Page 50 of All Our Missing Pieces

‘Okay, how about the one that was obsessed with Coldplay? Was that Caroline too?’

‘Nope.’ His voice was more serious now. ‘That was Rachel. She was more recent.’

Rachel. Okay. I felt a brief stab of jealousy, even though I knew it was irrational and unnecessary.

‘Right. Rachel, then. How recent, exactly?’

‘Oh, about a hundred years ago. Back in the mists of time, before I met you.’

I smiled. It was like he’d known how I would feel and was giving me reassurance without me having to ask for it.

‘Seriously, though. Were you together for long?’ I asked.

‘Two years. We met at uni, same as you and your bloke.’

Two years? ‘That’s a long time. When did you and her split up?’

He hesitated, then said, ‘A week before I moved in here.’

I was jolted. I didn’t expect Luke to have lived like some kind of monk for years and years, but that was recent. Like, recent recent. He’d split up with Rachel, moved into the house on Damask Square, and a few weeks later met me.

‘So when you said you had nowhere to live and you were thinking of moving back to live at your mum’s in Leicester, that was why?’

I felt the movement of his head as he nodded. ‘Basically, yeah. I realised I couldn’t live with Rachel any more.’

‘So why… why couldn’t you live with her any more?’

‘Cos she kicked me out. Well, she didn’t kick me out, but she gave me an ultimatum. She said, “You’re not going to make a living painting pictures and trying to sell them on market stalls. You need to get a proper job and stop messing about, or get out.”’

‘And you decided to get out?’

I felt torn. Despite how I felt about Luke, I could see Rachel’s point – I wouldn’t want to be holding down a job and paying all the bills while the man I lived with haphazardly pursued a dream of being an artist. No one with a decent head on their shoulders would.

‘It wasn’t just that. Well, that was the catalyst. She was right – I’d stayed with her for too long without pulling my weight financially. I sold a painting here and there, did casual decorating labour, but it wasn’t a steady income. And it brought home to me that we wanted different things.’

‘What did she want?’

‘To settle down. Buy a flat. Picket fence, the whole shebang.’

‘Marriage and kids?’

‘Eventually, yeah, I guess.’

‘And you don’t?’ I felt as if I was feeling my way through a dark space, not afraid exactly, but not wanting to reach out and touch something that wasn’t meant to be touched.

‘Not right away. I probably will – I don’t know – but it felt too soon.’

‘I know what you mean. That stuff’s for grown-ups, right?’

He stroked my hair. ‘We are grown-ups. Just not like that.’

‘There’s so much other stuff to do first,’ I said.

‘Right. I’d love to go travelling, maybe to South East Asia, even Australia.’

‘Like Orla?’

‘Like Orla. Although maybe not for as long.’