Chapter Six
Dear Gertie,
How’s the writing going? You don’t have to finish the whole book before sending, you know?
I can read it chapter by chapter. Ready and waiting!
Also are you absolutely sure you don’t want to do the panel at the London Romance Festival?
Would be great for you to meet your readers IRL and I know they would love to meet you. Could be fun!
Bridget x
Five minutes later, I get another email from Bridget:
PS Sorry, I just realised it’s Josie’s birthday today. Sending love your way xx
As I reach the entrance of Islington and St Pancras cemetery the next morning my heart surges with hope that this year might be the year I actually make it to Josie’s grave to lay flowers – something I’ve attempted and failed to do multiple times since she died.
Every year on her birthday, at Christmas and on the anniversary of her death, I go to the florist’s hut near my house for a bunch of chamomile (her favourite), drive to East Finchley, park and trudge up to the enormous cast-iron gates of the burial ground.
At which point I have a quiet panic, promptly turn around and race straight back home, muttering an apology to Josie in my head and promising her that I’ll definitely, definitely make it next time.
It’s a perfect day for it. Balmy and gentle, a few cautious clouds tempering the glare of the August sun, a wisp of a breeze making the tree leaves flutter as if they’re waving.
But as soon as the cemetery gates come into view I know that today will be exactly the same as all the rest. Before my brain can even reason with itself, my body halts, stock-still on the gravel pathway, my feet unwilling and unable to move forward even an inch further.
I bunch up the long sleeve of my shirt and use it to roughly wipe away the beads of sweat starting to prickle my forehead.
For fuck’s sake.
It’s not that I don’t want to see her. I do.
Of course I do. I want to tell her all my shit and imagine the no-nonsense advice she’d give me.
I want to relay a juicy argument I overheard between two guys in the queue at Pret and think about her ear-splitting snorty laugh and how good it felt to be the one who elicited it.
Most of all, I want to apologise. For the argument we had the day she died.
The grief counsellor I saw in the early days said that apologising out loud, at Jo’s headstone, would help with the guilt.
And probably if I’d carried on seeing the counsellor I would have learned how to do that.
But then I met Henry. And it seemed easier to just …
feel better with him. Be distracted with him.
And the thing is, when it comes to it, the grim reality of it, talking to Josie at a gravestone?
I physically can’t seem to do it. I simply don’t want to.
The truth is, I’d rather just pretend she’s gone away for a little while, off on some mad adventure, sure to return at some point.
The pretending, the constant diversion, is much easier on my already fragile heart.
Josie was always the brave one of the two of us.
And without her showing me how it works, being brave feels like a puzzle I can’t quite get the hang of.
I lay the bunch of chamomile at the ornate gates of the cemetery then sit cross-legged on the dusty ground against a nearby wall post. I pull my phone out of my bag, and with a trembling finger, press the FaceTime button.
I don’t know why I do it because he’s not answered any of my calls since he left, but to my surprise and relief he answers this one.
His lovely face pops up on the screen and my heart immediately swells with longing.
‘Hiya, Hen.’ I give him an awkward little wave. He does one back.
God, I miss him. I miss us. It aches. It physically fucking aches.
‘Hello, my Gert,’ he says, brushing his soft brown hair across his forehead. He’s strolling down a busy street that I recognise as being somewhere in Mayfair. That’s where his best friend Jim lives.
‘Have you been to see Jim?’ I ask. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘Oh, yeah, yeah. Jim. He’s great. Birthday party prep, you know. It’s going to be quite the weekend. Apparently there’s an alpaca farm next to the hotel and Jim’s having them wear bow ties like him.’ Henry chuckles. ‘So extra. So Jim.’
I laugh, feeling gutted that I won’t be going. I love a birthday party. I love alpacas. And I expect I would really love alpacas in bow ties.
‘I’m glad you answered,’ I say, trying to contain the wobble in my voice. ‘I didn’t expect—’
‘Josie’s birthday—’ he cuts in.
‘You remembered.’
‘Twentieth of August. Same day I got my first book deal. How could I forget? How are you holding up?’ He gazes right into the camera, big blue eyes tender behind his tortoiseshell glasses.
I wish more than anything else that I could reach into the phone and touch him.
Feel the familiar comfort of his warm neck beneath my palm, inhale the fresh fabric conditioner smell of his linen shirt.
Bury myself into him and press pause on my despair the same way I buried myself into him in the weeks and months after Josie’s death.
‘I … It’s … It’s tough,’ I say. ‘I tried to go to the cemetery again, but—’
‘Oh shit, Gert. Hang on. I’m so sorry.’ Henry pulls pack from the screen, suddenly distracted.
‘Someone’s actually trying to get through on the phone.
Shit, terrible timing. It’s, uh, my publisher.
I’ve been waiting for her to call. Can I ring you back later?
Sorry, Gert. I’ll call back asap. Shit. Stay strong, okay! You’ve got this! Lots of love.’
And then with a beep the screen goes black, nothing but my own despondent face reflected in the glass.
A coil of something uncomfortable unfurls in my stomach.
I mentally try to elbow the sensation away, reminding myself that Henry probably had no choice but to answer another call in the middle of our conversation.
After sales of his second book tanked, a call from his publisher, rather than an email, probably means it’s something urgent.
Of course he had to answer. I slip my phone back into my bag and nod to myself.
Henry knows how important Josie was to me.
If I hadn’t met him right then, right after she died, God knows where I’d be now.
He’s going to call me back later. He said that. I’ll get to talk to him properly. That’s a good thing. A good sign.
The thought of speaking to Henry again gives me enough energy to pull myself up off the grubby floor and back onto my feet. I plug my headphones in, turn the music up full blast and set off back to the car park.
At home, after a restorative bath, in which I proudly manage not to cry too loudly, I realise that all my clean towels are still in the tumble dryer.
Popping my glasses back on, I make a naked dash across the flat to grab one, when mid-jog it occurs to me, as if in slow motion, that there is a strange man sitting on my sofa.
More specifically, a cowboy.