them, then.”
“Thanks.” He handed over two of the lightest ones.
“How’s the shoulder?”
“Bit better today, I think. It’ll probably hurt more later. I only came out to get some milk.”
We walked along in silence for a while. I felt jumpy, as if I wanted to break into a run. He kept a respectable distance between us, so much that people walking in the opposite direction kept walking in between us. I wondered if he was having trouble keeping up with me.
“It’s your appointment tomorrow, isn’t it?” he asked at last.
I slowed down a little until he drew level. I didn’t want to be talking about medical shit on High Street. “Yes, it is.”
“You feeling okay about it?”
“I guess so.”
We crossed the street and turned into Talbot Street. There were fewer people down here, and the sidewalk was narrower.
“Sorry I gave you a fright the other day. I should have woken you up, I think.”
“I shouldn’t have fallen asleep in the first place. Don’t worry, it won’t happen again.”
I felt him give me a look, but I kept my eyes straight ahead.
“I know this must be hard for you,” he said.
That did it. I turned to face him, the bags swinging around abruptly and hitting my legs. “No, Stuart, you don’t know at all,” I said. “You have no idea. You think you know everything just because you peer into people’s minds every day. Well, you know nothing at all about what’s going on in mine.”
It might well be true that he was used to outbursts like this, used to people challenging him, but perhaps not on the sidewalk outside his house. He looked startled, and for a moment he was lost for words, so I seized the chance that gave me.
“I’ll see you soon,” I said, putting the bags down. He would have to carry them upstairs himself.
“Where are you going?”
“No idea,” I said, walking away. “I just don’t feel like going in yet.”
I heard the door open and slam shut behind him, and only then did I look over my shoulder. He’d gone inside. I was nearly level with the alleyway, and for a moment I thought about going straight down there and checking the house from the back, but I was too angry. I felt agitated, my nerves twanging like an elastic band that had been stretched too thin.
Thursday 18 December 2003
I didn’t even hear the doorbell go, but all of a sudden I noticed Maggie had left the table and then she was back and Lee was with her.
“Hi,” he said, “sorry I’m so late.”
There was a moment—just a moment—of shocked silence as everyone took him in, his dark gray suit, blond hair, bright blue eyes—his warm smile. And then all the girls started talking at the same time.
Sylvia jumped up from her position at the head of the table and threw her arms around his neck while everyone else stood and waited to either kiss him on the cheek or shake him by the hand. I was last, of course, but then I was kind of trapped around the other side of the table. When he got a chance to sit down, he gave me a kiss and a wink, and a whispered “Sorry.”
I felt as if I was on fire. I hadn’t seen him for nearly a week, during which time I’d imagined him dead in a ditch on more than one occasion. I’d felt lonely and alone. I’d felt as if I was being followed, being watched. But now, suddenly, everything was fine: my beautiful, sexy boyfriend was back and I’d almost forgotten just how fantastic he was.
Everyone had relaxed, Louise was happily telling everyone about the time Claire laughed so much she wet herself in the Queen’s Head and had to dry her underpants off under the hand dryer, Stevie was talking to Lee about the car he’d just bought and I was glowing. The way he looked—so beautiful and cool, serene; the way he’d smiled at them all and apologized for being late; the fact that he’d somehow found the time to buy Sylvia a bottle of Cristal and Maggie a bunch of long-stemmed white roses; but above all the way all the girls had looked at him dumbstruck, with a kind of awe—and here he was, sitting next to me, giving Stevie his undivided attention, his right hand under the table, on my thigh.
I heard my phone buzzing in my bag and I fished around in there for it, thinking it was