swagger in his fancy uniform. Gave me his cigarettes, I gave him my heart.’
‘Easy as that,’ I say.
‘Not always.’ She rests her face on her hands, thinking. ‘He was away too much in the early years.’ She pauses. ‘Wrote me some saucy letters, mind, I still have them in a shoebox in my wardrobe. I might have to burn them before I die to stop the boys from reading them.’
That’s one of the things I appreciate most about being around Flo; she always looks for the laugh.
‘Did you send him any back?’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘Do I look like a girl who’d write mucky letters, Lydia?’
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ I say, and she just laughs and taps the side of her nose.
We look up as the doors open and a class from the local primary troop in, filling the library with noise and wet wellingtons.
Turpin covered himself in glory just now when I emptied the contents of my old school bag out on to the rug. I’ve been up to the loft and I’m pretty sure what I’m searching for is in here somewhere. A dried-up Lypsyl, a magazine with a band on the front I can’t remember the name of, a pre-smartphone envelope of photos. I delved deeper to lift out the stuff at the bottom and one of those things happened to be a spider the size of Jupiter. Already jittery from venturing into the loft, I let out a scream as I shook it off my arm, alerting the cat, who shot off Freddie’s chair and landed on it with terrifying precision. I can’t say for sure if he squashed or ate it, but I don’t think it’s going to be troubling me any time soon.
I take a few deep breaths now and sit down on the rug, my teen life spread around me. Exercise books covered in doodles and graffiti; I flick through them, nostalgic for easier days. My careful handwriting, bubble dots above the i’s, red ruler lines, teacher’s marks in green. For a girl who didn’t like chemistry, I scored pretty well in the homework I copied off Jonah Jones. I set the books aside and pick up the thing I went to the loft in search of: a small wooden music box decorated with colourful painted birds.
It’s been years since Jonah gave me this for my birthday. At the time he told me he saw it in a charity shop window and thought I might like it because of the birds and all; nonchalant, no big deal. I accepted it in the spirit it was given and used it to stash the bracelet Freddie gave me that same morning. It isn’t in there any more, lost somewhere along the passage of years. I pause to smile when I find the yellow plastic flower ring Freddie gave me, and a couple of knotted necklaces and a pair of earrings I think might have been Elle’s rather than mine. Nothing else of worth or note except, underneath them all, a small, smooth pebble. I take it out and lay it in the palm of my hand. It’s pale grey and marbled with white, no bigger than a Brazil nut. It’s nothing special to look at, but as I close my hand around it I remember the day Jonah slipped it into my palm as we filed into the school hall for our first exam. For luck, he whispered, folding it into my shaking fingers.
I glance at my mobile on the coffee table. I haven’t heard from Jonah since he flew out on Saturday. I don’t think I will. He left me with his manuscript, the trace of his kiss on my forehead and the ball in my court. I think back to my earlier conversation with Flo, to those letters she still has in a shoebox in her wardrobe.
Something soul-deep and undeniable has shifted inside me lately when it comes to Jonah Jones. I’ve realized that you can love people in different ways at different times of your life. He’s my oldest friend, but I turned to him as a man the other night. I turned to him in the small hours of the morning as someone I love, and he gave me sanctuary and protection without question.
I turn the small grey pebble over and over, thinking about the ending to the story he’s written, and then I get up and find some paper and a pen. Words have always been Jonah’s thing,