Page 50 of Carry Me Home

‘He would have.’

She’s quiet for a moment. Then she reaches over and puts her hand on my arm. Not a squeeze, not a pat – just her hand, resting there, warm and steady.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she says. ‘I keep saying that, don’t I? I keep saying I’m glad you’re here like it’s a new thought, but it’s not. It’s the oldest thought I have.’

I look at her hand on my arm. I look at her face. The fairy lights are doing their thing again – catching her bangles, catching the line of her jaw, turning everything warm and gold. She is right here, on the stool next to mine, her knee against my knee, her hand on my arm, and she is saying I’m the oldest thought she has.

‘I’m glad you’re here too,’ I say.

She smiles. Squeezes my arm. Lets go. Picks up more chicken.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘I’m going to go tell Isla she’s marrying below her station and that Kit should be grateful every day of his life. Coming?’

‘In a minute.’

‘Don’t brood.’

‘I don’t brood.’

‘I can literally see the clouds forming above your head.’

She hops off the stool, and the warmth where her knee was is replaced by the pub air, and I let her go because that’s what I do. I let her go. Every time. She walks across the room and Brynn catches her arm and they fall into conversation, and Nina is laughing, and the lights catch her bangles, and I am sitting at the bar with the ghost of her hand on my arm thinking: I’m the oldest thought she has.

Filed. In the cabinet. Where everything goes.

Later, after laughter, gossip, toasts and some impromptu singing by Frankie, the pub empties slowly. Nina leaves with Brynn, hugging me goodbye – brief, warm, her chin on my shoulder for exactly the right amount of time and not a second longer, and I hold my breath through it because breathing would mean smelling her hair and I can only survive so many things in one evening.

I watch her walk out the door.

My phone buzzes.

Cara: Just booked my ticket! Arriving the 15th. Can’t wait to see you, I think we should talk… x

I look at the message. I look across the room at the door Nina just walked through, still swinging shut, the night air coming in from outside, warm and salt-tinged.

Jude’s voice: Don’t use Cara as an exit strategy.

Kit’s hand on Isla’s back. Automatic. Unthinking. Certain.

Nina’s voice: I think when you finally meet the right person, you’d look at them like that all the time.

I put the phone away without replying. I finish my drink. I walk home through the village, past the darkened harbour, the boats barely shifting in the still air, the heat pressing down even now, even at this hour, with no sign of breaking.

The café’s fairy lights are on. She’s left them on again.

I don’t stop. I don’t stand and watch. I keep walking, past the surgery, up the stairs, into the flat that’s been quiet for weeks now without the dog.

I stand in the kitchen. I don’t turn on the lights.

I’m the oldest thought she has.

I take out my phone. I look at Cara’s message again. The x at the end. The exclamation mark. The uncomplicated enthusiasm of someone who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to say so.

I type: Looking forward to it.

I stare at the words for a long time. Then I delete them.

Then I type them again.