Chapter 54
Josh
‘Good news?’ enquires a soft voice behind me.
I snap my laptop closed.
‘What’s that about a pill?’
‘Nothing,’ I bristle. ‘It’s private.’
Sitting up in her bed, Charley scratches her long neck, the same neck I was kissing less than five minutes ago. She says nothing.
Briefly, I shut my eyes. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’
She shrugs as I look over at her. Light is lancing through her bedroom blinds. She is slight and startlingly pretty, with a dark pixie cut and huge, expressive eyes.
For a moment, I imagine – as I sometimes do when I meet someone new – telling the truth. Confessing that, in fact, I am nearly a whole decade older than she thinks I am, and then explaining why.
But I resist the urge to get into that conversation, which would be long and complicated, and would also – I’m fairly sure – paint me as the guy who took a pill so he could trick women into bed.
Last night went pretty much how these encounters always do, for me.
Surface-level pleasure. No real connection, or sense of a spark that might endure.
She told me about her job at the Serious Fraud Office – ironically enough – and I ran her through what I enjoyed about being a writer, a reader, a half-decent cook.
I sprinkled a few jokes in there too, so as not to bore her stupid, though the jury’s probably still out on that.
Charley leans over to take the cigarette I’ve half-smoked from between my fingers. ‘I think you should probably go now, Josh. I’ve got work to do.’
This is the first time I’ve seen Charley, but I already know it will also be the last.
Is this how it’s always going to be now? Unable to get close to anyone, because of the secret I am keeping?
Most likely, unless I start telling the truth, which I’ve no plans to do. So I simply nod and pull on my T-shirt, find my jacket. Cast around for my wallet and phone. Check my watch is still on my wrist.
Just before I leave, I hesitate.
‘Absolutely not,’ Charley says, pre-empting any parting acts of idiocy from me, like suggesting we hug goodbye.
Outside, while I’m waiting for my cab, I dial the number for Wilf’s old colleague Hester. She gave it to me in her email responding to the tentative enquiry about an antidote it took me a full three months to work up to making.
I googled her first. She was young and pretty, a Cambridge-educated scientist, like Wilf. It occurred to me that perhaps she was his crustacean-averse date from Valentine’s night, that time.
But as soon as Hester says, ‘Hello?’ I hang up.
There is something inside me that just needs to check with Rachel, one final time, that she doesn’t want the pill. After that, I can hand it over to Hester – who would need it, apparently, in order to develop anything new – and let it disappear for good.
I text Rachel, ask to meet for a coffee. She doesn’t reply for a while, and then there’s a bit of back and forth, as she’s generally pretty stacked, between work and Oliver and Emma and dealing with Lawrence’s ever-more mercurial moods. But eventually we settle on a time.
She turns up late, breathless with apologies.
The first thing I say is, ‘I should be the one apologising. For sending you those texts, about Oliver.’
I regretted them almost instantly. It wasn’t my place, I realised, to vet him for her. If he’d threatened me with a hammer, that might have been different. But in reality he had only raised his hackles slightly. And who knows – I might have behaved similarly, in his position.
Rachel smiles as if she’s still slightly baffled by them. ‘I’d love to know what he said to you.’
‘Forget it. I was being oversensitive.’ I mean, I could tell her, but to what end?
Instead, I ask her how work’s going. She’s been a professional artist for a few years now, and is already so busy she has a waiting list for commissions.
I no longer see that drained expression she so often wore on a Friday night, though it always seemed more like ennui than actual exhaustion.
Her cheeks are a little fuller these days.
Yet somehow, to me, she appears lighter.
She tells me she’s renting a studio space in town, that it’s no longer practical for her to work from home, with a toddler running around and white spirit and wet canvases everywhere. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of elbow patches I’ve given my clothes.’
‘Bet you never look back,’ I say.
She laughs in agreement. ‘How many minutes of my life do you think I wasted in meetings talking about people analytics and employment law?’
‘Doesn’t matter. You’re doing it now. That’s what counts.’
‘Not if you ask Lawrence.’
I’ve trained myself not to comment on all the crappy things Lawrence keeps insisting on saying to Rachel.
One: I’m not a parent, so I do get that there are dynamics involved between them that I will never understand.
Two: it only makes me look – and feel – bitter.
And I’m not so arrogant as to assume that a few offhand comments from me will be in any way useful to Rachel.
The best thing I can do, I have learned, is just listen, and be there for her.
I summon the good grace to ask after Oliver, at which she moves her gaze to the window, towards the sunless sky. To her credit, I think she tries hard to de-giddy her smile. But some sentiments you can’t suppress. ‘He’s good. We’re good.’
‘I’m pleased for you.’ And, though she probably doesn’t believe me, it isn’t a lie. Because I’ve only ever wanted her to be happy.
We chat for a few minutes more, then I say, ‘Rach, I’ve got something to tell you. I’ve been in touch with an old colleague of Wilf’s about a possible antidote. She’s willing to meet me. But she would need the second pill, and—’
‘What?’ Rachel’s brown eyes become suddenly brittle. ‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because I wanted to check—’
‘I don’t want to talk about that pill with you any more.
’ She swigs back the last of her coffee, the skin on her neck flushing pink, and zips her bag with a brusqueness I can tell she wants me to feel.
‘Even if you do find an antidote, or some way to reverse it, I’m telling you: I don’t want to know. ’
As her voice recedes, the burning feeling in me stays. The sting of her words, left lodged beneath my skin.
‘I can’t live in limbo any more,’ she whispers. ‘It’s not fair. I don’t want to be ninety and still thinking about you, Josh.’
She’s right, I realise, remorse rolling through me. Of course she is. How can I possibly say I’m happy for her, then keep trying to pull her back to the past, whatever my motivations?
‘I’m sorry,’ I manage, eventually.
‘I feel bad saying that. But I’ve moved on now. And you should probably do the same.’