‘Great,’ I say, trying to inject as much enthusiasm as I can into my voice. Josh thinks the break will be good for me, but the truth is I do miss the hub of the TV station. I miss getting my teeth into a story, leaving no stone unturned until I’ve exposed corruption, or illegal activity. It made me feel alive. It made me feel I was doing something worthwhile to make up for … well, for my family. Josh, on the other hand, has had the same job since we both graduated from the same university nine years ago, slowly climbing the ladder of the engineering company he works for to become a project manager. My older sister, Alison, calls him Steady Eddie and I suppose he is – most of the time. But that implies that he’s boring and one-dimensional when, like all of us, he’s complicated, layered, although Alison never delves beneath the surface, only ever sees what she wants to see. She doesn’t notice Josh’s insecurities from growing up without knowing his father. Or how protective he is of his mum. When I met Josh I saw the chink of darkness he masked with his chirpy exterior because I did the same. We could relate to one another. We were only eighteen when we met, and he was my first serious boyfriend. I’d retreated further into myself after my mum died, but Josh had seen something in me. Something broken thathe wanted to mend. He made the world colourful again. He made me want to live.
The kitchen window has fogged up from the heat of the hob and the enclosed space makes me feel drowsy. I reach over and turn the radio down. Josh always plays music way too loud. I prefer peace and solitude. It already feels as though I have hundreds of different instruments crashing inside my skull at the best of times. And despite loving my job, it had started to add drum and bass to the haphazard cacophony already in my head.
‘Glass of wine?’ Josh goes to the window where a bottle of Pinot Noir sits, unopened, on the shelf.
‘Ooh, yes please.’ I watch as he pours me a glass, and I try not to guzzle it back in one go. Josh doesn’t like it when I drink too much. He turns back to the pan and chatters away about his day as he stirs and I’m only half listening as I slump onto one of the bar stools. He dishes up the spaghetti Bolognese and then joins me. ‘Thanks, babe,’ I say to him, reaching over and rubbing his back. ‘I’m starving.’
He grins in response, like a child who’s just been praised, offering me the bowl of grated cheese, which I turn down, before he scatters a generous portion over his food. He shovels a forkful into his mouth like he hasn’t eaten for a week. He always misses lunch, surviving on coffee and adrenaline, so by dinner time he’s ravenous. We fall into a companionable silence as we eat. It’s one of the things I love about Josh: he doesn’t feel as though he has to fill in the gaps between conversations and, overthe years, I’ve learnt how to do this too. My friend from work, Rachel, teases me that we’re more like a couple in middle age than people who are just thirty, but that’s the beauty of being with the same person for twelve years. We know everything about each other. Well, mostly everything. Of course, there are some things I don’t tell Josh. Things I know he wouldn’t appreciate, and I’m sure the same applies to him. Over the years we’ve learnt what we can and can’t talk about in order to keep our relationship on an even keel. And, inevitably, there are things I don’t love about Josh. Things that I wish were different, although I’ve had to accept them because the pros outweigh the cons. At least, most of the time.
‘Oh,’ he says casually after we’ve finished. ‘A letter arrived for you earlier. I’ve put it on top of the microwave.’ I can tell by the twitch of the muscle in his jaw that he’s feigning nonchalance. I can just imagine him puzzling over it when he got home, tempted to rip it open. Josh is the nosiest person I know. I used to joke thatheshould have been the journalist. Not that he would have opened it without my consent. It would have been a lesson in constraint, a mental task he’d set for himself: wait until after dinner to mention the letter.
‘It looked pretty official,’ he says now, his back to me as he stacks the dishwasher.
I tense. ‘Is it from the prison?’
He spins around to face me with a plate in his hand. ‘What makes you think that?’
It’s something I’ve been dreading. Every time I get an official-looking letter, I wonder if it’s about my dad. ‘It’s been nearly sixteen years,’ I say quietly.
Concern floods his face. ‘Yes, but he got life.’
‘You know as well as I do that life isn’t actually life …’ He was sentenced to a minimum of twenty-five years, but our solicitor warned us at the time that he could serve less.
Josh dumps the plate in the sink and moves to the microwave, taking the letter from the top, his expression grave as he examines the envelope. ‘Well, I can’t see a prison stamp.’ He hands it to me. ‘The only way you’re going to know is to open it.’
The letter says ‘Private and Confidential’, and I have to swallow down the nausea. I glance up at Josh, who is trying his best to hide his curiosity. ‘What if he’s going to be released?’ I don’t want to see him. I never want to see him again.
‘Ims …’ Josh sounds exasperated. ‘Just open it.’
My fingers tremble slightly as I rip it open. It’s from a firm of solicitors in Bath. I read it quickly, hardly daring to breathe as unexpected words jump out at me.Estate. Wills. Dorothea.
‘Well, it isn’t about my dad,’ I say, frowning, after I’ve read it. ‘It’s … well, it’s about a will.’
‘A will?’ He moves towards me, and I hand him the letter to read, my mind racing. He’s silent as he takes in the information and then looks up at me, his mouth hanging open. ‘Who the hell is Dorothea Roe?’
‘She was this artist friend of my mum’s.’ I realize, even as I’m saying it, how much I’m downplaying how important Dorothea once was to me. I’ve never told Josh about that summer. I clear my throat, trying to find the right words. ‘Mum was her cleaner. Had been for a few years and they’d become friends …’
Josh snorts in response and I half expect him to make a quip about how posh old ladies aren’t ever really friends with their cleaners, but he doesn’t.
‘Dorothea helped us out after … after Mum left my dad.’
‘Your mum left your dad?’ He hands me back the letter.
‘Yes. For about four months during the summer of 2008, Dorothea let us stay with her at her beautiful house in Bath while Mum figured out what to do …’ I swallow. The memory of that last idyllic summer is still too painful to think about, a bittersweet moment in my adolescence that I’d buried away. I’d been fourteen and it was the last time I’d been truly happy before my world was turned upside down. By mid-September Mum had decided to go back to my dad and, apart from twice, I never saw Dorothea again. I’d contemplated visiting her many times, but Alison always persuaded me not to, saying Dorothea obviously didn’t want to keep in touch. I’d tried to push away my feelings of abandonment, but it still hurt.
And now it’s too late. I’ll never see her again.
‘I can’t believe you never told me about your mum leaving your dad. Or Dorothea,’ says Josh.
‘I wanted to forget.’ The letter trembles in my hands. ‘I didn’t even realize she’d died. Why would she leave me anything? Could it be a hoax?’
‘She might have left you money. Or a family heirloom. Ring the number to check.’
‘I can’t now. They’ll be closed. It’s gone five.’
‘Just try them! You never know, they might still be open. Where’s your phone?’
I go to the hallway to fetch it from my bag, Josh following close behind. He’s fizzing with energy and the hallway feels cramped. ‘Don’t get too excited,’ I warn as I tap in the solicitor’s number. ‘This could be a scam.’
