Chapter 16
Philip
By the end of my second week in Toronto, I know three important things.
The coffee in the office is drinkable if desperate.
The lift on the left makes a noise between floors eleven and twelve that suggests a minor mechanical death.
And if someone says they are “just circling back”, they are about to ruin your afternoon.
In other words, publishing remains publishing.
New country, same office diplomacy.
I am settling in.
That is what I tell people when they ask, and for once it is not entirely a polite lie.
My flat is starting to look less like somewhere a businessman was murdered in the nineties.
I have unpacked my books, bought proper mugs, and found a supermarket where basic groceries do not require a payment plan.
I know which route to the office gets me decent coffee and which route traps me behind tourists who walk four abreast like they are recreating a historical march.
The job is good.
Better than good.
The team is sharp, the list is ambitious, and no one has yet dropped a four-hundred-page disaster on my desk with the words quick favour. There are systems here. Meetings start on time. Emails get answered. People seem to know what they are doing before something catches fire.
It is deeply suspicious.
And also quite nice.
On Friday, Priya from rights appears beside my desk at half twelve with her coat already on.
“Lunch.”
I look up. “You say that like I have a choice.”
“You don’t.”
“I admire the honesty.”
“You’ve been staring at that screen for four hours.”
I snort, save my notes, and stand.
Ten minutes later we are sitting in a place around the corner that serves everything in bowls and charges extra for avocado as if it is contraband.
I order chicken, rice, and vegetables.
Priya studies me over her fork. “So. Toronto.”
“Still geographically in Canada.”
“How are you finding it?”
I shrug. “Good.”
“That sounded evasive.”
“It sounded British.”
She laughs. “Do you actually like it?”
I take a sip of water, considering.
“I do,” I admit. “The office is good. The work is good. People are annoyingly friendly.”
“That’s us.”
“I’m coping bravely.”
She grins.
And the thing is, I mean it.
I am coping.
More than coping, really.
There have been moments this week where I have almost forgotten this is all new.
A meeting where I know exactly what to say.
A manuscript that needs the kind of brutal line edit I can do in my sleep.
Priya dropping dry comments across the conference table.
The ordinary rhythm of work starting to feel ordinary again.
Maybe that is all settling in really is. Nothing dramatic. Just fewer moments of feeling out of place.
My phone buzzes on the table.
Luke.
Priya glances at the screen and lifts an eyebrow. “Ah. Secret lover?”
I nearly inhale a grain of rice.
“It’s an author.”
“Even worse.”
I answer. “You are interrupting my lunch.”
“It’s six o’clock,” Luke says.
“In England.”
“Yes. The centre of civilisation.”
“That is a generous interpretation.”
He ignores that.
“I’ve looked at your notes.”
“And?”
“You’re irritating.”
“Thank you.”
“You wrote, and I quote, this chapter loses all narrative tension in the middle.”
“It does.”
“It does not.”
“Luke, six pages of your detective staring moodily out of a window is not tension. It’s weather.”
Across from me, Priya bites down on a laugh.
Luke sighs like a man carrying the burden of genius among fools.
“It’s character reflection.”
“It’s a sulk with scenery.”
“That is unnecessarily cruel.”
“That is why you pay me.”
There is a pause.
Then, grudgingly, “I cut three pages.”
“Good.”
“Don’t sound pleased.”
“I’m thrilled.”
“You’re unbearable.”
“One of us has to maintain standards.”
Priya mouths wow at me.
I ignore her.
Luke clears his throat. “How is Canada?”
“Still there.”
“You know what I mean.”
I glance out through the window. People move past in coats and office shoes, coffee cups in hand, all of them looking infuriatingly capable.
“It’s good,” I say. “Busy. Efficient. No one has cried in a meeting yet, which feels promising.”
“Hm.”
I can hear papers shifting on his end.
Then he says, in that offhand tone he uses when he is trying to make something sound smaller than it is, “I’m glad you kept me on.”
I blink.
“As your editor?” I ask.
“No, Philip, as my life coach.”
“That would be a catastrophe.”
“Yes, as my editor.”
I smile.
Luke does not do gratitude unless heavily sedated.
“You’d have survived another editor.”
“I don’t want another editor. Another editor might let me keep the moody window scene.”
“Now we’re getting to the truth.”
“I also don’t want to explain my process to someone new.”
“You don’t explain your process to me.”
“Exactly. You already know when to leave me alone.”
That settles with less force and somehow more effect.
Familiar.
Easy.
Like someone had briefly punched a hole straight through to London.
“Well,” I say, “I’m touched by your deeply dysfunctional affection.”
“Don’t make this sentimental.”
“God forbid.”
“I mean it, though.”
My chuckle.
“I know.”
There is a beat.
Then Luke says, “Right. I’ve got chapter eight for you tonight.”
“Of course you do.”
“And I left the ending ambiguous.”
“Of course you did.”
“I need conflict.”
“You need supervision.”
Priya laughs properly this time.
Luke says, “Who is that?”
“A colleague.”
“Tell your colleague I dislike her support of tyranny.”
“She says noted.”
“I hate both of you.”
The call ends two minutes later with Luke complaining about deadlines, me insulting his adverbs, and both of us pretending that counted as a normal friendship.
When I put the phone down, Priya is grinning.
“What?”
“That was weirdly adorable.”
“It was not.”
“He basically rang to tell you he misses bullying you in person.”
“That is not adorable. That is deeply unhealthy.”
“Still adorable.”
I point my fork at her. “I’m changing lunch partners.”
“No, you’re not. You like me.”
I sigh. “Unfortunately.”
The afternoon moves quickly after that.
Meetings.
Editorial notes.
A long discussion about autumn acquisitions in which two senior managers use the phrase market appetite often enough that I briefly consider throwing myself through a window.
Still, I enjoy it.
That is the irritating part.
I enjoy the pace, the competence, the challenge of being useful in a new machine. By five o’clock I have forgotten twice that I am technically rebuilding my life on another continent.
By six, most of the office has emptied.
I should go home.
I don’t.
I tell myself I just want to finish the final notes on a manuscript.
Then I answer two emails.
Then another.
Work has always been very accommodating like that. It never asks why you are still there. It simply accepts the offering.
By the time I finally lean back, the office is almost silent.
The city beyond the windows is dark now, all glass and light and thin white lines of traffic far below.
I sit still for a moment.
For most of today, I have been fine.
Better than fine.
I have laughed. I have worked. I have argued with Luke. I have had lunch like a functioning adult who definitely isn’t one inconvenience away from an existential crisis.
But quiet is a bastard.
My phone sits beside my keyboard.
Silent.
No messages from Mark.
Nearly two weeks of exactly what I asked for.
A clean break.
No blurred lines. No trying to stretch a weekend into something practical. No dragging out something that had an expiry date stamped on it from the beginning.
Sensible.
I am very good at sensible.
I unlock my phone.
I do not open Mark’s contact.
I am not that far gone.
I open my photos instead, which is only marginally less pathetic.
Whitstable.
The beach.
Breakfast in Mark’s kitchen.
Heath shoved into the beanie looking furious with all available life.
I stop on that one.
My stupid little hamster.
I miss him.
The rustle of him at night. The tiny, offended face every time I cleaned his cage. The absurd comfort of another creature needing me for food and bedding and the occasional nervous pep talk.
He is with Mark.
Safe. Spoilt, probably. Judging everyone.
That was the right choice.
I know it was.
Still, my chest tightens.
Because Mark will know if Heath has been fussy with food.
Mark will know if he has kicked half his bedding into one corner like a furry artist.
Mark will be talking to him in that dry voice as if conversing with a highly anxious rodent is a normal use of a Friday evening.
I swipe.
The next photo is Mark.
Half in frame by the patio doors. Barefoot. One hand shoved into his joggers pocket. Morning light across his arm, catching the ink there. He is not looking at the camera because he didn’t know I took it.
It is a terrible photo.
I stare at it like it might start breathing.
And suddenly every distraction I have spent two weeks building around myself just... stops.
Mark making tea.
Mark laughing under his breath.
Mark holding Heath against his chest like he has been doing it for years.
Mark asking if he can hold me.
Mark looking at me as if I am something to be chosen instead of something temporarily convenient.
I lock the phone and put it face down.
The office feels too quiet.
Too big.
For the first time since I got here, there is nothing between me and the truth.
I miss him.
Not the weekend.
Not just the sex, though my body remains annoyingly clear on that subject.
Him.
His steadiness.
His honesty.
The ease of being with someone and not feeling like I have to perform competence every second of the day.
I have spent years mistaking manageable for happy.
Years choosing what made sense.
What was practical. Safe. Adult.
And now I am in a beautiful new office in a city that has offered me everything I said I wanted, realising that all sensible decisions really guarantee is that no one can call you reckless when you are miserable.
That is not a fun revelation for a Friday.
I pick up the phone again.
Mark’s name is there.
One message.
How’s Heath?
Simple. Casual. Entirely hamster-related.
Except it wouldn’t be.
It would be me.
Me in an empty office at nearly seven-thirty because going back to the flat feels lonelier than staying here under fluorescent lighting.
Me wanting to hear his voice.
Me tugging on something I am not remotely sure I have the right to tug on.
Mark deserves better than becoming the person I reach for because the silence has finally got too loud.
So I put the phone back down.
Pack my laptop.
Switch off the desk lamp.
For a second I stand there with my coat in my hand, city lights reflecting against the glass.
Toronto is good.
The job is good.
This life makes sense.
But as I walk towards the lifts, one thought follows me with slow, infuriating certainty.
I am not homesick.
That would be simpler.
I am Mark-sick.
And that is a significantly more complicated issue.