to even have this conversation. We’ll have it in the morning.”
“Come up with me.”
“I’ll be there in two minutes. I just have to tell Susanna and Leon we’re crashing out.” Soothingly, or as soothingly as I could manage: “You head on up, baby. Get the bed nice and warm. I’ll be right there. OK?”
This time Melissa let me go to her, stroke back her hair and kiss her wet face. “Shh,” I said, “shh. Everything’s fine,” and she clasped her hands behind my neck and kissed me back, hard. But when she moved away from me and headed up the stairs, her head was down and she had her hand pressed against her mouth, and I knew she was still crying.
I almost went after her. In the eerie gray light of the hall, what I thought of for some reason was that long-ago phone call as I walked home late and drunk, among the wrought-iron whorls of streetlamps and the tantalizing smell of spices. Come over. How I could have gone to her then; how it would have been, all unknown to me, salvation. For a dizzying and deeply stoned moment, I thought time had folded over and this was my second chance; that if I went up those stairs I would find myself in Melissa’s flat, with awful Megan pinching up her lips and making bitchy little jabs about my lack of consideration, while I laughed and headed for Melissa’s nest of duvets and a long lazy Saturday morning, pancakes for brunch and a walk by the canal.
Melissa switched on our bedroom light and brightness flooded down the stairs, making me flinch and blink. Then the bedroom door closed with a soft click and the hall was dark again. I stood there for one more minute, leaning against the newel post and staring at the tile patterns, trying to make them stop hopping and pulsating. Then I went back out to Leon and Susanna.
Susanna was lying on her back on the terrace, arms behind her head, looking up at the sky. The moonlight hit her full in the face. “Is Melissa OK?” she asked.
“Just a little bit the worse for wear,” I said. I made my way around her, very carefully, and settled myself on the steps. “She’s going to bed.”
Leon was huddled up with a fist pressed to his mouth; he was clearly much too wasted to cope with this. “Oh God. We upset her. Didn’t we? All that fighting, we upset her, we have to go in and say sorry—”
“I don’t think she really wants to see you right now, man. Not after that.”
“Oh nooo,” Leon moaned, face going down in his hands. “Oh, shit . . .”
“Shouldn’t you stay with her?” Susanna suggested. “Like, in case she gets sick or something?”
“She’s not that bad. She just needs to crash out.” I was impressed with my easy tone, no hint of crisis, nothing like a guy whose girlfriend was walking out on him. The truth was I didn’t believe she was, not at all. The things she’d stuck by me through, the roiling nightmare months when I was barely a human being: there was no way she would dump me because I was being a bit too nosy for comfort. By the time I went to bed she would be asleep, curled up still dressed on top of the covers, suitcase open on the floor and a random armful of clothes thrown in there to show me she was serious; I would pull her close and wrap the duvet around both of us, and in the morning when the hangovers wore off we would sort everything out. And oh God if I could come back to her with something solid, something to show her this wasn’t pointless and stupid and self-destructive— “And to be honest, that’s OK with me. Because I think we need to talk, Leon, don’t we, and I think it’s a better idea that Melissa isn’t around.”
“What?” Leon’s head popped up and he stared at me. “Talk about what? I didn’t say anything to Rafferty, I swear, Toby, I—”
“Not that. Fuck that.” I found my glass, or someone’s glass, and took a good swig. “I want to talk about the break-in at my apartment.”
Susanna rolled onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow to look at me. “Why?” she asked.
“Well,” I said. “Those two guys, right? the two guys who broke in? They had a plan. They waited, they specif, spefi—” I