over a year, a lifetime ago. It seems like a miracle, like something not real – that he is here in her kitchen, splashing whisky from his hip flask first into her tea, then his, without asking, as if it were their own secret and practised ritual. Yes, she thinks. Whisky. She might, after all, need a drop of something. She sits down, folds her arms.
‘Here’s to you.’ He chinks his mug against hers.
A gale blows around inside her. She fights to stop herself from touching his face, to check he isn’t a ghost or a dream. He peers at her over the rim of his mug and takes a sip. His eyes and the sense of him, how it feels to be near to him, she remembers.
‘You look lovely.’ It’s out of her mouth before she can stop herself.
He stares down at his hands, apparently fascinated by his own thumbnails. ‘I know it’s been a long time, Carol. But that was not my average Saturday night. With you, I mean.’ He glances up at her and she turns away. ‘And I’m guessing … if you bothered to write to me after all this time, it wasn’t yours either, was it?’
Her face throbs; she bites down so hard she fears her tooth might pierce her bottom lip. ‘No.’
‘So you’ve thought about me?’
Unable to answer, she nods.
‘I’m here now, so.’
‘Yes.’
‘I mean, Tommy told me you’d moved. That you were getting on your feet, like. I just thought things might be a bit tough, you know?’
Tough. It’s all been tough. The first days in the refuge, social workers, benefit forms, new schools for the kids, second-hand uniforms from the charity, women who barely became friends before they moved on, more women, bruised as dropped peaches, coming in where others left, Graham’s terrible unending silence, the call from the headmistress to say he’d been in another fight, more social workers, more forms, the need to get them housed before Graham turned eighteen, days, long days, watching old detective series on daytime television, the loneliness, the shared kitchen, the battle within herself: go back, don’t go back. Go back. Ted in the street, the disgrace. Yes, it’s all been tough. It still is.
She pushes at her hair, looks up at the ceiling and tries to tip her tears back into her eyes. Jim has this way of knowing her. When she does manage to look at him, she sees him taking in the dirty walls, the manky worktop, the Artex ceiling, all of it. She knows that expression. It is the same one he wore when he pulled her clothes from her. There is too much to do here, too much to fix.
‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ he says.
She laughs in surprise. ‘I had a whatsit, you know, an internal designer.’
‘Interior designer.’
‘Aye, that’s it.’
They smile at each other. The tea is hot. They take little sips. After a moment, he puts his mug back on the table and reaches for her hand, his upturned, expecting hers. She keeps hold of her mug.
‘The kids are upstairs,’ she says.
‘I didn’t think you’d leave them behind.’ He gets up from his chair and drags it around the table, sits down opposite her, near her. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘What about?’ She laughs without knowing why, perhaps at the idea that she could stop worrying, even for a moment. ‘You know my eldest is seventeen, don’t you? Our Graham. He turned seventeen in the shelter. And our Nicky turns twelve next month.’
‘I know.’
He’s in front of her, but she can’t get the thought of him, from before, out of her head – the hotel room, so far away from everything she knew or had known, him taking off her blouse, his mouth on hers. It seems impossible now that she could ever have done such a thing, impossible to imagine doing anything like it again, finishing what they began that night.
‘I mean, it’s not like we could go to a hotel or anything,’ she says. ‘And our Graham’s changed. He’s … quiet, you know. More than quiet. Sleeps more than he should, and he’s left school. Sleeps all the time. Didn’t do so well in his exams, which is understandable.’ She puts her tea on the table. As she lets go of the mug, he takes her hand and holds it. Another moment and he pulls it to his mouth and kisses her knuckles, keeps them pressed to his lips.
‘You’ve scuffed your hands,’ he says. ‘I don’t need