He gave me a slow, exhausted smile. “Sure. Amelia gave birth.”
Amelia was an elephant.
“Do we have a name?”
He smiled. “Etoile.”
It was French for stars.
“Did you choose it.”
He nodded. “Go get changed. I love it here but I’ve done sixteen hours.”
“Ten minutes.”
I headed to the staff room and caught my reflection in the mirror. I looked tired too, my skin bare of any make up and my eyes looked weary. Three and a bit weeks and we’d be away again. I shouldn’t want to go so quickly.
Callum waited on a chair, checking social media. “Tube or bus or walk?”
“Let’s walk for a bit.”
We didn’t speak, wandering through the busy streets of the city, passing people heading out for dinner or a show, or on their way to live their lives. The noise of the traffic hummed loudly, never really stopping and I wondered if living here, in the city, meant you didn’t know what silence was like.
“Did you contact Carl?” His words came from nowhere.
“No.” I was never going to. Carl had been okay, but he didn’t ring any bells, or make me want to have any of my bells rang by him.
“I think I’m glad about that.”
He didn’t say anymore. We headed to the nearby tube station, the distance too great to cover completely by walking and it had started to rain, the slow drizzle that sometimes clung around London.
We spent the evening lounging about the apartment, watching TV and speculating where Seph was, as there had been just one cryptic message that informed us that Seph wouldn’t be returning.
“Alien experiment,” I suggested. “He’s signed up to be part of a project where he puts himself into their captivity for a couple of nights a week and they study the human form.”
“He’d do their head in. If he had, they’d have gotten rid of him by now.”
“Or maybe they’ve cloned him?”
Callum looked mildly horrified. “More versions of Seph? Fuck no.”
I laughed. “He’s not that bad.”
“I know. But please tell me they didn’t just break the fucking mould after making him, but tore up the design too.”
“What about when he has kids? Imagine if he has a mini-me…”
Callum groaned and sunk into the sofa. “He’d be a good dad. He’s great with Eliza and Teddy.”
“So he has his good points.”
“Just about.”
Then his eyes were on me. “I’m sorry.”
“What for?”
“For not being honest with you last night when I said it was up to you whether you rang Carl or not.”
