Suddenly Bembe began to cry. Lustily.
“Sorry,” Naomi said. “He probably wants a nap.”
I got up. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“You don’t have to. He usually goes down quite quickly.”
“I’m going to have to face the flat at some point,” I said, zipping up my coat. “But it was wonderful to see you. Thanks for listening.”
She hugged me. “Oh, sweetheart, anytime. You’re always welcome here. You hear me?”
“I hear you. Thank you.”
As my feet took themselves along the familiar roads to my flat, I noticed some changes—apart from the Christmas trees and decorations on display in people’s windows. A new pair of yellow curtains in the window of the big house on the corner, some spray-painted graffiti on the postbox. But some things were the same. The plastic flowers in the window box at number fifty-eight. The pride-and-joy BMW that rarely left its parking spot outside number sixty. And then I was there at number seventy-six, going down the stone steps to the basement. Putting my key in the lock and turning it.
I’d known it would be cold—the tenants had been gone three weeks, and it had been bitter this December. There had even been ice in the fountains at Trafalgar Square—I’d seen it on the national news. But though I’d expected it to be cold, the icy air still hit me like a wall as I went in. Walking along the hallway, I could see my breath. I switched on the light—this part of the flat had always been dark—and immediately frowned. The large mirror was askew, as if someone had knocked into it. And when I straightened it, I noticed a long scuff mark along the wall, as if something large had been dragged past it. With my heart sinking at these signs of a lack of care, I walked on towards the main room and pushed the door open. And immediately gasped in horror and despair.
Someone had covered Richard’s beautiful pinewood shelving unit with black gloss paint. It would never be the same again.
“Oh, Richard . . .” Dropping my bag on the sofa, I went over to touch the shelves, sobbing as I remembered Richard putting them up. How we’d sat together on the sofa afterwards and I’d known the shelves were Richard’s way of saying, “You’ll be all right, love.”
But I wasn’t. I wasn’t all right at all.
14
When I turned my key in the lock at Jaimie’s on Christmas Eve, Olivia ran down the hall to meet me.
“Beth! It’s Christmas Day tomorrow!” she cried, practically jumping up and down in her excitement.
I hadn’t forgotten the way she’d held my hand at Thursford, and the enthusiastic greeting instantly warmed my heart. I was going to bend down to Olivia’s level to respond to her, but Jaimie intervened.
“Don’t crowd Beth, sweetheart. She’s had a long journey. She’s tired.”
I had, and I was. But I still wished he’d given me time to say, “I know! Isn’t it exciting?”
Now Olivia was regarding me warily, her thumb sliding thoughtfully into her mouth.
“My friend Katie’s daddy is called Terry,” she said. “He’s quite nice. If he died, I wouldn’t be very sad, though. But I would be if my daddy died. Very, very sad.”
Obviously, Jaimie had mentioned something to her about Richard.
I swallowed. “Well, you see—” I began, but once again Jaimie cut in.
“D’you know what? I think it’s time to prepare the carrots for Rudolph and his friends. Want to help, Olivia? Or shall I ask Emily?”
“Me, me, me!” shouted Olivia, taking off at a run and dragging Jaimie with her, instantly forgetting me.
I hung up my coat, then put my nose into the living room. Emily was absorbed in a book. “Hi, Emily.”
She didn’t look up. “Hello.”
“Your dad and Olivia are preparing carrots to leave for Santa’s reindeer, if you want to help.”
Still, she didn’t look up. “That’s babyish.”
“Okay, just thought I’d tell you.”
I could have turned away and left her to it. Accepted that we still seemed to be taking part in a one-step-forward, two-steps-backwards sort of bonding dance. Certainly, that was my instinct. But if Olivia knew about Richard, then surely Emily did too? Maybe she just didn’t know how to talk to me about it. So I sat down on the arm of her chair, hoping to connect with her. Emily’s eyes moved sideways fleetingly, the only acknowledgment of my presence. A bit like you might acknowledge an annoying fly that had settled nearby.
“What are you reading?”
A shrug. “Just a book Mummy got me from the library.”
“Who’s it by?”
She turned the book towards me so I could see the cover.
“It looks good. Is it?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Have you read any of that author’s books before?”
Emily shook her head.
“When I was a child, I had about ten favourite books I never got tired of. After I’d read them all, I started over and read them all again. Somehow, I liked knowing exactly what was going to happen.”
Silence. Emily’s eyes were fixed on her book. When she turned the page, I felt like she was swatting me—the annoying fly—off the arm of the sofa.
And yet I still persisted. “Do you ever feel like that?”
Emily shrugged. “I guess. Sometimes.”
She carried on reading. I could think of nothing else to say. It was time to give up. For now. “Well,” I said, getting up, “see you later then. Enjoy your reading.”
Collecting my bag from the hall, I trudged upstairs to the bedroom, where I sat on the edge of the bed, staring into space. After a while, Jaimie came to find me. “How are you feeling?” he asked, stroking my neck beneath my hair.
I leant back into his hand, enjoying his caress. “Still a bit raw. Don’t think you need to protect me from the kids, though. I don’t mind answering any questions they might have.”
“I know, but you know what Olivia’s like. She’ll go on and on. And it is Christmas Eve.”
With a pang, I realised he hadn’t been protecting me at all. He’d been protecting Olivia, cutting short the conversation in case I talked about anything miserable and spoiled the buildup to Christmas.
“Listen, after they’ve both gone to bed and I’ve wrapped their presents up, we can snuggle up together on the sofa, okay?”
But the girls weren’t in bed until gone eight, and then the present-wrapping extravaganza seemed to last forever. In the end, I left Jaimie to it and went to run myself a bath. So it was a surprise when I went downstairs afterwards in my dressing gown to find the world’s biggest present beneath the Christmas tree.
“Bloody hell, Jaimie. Whatever is that?”
Jaimie grinned. “A drum kit for Olivia. There are five different drums, a set of hi-hat cymbals, and even a little stool. I can’t wait to see her face when she opens it. She’s going to flip.”
I couldn’t look away from the massive gift-wrapped box, my mind vividly picturing Olivia pounding away with the drumsticks.
Finally, Jaimie seemed to notice something was wrong. “What?”
“Well, it’s going to be incredibly noisy, isn’t it? Where are you going to put it?”