The pub door opened, with a blast of cold air. In the mirror, Will saw Clare shaking snow from her hat. To his surprise, she was with two Smart Yak producers. She must have started coming to the pub more since she’d split up from her boyfriend.
Hannah’s second message came to an abrupt halt in his ear: ‘… so can you … please, Will. My phone hardly … out here, and—’
Will saw Clare sit down with the producers, and decided to ring Hannah back later.
Right now, he wanted to go over there. Not because of the unexpected whisper of suggestion when Clare had taken off her coat earlier. He didn’t know where that had come from. He just wanted to sit and enjoy a rare afternoon pint in the pub before he returned to work, without Hannah controlling his every move.
He turned off his phone, waited to feel bad – and didn’t.
It was her idea to decorate the whole house in two weeks, not his. He’d told her that Barbara didn’t care what colour the walls were, but that had just caused more ‘discussions’ about him ‘being ridiculously naive and not being realistic about what they needed to do’.
His stomach rumbled. He’d forgotten to order any food. He checked the menu on the wall. Clare and the producers saw him and waved him over.
Exhaustion and hunger, and the need for easy-going company, propelled Will towards them, and pushed Hannah from his thoughts in a way that would not have been possible eight months ago.
He told himself it wasn’t serious.
All along, Will’s intention had been to return to work after he’d eaten.
It just didn’t work out that way.
His afternoon in the King’s Head started with one pint. By five o’clock, however, he was on his second, and locked in a conversation with more Smart Yak people, as they too gave up work for the day, having lost clients and bosses and assistants to the snow. There was a party atmosphere in the pub. Plates of steak pies and chips were ordered. Someone started a pool tournament.
Clare seemed to know quite a few people. ‘You’re not on that sofa again tonight, are you?’ she shouted to Will, across the noisy table.
He gave her a wry smile. The truth was that he’d hardy slept for an hour at a time last night and needed to find a hotel, or his back would go completely.
There was something animated about Clare tonight. That lightness in her face again. She leant over a producer Will didn’t like, a young cokehead called Neil with a beer belly, who made bad dance music. ‘Listen, Will. You know, if Jamie’s stuck in Brighton, you should use his room. You’re more than welcome.’
‘Wahey! There’s an offer, mate,’ Neil exclaimed.
‘And you’d know, because your world’s just full of offers, isn’t it, Neil?’ Clare cut across him.
Neil blushed, attempting a cocky smirk.
Will smiled. She was feistier than he had given her credit for.
‘Cheers,’ he said, ‘but I’ll probably work through.’
‘Sure?’
He raised his glass. ‘But thanks.’
‘Tell you what,’ Clare said. She fished in her bag and handed him keys. ‘Those are Jamie’s. I’m OUT tonight,’ she said, glowering at Neil. ‘But if you change your mind, use them. Really. It’s 42C Arndale Road – two up on the right towards the Tube.’
She pushed them into his hand.
‘Well, listen, I probably won’t, but cheers,’ he said.
‘Up to you – you’re welcome.’ She put on her Cossack hat, said her goodbyes and disappeared into the white-out.
Will ignored Neil’s attempt to recover from Clare’s put-down – now that she was gone – with a more confident version of the smirk. It’s not that Hannah would care if he stayed at Clare’s. That was another thing he’d loved about her when they met. She’d never been even vaguely bothered when he went out for the night, or off on writing trips abroad with female musicians or press officers. She was more likely just to be pissed off that Clare had made it easier for him not to make an effort to return to Suffolk tonight. He put her keys in his pocket.
‘Will – you’re on!’ came a call from the pool table.
Before he knew it he’d played three games, and drunk another pint. He felt more relaxed than he had for months.
Eight months, precisely.
It was a relief just to hang out, without Hannah obsessing about Tornley Hall and Barbara all the time.
He hit the ball hard. It bounced off the green and hit a yellow.
He’d gone along with her plan, because she’d promised it would make everything right again. But Will was starting to realize he didn’t believe her any more.
Resentment grew for what he’d had to leave behind. She wasn’t the only one last summer had happened to.
Will stood back to let his opponent play.
Someone shouted his name from the bar, and motioned a drink. He raised his thumb.
One more pint, then he’d go and work on Jeremiah’s track. The sofa would be fine tonight. He’d find a hotel tomorrow.
His opponent missed and Will stepped forward, sizing up his shot.
Clare’s keys crushed into his hip as he leant across the table.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
That same evening, Hannah stood back and examined her handiwork. Now she had the keys, she had decided to paint the study rather than the dining room. That way she could unclutter the hall into the study, when the paint was dry.
In the end, it had only taken nine hours. She saved decorating time by leaving four large areas of nasty brown wallpaper where the record shelves would stand.
At 8 p.m. she washed out her brushes and drank the last, flat glass of Laurie’s cava, and ate the last of the cheese. Will’s job had been to do a supermarket shop on Monday night on the way home. If he didn’t make it back tomorrow, either, she’d start to run out of food soon.
Today, however, had at least ended better than it had started. One more room done.
After the unnerving events of the past twenty-four hours, Hannah felt her focus return.
Ten-and-a-bit more days till Barbara came, and nothing was going to stop her.
Not Will being stuck in London.
Not vagrants.
Not broken boilers.
Nothing.
Also, she hadn’t heard the donkey all day and was starting to feel hopeful that her ‘word’ with the unfriendly farmer had actually done the trick.
She stoked up the little fire in the hall and sat on the hall stairs, sipping her cava, wondering what Barbara’s initial impression would be when she walked in next week. Would she see what Hannah wanted her to see: a welcoming, happy family home?
Her mind drifted back to the first time Barbara had visited the London flat, more than two years ago. It was immediately clear that they’d struck it lucky. Barbara was intuitive and kind, with a warm laugh. She’d handled Will’s initial reticence to talk about his difficult childhood with sensitivity and patience. They’d begun to trust her; to become used to her in-depth questions about their families, their life experiences and their own relationship. They realized that Barbara liked them.
Yet Hannah was not stupid. Behind Barbara’s warm manner lay a sharp, professional eye. It was her responsibility to check that Hannah and Will were telling the truth; that they were trustworthy.
Hannah surveyed the cracks on the ceiling and the stained floor-tiles.
If for a moment Barbara thought they were deceiving her, Hannah knew that everything would change.
Night-time was so unrelentingly dark out here. Despite the log fires, the cold crept through the draughty windows and loose doors. Shivering, Hannah nailed a piece of wood to the small, broken hall window, and double-checked the doors and other windows before heading upstairs.
She was on the second step when the donkey’s agonized honk entered the house again.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ She sat on the stairs, head in her hands.
The plaintive bray reached through the windows, once, then twice more, tugging at her
conscience. It was back out in the snow. What was wrong with that farmer?
Hannah threw on her coat, grabbed her keys and, as an afterthought, her phone. If she couldn’t report the farmer right now, she could at least collect some evidence.
She entered the dark, snowy garden and walked to the field. The shelter from last night had gone. When the bray came again, she followed her torch beam down the field and saw the donkey thirty yards further along the fence. To her anger, she saw that the farmer and her sons had simply moved its crap shelter further away from Tornley Hall, yet still far enough from the farm that the noise wouldn’t disturb them. Bastards.
‘Poor boy,’ she said. Shielding the flash from view of the farm, she took five photos of the scene on her phone from different angles.
Checking no one was nearby, she set off towards the donkey. ‘Come on,’ she said, untying its rope and returning it to the garage for the night. Back in the house, five minutes later, she stripped off her wet clothes for what felt like the tenth time this week.
Hannah wrapped herself in her duvet and sat in front of the sitting-room fire, checking the photos on her phone. This is what she’d have to do: help the donkey when she could, and keep collating the evidence.
Even as she thought it, however, she knew she was trying to make herself feel better for not ringing the RSPCA right now.
To distract herself, she tried Will one last time. To her surprise, he answered.
‘Hi, where are you?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to make it home?’
‘Hi, Han.’ The sound of his voice made her want him there now, inside this duvet, so much it hurt. She missed him so much that she wanted to have sex with him, even though she knew that, when it came to it, she wouldn’t.
‘No. I’m still here. Sorry, I’ve been working … on the track … day.’
‘Oh, OK. Don’t worry. Listen, the signal’s crap. You’re cutting out, and I want to talk to you. Did you get my messages?’
This time Will’s words cut out straight away.
‘Will?’
She thought she heard music down the phone. Then a shout. A woman’s voice.
‘Will?’
‘Hello?’ He sounded distracted.
‘Where are you?’
‘In the studio … just back … the pub – Jem and his girlfriend are here … late session.’
‘OK,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Well, look, I really need to speak to you. There’s been some weird stuff going on here. Will you ring me tomorrow?’
‘OK.’
She waited for him to ask her how she was.
The phone crackled.
‘I’m really missing you,’ she said, pushing the phone into her cheek. ‘You didn’t leave me a note.’
The crackling stopped. The call had finally cut out.
She sat on the floor, the phone still at her ear, even though Will was gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Back in London, Will listened to Hannah’s voice. ‘I’m really missing you. You didn’t leave me …’
Quietly he pressed the ‘End call’ button. He put the phone on Jamie’s bed.
‘Coffee?’ Clare shouted from her living room.
Will’s plan to return to the studio had not materialized. At half-nine tonight he was still in the King’s Head. It had just felt too good to be out, talking music with a few mates and having a few more pints.
In fact he’d probably still be in the King’s Head now, if he hadn’t stumbled into a wall outside the toilet and realized he’d overdone it.
At that point he’d tried to work out how much he’d drunk, but gave up. Instead he’d left the King’s Head to a wall of cheers. At some point – he wasn’t sure when – he’d decided to take Clare up on her offer. Hotels were probably shut anyway because of the snow. And he was cold.
That studio was freezing at night.
The street was a practical white-out, but being London, life went on. Girls in club gear were having a snowball fight in dresses and high heels. One threw a snowball at him flirtatiously, and he threw one back. A black cab crawled through the snow with its yellow ‘For hire’ light on. A gig was going on at the Brazilian bar opposite, people salsa-dancing in the window.
Will hugged his jacket and walked unsteadily onwards.
He loved this city. The energy never stopped.
Why the hell had he let Hannah make him leave it?
He brushed snow off each street sign until he found Arndale Road. He veered into it at an angle, feeling the freezing air sobering him up already. No. 42 was the entrance to a small block of ex-council flats. It reminded him of Hannah’s Holloway flat.
He walked up to the second-floor balcony, unlocked door C with Clare’s key and stumbled inside, hoping she wasn’t there. That way he could crash out, without having to make awkward conservation.
The flat was tiny. It was feminine, like her studio. There were fake-fur rugs and silk draped around, and two of her floor-lamps, dripping with glass beads, and silver leaves. It looked as if she’d used this house-move to remove every trace of her ex-boyfriend.
Will took off his coat, thinking of the long, dark corridors and huge kitchen at Tornley Hall. Nobody needed that much room. He liked this place. This was all you needed. If this were his, he’d fill it with vinyl and books and a sofa.
He peered into a rear bedroom and saw a Victorian bedstead, piled with clothes. Next door was a child’s room.
He threw his coat onto that bed, listing to the right. Would Clare mind if he made coffee? In the kitchen he searched through a pile of herbal-tea boxes until he found a jar of instant. On the fridge there was a photo of Clare, altered on an app to look obese. She had giant cheeks and a triple chin. FAT MUM, it said in childlike writing underneath it. On the fridge door was a small banner that spelled LOVE out in glitter. A sheet of house-rules was next to it, starting with ‘1. Mum is always right’. ‘Mum’ had been crossed out and replaced with ‘Jamie’, which in turn had been replaced with ‘Mum’ again, and then with ‘The Cat’.
Will smiled. This is what he wanted with his kid.
A sense of loss hit him, and he rubbed his face.
He took his coffee into the sitting room. The flat kept reminding him of Hannah when he’d met her, eight years ago, when kids hadn’t even crossed their minds. When he’d go round for dinner and find people from countries he’d never heard of squashed at her pull-out table, eating food he’d never eaten before, talking politics – Hannah in the middle of it all, pouring wine, jousting with her boss, Jane, touching his foot with hers when no one was looking. Hannah’s world had been big and bold then, and she’d raced across it.
A sadness crawled through him for what had gone, and then for what had never been.
He recalled Hannah last summer, on the floor of their flat in Shepherd’s Bush, rocking. A ripped photocopy of a photo on the floor. Lost. He’d have done anything to make it right for her.
So when she’d promised this move to Suffolk, he’d agreed.
He’d just wanted her back.
But the longer he was away from her, the more he saw the truth. The move wasn’t fixing things. It was ripping their world further apart. The earth was opening up beneath them, shifting them out of each other’s reach.
He had lied to Hannah on the phone tonight.
When Clare had walked into the flat and shouted ‘Hello’, he’d said it was Jeremiah’s girlfriend, then pretended that the phone signal had died.
He didn’t want to think why.
‘Will, do you want coffee?’ Clare shouted again.
He couldn’t ignore her. It would be rude.
‘Hi,’ he said, opening the bedroom door.
‘Hey! You came – excellent.’
‘Yeah, I thought the hotels might be closed. So, thanks.’ He tried not to slur. It felt like trying to control a skidding car.
‘Oh, you’re really welcome.’ Her nose was pink again, and ice dripped off her hat. Perhaps because he was pissed, she reminde
d him – with her silvery eyes – of the penny arcades in Great Yarmouth that Nan took him and Laurie to on summer nights.
He touched the sofa, trying to stay steady.
‘So you got in OK?’ she asked, removing her coat. He averted his eyes from her dress.
‘Yeah,’ he said, not knowing where to put himself in the tiny sitting room. It felt awkward. She seemed different, here, among her own things. More confident. Her hair was tied back in a loose bun. She picked up a tartan blanket and threw it over her shoulders, and gave a big comedy shiver.
‘Sorry – it’s freezing in here.’
‘No. It’s good,’ he said, wondering whether he should sit down.
‘So was that your wife you were speaking to?’ She motioned towards Jamie’s room.
The word ‘wife’ still sounded strange to him. Another thing he’d done for Hannah, because she thought it would improve their chances with Barbara – even though previously she’d been no more bothered about marriage than him.
‘Yes.’
‘How’s she managing in the snow?’ Clare sat on a sofa that was covered in lace and cushions. She motioned to an old leather chair, and he sat unsteadily. ‘Matt said your new house is in the middle of nowhere?’
‘Yeah, um …’
Jesus. Talk, man. If he didn’t start acting normal soon, she’d worry about having him in the flat. ‘Hannah’s not … She’s doesn’t spook easily.’
Clare tucked her long legs under her denim dress. ‘Matt said she used to have an amazing job – travelling to war zones, or something?’
Used to have.
‘No, not quite; she travelled to some dangerous places, but she is – well, she was – a press officer for a human-rights charity that campaigns for educators, so she used to take journalists to countries where people were jailed by governments for writing the wrong textbook or teaching the “wrong” thing – organizing a union, that kind of thing. Yeah, so …’
‘Wow.’ She watched him carefully. ‘But not any more?’
‘No.’
‘So, do you, um …’ she tried.
He saw concern in her eyes.
‘Clare,’ he said. ‘Look. I’m sorry, but I’m wasted. I stayed in the pub.’
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