I ignored him. ‘I’ve been stuck in that car for a very long time, and I need to pee. Quite badly, in fact. So, it looks like we have two choices: I could do it out here in the bushes like my dog, or you could be a decent human being and invite me into your house.’
For one dreadful moment I thought he was going to go with option a), but thankfully he hadn’t lost all memory of how to interact with people.
‘Five minutes. That’s all you can have. Then you need to climb into your car, turn around, and head back to wherever it was you came from.’
He spun on his heel and strode towards the cabin with Fletcher and me trotting behind. The front door opened into a surprisingly spacious hallway. The walls were lined with wood, and it reminded me of a ski lodge where Adam and I had stayed for our second anniversary.
‘Bathroom is down the hall on the right,’ Josh said curtly, turning in the opposite direction towards a room that appeared to be the kitchen.
More than his abrasive manner and lack of social graces, the shelves in the bathroom confirmed that Josh lived alone. A solitary toothbrush sat in a mug by the basin and the toiletries on the shelf were sparse. There was a single comb and a razor on a glass shelf, and none of the clutter that graced my own ensuite. The room was clean, the towels smelled fresh, but there was something incredibly lonely about it.
Very aware that the clock was ticking on the five minutes I’d been allowed, I washed my hands and tried to stop my eyes from straying to that lone toothbrush.
As I headed down the corridor, I could hear Josh’s voice and wondered if he was on the phone.Probably calling the police to have me forcibly removed from his property, I thought with a wry twist of my lips.
But I was wrong. Although Josh instantly clammed up at the sound of my footsteps, I realised he must have been talking to Fletcher from the way the dog’s tail was still waving back and forth. On the floor beside my pet was a large bowl of water, which Fletcher bent to lap from eagerly. That pulled a thread in me that I really didn’t want to be tugged on right then.
‘All done?’ Josh asked brusquely. ‘You need to be heading off now.’
I looked at him for a long moment, this stranger wearing my old friend’s face. Had I done this? Was I the reason he was now a granite facsimile of the person I used to know?
‘If it’s not too much trouble, could I also have some water before you evict me?’
His lips tightened, but he reached for a glass on the draining board.
‘And if it’s at all possible, could you heat it up and throw in a tea bag and some milk?’ The one thing we had always shared was a sense of humour, and for just a millisecond I thought I glimpsed an incoming smile, before the ice in his veins froze it out.
‘I’m not turning this into a social occasion, Lily. You need to leave.’
‘I will. But surely after all the years we’ve known each other, you can spare me the time it takes for the kettle to boil?’
‘I’d rather not,’ he said, his voice dour, but he reached for the appliance and began filling it.
‘Thank you,’ I said softly.
‘Don’t thank me.’ His voice was gruff. ‘Just drink your tea and go.’
Unaware he was acting like a traitor, Fletcher inched closer to Josh’s legs, his tail beating out a tattoo on the wooden floor. Absently, Josh reached down and rubbed the dog’s head. Truly that animal had no loyalty. Adam would be positively spinning in his grave if he saw this. The thought brought me back to the present with the force of a slap.
I wasn’t here for tea, or small talk, or an afternoon ofDo you remember when ...?We hadn’t left things in a good place six years ago, and it was foolish of me to have thought that the intervening years would have changed anything.
‘Adam died.’
I hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. I hadn’t known the words were even in my head until I saw the stiffening of Josh’s shoulders as he reached for a mug from the cupboard. He extracted one – not two, I noticed – and set it down carefully on the worktop before turning slowly to face me.
‘I know.’
‘How? How do you know? Who told you?’
There was a ghost of a smile on his lips that held no humour at all.
‘I saw it online. I’m not completely cut off from civilisation out here. I do have internet and phone contact with the outside world.’ I felt a blush colouring my cheeks that I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop.
‘That’s not what I meant. I was wondering why you’d bothered keeping tabs on Adam ... or me,’ I added, my voice fading away to a whisper.
‘I didn’t. But Adam messaged me about eighteen months ago. Said we needed to talk.’
‘What? Why did he contact you? What did he want to talk about?’
