the tentative enquiry about an antidote it took me a full three months to work up to making.
I googled her first. She was young and pretty, a Cambridge-educated scientist, like Wilf. It occurred to me that perhaps she was his crustacean-averse date from Valentine’s night, that time.
But as soon as Hester says, ‘Hello?’ I hang up.
There is something inside me that just needs to check with Rachel, one final time, that she doesn’t want the pill. After that, I can hand it over to Hester – who would need it, apparently, in order to develop anything new – and let it disappear for good.
I text Rachel, ask to meet for a coffee. She doesn’t reply for a while, and then there’s a bit of back and forth, as she’s generally pretty stacked, between work and Oliver and Emma and dealing with Lawrence’s ever-more mercurial moods. But eventually we settle on a time.
She turns up late, breathless with apologies.
The first thing I say is, ‘I should be the one apologising. For sending you those texts, about Oliver.’
