‘Not at first but eventually.’
‘The fact he talked about her at all is…surprising.’ He cradled the glass against his chest.
‘Has he been to the house yet?’
His dark eyes trained on my face for a long moment and he shook his head.
‘Look, would you just let me in, please?’
Stephen sighed. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘I need to tell him I’m sorry.’
‘Well that’s the problem isn’t it. If you tell him you’re sorry for accusing him unjustly, then he’ll want to know what made you think it in the first place. I can’t have you telling him I interfered. He’s only just started talking to me properly again.’
It was hard to be annoyed at Stephen when it was written so clearly all over his face that he was trying to protect his relationship with his brother, if in a very weird and unhealthy way.
‘I won’t tell him,’ I offered and stepped closer to Stephen, willing him to see the honesty in my face. ‘I promise. I’ll say I just put two and two together myself and got it wrong.’ I laced my fingers together as Stephen frowned down at me. He glanced over his shoulder towards the inside of the apartment building, putting his hand flat against the wood ready to push it open and my desperate little heart leapt.
And then he shook his head slowly.
‘I’m sorry. I just can’t risk it.’ He went inside and closed the door.
I gasped like he’d just thrown his drink in my face.
‘Stephen. Stephen.’ I banged on the door with my fist, but the interior light winked out and when I pressed the buzzer, it made a disconnected noise. He’d taken his phone off the hook. ‘Agh.’ I grit my teeth against the compulsion to dent the perfect, glossy door and call Stephen every bad name I could think of. I couldn’t believe I’d got this close and he’d blocked me. Again.
I stomped off the step and glared up at the building as though I could laser through it with the sheer force of my anger. Was I really going to let this happen? I was breathing like I’d run around the enormous green a couple of times. But short of scaling the building and trying to gain entry via one of the balconies, there was nothing else I could do, was there?
With only six apartments in there, Stephen had to either be on the ground floor or one of those upstairs with a balcony. Maybe if I yelled, really loudly, I could get Nick to hear me. I bet it was really thick double glazing though. It’d need more noise than shouting to penetrate it. I touched my hand to the bottom of my guitar as I remembered I was wearing it. Of course, I had the perfect means of making a lot of noise.
I crossed the road and sized the building up, trying to pick the best spot from which to project my voice. Something central to cover all the bases was probably best. Spinning on the spot, I found a tree in the gardens, almost directly opposite the front door of the building. I jogged down to the lights where there was an entrance into the gardens and followed the shadowy path. Woe betide any criminal who was lurking in the bushes, if they dared to jump out at me with my adrenalin pumping the way it was, I’d karate kick them into next year.
I made it to my desired tree unhindered, kicked off my shoes, shrugged off my puffy jacket at the bottom and took my guitar out of its case. There was a branch hanging near my head, so I hooked the guitar strap over that and started climbing. This tree really had been made for me. A few feet up the main trunk split into two thick parts, creating a perfect foothold, and the branch on one side bent in a horizontal line to form a small seat. Once I hoisted myself up, I shuffled around, wincing at the rough bark digging into my cold feet and snagging my tights, then tested the branch gingerly with my bottom. Despite an ominous creak, it held. I braced one leg against the opposite branch of the tree and leaned over to grab my guitar from where I’d hooked it.
Now, to play something loud. A Busted song would have been the perfect choice but did I remember any of them? No. McFly, however, had the same vibe and I had sung those when I was at school.
I strummed a loud G and started do-do-ing at the top of my lungs. By the time I launched into the first verse about the girl with five colours in her hair, shouting the words rather than singing, curtains were starting to twitch. I could see silhouettes at some of the windows and I scanned the balconies for a sign of Nick anywhere. A door opened on one and my stomach flipped, but no one appeared. I was reaching the end of the song and I couldn’t remember the rest of the words. My chilled fingers stung from hitting the strings so hard and my voice was catching.
He wasn’t coming. People three buildings down could hear me.Hemust have been able to hear me. But he wasn’t coming. Stephen had probably outwitted me again with more lies or by turning Jools Holland up on his TV. I gulped for a breath as I ran out of lyrics and waited.
My hope was stretched so thin now. What was I doing? I was up a tree in a posh bit of London, freezing my toes off, probably about to get arrested, and it hadn’t worked.
I closed my eyes and my fingers started playing the song they always did when I was sad and holding this guitar: ‘Three Little Birds’. I shaped the chords and strummed without really needing to think about it at all. And there was my dad’s voice, in my ear, laughing and chiding me not to rush, it was a chill song, just relax into it and enjoy, and I tried. It was like my magic spell to conjure him up, the warmth of him beside me on the sofa as we played, the mingled scents of tobacco and shea butter that would always be him. It took me back to a time when I was more innocent and so purely myself.
Something settled at the centre of my being and I moved into playing ‘Come Away with Me’, singing Norah Jones’s sultry lyrics about tin roofs and rain. I’d wanted to sing Nick this song at the piano and it hadn’t been the right time, but now it was, even if it was just to say goodbye. I opened my eyes like I was waking up from a dream as I finished the song and a tear rolled down my cheek, hit my guitar and slipped inside the dark cavity as though storing the memory of Nick for every time I played or heard this song too. Maybe we never really said goodbye to anyone that mattered to us.
‘I think I’ve figured out which one of us is the insane one.’ Nick’s wry voice had my head snapping up and I almost fell out of the tree.
‘Nick,’ I cried out at the sight of him, on the other side of the railings, in his thick grey coat, squinting up at me through his glasses. ‘How long have you been standing there?’
‘Long enough,’ he said grimly, raising an eyebrow. He was back to being that blunt, closed-off version of Nick that I first barrelled into in the alleyway. I’d known he was not going to be happy with me but knowing it in my head and feeling the waves of coldness roll off him, when I’d gotten so used to heat, was still painful. I shivered.
‘Nick, I came to say that I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘For accusing you of being the hotel reviewer and being so angry about it and not believing you when you were telling me the truth.’ The shivers were hitting me harder now I’d stopped playing and when I shifted my guitar, I lost a bit of my balance and had to cling to the branch. ‘I was really harsh to you and—’
