I scroll back through his social-media accounts for more information: his life, his family.
Let’s face it—I am looking for signs of his partner. But there is nothing personal on Instagram. There are a few photos of him at his desk, and an official shot of him at a design awards dinner, a charity gala. But there is no other half in any photo I can see. And certainly no baby.
I go back to the awards shot. He stands there, tall and solid in a tailored suit, a lethal-looking glass trophy in his hand and aludicrously handsome smile crinkling his eyes. Then my eye catches something in the photo, or rather the absence of something.
He’s not wearing a wedding ring.
—
The front doorbell chimes and I sit up sharply, snapped out of my deep dive. I need to stop getting lost online like this, slipping into rabbit holes and letting the hours slip through my fingers like sand. It is past 5 p.m.
Unemployment is dangerous; the time somehow dissolves, days vanish.
A knock follows the chime and I race downstairs to open the front door right as the visitor is turning to leave. It’s a very tall, very intense-looking deliveryman, his hair long and loose, his striking eyebrows fixed in concern. He turns back to me, clearly annoyed at having had to wait so long for an answer, a small, important-looking package in his hands.
“Oh, I haven’t ordered anything,” I comment, as if he cares.
Then a flicker of joy bursts inside me at the thought that one of my old friends back in the Cotswolds might have sent me a housewarming gift. The deliveryman immediately shatters that illusion.
“You happy to accept someone else’s package?”
It takes me a moment to come down from my excitement.
“Oh, okay, for who?”
“Twenty-one.” He points across the road at a butter-yellow front door.
“Sure, no problem,” I say, careful not to sound too disappointed.
He pops the stiff package into my hands. “Right. Name?” he demands, then looks up suspiciously when I do not immediately answer.
“My name? It’s Frankie Green,” I answer; he taps an approximation of that into his device. It blips.
“Done. They’re never in,” he mutters with a shake of his head. He clearly has a wellspring of opinions on that. “Packages every day and she’s never there.” He clicks his tongue sharply, pockets his device, and marches away.
I push the door closed with my foot and place the Jiffy envelope carefully on the hall table. It rattles as I do so.
I look down at it.
“What are you?”
Interest piqued, I scan it for a sender address, a clue to its contents, but there is none, and it is addressed to a Mary Lamb.
Chapter 7
The Woman—24 Months Ago
The young woman is waitingfor Simon outside the cinema.
She is early. She doesn’t come to this side of London often, and she wasn’t sure she’d be able to find the right entrance or level or cinema inside the overwhelmingly vast shopping complex; but here she is, and she is early.
The smell of warm popcorn floats to her on an air-conditioned breeze. She wonders if she should go in, get snacks. But perhaps he’ll want to do that together.
She imagines them nestled close in the darkness, his thigh warm against hers, and she decides she will wait for him. They can choose together.
It’s funny—after her twenties flashed before her eyes, a parade of university friends wedding-down, buying houses, and decorating nurseries—she started to think that love might just be a trick you played on yourself, and each other, a long con.
But after meeting Simon a month ago, she feltitalmost immediately.
