Page 25 of All the Things We Never Knew

The room was at the front of the house at the end of a landing with three other doors leading off it – a guest bedroom and study, maybe, and a bathroom; I couldn’t imagine the kids not having a floor to themselves in a house like this.

Anna tapped on the door, opened it and said, ‘She’s here.’

Then she turned and walked away.

I stepped in. The bed was below the window, the open curtains letting sunlight flood in, falling on the white sheets and Gray’s pale face and hands. Was it my imagination, or had his hair got whiter too, since the last time I saw him?

But his smile was the same as always. ‘Come to take my blood pressure, nurse?’

It was a running joke between us. The first time I told him what I did for a living, he’d said, ‘A nurse? Every red-blooded man’s fantasy,’ and I – having heard comments like that too often before – had pointed out that, after a day in a polyester uniform running around an overheated hospital, I was no one’s fantasy except an anosmiac’s.

‘Shut it, pervert,’ I said.

Gray burst out laughing, and so did I. I ran the few steps across the room and threw myself down on the bed next to him, feeling his arms enfold me. For a few minutes we just lay there, holding each other. I felt our chests rising and falling in unison as my breath steadied. I could smell his familiar aftershave overlaying the other smells that were familiar too, but not his smells. I could hear birdsong outside, the distant hum of traffic and a faint crackling from the headphones on the bedside table, which he must have removed without pausing whatever he’d been listening to.

After a bit, I kissed him and sat up. ‘I brought you a present.’

‘You didn’t have to. I’m graped up to the max.’

‘Just as well I didn’t bring grapes, then.’ I stuck my tongue out at him. ‘I brought a game. It’s called Oh My Pigeons.’

I took the box out of my bag and laid it on his lap.

‘It says, “Suitable for ages eight and up.” Glad you’ve got such a high opinion of me.’

‘I figured it was about the level of your taste in dirty jokes.’

He laughed. ‘Seriously, Laurel. This is great. You know, the kids… they come up and see how I’m doing and then they sort of drift off again. It’s like they don’t…’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Maybe this’ll help. Shall we have a go first though? So you can teach them how it works?’

We unpacked the game and I lay on the pillow next to him so we could study the instructions.

‘It says the person who saw a pigeon most recently gets to start,’ he complained. ‘That’s not fair.’

‘What’s not fair? You’re lying here right by an open window and I’m inside a hospital all day. Come on.’

‘Next time you’d better bring me a bird feeder, then I’ll always get to start.’

‘My God, and I thought you public school boys were all about fair play.’

‘All’s fair in love and Oh My Pigeons.’

We laughed, and by the time we got the game under way we were laughing even harder. I won the first, he won the second and I won the third. He tried to insist on playing the best of five, but I could see he was tiring, and I felt I was outstaying my welcome.

So I said, ‘Come on, give me a cuddle instead.’

I packed away the cards and pieces and lay down with my head on his shoulder, my hand inside his pyjama top. The skin down the side of his body was as soft as an expensive leather handbag; I stroked it, just firmly enough that he wouldn’t get ticklish.

Then my thumb found the end of the nephrectomy scar, and I paused there.

‘Do you ever think about him?’ I asked.

‘Who? Joel? Not really,’ he murmured. His voice was muffled, and his eyes were closing.

‘You don’t see him any more?’

‘Haven’t done in years. We lost touch. Water under the bridge. I’d paid my debt.’