“How’s your dad?” said Jessica.
I felt it hit me again, right in the pit of the stomach. How long does it have to be since a death, for that to stop?
“Oh – he died,” I said.
Jessica’s face twitched. “Oh, Maudie,” she said. She sounded close to tears. “Oh, no. How – how – I mean, when?”
“Just recently. This autumn, actually.” I surprised myself. I could talk quite matter of factly about it. There was something about her obvious distress that made me want to soften the blow.
Jessica ground her cigarette out. “That’s upset me,” she said, almost in a mutter. “That’s really upset me. I can’t believe it.”
I felt a little finger of cold nudge me in the ribs. If she reacted like that to Angus’s death, how would she react to the news of her own parents’ fate? I held onto my glass, feeling the condensation on the smooth curve of the bowl slip between my fingers.
“Yes,” I said, meaninglessly. “It was very quick, though. Quick and painless. I mean, relatively.”
Jessica smoked furiously, dragging on her cigarette as if it had personally offended her. I looked at her face, covertly, trying to drink her in, the concrete, flesh reality of her after so long in the ether. Her eyes were still shadowed beneath; marked with a smudge of darkness. With a shock, I realised she was beautiful. I watched her mouth close on the filter of her cigarette, the gasp inwards, the long wavering blue exhalation.
She felt my gaze and looked up, catching my eye.
“Sorry, Maudie,” she said. “This is just weird, you know? I mean, I knew it would be weird, but I didn’t know how much.”
“I know,” I said. We looked at each other, properly. In her eyes, I caught the first faint glimmerings of the old Jessica, my ten-year-old companion, the impishness that had once been there.
“Fuck,” she said, breathing out smoke.
“Fuck,” I said.
There was a moment’s silence and then we both began laughing. It was thin, wheezy, gasping laughter, the laughter at something that’s not particularly funny; just an outpouring of emotion with no other exit. I put my hand out over the table and touched hers. She flinched.
“You are real,” I said. I could hear myself, my wondering voice. “You are. I can’t believe it.”
“I came back,” she said.
“I knew you would.”
A car horn blared in the street and we both jerked in shock. She drew her hand away to pick up her glass.
“How many times can I say I can’t believe it?” I said.
I sat back on my bench, holding on to the edge of the table. I leaned back, looking up into the sky and breathed out. I felt suddenly filled with hope. “It’s a miracle,” I said. “That’s what it is. It’s the sort of thing the Sunday papers write articles about.”
Jessica looked alarmed. “I hope not.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “I’m hardly likely to go running to them, am I? Jesus, it’s as much as I can do to take it in.”
Jessica leaned forward. “Maudie,” she said, very seriously. “I meant what I said the other night. I can’t – I mean, I don’t want you to tell anyone. Not your husband, or – or anyone. It’s too – it’s too personal. To us. You understand. I’m not – I’m not ready to have anyone else know, you know? Do you understand?”
I nodded. I was almost laughing, I felt so elated. I would have promised anything. “I promise,” I said. “Don’t worry. Jesus, if I tell anyone about this, they’ll really think I’m–”
There was a short silence.
“They’ll really think what?” said Jessica.
“Nothing,” I said, my elation gone. The sun had not been shining but I felt as if it had gone behind the clouds anyway. “Nothing.”
I waited for her to push me on what I meant, but she simply sat back and breathed out smoke. She was such a contrast to all the people I knew. It made a strange and refreshing change to be sat opposite someone who would just let me be, who would leave it, who wouldn’t make a fuss.
“I’ve never been back, you know,” she said, suddenly.
I raised my eyebrows. “Never been back where?”
“Cornwall.”
It gave me a jolt. I’d thought she was going to say Cumbria. “Nor have I,” I said rather slowly, realising it for the first time.
She read my mind. “I haven’t been back – home – either.”
“You haven’t?” So she still called it home. As did I. When do the houses of your childhood stop being home?
“No,” she said, shortly. “I didn’t know it was home until recently.”
I felt a little chill again, a finger of cold nudging me in the pit of the belly.
“No?” I said, for want of something better.
“No.” She stubbed out her cigarette. The ashtray was piled high with stubs and flaking grey ash.
“Well–” I said, unsure of what I was going to say. The choice was taken from me. I heard a shout from afar and realised, with disbelief, that it was my name being called. I looked down the street to see the distant but recognisable figure of Matt striding towards me.
“It’s my husband,” I said, panicking. I felt as guilty as if I were sitting there with a lover. “He’s coming over here.”
The panic in my voice was echoed in Jessica’s. She stood up so abruptly, my half full glass fell over, emptying red wine over the surface of the table.
“He can’t see me!” she said. She was grabbing up her cigarettes, her bag, her blonde hair falling over her face. “Maudie, I can’t meet him, not yet, I can’t. I’m sorry – I’m going to have to go–”
She stumbled over the seating bench of the table and almost ran into the pub. I stared after her, open mouthed. Red wine began to drip onto my jeans beneath the table.
“Maudie!”
Matt was almost upon me. I managed to drag my gaze from the door of the pub and brought it to focus on my husband.
“Maudie,” said Matt. He was wearing his tweed jacket and the red scarf I’d bought him for Christmas. “Hello, darling. I’ve been calling you, didn’t you hear me? What are you doing here?”
“Oh, nothing much,” I said, managing a smile. Belatedly, I realised red wine had soaked into my trousers and cursed, brushing at them ineffectively beneath the table. “Shit. Not much, darling. I just thought–”
“Drinking during the day?” he said, sliding into the place Jessica had so recently and violently vacated. I blinked. He looked so... so real and alive.
I couldn’t read his tone; normally, I’d know if he was being serious but my brain felt battered by Jessica’s presence. “Terrible, huh?” I said, smiling. “I’ve just been to the gym so I was feeling rather virtuous and thought I’d put a stop to that immediately.”
“Right,” said Matt. He smiled and I relaxed a little. “Who on Earth were you talking to, anyway?”
I stopped in the middle of righting my upset glass. I could feel the blood thumping in my head.
“Oh no-one, really,” I said, as casually as I could. “Just someone wanting directions. Some tourist.”
“No, I mean who were you talking to?” he said, unbuttoning his jacket.
“What do you mean?” I said.
He smiled. “Well, I couldn't really see clearly but it looked like you were just nattering away to yourself for a while. Talking to yourself. Did you have the phone headset on?”
I felt my heart give a painful jump. My mouth felt suddenly dry.
“That’s right,” I said slowly, trying to keep my voice under control. I breathed in and out a few times before I went on. “I had to make a few calls. Then someone asked me for directions.”