‘Well I won’t tell if you won’t.’
‘You sure?’
‘Course.’
Jarvis lit up and sucked on the cigar’s stubby end. He didn’t try and speak to her, which Fliss appreciated. Growing up, she’d never paid much attention to Jarvis. He had simply been Ben’s irritating friend: a ginger kid who laughed too loudly and swore too readily and who never quite grew out of his crudeness. But when she was twenty, Jarvis had taught her how to drive. It had been the summer just after he’dpassed his test and he’d patiently explained to her the basics of gearstick shifts and clutch control and then they’d taken off down the Denby driveway in her mother’s dilapidated VW Golf runaround. She had pressed the accelerator pedal too hard and they would have crashed into the gatekeeper’s cottage had Jarvis not leaned across and pulled the steering wheel towards him, swerving the car just in time.
‘I thought it was the brake!’ Fliss had shouted. ‘Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t the brake?’
The smell of exhaust fumes filled the car. They stared at each other. Then Jarvis had started laughing, which made Fliss laugh too. It was the unstoppable, semi-hysterical kind of laughter that happens only when two people have a shared experience of narrowly averted disaster. Her stomach was stiff for hours afterwards.
‘You OK?’ Jarvis said now, mid-exhale. The smoke clouded her vision.
‘Yeah. You know. These parties are tough.’
‘I was sorry to hear about …’ He turned to her. ‘… all you’ve been through.’
He tapped her wrist with his fingers, like a doctor checking a pulse.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘I had a cousin. Heroin addict. He died of an overdose.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Fliss said. She was surprised. She didn’t think of Jarvis with any family.
‘S’OK. Sad for my aunt and uncle, of course. We weren’t that close. But I know it’s hard. Very hard,’ he repeated.
People sometimes said this sort of thing to Fliss, alluding to the difficulty of it all. They meant well but it just added to the sense that she should get over it; that it was her fault she couldn’t simply pull herself together.
Jarvis’s fingers rested on her wrist and then slipped into her palm until he was clasping her hand. Heat radiated from him. It was nice to feel another person’s skin.
‘If you ever need any help,’ Jarvis said, ‘I want you to have my number.’
He’d put it into her phone before the cigar was finished.
Her vomit had pooled into the cracks between the paving stones. Fliss leaned back on the bench. She reached for her phone from her inside jacket pocket. Her fingers were shaking and it took her three attempts to slide it out from the slippery synthetic fabric of the puffer. She scrolled through her paltry contacts list – Ben, Cozzie, The Dormer, Dr Abdul, Hostel – until she got to Jarvis. She pressed call.
He answered on the third ring.
‘Felicity Fitzmaurice,’ he said in his booming voice. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’
She didn’t know where to start or what to say. She tried to form the words but they wouldn’t come. Her breathing was ragged and she realised she was crying.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Jarvis was saying now. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I just …’ she stammered. ‘I didn’t know who to call.’
‘That’s OK. You did the right thing.’
She could hear muffled noises on the other end of the line, as if he were reaching for a coat and keys.
‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘Granary Square. King’s Cross.’
Her throat was raw.
‘At a restaurant?’
