Lottie had shown me when the blue ticks appear someone has read the message, so she just didn’t think it worth an answer. I didn’t really know what to do so I read a chapter of Twelfth Night to buy a little more time and left a tip for the two half pints of beer.
Howard says I’ve been ghosted. I had to look up the term online as our edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1991. It means that this woman ended our personal relationship suddenly, and without explanation, withdrawing all communication. ‘It happens,’ Howard told me, but then he laughed. He said he does it to women but has never been ghosted himself. What am I meant to think, Cora? That she turned up at the Nando’s, took one look at me and left? I had made a real effort. I was wearing the checked shirt that you always said made me look very like Robert Redford and the jacket that you once told me seemed perfectly tailored to my shape. It rather stings.
The boiler is leaking again tonight and I’ve put that disgusting blue glass bowl underneath it and I laugh because you always hoped it would break. That bloody bowl has outlived you. Now it’s the most precious thing, letting me recall your laughing voice as you complained about its ugly pattern.
I am going to bed now, and how I wish you were here about to lie down next to me.
Teddy x
Chapter 12
Love is finding a woman who makes you want to switch off the sport on the television and engage
GORDON, 83
I had finished for the day, leaving chambers early. For once the brief I was working on seemed manageable and I had time the next day to work on it as I wasn’t due in court. The sky was blue, the sun disappearing briefly behind another high-rise building as I moved down the streets, a light breeze lifting my hair. The pavements were barely populated and I found myself browsing in bookshops, picking up titles and feeling a sliver of hope that I might have time to read them, remembering weekends in the past curled up on a rug in the park, head resting on Luke’s stomach as we both got lost in a book. The weekend away with him had reminded me that there were other things in my life besides work, and that I had forgotten that in the last year or so.
Thinking about him made me smile and I glanced at my watch. I could head to his office in Pimlico and see if he was free to leave. We could head to the South Bank, sit watching the boats idle along the Thames, listen to the buskers and street entertainers, stay out and eat as the sun set over the water. We had spent so many evenings like that in the past and I felt the urge to relive one. He had arranged our weekend away – this could be a small way to do something spontaneous too. It wasn’t old-fashioned but gin would be involved.
Stepping into the subway I headed for the Tube. Normally the stifling air, the bodies pressed near me, the squeal of the wheels on the tracks would set my teeth on edge, sweat breaking out on my hairline as I cursed someone nearby and waited for the ordeal to be over. Today, though, I simply stood near the doors, opened the book I had just bought and lost myself in the words.
Pimlico was looking as lovely as ever, soaring Regency homes glowing creamy pink in the late afternoon sunshine, dog walkers milling through the lush green squares as I ambled towards Luke’s office building.
Mike, Luke’s boss, was just leaving as I arrived. ‘Lottie, so good to see you, you look well. Here to see Luke?’
‘Yes, if that’s OK?’
He waved a hand. ‘Of course it is. He could do with taking a break; he works too hard. Going to celebrate his new role?’
I plastered a smile on my face and nodded, feeling a stinging shame start somewhere in my stomach. What new role? Was it a promotion? What was going on? ‘Yes, it’s great,’ I said, hoping I wouldn’t have to keep up the charade for too long.
I bit my lip as I stepped inside the building. Why hadn’t Luke told me? I barely noticed the security guard who signed me in, my hand wavering over the visitors’ book, not sure now whether I should head