didn't throw the envelope in the bin, so that's something.
As you probably know, if you give this to Brendan/Ben or to the police – it amounts to the same thing – then I'll be arrested and charged with harassment. That's what they told me. I hope you don't. I don't want to go to prison. But if you do hand the letter over, could you read it first? And I want you to read this promise as welclass="underline" this is my last message to you. I'll never contact you again. It's up to you now.
I'm not going to attempt some defence of my behaviour to you. It would all be too complicated and this letter would have to be as long as a book and I probably wouldn't have the words to explain it, anyway.
All I can do now is to be as clear as possible. I've been accused of being a threat to Brendan. I happen to believe that it's the other way round. I wake in the night and every creak I hear, I think he may have come to finish me off. Well, that's not your concern. I'm frightened for myself but I'm even more certain that you are in danger. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but if things go wrong, the way things go wrong in relationships. I don't think Brendan can take it when things don't go the way he has planned.
What am I saying to you? I was going to send you a sort of checklist. Do you think he is telling the truth? Is he caring for you or controlling you? Is he being secretive? Are there hints of anger? Violence? Do you know what he's doing when he's not with you? How much do you really know about him? Do you believe what he tells you?
But this is all rubbish. Forget all I've said. You'll know.
You'll never hear from me again and I wish you happiness and that you'll never want to contact me. I'm about to leave my flat. I don't know where I'm going, yet. But if you ever want to contact me, I'll put some numbers of various people at the bottom of this letter. One of them should be able to put you in touch with me.
I'm afraid that I think you've had bad luck. But I wish you good luck.
Miranda
Before I could change my mind I put the letter in an envelope, addressed it to her care of Crabtrees and walked out and posted it in the box on the corner.
It's a rule of life that the way to find your missing sock is to throw away the sock that isn't missing. And if you want to know why you shouldn't post a letter, you'll realize it the moment you post it, the very second your thumb and finger release it. As I heard the letter to Naomi clatter down on to the other letters inside the pillar box, I realized there was another alternative I hadn't yet considered. With Brendan, there generally was. I had thought that Naomi might throw the letter away unread or keep it to herself. In either case I would hear nothing. She could give it to the police or to Brendan, who would give it to the police. In either case, I would receive a very unpleasant visit from a police officer in a day or two.
Now I thought of another possibility. Naomi would give it to Brendan and he wouldn't pass it on to the police. He would read the letter and he would realize that I was implacable and he would tell Naomi that it wasn't worth bothering about and he would decide that something would have to be done.
I stood by the postbox for forty-five minutes until a red van pulled up and the postman emerged with a large grey canvas sack. I told him that I'd posted a letter by mistake and that I'd like to get it back. He unfastened a catch on the side of the pillar box and emptied dozens and dozens of letters into his sack. Then he looked at me, as so many people had looked at me, as if I were insane, and shook his head.
CHAPTER 39
'Hello! Miranda?'
His voice boomed up the stairwell, and then I heard his footsteps, taking the steps two at a time. I applied one last precise lick of gloss paint along the skirting board then laid my brush down on the lid of the paint pot.
'The paint's still wet,' I said as he came through the door, loosening his tie as he did so. 'Don't touch anything.' I stood up and crossed the beautiful bare room.
'Except you,' he said. He put his hands on my aching shoulders and kissed me and bit by bit all my stiffness eased away. I thought: how is it possible to feel excited and safe all at the same time; to know someone so well and yet feel there's so much more to know?
'Good day?' I asked.
'This is the best bit. I've got exactly fifty minutes before I have to get back to work. I've bought us some sandwiches from the deli.'
'Shall we have those in a bit?' I said and took him by the hand. I led him up the next narrow flight of stairs, along bare boards and fresh-painted walls, into the small attic room I was using as a bedroom, where a mattress lay under the window and my clothes were stacked in wooden boxes. I took off his jacket and tie and he unbuttoned my overalls and we laughed at each other because here we were on an ordinary Wednesday lunchtime, about to make love in an empty, echoey house. Light fell through the blinds in bars across the room. I hung his suit on a hanger for him. He tossed my paint-stained gear into a corner of the room.
'I'd like to stay here the rest of the day,' I said a bit later, stretched out on the mattress while he lay propped up beside me and stroked my hair.
'Roasted vegetables with mozzarella or farmhouse Cheddar and pickle?'
'Half of each?'
'OK.'
'We can have them in the kitchen, then I can show you what I've done since you were last here.'
I had tried to move out of London, to the country. I really had. I'd burnt my bridges, leaving Bill, selling my flat in record time, putting my stuff into storage. At the same time, I'd written to all the people I knew in the trade and gone for informal talks and considered all my options, just like you're meant to. I'd thought about relocating to Wales and Lincolnshire and even, for a few days, Brittany, where apparently lots of English people were desperate for a builder-cum-interior designer to revamp their picturesque farmhouses. But, like Alice when she goes through the looking glass and finds she has to go backwards in order to advance, the result of all my labours was somehow the exact opposite of the one I'd intended. By attempting to move out of the great churning wheel of the city, I'd somehow ended up at its very hub.
I was now living in a tall, narrow house just south of King's Cross, completely renovating it while the owner was in America for nine months. When he'd offered me the job – an extravagant modernist conversion of the kind I'd dreamed of, with free accommodation thrown in – it had seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. I'd started at the bottom and moved upwards – gutting the kitchen and turning it into a laboratory for food preparation, building a minimalist conservatory into the garden, opening out the living room, turning the smallest bedroom into an en suite bathroom. Eight of the nine months had elapsed. Now only the attic room where I slept was still to be plastered and decorated and opened to the skies.
'You've done a great job,' he said, posting the last of his sandwich into his mouth and pulling on his jacket.
'It's all right, isn't it?'
'And now you're nearly finished.'
'Yes.'
'Miranda?'
'Yes.'
'After that
But then my mobile phone started bleeping from the bedroom, so we said goodbye hastily, and I pounded up the stairs to get it, while downstairs I heard the door slam shut. I caught up the vibrating phone. If I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck, I could just see him from the dormer window, walking briskly along the street. He'd forgotten his tie.
We went for a bike ride in the early evening and had coffee, sitting on the pavement outside even though it was getting chilly. We'd been together nearly one year now, all the seasons. He'd seen me through the anniversaries – Troy 's death, Christmas, Laura's death. He'd met my beaten-down, bewildered parents; met Kerry and her fiancé; met my friends. He'd let me wake him up at three in the morning to talk about the things I tried not to talk about in the day. He'd trailed round builders' yards with me, trying to take an interest in grains of wood, or held ladders while paint dripped on to his hair. I looked at him as he biked beside me, and he felt my gaze, glanced up, swerved. My heart contracted like a fist.