Page 88 of All the Things We Never Knew

I opened a bottle of wine, and the three of us squeezed on to the sofa together, eating crisps and exchanging hospital gossip.

Then Mel put her hand on my knee and said, ‘Sorry you could only get the B-list, Laurel.’

‘Speak for yourself.’ Harry did his best outraged face. ‘I’m pure A-list, right up there with Lady Gaga.’

I laughed. ‘There’s no one I’d rather have as my first guests than you two. Honest.’

I expected it to feel like a lie, but I realised it didn’t. All these months, I’d put off inviting people round because they couldn’t be Gray, and it was Gray who I’d wanted to show around my new home most of all. I’d imagined cooking for him, waking up in the morning and seeing his face on the pillow next to mine, him bringing a razor and a toothbrush to keep in my bathroom.

That would never happen now. But I found myself wondering, as I got up to check on the potatoes, whether it ever would have done. I imagined him checking his watch, saying, ‘Pumpkin o’clock, darling,’ putting on his clothes and leaving. And if he had ever left Anna, how would he have fitted in here, in my humble little flat, after the spacious luxury of Damask Square? No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t picture it.

The realisation left with me a hollow sense of sadness, like abandoning a long-held dream. But I also felt relieved, because I’d never again have to experience the guilt I’d suffered over what we were doing, the knowledge that by being with me, he was betraying and lying to someone else.

Now, as the initial grief and shock of his death waned, I could more clearly see Gray as he really had been, not just as the man I’d fallen in love with. A complex man, damaged by his past and never fully healed. A man who felt like, having been robbed of a happy childhood, he was entitled to take his happiness where he could find it.

But, thanks to Joel, there was another side of him I had seen. The Gray who had made a huge sacrifice, literally giving away a part of his body, out of gratitude and loyalty. The Gray who had turned his back on his unhappy past and courageously forged a new future – even a new identity – for himself. The forlorn, unhappy, unkempt child who had become a man surrounded by all the riches of love.

‘Those spuds aren’t going to get any crisper if you stand there staring at them, you know,’ Harry said.

Mel appeared at my shoulder. ‘They look beautifully crisp to me. Want me to carve the chicken?’

I looked at the bird in its roasting tin, its golden skin freckled with pepper and herbs, and realised I hadn’t got that far in Delia’s instructions.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘They didn’t cover chicken anatomy at nurse school.’

‘But they did at basic-life-skills school,’ Mel teased. ‘Guess you were off sick that day.’

I laughed. ‘Still, that beats sustaining-a-healthy-relationship school, which I never enrolled for.’

‘Me neither,’ sighed Harry. ‘Looks like I’m destined to be stuck on the apps forever.’

‘There are worse things than being single,’ Mel said. ‘And anyway, we do have healthy relationships. We just have them with each other.’

While Mel set about dismembering the chicken, I made the gravy, adding flour then white wine to the juices in the roasting tin, stirring furiously until it all thickened and looked reasonably lump-free. Then I poured it out into a jug and put a pan of water on to boil for the broccoli.

‘You’ve got all quiet, Laurel,’ Harry remarked.

‘I’m just concentrating,’ I said defensively.

Mel looked at me over the chicken. ‘No you’re not. You’re thinking about something. Maybe about someone. As soon as we started talking about relationships, you went all quiet. Got something you need to share with the group?’

‘Give the woman a break,’ Harry protested. ‘She’s still grieving, poor love.’

‘Is that it, Laurel?’ Mel put down the knife and laid a hand on my arm. ‘Are you feeling sad?’

Her words made tears prick my eyes. I was sad – there was no denying that. I’d be sad about Gray for a long time, because I’d loved him, and he had died. But there was something else as well – something I had to admit to myself about my relationship with him, even if I couldn’t ever admit it to my friends.

It should never have happened. It had been bad for me and bad for Anna. For all the happiness it had brought me at the time, there had been an equal weight of guilt that tarnished all the memories I had of him. The only person who had really benefitted from it was Gray.

‘I am a bit sad.’ I pulled off a piece of kitchen roll and blew my nose. ‘I guess I feel like I wasted a load of time – over a year – with Gray. He wasn’t a bad person, but it shouldn’t have happened. If he hadn’t died…’

‘Do you think he’d have left her?’ Mel asked.

I shook my head. ‘I wouldn’t have wanted him to, even if he’d said he was going to. And if she’d found out – well, she did find out, because he told her, but you know what I mean – and she’d kicked him out and he’d moved in with me, it wouldn’t have worked.’

‘Because he’d have moved on to someone else?’ Harry said, and Mel glared at him. ‘Sorry. But I’ve shagged a few married guys in my time, and I know how it goes.’

‘Maybe he would,’ I said. ‘Maybe he wouldn’t. But I don’t think I could have ever been happy. Not because I wouldn’t have trusted him – I can’t know that. But breaking up a family, being the other woman – it’s horrible. I mean, it didn’t even come to that, and still I’m not proud of what I did.’