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They take a left, then walk down an alleyway, past their favourite Indian takeaway, then start a slow loop back towards home.
Eventually, he takes her hand in his. ‘If it’s true, it must be horrible,’ he says.
That if. Jen loves it. It is a small step, a small concession from husband to wife. ‘It is horrible,’ she says thickly. As she thinks over the past few days of panic and alienation, her eyes moisten and a tear tracks its way down her cheek. She stares at their feet as they walk the streets in perfect sync. Kelly must be watching her, because he stops and wipes the tear away with a thumb.
‘I’ll try,’ he says simply, softly, to her. ‘I’ll try to believe you.’
When they get in, he pulls up a stool at the breakfast bar, sitting at it with his knees spread, his elbows on the counter, his eyes on her, brows raised.
‘Do you have a theory? On this – Joseph?’ Kelly says.
Henry VIII jumps on to the kitchen island and Jen gathers him to her, his fur soft, his body so fat and yielding, and puts her hands around him, like cupping a bowl. She’s so glad to be here. With Kelly. Sharing the same spot in the universe together, confiding in him.
‘I mean – no. But the night Todd stabbed him. It’s like he sees this Joseph, then just – he just panics. And does it.’
‘So he’s afraid of him.’
‘Yes!’ Jen says. ‘That’s exactly it.’ She looks at her husband. ‘So you believe me?’
‘Maybe I’m humouring you,’ he says languidly, but she doesn’t think so.
‘Look – I made these notes,’ she says, jumping up and grabbing the notepad. Kelly joins her on the sofa in their kitchen. ‘They’re – I mean, they’re pretty scant.’
Kelly looks at the page, then laughs, a tiny exhale of a sound. ‘Oh dear, oh dear. These are very scant.’
‘Stop it, or I won’t tell you the lottery numbers,’ Jen says, and it’s so nice, it’s so nice to laugh about it. It’s so nice to be back here, in their easy dynamic.
‘Oh yeah – all right. Look. Let’s write down every possible reason he could have for doing this. Even the mad ones.’
‘Self-defence, loss of control, conspiracy,’ Jen says. ‘Working as a – I don’t know, a hitman.’
‘This isn’t James Bond.’
‘All right, cross that one out.’
Kelly laughs as he scratches a line through hitman. ‘Aliens?’
‘Stop it,’ Jen says, through laughter.
They make more and more and more lists as the night draws on. All his friends, all his acquaintances that she could speak to.
On the dimly lit sofa, Jen’s body sags. She leans into Kelly, whose arm immediately snakes around her.
‘When will you – I don’t know. Go?’
‘When I sleep.’
‘So let’s stay up.’
‘Tried that one.’
She stays there, listening to his breathing slow. She can feel hers slowing, too. But she’s happy to go, today. She’s happy she got today, with him.
‘What would you do?’ she asks, turning to look at him.
Kelly folds his lips in on themselves, an expression on his face that Jen can’t read. ‘You sure you want to know that?’
‘Of course I do,’ she says, though, for just a second, she wonders if she really does. Kelly’s sense of humour can be dark but – just sometimes – his very core self can seem this way, too. If Jen had to describe it, she’d say she expects the best of people, and Kelly expects the worst.
