Chapter 36.
I don’t sleep. Of course I don’t. I spend the night emptying and scrubbing down my kitchen cupboards, a futile attempt to circuit-break the turmoil on loop in my mind. Eventually, as dawn unfolds, full mortification kicks in, more brutal than any hangover I have ever experienced.
I can’t stop picturing Ash’s face, last night. The way he looked at me. The man I love, thunderstruck with hurt and bewilderment. And I do love him. Don’t I?
Or is it Jamie I love – Jamie I am still, after all these years, trying to build a life with?
Though my mind is foggy with muddled logic, I try calling him, as I did four times when I got home last night. But his phone is off. So I message him again, though I can’t find a way to word my feelings without sounding as if I am guilty of a crime.
It isn’t how it sounded I love you Please call me Can we talk?
I sent him similar messages in the early hours of this morning. A total of twenty-two now sit delivered but unread at the end of our message thread. I look at them all, then replay my conversation with Juliet, over and over. And of course I see how Ash could think that in fact, I have lost my mind. How he might think he has fallen in love with someone who’s entirely detached from reality.
By eight o’clock, I have been churning with disquiet for so long, I feel as though my brain is filled with mud. So I take a shower then leave the house to walk the thirty minutes or so to Ash’s apartment. Sunday mornings in the city always feel slightly mournful – deserted streets, bags of rubbish in shop doorways, empty bottles abandoned the night before. The clouds today are the colour of wet cement.
I stop at Costa for two coffees, then walk the last five minutes to the Old Yarn Mill, heart pounding with anticipation.
‘Yep,’ he says gruffly, when I buzz.
‘It’s me.’
He doesn’t say anything, and for a moment I think he’s just going to ignore me. But then he buzzes me up, so I head inside and take the lift to the top floor.
He is a long time answering the door, and when he does, he blocks the space with his whole body, as if I’m a religious fanatic, or a charity worker who won’t be told no.
‘Can I come in? I brought coffee.’
A semi-surprised laugh. He doesn’t move. He’s wearing a crumpled T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, and all his features look strangely flat and colourless.
‘I don’t think there’s anything to say,’ he replies.
Standing in the clinical dead space of the building’s hallway, as though I’m trying to sell him something – which I guess I am – I feel my heart slide into my shoes. ‘Please let me explain.’
He starts to speak, then hesitates, and for a moment I think he might invite me in. But then he says, ‘Do you know how long I was standing behind you last night, listening to what you were saying to my mum?’
I shake my head, the shame of it all gripping me again.
‘Ten minutes. Ten actual minutes while you were talking to her, telling her you think I’m the reincarnation of your ex. Trying to convince her, too. Do you know how humiliating that was? Not just for me, but for Mum. It was her birthday, for God’s sake. And they were so excited to meet you, Neve. They put a lot of effort into last night. And you ended up telling her you’re essentially in love with someone else. She saw what I went through with Tabitha—’
‘This isn’t that,’ I counter.
‘Look, I don’t want coffee, or to talk. I want you to leave.’
‘I wasn’t trying to convince your mum,’ I say, in an attempt to penetrate the stone wall of his expression. ‘I didn’t plan to say anything to her. I swear. But she seemed so worried about you, and we were talking in the kitchen, and it just... came out.’
‘Well, at least I know now how you really feel, Neve. This whole time, we’ve been together because you believe – and don’t even get me started on the logic of this – that I’m your ex. You don’t love me for me. You don’t even love me . You love your ex. The guy you were going to—’ But then he breaks off and shakes his head, drawing a hand down his face.
‘I take it she didn’t—’
‘Believe your theory?’ He lets out a half-laugh, but he’s not smiling. ‘No, Neve. She didn’t.’
I nod. ‘Right. Okay. Fair enough.’
‘Yeah, it is. This feels no different than if you’d told me... you’d been shagging someone else.’
‘Ash, I know it’s complicated,’ I insist, trying not to think about Tabitha. ‘But I do love you.’
‘No. Complicated is when... one person lives in Norwich and the other lives in Aberdeen. Or when one of you votes left, and the other right. Compared to this, complicated is actually pretty simple.’
His words are fierce, but at least he’s talking. There might be hope. ‘Can I just come in, for five minutes?’
‘Sure – if you tell me you don’t believe I’m Jamie.’ He steps aside, opens the door wide enough for me to pass.
It’s the simplest of tests. And of course, I fail straight away. ‘The point is, you might not actually know you’re him...’
I read about something similar to this in an article online – people living with personality changes brought on by traumatic brain injuries. They know they have changed – because everyone keeps telling them – but they can’t feel it themselves. Can’t inhabit the person they were before.
Ash shakes his head. ‘Look, I’m going to save us both a lot of time, pain and confusion. I don’t believe what you told my mum last night. All right? I’m categorically not Jamie. Obviously. I don’t buy into reincarnation and ghosts and the afterlife and all that malarkey. Never have. It’s claptrap, nothing more.’ He swallows, and I watch him force out what he says next. ‘I don’t see how we can come back from this. I’m going to stay here. There’s no way I’m letting the flat out now.’
I should have been expecting this. But somehow, the shock of hearing him say it still feels brutal as whiplash. For a couple of moments, I can’t speak.
‘Can you drop off my stuff when you get a chance? If there’s anything here of yours, I’ll do the same.’ All the warmth has left his voice. It’s now just logistics, like we’re estranged relatives planning a funeral, or neighbours discussing a party wall.
It was a bad idea to bring coffee. With both hands full, I am unable to do anything but stand helplessly in front of him, when all I want to do is pull him into a hug. ‘I don’t want this to end,’ I say.
‘I don’t know why it would be a surprise to you,’ Ash says softly, ‘that I want to be with someone who loves me for me. Because you know what? I still want that, Neve. I still want to find that person. I thought you were her, but—’
‘I am her. It’s not that simple, it’s—’
‘What if it was the other way around? How would you feel if you found out that all this time, I’d been thinking of... Tabitha, while I’d been with you?’
‘Please hear me out,’ I say, a final time. ‘What I believe... It would explain so much. Stranger things have happened, Ash.’
‘Um, they absolutely haven’t. Not in my world, anyway.’
‘You’re being extraordinarily small-minded.’
‘And you’re clearly still grieving that guy. You never resolved it. You should go and see someone about that, Neve, before it ruins the rest of your life.’
I feel a swift spark of anger, the first since we met. ‘Don’t try to make out I’m crazy.’
‘I’m not. You’re doing that all by yourself.’
Behind us, the lift rumbles, indicating the arrival of a neighbour, or delivery person. I have mere moments left.
‘I’m not mad ,’ I insist, looking him right in the eye, a final attempt to weaken the barrier he has put up. Or, to be more accurate, the one I have created between us.
But he doesn’t say anything else. He just gently but very firmly closes the door in my face.