The Sight of You

by Holly Miller

  I smile back at him. No matter how ineffectual I think I am, my dad’s always got something reassuring to say.

  He tucks me under his arm, pulls me close to the warm wall of his chest. I draw in the familiar coal-tar scent of him, take a second to love him all over again.

  “Now, you’re sure you don’t want us to keep the dog for a few days?” he says. “Give you a chance to run it by your neighbor?”

  That would be the sensible option, but I can’t relinquish Murphy, even for one night. It’s still hard to look at him, sometimes, without wondering if he’s thinking about where Grace has gone.

  Dad reads my expression as he draws away, gently squeezes my shoulder. “All right. But don’t you think you should at least tell your letting agent?”

  I look down at Murphy, who blinks back at me like he’d quite fancy getting some shut-eye. “Ian’s not really the sort of person you should be honest with, Dad.”

  Dad, man of principle that he is, appears to consider challenging me on this before changing his mind.

  “Thanks for the plants,” I tell him again, as he kisses me good-bye.

  It was his housewarming gift to me—a winter window box he’d potted up himself with primulas and ferns, a twist of variegated ivy, some heather and cyclamen. “Thought it might improve your view,” he said, as he gave it to me earlier. My eyes beaded with tears as I thanked him, picturing the time he must have spent finding the box, choosing the plants, positioning them just so.

  As Dad heads off, I glance at my new neighbor’s front window, but since the blinds are down and everything’s dark, I assume he’s out. I know I won’t be able to keep Murphy a secret for long, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to win him over somehow.

  Putting my key to the front-door lock, I realize that, strangely, it doesn’t fit. I stare down at it for a couple of moments before it comes to me. The door to my flat and the communal front door both have Yale locks, and I’ve only brought my flat key outside.

  I take a step back and look up at my window. I haven’t left it open—not that I fancy my chances of successfully scaling a plastic drainpipe. Then I wonder if perhaps the neighbor’s been forward-thinking enough to break the terms of his tenancy agreement by leaving a key under a flowerpot. But there aren’t any flowerpots out here, or anything you could really hide a key under.

  I’m starting to resign myself to calling my parents and staying the night at their place when the front door swings open.

  We both stop still, temporarily wordless.

  “Hello.” I feel a whoosh of unexpected pleasure. “What . . . what are you doing here?”

  “I live here. What are you doing here?” He squats down to greet Murphy, who’s writhing with excitement on the end of his lead. “Hello, you.”

  “You . . . live here?”

  Eyes alight, Joel straightens up. He always looks so classic, and tonight is no exception—navy-blue collared jacket, skinny jeans, brown boots. “Nearly ten years now.”

  For a moment I am speechless with happiness, before I realize he’s waiting for me to explain my presence on his doorstep. “I just moved in.”

  It takes him a second. “To Steve’s place?”

  “Yes.”

  His smile comes easily. “That’s great.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “So we’ll be neighbors.” He rubs his chin. “Well, how’ve you been? You know—in the twelve hours since I last saw you.”

  We chatted briefly in the café this morning, remarking on the two women sitting closest to the counter who’d come in laden with bags of Christmas wrapping paper. Such crassness should be banned until at least December, we agreed, before we realized simultaneously that in fact we do quite enjoy the early onslaught of Easter eggs in February.

  Time to confess. “Actually, I’ve locked myself out. I forgot to put the outside key on my key ring.”

  “Did the same when I moved in,” he says, in that lovely low voice of his. Still holding the door open, he steps aside to let me pass. He smells delicious, of sandalwood and spice. I try not to feel too self-conscious of my moving-day outfit—tracksuit bottoms and an ancient gray jumper with holes in both elbows. At least it’s dark, I suppose.

  “Thank you.” On the doormat, I pause. “Listen, I’m not supposed to have Murphy here, but—”

  “Won’t breathe a word.”

  “Thank you,” I say, my shoulders dropping with relief. Thank God it’s you.

  “I know it’s tough to find landlords who accept them.”

  I wonder if he’s speaking from experience. Being particularly enchanted by his rapport with Murphy, I asked him once if he had a dog, but he told me no. Perhaps he has done, in the past.

  He’s checking his watch. “Listen, sorry to be . . . I was just on my way out.”

  “Not at all. Don’t let me hold you up.”

  “The back garden’s all paved, I’m afraid,” he says, “but if you need to take him out last thing, there’s a green at the end of the cul-de-sac there.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know. Thanks.”

  His mouth remains steady, a fault line in the intriguing geography of his face. “Well, good night,” he says softly, eventually, before striding off down the front path into the night.

  12.

  Joel

  When I get back from walking Bruno, less than an hour after meeting my new neighbor, I stop in the hallway. Glance up the staircase that leads to Steve’s flat.

  Not Steve’s. Callie’s. She’s in the flat above me, right now. I picture her moving through it as she makes the space her own. Long hair kissing her shoulder blades, unpacking boxes with that steady self-containment I’ve come to know so well. Maybe she’s lit a candle, put on some music. Something urban but chilled. I noticed her bottle-green nail polish this morning as she set down my coffee. Caught the nectar of her perfume. Felt the strangest urge to cover her hand with mine, look up and say, Shall we go somewhere?

  I shut my eyes. Stop thinking about her. Just . . . stop.

  Still, I find myself lingering. She might have heard the outside door clunk closed as I came in. Perhaps she’ll pop her head out, suggest a nightcap, ask to borrow some sugar. She’ll make me laugh, maybe, like she does every day in the coffee shop. The queen of dry anecdotes, self-deprecating jokes.

  But then I take a breath. Make an effort to come to my senses. This will pass, I tell myself. Like a squall, or a tidal surge. It feels bigger than it is. Give it time, it will pass.

  * * *

  • • •

  The next night Callie and Murphy walk through the front door as I’m just getting in. I’ve been at Kieran’s: a catch-up over curry with him, his wife, Zoë, and their two kids.

  “Anything interesting?” Callie lets Murphy off the lead so he can pelt toward me. His tail swipes the air as though it’s been weeks since he’s seen me, not hours.

  I’m sifting through mail. “Sorry. Unless you fancy my gas bill. Or taking out a personal loan in Steve’s name.”

  Callie’s snug in a green parka with furry hood, a gray knitted scarf looped around her neck. “The best I can usually hope for is a bank statement. Or a circular from that frozen-food hellhole down the road.”

  I smile. “How’s the flat?”

  “Love it. It’s loads better than my last place. More space, less damp.” She sighs happily, then raises an eyebrow. “Jury’s still out on the downstairs neighbor, though.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, I don’t blame you. I’d give him a wide berth, if I were you. Looks dodgy.”

  She laughs too, pitching her door keys from palm to palm.

  “Are you just getting in from work?” I say. “It’s late.”

  “Oh, no, I . . . went somewhere afterward.”

  It’s like the engine’s cut out in my brain. “Sorry. I was aiming for neighborly concern
there, not trying to sound like your dad.”

  “Oh, that’s okay. I’m essentially my mum in disguise. I told a customer he’d catch his death today.”

  “Ha. What did he say?”

  “Nothing at first. Then he frowned and asked what I meant. He was early twenties, tops. Probably still a student.”

  I’m relieved she doesn’t seem to be holding my lack of social skills against me. Still, give it time. “Right.” I lift the wad of envelopes. “Better get on with this personal loan. These forms won’t falsify themselves.”

  She laughs politely, smooths a wayward wave of hair back behind her ears.

  I hesitate, then tilt forward slightly (because there’s nothing quite like someone leaning in to explain their own joke). “Just kidding. I’d be the world’s worst fraudster. Can barely buy booze without breaking into a sweat.”

  Obviously, I can’t get into my flat quickly enough after that.

  Why—why—was I talking to her about booze and sweat and financial crime?

  I haven’t felt clumsy like this in a while. Fat-tongued and foolish, struggling to make sense. Like an amateur actor bungling lines. No wonder she laughed so politely, hesitated before we parted like she was waiting for some sort of excruciating closing gag.

  How have I even got to this point? What happened to turning away from girls I get a feeling about, from smiles that tug at my gut, looks that land in my spine?

  * * *

  • • •

  I’d fallen for Kate, hard. After coupling up at the end of our second term at uni, we’d been dating for nearly a year. Had she not been on my course, I doubt our paths would have crossed. But we saw each other most days, and she was funny, gentle, warm.

  Kate always put my flaws down to the stress of studying, I think. Patchy sleep and restlessness, bouts of distraction, the occasional disappearing act? Well, that was all fairly consistent with being a student.

  But then I dreamed about her sleeping with someone else six years into our supposed future. She was in a flat I’d never seen before, naked on a mattress I assumed to be half mine. The guy she was with looked older than either of us (a colleague-to-be?). Anyway, he seemed pretty confident, life-choice-wise.

  It was the photo of us both on the nightstand that told me she was cheating. I debated hanging in there, wondered if I could stop it. But spending the next six years on the edge of my seat? That wasn’t how relationships were supposed to be. Anyway, the damage was already done. Some things in life you just can’t unsee.

  So I ended it. Came up with something painfully ironic about being unable to envisage a future. It was an odd feeling, apologizing for breaking her heart when it was fated to be the other way around.

  Getting over Kate wasn’t easy. It took me a while to stop dreaming about her. For the flames of what I felt for her to burn fully out. But five years on I met Vicky. She was the lead in a play I went to see, and we got chatting in the bar afterward. Quite how we ended up back at my place that night, I still don’t know. The competition was stiff, and much more cultured than me.

  At the start I tried to hide who I was. Live up to the man Vicky must have mistaken me for. And for a while I succeeded, until the day we moved in together. The proximity was like a grand reveal of the person she’d really met, and Vicky quickly grew impatient. Of my edginess and sleeping habits, the early-morning note-taking. Of my emotional restraint and tendency toward distraction. We started to bicker. Passive-aggression kicked in as we began detoxing from the drug of newly knowing each other. The torch beam was dimming, the air sneaking free from the neck of the balloon.

  The whole time we were together, I didn’t dream about Vicky once. After just six months I knew what that meant, and a part of me was relieved. A relationship without love was pointless, yes, but wasn’t it better that way? No love meant no added complications. No agonizing dreams, no lose-lose scenarios to sweat over. No premonitions of infidelity. I didn’t love Vicky, and it almost felt more reassuring than if I had.

  Who knows? Perhaps on some level, the whole thing was a master class in self-sabotage.

  Anyway. After she left, I made a decision, beautiful in its simplicity.

  I would never fall in love again.

  13.

  Callie

  I’m sitting alone at Waterfen, thinking about Grace.

  We first came here as children, scampering like rabbits across the wooden bridge linking public park to nature reserve. Clattering along its boardwalks and meandering sandy footpaths, we would sink our feet into marshy pools, scoop up damselflies with glistening wet hands. Grace would talk while I wandered in her wake, floating through clouds of frothing white meadowsweet, drunk as a bee on nature’s sumptuous song. We’d roam our private jungle of sedge and reed, the green bejeweled with magenta blazes of rosebay willowherb, staying out till dusk while the landscape cooled around us. And our chatter would always blossom with jokes and school and dreams.

  Back then Grace loved Waterfen for what it represented—illusory freedom, putting off her homework. But I loved Waterfen for what it was—something raw and unhewn, the way the world was meant to be. An immersive theater of wilderness, paradise on a stage.

  It was at Waterfen that we discovered our tree. A majestic old willow by the reserve’s farthest boundary, its boughs bent over the water’s edge like the heads of watchful herons. We scaled its furrowed trunk, became mermaids behind its leafy waterfall, smiled to each other as beneath the soles of our dangling feet, walkers wandered unknowingly on. We carved our initials into the rugged rivets of its bark.

  I climb the tree now, just as we always used to, even though it’s wet, even though it’s cold. The initials are still here, mossy and rain-smoothed. I run my finger through the dint of them, trying not to picture the engraving on Grace’s headstone.

  Ben and I came up with it together.

  Grace Garvey. Adored wife, daughter, niece, and granddaughter. Lover of life. Uncompromisingly unique.

  I never told anyone about our tree. It was just for Grace and me, always.

  After uni, when I moved back to Eversford, I was directionless at first. Grace was still traveling and Esther was in London temporarily, having just met Gavin. And my parents couldn’t fill the gap my friends had left. It was coming to Waterfen that kept me going—surrounding myself with greenery and things with wings.

  I think again about the reserve job Gavin mentioned all those weeks back. I’ve been checking the Waterfen website daily—but nothing. Still, I know how slowly things can move forward in charities, that it can take an age for the simplest of outlays to get approved.

  But even if a job did come up, I’m not completely sure I could give Ben my notice. Could I really hand Grace’s dream to someone else, discard it like an heirloom I no longer wanted?

  And yet . . . I have dreams of my own. Like working here at Waterfen, smelling the earthy sweetness of rain on a reed bed as corvids call and starlings swarm the sky. Getting wet and hot and muddy, breathless with hard work and happiness. Giving back just a little of what this place gives me.

  I’m sorry, I whisper to Grace’s ghost. I know the café was your dream. But I’m just not sure it will ever be mine.

  * * *

  • • •

  As I’m walking home, I feel all at once emboldened—maybe from thinking about Grace, or about moving on from the coffee shop somehow. I want to seize the moment and ask Joel up to my flat for a drink. After all, we’ve been neighbors for a whole week now. He can always say no.

  * * *

  • • •

  “This is homey,” Joel says, as I show him into the living room.

  Unwinding my scarf, I’m about to discard it as I always do on the arm of the sofa before changing my mind, rolling it up neatly on the console table by the door instead. Because, realistically, homey could be code for pigsty. I still haven’t finished
emptying boxes, and I should have tidied, of course, before asking him up.

  He appeared to deliberate, earlier, before saying yes. Instantly I panicked, afraid I’d made him feel awkward, obliged him to be polite. So I opened my mouth to attempt an excruciating backtrack—but before I could crucify myself, he said yes.

  I hope he wasn’t expecting my flat to look stylish or sophisticated. I have no furniture that didn’t come flat-packed, no artwork I didn’t pluck from a rack, no shiny ornaments or coordinated accessories. Just a muddle of mismatched items I’ve collected over the years, like the futon with the patchwork throw hiding coffee and red wine stains, a scattering of ring-marked cork coasters, and a variety of nature-themed mugs, courtesy of my friends and family. There are two bookcases in clashing shades of veneer stuffed with books on wildlife and nature, some very uncool trinkets—birds and woodland creatures, my loved ones running with a theme again—and a ramshackle jungle of plants on the inside windowsill. Nothing that says I’m an adult, successful, or remotely winning at life. And that’s before Joel’s tripped over any of the untouched boxes I have yet to deal with, half blocking the kitchen doorway.

  I make a sixty-second diversion to the bedroom to change, hyperventilate, smooth down my hair, and apply a swift rub of nude lipstick. Then I head back to the living room, offer Joel a drink. “I have coffee, tea, or . . . midrange wine.”

  He hesitates for a moment, then asks for a small glass of wine.

  As Joel moves over to my bookcase, Murphy at his heels, I fetch the bottle from the fridge and pour two glasses. I watch his fingers as he draws them slowly across the spines of my books, the sleeves of his sweater slightly too long for his wrists. I try to filter out his slow, lingering movements, the slender physique, the measured and thoughtful demeanor I would love to get to know better.

  “Plant glossary. Guide to trees. Lichens. Moths.”

  “I’m not very cool, I’m afraid,” I confess.