Why had Pip’s adventures been left unfinished? It seemed that the most recently published book had ended on a cliffhanger, with the girl lost and wounded in the Vale of Shadows. It seemed heartless to leave her stuck there, and Brody was anything but heartless.
Why did he stop? Was it to do with his wife’s death? Was that why he was hidden away in a cottage in the middle of nowhere? How did it all fit in?
It was a double-edged sword reading these books. On the one hand, she felt that connection to Brody even more strongly. Another layer to him – a really important one – that had previously been invisible to her had been revealed. She felt as if she’d been able to lift the top of his skull and peer inside his head, allowed to see secret things that no one else saw, which was ridiculous, since anyone could walk into a bookshop and read exactly the same words, but somehow this was different. This was her and Brody.
The downside was that now her curiosity about him had more than doubled. The urge to dig for answers about his past was almost overwhelming. She kept finding herself on Google, poised to type his name into the search box, and having to make herself pull her hands away from the keyboard and fold them in her lap.
They’d talked a couple of times since she’d started reading his books, but not since she’d started the third, almost five days ago.She kept meaning to call, but it felt weird having this new information about him, information he wasn’t aware she’d found. Their relationship had always been on a ‘need to know’ basis, and she hadn’t realized how simple that had made things. They’d been able to talk without the fear of overstepping boundaries, of taking a wrong turn and saying something they’d regret later.
Despite her discomfort, she couldn’t put off phoning him forever, because he might guess something was up.Come on, Anna. Just do it.Holding her breath, she dialled his number. If he was asleep, she’d just leave a breezy message and try again tomorrow.
However, Brody answered immediately. Anna had the oddest feeling that he’d been waiting for his phone to ring, that he’d had the same sense that she had, that if they didn’t talk tonight, it would feel as if there’d been too much of a gap in the usual rhythm of their conversations.
Anna was desperate to ask him about his books, to find out why he’d stopped writing them, but she knew it wouldn’t be the right thing to blurt it all out straight away. She needed to tread carefully, so instead she just told him she’d been up late reading – without mentioning authors and titles. It turned out that Brody, too, had been kept up, reading a thriller he’d simply had to get to the end of.
As they talked, Anna couldn’t help noticing that the man she was talking to now was very different from the man who had written Pip’s story. Something was missing. The man who had written about dragons and magic rivers, about snowflakes that could speak, was a man confident of all the delightful possibilities life could bring, who knew what hope was.
Brody was no longer that man, and she wanted to know why.
Sheneededto know why. It had been more than a month since she’d mentioned the possibility of them meeting each other, but now she just couldn’t get it out of her head. Perhaps the questions she wanted to pose should be asked face to face? It might make it easier to get him to open up. And if she gave him a month or two to get used to the idea, maybe he’d come around?
‘Brody?’ she said when there was a lull in their conversation.
‘Yes?’ He sounded relaxed, confident. It was now or never.
‘I know we’ve discussed this before, but I would really like to meet you in person.’
Brody didn’t reply. Even across the waves that carried their connection, she felt a sudden frostiness in the atmosphere. Why?
‘We discussed New Year’s Eve and how much we hate it.’ The silence was thick. She was sure he was going to jump in any second and argue with her, so she just kept going. Words were all she had at this point. ‘I don’t want to go to a New Year’s Eve party, Brody. I don’t want to mill around with strangers, or even people I know, and make-believe that I’m happy and carefree when Big Ben chimes. It’s just too exhausting. There’s only one thing I want to do this December thirty-first. I want to spend it with you.’
Anna’s heart pounded. She stared at her phone, willing him to respond, and eventually he did. ‘I’d like that, too,’ he said, and his voice was rough. ‘I’m just not sure it’s possible.’
‘Why?’
More silence. But it wasn’t menacing. The one thing she could tell from his reply was that it wasn’t that he didn’twantto meet her.It was something else. She could sense him struggling with himself, or maybe some unknown enemy. One of his giants. Whatever his reason, it was big.
She pushed aside her curiosity, deciding her key objective should be to make it easier for him to say yes. ‘I can come to you, or you can come to me. Whatever is easier.’
He still didn’t respond.
‘Or we could go somewhere neutral…’
Where? She racked her brains for a good location. Somewhere everyone knew about. Somewhere they could meet on a significant date like New Year’s Eve.
The only thing that came to her mind, thanks to the movie marathon earlier, andSleepless in Seattlein particular, was ‘the top of the Empire State Building’. Ridiculous. Meeting up in person seemed a struggle enough as it was without moving it to an entirely different continent.
Maybe it was talking about tall buildings in big cities that jogged her next suggestion free. ‘The Shard,’ she said, becoming conscious of the idea the moment she heard herself say it. ‘The top of the Shard. At eleven o’clock on New Year’s Eve.’
‘Anna…’
He was going to turn her down again, and she couldn’t bear to hear him do it. Not tonight, anyway. She had to find a way to stall him. ‘You don’t have to say yes now. It’s still more than two months away. You don’t even have to go at all if you really don’t want to. But I’ll book two tickets to the observation platform…’
Could she do that? Was the Shard even open on New Year’s Eve? She had no clue. Well, if it weren’t, it would be a ‘sign’,like inSleepless in Seattle,and then she’d never ask Brody to meet her again.
She hurried on before he could shut her down. ‘If you come, you come. If you don’t, you don’t. It’ll be okay.’ She had to trust him, that whatever the reason for his reluctance, he’d either get over it or explain it at some point.
He sounded pained when he replied. ‘You could very well end up standing there waiting all night. You’d be alone at midnight…’
