Just like you didn’t, Bren shoots back. No heads-up that you were getting married. Just a jpeg file, attached to an email.
Colour travelling up her throat, at that.
Midnight black outside the kitchen window.
Which is fine, Bren says. Obviously.
He shrugs again, with two shoulders now, and looks so unconcerned that Nora wonders if she should be, too.
I wasn’t being accusatory, she says, attempting a lightness of her own. I’m just confused, that’s all. Did you come back just for … I mean …
She rubs her arm, wishing she hadn’t drunk so much at the start of the night; wishing she didn’t feel so tongue-tied in his presence. Wishing she could pin this feeling, this slow-motion bass of her heartbeat, solely on too much alcohol.
Of course, Bren says. This is you, Nora. And this is a … big deal.
A bigger deal than your dad’s funeral? she says, but as soon as she does, she wishes she hadn’t, because something changes in his face. That ease of him dropping, like a curtain. Shutters brought down, locked up for the night.
I didn’t mean, she begins, but he says no, he gets it. He … thought it would be a nice thing, showing up like this. But clearly he’s read this all wrong.
No, she says. It’s –
I’m gonna go, he says, and he walks out the kitchen so she’s left looking at the empty wine glasses and the fridge magnets, the space where he had just been standing, thinking no, thisisn’t right. She has pictured their reunion many times over the years, and this is not it. This is not how it’s supposed to go.
Bren, she says, as she follows him down the hall, music still playing, her fiancé, she assumes, still sleeping. This is stupid. You came all this way.
And you’re right, Bren says. It was stupid.
It wasn’t, Nora says, a note of urgency in her voice as he tries to unlatch the front door. It was just – unsettling! You didn’t talk to me, all night.
You didn’t talk to me, either.
So you didn’t talk because I didn’t talk?
I flew across the world to be here, Nora.
So shouldn’t crossing the room be the easy part?
She is forcing humour into her words now; pleading with him, to see, come on, isn’t this funny?
But Bren releases the latch, says he’s jet-lagged, and she’s, you know. Got a life, here. He shouldn’t have sprung this on her.
No, you shouldn’t’ve, Nora says, but it doesn’t mean I want you to leave. I just – she holds up her palms – would’ve liked some notice, Bren, that’s all. I printed Polaroids of everyone. I didn’t print you a Polaroid.
I don’t care about the Polaroids, Nora, Bren says.
Where are you staying? she asks, slightly desperate, now, as he opens the front door. He’s left his expedition rucksack – the one he’d owned as a teenager, would pack for hiking weekends with his dad – propped against the wall of the flat. He lifts it onto his back, the street deserted, now. All of her other friends long gone.
I’ll figure it out, Bren says. A hostel, maybe.
There aren’t any hostels in suburban Hertfordshire, Nora tells him, and before she knows she will offer, she says stay here. We can have breakfast, in the morning. We can talk, properly, you can meet –
But it is her turn to falter as Bren clips his bag straps around his waist, still not looking at her. Sorry, Nora, he says, and he truly sounds it. Sorry I messed up.
And does he mean now, or does he mean then, and it is like a needle being pushed through her heart as he turns to walk down the path.
Bren, she says, a wild note in her voice, and to her surprise, he turns. Eyes on hers again, that nothingness – so practised, so calm – in his face.
Is that it, she asks him.
