Mostly this anonymity suited me. I had come here, after all, to escape my history, from feeling as if everyone knew every thing there was to know about me. And the City had begun to alter me. I had come to know my little corner of it, its rhythms and its danger points. I learned that if you gave money to the drunk at the bus station he would come and sit outside your flat for the next eight weeks; that if I had to walk through the estate at night it was wise to do it with my keys lodged between my fingers; that if I was walking out to get a late-night bottle of wine it was probably better not to glance at the group of young men huddled outside Kebab Korner. I was no longer disturbed by the persistent whump whump whump of the police helicopter overhead.
I could survive. Besides, I knew, more than anyone, that worse things could happen.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, Lou. Can’t sleep again?’
‘It’s just gone ten o’clock here.’
‘So, what’s up?’
Nathan, Will’s former physio, had spent the last nine months working in New York for a middle-aged CEO with a Wall Street reputation, a four-storey townhouse and a muscular condition. Calling him in my sleepless small hours had become something of a habit. It was good to know there was someone who understood, out there in the dark, even if sometimes his news felt tinged with a series of small blows – everyone else has moved on. Everyone else has achieved something.
‘So how’s the Big Apple?’
‘Not bad?’ His Antipodean drawl made every answer a question.
I lay down on the sofa, pushing my feet up on the armrest. ‘Yeah. That doesn’t tell me a whole lot.’
‘Okay. Well, got a pay rise, so that was cool. Booked myself a flight home in a couple of weeks to see the olds. So that’ll be good. They’re over the moon because my sister’s having a baby. Oh, and I met a really fit bird in a bar down on Sixth Avenue and we were getting on real well so I asked her out, and when I told her what I did, she said sorry but she only went out with guys who wore suits to work.’ He laughed.
I found I was smiling. ‘So scrubs don’t count?’
‘Apparently not. Though she did say she might have changed her mind if I was an actual doctor.’ He laughed again. Nathan was made of equanimity. ‘It’s cool. Girls like that get all picky if you don’t take them to the right restaurants and stuff. Better to know sooner, right? How about you?’
I shrugged. ‘Getting there. Sort of.’
‘You still sleeping in his T-shirt?’
‘No. It stopped smelling of him. And it had started to get a bit unsavoury, if I’m honest. I washed it and I’ve packed it in tissue. But I’ve got his jumper for bad days.’
‘Good to have back-up.’
‘Oh, and I went to the grief-counselling group.’
‘How was it?’
‘Crap. I felt like a fraud.’
Nathan waited.
I shifted the pillow under my head. ‘Did I imagine it all, Nathan? Sometimes I think I’ve made what happened between Will and me so much bigger in my head. Like how can I have loved someone that much in such a short time? And all these things I think about the two of us – did we actually feel what I remember? The further we get from it, the more those six months just seems like this weird … dream.’
There was a tiny pause before Nathan responded. ‘You didn’t imagine it, mate.’
I rubbed my eyes. ‘Am I the only one? Still missing him?’
Another short silence.
‘Nah. He was a good bloke. The best.’
That was one of the things I liked about Nathan. He didn’t mind a lengthy phone silence. I finally sat up and blew my nose. ‘Anyway. I don’t think I’ll go back. I’m not sure it’s my thing.’
‘Give it a go, Lou. You can’t judge anything from one session.’
‘You sound like my dad.’
‘Well, he always was a sensible fella.’
I started at the sound of the doorbell. Nobody ever rang my doorbell, aside from Mrs Nellis in flat twelve, when the postman had accidentally swapped our mail. I doubted she was up at this hour. And I certainly was not in receipt of her Elizabethan Doll partwork magazine.
It rang again. A third time, shrill and insistent.
‘I’ve got to go. Someone’s at the door.’
‘Keep your pecker up, mate. You’ll be okay.’
I put the phone down and stood up warily. I had no friends nearby. I hadn’t worked out how you actually made them when you moved to a new area and spent most of your upright hours working. And if my parents had decided to stage an intervention and bring me back to Stortfold, they would have organized it between rush-hours as neither of them liked driving in the dark.
I waited, wondering if whoever it was would simply realize their mistake and go away. But it rang again, jarring and endless, as if they were now leaning against the bell.
I got up and walked to the door. ‘Who is it?’
‘I need to talk to you.’
A girl’s voice. I peered through the spy-hole. She was looking down at her feet, so I could only make out long chestnut hair, an oversized bomber jacket. She swayed slightly, rubbed at her nose. Drunk?
‘I think you have the wrong flat.’
‘Are you Louisa Clark?’
I paused. ‘How do you know my name?’
‘I need to talk to you. Can you just open the door?’
‘It’s almost half past ten at night.’
‘Yeah. That’s why I’d rather not be standing here in your corridor.’
I had lived there long enough to know not to open my door to strangers. In that area of town it was not unusual to get the odd junkie ringing bells speculatively in the hope of cash. But this was a well-spoken girl. And young. Too young to be one of the journalists who had briefly fixated on the story of the handsome former whizz-kid who had decided to end his life. Too young to be out this late? I angled my head, trying to see if there was anyone else in the corridor. It appeared to be empty. ‘Can you tell me what it’s about?’
‘Not out here, no.’
I opened the door to the length of the safety chain, so that we were eye to eye. ‘You’re going to have to give me more than that.’
She couldn’t have been more than sixteen, the dewy plumpness of youth still visible in her cheeks. Her hair long and lustrous. Long skinny legs in tight black jeans. Flicky eyeliner, in a pretty face. ‘So … who did you say you were?’ I asked.