‘Jesus, Erika,’ he grinned.
‘I was so rude to you before. I’m sorry,’ she said.
He waved it away. ‘That’s okay, we all have bad days.’
They smiled at each other for a moment and then he looked down at himself. His T-shirt was drenched, and he was dripping on the wooden floor. He mopped at it with the tea towel. Erika didn’t know what else to say. He picked up the clipboard from the top of the washing machine box. The paper was soggy. ‘Did you order this plumbed in?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, I just need a signature,’ he said, rooting around in his pocket and pulling out a pen.
‘How much would it cost to have it plumbed in?’ asked Erika. The thought of having to find and then hire a plumber was too much, and there was something wonderful about seeing him after all these years.
‘You need to book it when you buy the machine. It’s eighty pounds,’ he said.
‘What if I give you eighty pounds cash? Do you have time, now?’
He seemed to weigh it up for a second.
‘Sure. This was my last delivery.’
‘Are you hungry? It’s late. I could order some takeaway, if that’s not too weird? I just feel horrible for being so rude and it’s so great to see you.’
Erika wondered for a moment if she was being too forward. He probably hadn’t thought about her in years.
‘Chinese?’ he said.
‘Chinese it is, I got a menu through the door the other day.’
For the first time in ages, Erika felt a little flutter of excitement in her chest, and she forgot all about work.
45
Igor unboxed and plumbed in Erika’s washing machine, and then, unasked, he set to work putting together her bed frame. Just as he finished, the Chinese takeaway arrived. They ended up eating in the living room, sitting on each end of the plastic-covered mattress, drinking beer, and catching up with what had happened to them over the past twenty-six years.
‘I remember that day you came to say goodbye to me at the coach station, when I was coming to England,’ said Erika. Igor nodded, picking at the label on his beer bottle. ‘It was the most frightening and exhilarating thing, like leaping off a cliff into the unknown. I knew about six words of English.’
Igor smiled.
‘We wrote to each other, didn’t we?’ he said.
‘We did,’ said Erika, picking at her beer label.
‘I’m trying to remember why we stopped?’
Erika hesitated, feeling awkward. A sudden rush of memories and emotions came back to her.
‘We stopped because of me. I met someone else,’ she said.
‘Yeah. A British guy. Mike?’
‘Mark.’
When she said it, his name hung ominously in the air. She realised that she didn’t say it out loud that often.
‘You were working in Manchester as an au pair for that professor of forensics, weren’t you?’
‘Professor Portnoy. It was a very weird, grand old house. Thick carpets. Ominous silences. Ticking clocks. It wasn’t the happiest place.’
They listened to the rain on the roof for a few minutes.
‘What happened to Mark? Where is he? I’d like to have strong words with him for stealing you away from me,’ he said with a grin. Then he saw Erika’s face. ‘Oh. I’ve just put my foot in it.’
Erika rubbed at her temples. The stress of having to explain her widowhood never seemed to leave.
‘The short version is, we got married. We both trained to be police officers, and then he was killed on duty. Shot by a drug dealer. That was almost five years ago.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘Why would you know?’
‘Did they ever catch the guy who did it?’
‘No.’
‘No? Do you know who it was?’
Erika hesitated.
‘Yes. We had him under surveillance for… for a long time. He vanished into the woodwork…’ She shrugged. ‘I still check sometimes, to see if he’s resurfaced somewhere in police records. He’s vanished somewhere abroad, we think. What about you?’ she said, changing the subject. She could feel the memory of what happened to Mark dragging her down. It was a feeling she didn’t want to have in her new home.
‘I studied English literature in Bratislava. I came to London in 1999 as a translator for a finance company. Married Denise, we had a little boy. I lost my job in 2009. We divorced in 2012. The last six years have been…’ He shrugged. ‘About trying to keep my head above water. Renting. Paying child support.’