probably seen into here, and seen you. That’s all.”
Corbin looked through Audrey’s living room window and across at the dark windows on the other side of the courtyard. “You think?” he said.
Audrey smiled, for the first time since Corbin had entered her apartment. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was a smile. “Yeah. What else could it be? He probably watches me and he’s seen you come over. Big deal.”
“You don’t care that he’s watching you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s exciting. Maybe I should be going out with him instead of you.” She was still smiling. Corbin went and pulled the curtain across Audrey’s window.
That night, that conversation, was the beginning of the end.
It wasn’t surprising to Corbin. He knew it was never going to last. They spent a few more nights together, but Audrey kept pressing him about his reasons for keeping the relationship private. He couldn’t answer her, except to say, “It’s to keep you safe, you have to believe me on that.”
“Do you have any idea how creepy that sounds?” she said.
When it was officially over, Corbin, in a way, was relieved. He went back to a solitary existence, working long hours, going to the gym every day, but at least it was an existence in which Audrey wouldn’t be hurt. He occasionally fantasized about opening a newspaper and seeing an obituary for Henry Wood. He pictured himself finding Audrey on the street in broad daylight and kissing her there in front of everyone. It would be like one of those films he hated, but he wouldn’t care. He couldn’t get the image out of his mind.
When the opportunity to transfer to London came up, he jumped at it. Six months away from Bury Street, from living next to Audrey, would be good for him, and good for Audrey, as well. It made him nervous to return to the city where he had fallen in love with Claire Brennan and first encountered Henry Wood, but it was also the city his father was from. Maybe he’d reconnect with that side of his family. He remembered the pictures his father had shown him from that trip he took to England the year before he died. There’d been several of his cousin Lucy and her husband and daughter. Something had happened to that daughter since those pictures had been taken; she’d been stalked and nearly killed by an ex-boyfriend. At least that’s what Corbin’s mother had told him, although how she found out he didn’t know. Corbin wrote to his father’s cousin, Lucy, and told her he was probably coming to London, and said that maybe they could meet. She was the one who suggested a possible switch of apartments with Kate. She said that an adventure would do her daughter good. It had all been arranged so easily. The thought of Kate moving into his place made Corbin somehow feel comforted. Maybe she’d become friends with Audrey and report back. It would be a connection, even the tiniest one.
For his first full day in Kate’s cozy flat, Corbin only left once, walking to the nearest grocer for food and bottled water and wine. During this excursion, he was enormously relieved to not run into his new upstairs neighbor Martha. It had been a mistake getting drunk and making out with her the night before. She’d be hard to avoid but not impossible.
The rain came and went all day, battering at the large bay windows at the front of Kate’s flat. He watched English television while doing push-ups and squats, then cooked the chicken breasts he’d bought. He checked his e-mails. Audrey still hadn’t responded to the last one he’d sent her, the one in which he said he hoped things were easier now that he was out of the country, and he hoped she met someone who was worthy of her. He wrote an e-mail back to Kate thanking her for recommending the pub down the street, and he even mentioned meeting Martha, curious to see if she’d have anything to say about her. Martha had claimed that Kate and she were best friends, but somehow Corbin doubted it.
By Sunday afternoon he still hadn’t heard back from Kate in Boston. For some reason it worried him. He took a long run, even though it was still raining, and wound up at a park called Primrose Hill with a hazy, distant view of central London. The wet soil in the park sucked at his running shoes, and