handfuls of now unintelligible correspondence, and chuck it into the bin with a damp thud.
Roger wanders in and lets go a pealing mew of confusion, which I interpret as: but what are the legal ramifications of destroying the hotly contested artefacts?
‘Dunno,’ I say to him, thick with wine, triumph and defeat.
A stray memory – a few birthdays ago, Susie got me some nostalgic joke gift extras, some Vogue Superslim Menthols, a bottle of Dolly Girl perfume, and a bag of mini Dime bars. Kitschy ‘what were we like!’ talismans of times gone by, insights only old friends have.
I find them in a hat box in my bedroom, scooping them up before the memory can hit me – recalling her expectant face as I unwrapped them in a Greek restaurant, in that giddy past, where we didn’t know we were born, and that she was going to die.
I come back downstairs, dump the haul on the counter and spray the perfume at my collarbones, open a Dime and gnaw on it. God, that’s face-twistingly sweet. Susie and I used to eat bowls of vanilla ice cream using the Dimes as scoops. It’s a wonder we have any teeth left.
That I have any teeth left. If you identify people who died in fires by their dental records, what do crematoriums do with teeth?
I unwrap the fag packet and light a cigarette with kitchen matches, dragging, inhaling, exhaling, and coughing. Oof, this is horrible, did I really used to do this?
Badly, I hear Susie say.
The rain’s abated, so I open the back door and sit hunched on the soaked concrete step in my tiny yard, water seeping through the seat of my dress, blowing plumes of smoke into the damp air.
I feel like a cowgirl for a moment, like a tableau in a film.
Without knowing I’d started crying, I feel a tear drip from my chin.
24
I could’ve waited my standard, if arbitrarily imposed, week to visit Mr Hart again, but I’ve got an expensive brand of Florentines in a cardboard box that I think he’ll love.
So four days later, I walk up the street to the Hart home, listening to a true crime podcast about an unsolved murder that changed one small mid-American town forever. This isn’t only about being the Good Samaritan, though I’m glad to do it. Seeing Mr Hart makes me feel connected to Susie, it helps me fill this time that I suddenly have so much of, and so little use for.
I pause my podcast and ring the bell. My stomach does a revolution as moments pass, and the interior door is wrenched open by Mr Hart. Junior. Oh shit. I should’ve anticipated Finlay might be here – his texts, the ones I’d left unreplied to, said: ‘Next week.’ Here we are in next week, and unfortunately, here he is. The letters. My rash move. My stomach now feels like a cake’s being mixed inside it.
He has the hollow-eyed, stubble-shadowed and slightly swollen look of the jet-lagged, and yet has the kind of bone structure where dishevelment only enhances him. The way a fresh haircut looks better when riffled by wind. The t-shirt and hooded zip-up top say: ‘came straight from the plane.’
‘That’s odd, I’ve just this minute been trying and failing to phone you,’ Fin says, without a hello. His expression: sardonic j’accuse.
‘Oh,’ I say, taking my AirPods out like I’m removing clip-on earrings with a flourish in Dynasty, ‘I didn’t hear, I had these on, sorry.’
I feel guiltily grateful this is evidently true, even if absolutely nothing’s going to get better for me from here on in. I don’t have the letters, shit. I don’t HAVE them … I remember how angry he was I was simply holding them back.
I hear Justin saying: it’s not for us to play judge and jury. I played judge, jury and executioner.
I hard swallow.
‘Come in,’ Fin says, standing back: ‘My dad’s not here.’
‘Oh, I’ll not bother you then …’ I says.
‘We have things to discuss,’ Fin says.
I expect he’s going to round on me about the letters and start wielding frightening NYC law firm names. Unless you want to hear from Carver, Cutthroat & Strank.
What do I say? Do I come clean? Do I spin him along, until a moment I’m not in front of him?
Instead Finlay heads off to the kitchen and comes back with a piece of paper. He holds it out to me, mouth a straight hard line. I take it, and read:
Ann, Sorry not to see you