Chapter 25
Adam
‘God, Adam, it’s a bit depressing in here.’ Katie stands in the middle of the hallway, the front door wide open behind her. A tickle of a breeze filters through and the bottom of her dress ripples in response.
I take her in. Her eyes are bright and alert, her legs smooth and tanned. On one wrist she wears a bracelet I haven’t seen before, and the thin straps of her dress trail down to meet at the base of her back, exposing a new tattoo.
‘What’s that?’ I ask dumbly, pointing.
‘Oh.’ She laughs, and it’s strange: light and girlish. ‘I thought it was about time I bit the bullet. Embraced the change, you know?’
No, I don’t know. Who is this woman?
‘Shall I go and get packing, then?’ She asks, turning around to face me. Her perfume — new, unfamiliar — tickles my nose.
‘If you like.’
She wanders the rooms downstairs like a beautiful ghost, collecting bits and trinkets I barely pay attention to, and I stay rooted to the spot. It’s only when she starts climbing the stairs that I snap out of my trance and follow her.
‘Oh, thanks for getting my case down.’ She heaves it up onto the bed next to mine and partially fills it with an ornamental elephant, a flower-themed coffee table book and a favourite coaster of hers that she found downstairs. ‘Are you going somewhere?’
‘Dublin. We booked it a while back.’
‘Ah, yeah.’ She nods, and I notice that she averts her gaze, looking bashful for the first time since she arrived. The passport. The memory washes over me again, and I breathe deeply.
‘Shall I leave you to it?’ I ask. Being in the same room with her when she’s like this, when I don’t recognise her, is making me nauseous.
‘No, stay.’ She starts bundling clothes from the wardrobe into her case. ‘I won’t be able to take everything today. I’ll come back at some point, when you’re at work.’ She tests the lid of her case, and when it closes easily, adds another few items. Before I’ve had a chance to reply, she’s speaking again. ‘We need to talk about the house.’
‘I’d like to keep the house,’ I say quickly.
She turns to me. ‘And how are you going to afford that?’
I shrug. I can’t come up with a plan, not now, not when she’s just confirmed that she’s gone for good.
‘Right.’ She turns back to her clothes. ‘Well, if you’re serious, I can buy you out. You could get somewhere smaller, an apartment, maybe? Somewhere less expensive.’ She moves to the chest of drawers now, pulling out t-shirts and underwear. I look away. ‘There are some nice ones down by the high street — you’d have more than enough for a 10% deposit...’
I watch her talking, stunned. How can she be so flippant? Every word she says is like a thump in the chest. Has she been thinking about this for a while?
‘What about the beach?’ I whisper, unaware I’ve said it out loud until she turns to look at me again.
‘The beach?’ She frowns. ‘You’d have a bit of a commute on your hands, wouldn’t you? I suppose you could—’
‘No, you asked me to come to the beach with you. Before... before we broke up.’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘Oh. Yeah. I think that was... it was an attempt. To sort this. Or come clean, or something.’
It was a breakup trip, then. I feel my heart fold in on itself. ‘You said you missed me.’
‘Christ, Adam!’ She spins around from where she’s gone back to packing. ‘I slept with someone else! I cheated on you!’
I step back. ‘I know.’
She rolls her eyes. ‘Have some fucking self-respect.’
All the breath leaves my body. She moves around the bed to her bedside table and crouches down to open the drawer. Something simmers inside me, bubbling up in my stomach, slowly, and then uncontrollably.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, not looking at me. ‘That was harsh, I—’
‘Need something from in there, do you?’ I ask, my voice shaking. ‘I thought you’d already taken all the important things.’
‘Oh, grow up,’ she snaps. ‘This is hard for me, too.’
‘Yeah, I bet it’s really hard,’ I growl, my voice loud now. ‘How’s this for self-respect? Give me your keys and fuck off.’
There’s a small pause as she turns around, slowly, to look at me. ‘Adam—’
‘You’ll get your half of the house. Just don’t ever come near me again.’ My hands are clenched so hard, I can feel my nails puncturing my palms.
She stands up. ‘What’s up with you?’
‘ Me ?’ I yell, despite myself. ‘What’s up with me ?’
‘Yes!’ she shouts. ‘You just swore at me!’
I hold my hands up in the air. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. How dare I? Can you forgive me? Because I sure as hell can’t forgive you.’
Katie opens her mouth to respond, but a noise downstairs makes her pause. There’s a knock, and someone calls something downstairs.
‘Keep packing,’ I snap, turning on my heel and jogging down the stairs.
The front door is wide open. A woman stands there, framed by the sunlight: wavy, chin-length black hair and green eyes.
She stares at me for a second, as though she’s lost her train of thought, and her mouth hangs open, a confused frown between her eyebrows. I go to speak, but she straightens her shoulders and her face smooths.
‘I need to talk to you about your cat,’ she says.
I shake my head, my argument with Katie clouding my thinking. ‘My cat?’
‘Yes, the scabby one? It keeps coming in through my window.’ She raises an eyebrow at me, and I take in her tailored blouse and folded arms. Something tells me she isn’t to be messed with.
‘Old Sausage?’ I say, stupidly. My head feels like mashed potato.
‘What?’
‘Sorry.’ I shake my head. ‘I’m in the middle of something. I’m... do you mean the tortoiseshell one?’
‘Why, how many have you got?’ she asks.
‘None,’ I say. ‘I don’t have a cat.’
‘What about that one, right there?’ She points beyond me, and I turn around. Old Sausage is sitting at the bottom of the stairs, swishing his tail.
‘Oh, Jesus. No, he isn’t mine. He just lets himself in. He belongs to someone down the street, I think.’ I step around her and poke my head out of the door, my arm brushing hers as I point. ‘That house, two doors down. I always see him going through the patio doors.’
‘That’s my house,’ she says incredulously.
I step back, conscious of how close we are. ‘Oh.’
Footsteps thunder down the stairs and Katie appears, dragging her suitcase behind her. ‘Hello.’ She stands beside me, studying the woman in the doorway. ‘Who’s this then?’
‘Eve,’ the woman says, holding out her hand, and something niggles in my mind.
‘I see. Well, don’t let me keep you.’ Katie smiles at me. ‘I’ll come by for the rest in the week. Keep the furniture. We’ve—’ She catches herself, assumedly before she starts talking about quite how little she needs our chipped IKEA offerings in her new life. ‘Well. Doesn’t matter. I’ll make sure you’re out, so I’m not... interrupting.’ She casts a quick side-glance at Eve.
I open my mouth to correct her, whatever her assumptions are, but she’s halfway down the path, moving towards a waiting Uber.
As she reaches the gate, she stops, hesitating for a moment before turning back around. ‘Chloe called, by the way,’ she says, an unreadable expression on her face. ‘You might want to get in touch.’
She turns on her heel, swings open the gate and drops her case into the open boot of the car. Two seconds later, she slams the door behind her and the car drives away.
I stare after her, my brain struggling to process the enormity of what’s happening. I don’t realise I’m still staring until Eve clears her throat.
‘This feels uncomfortable,’ she says, and I come to, dragging my eyes away from the road.
‘Feels worse than uncomfortable to me.’ I shake my head. ‘Sorry, not a great time.’
‘No worries,’ she says, peering shamelessly down the corridor. ‘If it’s not your cat, it’s not your cat.’
‘It’s not my cat,’ I confirm, looking behind me, but Old Sausage has gone. ‘I’m actually starting to wonder whether it’s anyone’s cat at all.’
‘Yeah.’ She looks thoughtful. ‘I feel a bit bad for her, but she is sort of ruining my life.’
‘Her?’ I smile. ‘You reckon it’s a girl?’
She looks down, her severe expression melting into something that looks a little like embarrassment. Dark eyelashes flash against her cheeks for a second before she looks back up. ‘I just assumed.’
‘I thought he was a boy.’ I scratch my beard. Something about this woman is putting me on edge.
‘Right, here’s what we’ll do.’ She straightens her back again, her eyes focused, and the transformation is mesmerising. ‘We’ll take her to the vets, and if she isn’t chipped, list her on some missing animal sites, then update each other if her owner is found. OK?’
It feels like I don’t really have a choice. ‘Yeah, OK.’
‘Here’s my number.’ She holds her hand out and I look at it dumbly, expecting to see something written there, before realising she wants my phone. I unlock it and open the ‘new contact’ screen before passing it over.
‘Great.’ She taps her number in quickly and hands it back. ‘One-bell me. Get in touch if you hear anything.’
She turns and walks determinedly back down the path, and I watch her leave, feeling like something has just happened, but not precisely knowing what.