CHAPTER TEN #3
Raina gave a half-hearted smile. ‘You mean am I a savant? Sure. I’m super good at disposing of bodies. I’ve a special interest in soil so I know exactly where to bury them. I can dig a shallow grave better than any neurotypical.’
Ottie’s eyes narrowed and Tom released a solid bark of laughter.
‘Well, this is quaint,’ Seb said, a little too loudly. ‘London really is becoming a little English village. You knowing Pep, and Tom knowing you, Raina. Tom was at Cambridge with us.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Raina said, finally flashing Tom a glance.
Tom felt like pointing out that Raina probably knew a lot more about him than he did about her.
He left each interaction with more questions than answers.
It felt a little surreal to be sitting in his local with her socialite friend, who had millions of pounds compared to Raina’s hundreds, and his two university associates who, in the cold light of day, seemed worse than he remembered.
When he was apart from Seb and Ottie, his mind often conjured them up to be the same carefree, and often careless, friends he made during his time at Cambridge.
He forgot the people they were turning into.
The people who did a few episodes on True Love Summer and then decided the folk they’d once thought were beneath them were actually completely subhuman.
Something that their behaviour regularly reflected.
‘By the way, Tom,’ Pepper said, emphasizing his name as if it were an insult. ‘I saw Caroline Gibbs at a party last week. Not a fan of yours.’
Tom felt everyone glance at him. He kept his face mildly disinterested.
‘I don’t really lose sleep over what Caroline Gibbs thinks of me,’ he said.
‘Pep knows everyone,’ Raina said, patting her friend’s knee.
He wanted to grab Raina’s dainty hand and ask her why she was friends with this dreadful London princess. He knew she, in turn, would demand that he explain his awful university friends. Then they could abandon all three of them and go somewhere else. The green, the garden, his place, wherever.
‘We should really let you three get on with your night,’ Raina said warmly, slipping her hand around Pepper’s elbow. ‘Keep the rest of that champagne, if you like.’
The dismissal was clear, albeit affable. Seb and Ottie were happy to hear it, grabbing their glasses and the almost empty bottle from its ice bucket before heading back into the fray of the main bar.
‘Tom, let’s sit outside,’ Seb called over his shoulder, miming the act of smoking a cigarette.
Tom looked back to Raina and Pepper. The former gave him a tired smile, and the latter raised her eyebrows in irritation.
‘Go on,’ Pepper said dismissively.
Tom hesitated. Coincidences were never just coincidences.
He’d probably never see Raina Lewis again.
If he turned around and went out into the pub garden, he’d have to listen to Seb and Ottie vilify and degrade everyone in their lives, making him wonder what they said about him in his absence.
He would wrestle his way back inside to order a round at the bar, and he’d notice that they were gone.
That she would be gone. He would glance around, hoping to catch them putting on their coats.
But it would be for nothing.
The idea that this was some kind of final goodbye made Tom unable to move. When Raina had left him in Poplar, he watched her leave, all the while thinking he would be able to rearrange another outing or interview. Then the email had arrived, mere hours later.
Now, knowing this could be the real ending to their strange, confusing little back and forth . . .
He didn’t know what was happening to him.
He’d never been this all over the place before.
This was a job. He was at complete liberty to write the piece – he had a few quotes to use already.
He could chase up the rest. He needed no permission, no approval; it was all within his reach and something that his agent and publisher were keen to see.
There was no concrete reason why his shoes should be glued to the hardwood floors of the White Horse pub, incapable of leaving to join his friends outside.
‘You deserve the award nominations,’ he heard himself say, staring into Raina’s eyes with a strange sort of melancholy. ‘I hope you get everything you want.’
She was wearing her usual mask. Unflappable. Yet something softened in the greenish hues of her eyes. There was some kind of acknowledgement, some kind of understanding.
He turned sharply and walked away, before her privileged friend could say something crude.
He felt every cell in his body resenting him, demanding that he revert his course and turn back.
He ignored the feeling. He pushed his way out of the heaving crowd of pubgoers and weaved his way to Seb and Ottie, who were both smoking.
‘Good, you got away,’ Seb said briskly as Tom sat down on the wooden bench next to them. ‘I like Pep, God knows I do, but she’s become so dull since she started hanging around with that one.’
‘That one?’ Tom asked, his voice icy.
‘She thinks she’s better than everyone, clearly,’ Ottie said, casting a glance towards the pub. ‘Does not look in the least bit autistic to me.’
‘What do autistic people look like, Ottie?’ Tom asked quietly.
‘Not like that. Anyway. You’re going to rip her apart, aren’t you, tiger?’
She cackled and Seb snorted, taking a long drag.
‘She hardly said a word to either of you,’ Tom pointed out.
‘Exactly, so snobby,’ Ottie replied. ‘Her little podcast might be getting a bit of attention, but we’ve been on television. There’s, like, an entertainment hierarchy, and she’s on the bottom. The only people who’re below her are, like, people who write books.’
‘You mean authors,’ Tom supplied.
‘Right! She can’t look down her nose at us.’
‘I don’t think she was,’ Tom said.
‘Oh, Tom, please. She wanted to be anywhere but with us.’
Tom looked back at the bright door leading into the tavern.
He was still tingling with the strange feeling of finality.
As if he was supposed to make some kind of choice.
He felt torn between the two places. The table outside with the people he actually came to see, who were marginally interested in seeing him as well, and the woman inside the pub.
The one who wanted nothing more to do with him.
He could see why. He was a slightly brash interloper who had unintentionally insulted her during their first meeting and done little to improve her regard for him since then.
He needed to cut this thread. Properly.
He’d just refused the offer of a cigarette from Ottie when he spotted Pepper leaving the pub. Alone. She looked calm and unruffled, checking her phone and walking at a leisurely pace. He looked behind her, waiting to catch a glimpse of Raina.
But she didn’t follow.
He dragged his eyes from the door and watched Pepper move from a casual walk to a slight jog, as she scampered to the edge of the pavement to hail a taxi that was passing by.
That really unsettled Tom. She was leaving Raina behind.
He got to his feet without thinking and began the arduous task of shouldering his way through the crowd to the inside of the pub. His eyes landed on their table, which was now occupied by new people.
Tom frowned, his eyes skimming over the bar to try to spot her.
Nowhere.
‘You looking for Rai?’
He turned to see the bartender with icy blonde hair and even colder eyes which assessed him with minor interest.
‘Yes,’ he answered bluntly.
‘She’s in the cellar.’
She led him behind the bar to a wooden door. She opened it for him, revealing a dimly lit second staircase that stank of beer.
‘She’s down there,’ she said, her expression disapproving. ‘Be nice.’
Tom didn’t linger. He stepped in. The deeper he went, the more intrigued he became. While he’d been to the pub many times, this was a secret hideaway he’d never been permitted to see. He’d stayed for a lock-in once, but even then, this was kept private.
He turned a corner and blinked at the fluorescent lights.
The wide room he now stood in had mountains of crates, as well as large cask ale barrels. Wine bottles, all organized by grape and colour, champagne by the case. Opened boxes of crisps and nuts.
Then, sitting on a pile of small boxes next to an enormous ice freezer, was Raina. Her heels were off and she was leaning over the huge dispenser, letting the cold brush up against her face and décolletage.
Tom was frozen once more, staring at this strange illusion of a person who’d turned him into a stranger to himself.
When she finally looked up and saw him, she didn’t seem surprised.
‘Come and feel the cold,’ she said softly.
He stepped closer, moving some beer crates for his own little pew. The ice hit him at once, and on a balmy summer evening in London, it felt like heaven.
‘Why are you down here?’
She made a noncommittal sound. ‘One of Pepper’s crushes sent her a “you up” text and I didn’t want to go home just yet.’
‘You don’t like crowded places.’
It wasn’t a question. Raina tapped her temple with the pad of her finger. ‘Sensory overload. I can feel a shutdown coming. I’m better off somewhere cool and quiet.’
I’m better off wherever you are, Raina.
‘I used to hide down here all of the time, when I worked here,’ she added.
‘Oh, really?’
‘Either because of some creepy dude who wanted to follow me home after my shift or because some polished Chelsea lady wanted to bully me. Maybe a bad engagement party. Or just exhaustion.’
She closed her eyes and leaned a little closer to the ice.
‘It gets so bloody hot in this pub,’ she added. ‘This is the only place you can be cool. I used to wear the most ridiculous shorts because anything else would make my legs sweat like mad. Not very attractive.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Believe it. What were your crappy jobs?’
She opened a packet of crisps, offering some to him. He accepted.
‘I had a paper round back in Scotland,’ he admitted. ‘Small town, everyone knew each other. People would stop me for a morning chat, so it took about four hours to get everyone their newspaper. I got sacked.’
Raina laughed.
‘When I moved to Cambridge, I couldn’t balance classes with a full-time job but I needed the money, so I wrote essays for people.’
Raina’s mouth dropped open in comical disbelief. ‘The King of Cancel Culture took money to ghost-write essays?’
‘Rich kids needed free time to party, I needed the income.’
‘My God.’
Tom smirked at her pretending-to-be-shocked tone of voice. ‘Then I moved to London and did some terrible internships during the working week and sold books on the weekend.’
‘Out of your car?’
‘In a shop.’
‘Which shop?’
‘It was in the financial district. Not there any more. Bankers got their shoes shined just outside during the week, but on the days I worked, it was pretty dead. Mostly families with young children, and tourists.’
‘I bet you were the perfect, taciturn bookseller.’
‘My first day, a guy came in and asked which one hundred books would look best on a shelf for the back of his YouTube videos.’
Raina made a noise of incredulity. ‘Oh, no! That’s horrendous.’
‘Yup.’
‘And thus, the avenger of the internet was born.’
They both laughed.
‘So, when did you start writing?’
‘Well . . .’ He shifted himself upon the stack of beer crates. ‘I got a reputation for being snarky on social media quite quickly. Got the odd editor in my inbox after the blue tick arrived. Back when those were given out on merit.’
Tom hesitated, wondering if he wanted to continue the story. He’d never spoken about it with anyone.
‘Then my mum got very ill. Cancer.’
He waited for the inevitable ‘I’m sorry’, but it never came. Raina’s expression was serious but she was leaving space for him to carry on speaking.
‘She deteriorated quite quickly. Dad did, too. They hid the worst of it from me; they needed me to stay in London. Work was going well, and they didn’t want to see me stumble.’
Tom remembered those days as one long montage.
Barely sleeping, just working, while living some sadistic auto-pilot way of life.
Too busy to question why his family called less and less, and why Mirren often cried when he got in touch with her.
He cancelled three trips home at their indignant insistence.
Then his father had called late one night and asked if he could make it home on the sleeper.
‘She died in our living room,’ he said. He touched the air above the ice, feeling its chill.
‘Grief . . . it turns you into an animal. Makes you crawl. And howl. You realize how civilized you once were. Because grief cuts that part out of you. And it’s hard to stitch it back in again.
Everyone can sort of . . . still smell it on you. ’
Again, he waited for Raina to say something hurried. To force away the silence with some rehearsed words of sympathy. Instead, she scooped up two large cubes of ice, handing one to him.
‘What was her name?’
Tom stared at the ice in his warm hand, letting it start to melt against the heat of his palm. ‘Linda.’
Raina clinked his ice cube with her own. ‘To Linda.’
They sat looking at one another, atop beer crates, holding ice cubes.
Tom felt the rest of the world melt away, like the frozen water in his hands.