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‘Where to tonight?’ she asks him.
‘Snooker.’ He does a chef’s kiss in the air.
Jen nods quickly. ‘Well, have fun.’ Then she adds, ‘I’m going out too. Drink with Pauline.’
‘Are you?’ Kelly says in surprise.
‘Yeah, I did tell you.’ A lie. ‘Which venue?’ she asks Todd, hoping to sound only curious.
‘Crosby.’
She smiles at him. Because, the reality is, wherever he goes, she will be there too.
The entrance to Crosby sports bar is an anonymous little black door on the high street. A retro neon sign above it. An England flag above that. It is a twenties building with mullioned windows, red bricks and three chimneys along the top.
Jen pulls up in a car park at the back shared by two restaurants, the sports bar and a Travelodge. As she gets out of her car, she smells chargrilled meat, pushed out into the autumn air by a vent somewhere. God, she’s had a Chinese, but she could totally eat a burger.
She tries the door at the back of the bar, even though it looks like a fire door. It’s jammed shut, locked. She goes to the front, peering through the glass, hands either side of her head. It’s dark inside. She can’t see anything at all. She could just stay here, she thinks, the glass cooling her forehead. She’s so tired. She’s so fucking tired. Let her just stay here and cease to exist. Let her become part of the snooker club, an ornament. Not a tortured, living, breathing human.
A light flicks on inside, red-toned, dim, illuminating what is right in front of her: stairs, painted black. Shabby, stained, old and, more importantly, empty.
She pushes open the door and ascends as quietly as she can. They lead to an empty landing, two closed doors either side of it. The perfect place to sit and listen. The perfect place to take a risk.
She holds her breath. After a few seconds, she hears the click of the balls. The thump of the end of a cue on to the floor.
A full-length art deco window sits behind her, letting in the glow of the streetlights. The floor is painted black, rickety old wooden floorboards that creak as she moves.
‘Next week, for sure,’ Todd says. A click. He must have taken his shot. Jen leans over towards the hinge of the door and peers through, hoping nobody will see a single eye over here, in the darkness.
‘Maybe we can go away next summer,’ Clio says. It’s definitely Clio, her dreamy voice.
Todd moves back and forth in her vision. He holds his snooker cue like a staff, exactly the way a wizard in his favourite computer game holds it, his weight on it, his other hand on his hip. Jen’s heart turns over in her chest as she gazes at him, her son. He is acting. She is sure of it.
His hair is coiffed, his trainers bright white, pacing slowly around the snooker table, moving in and out of view. He is in full bravado mode.
‘If you’re still together,’ a male voice says. Jen is pretty certain it’s Joseph, though she can’t see him.
‘Sure we will be,’ Todd says. Nerves thrum in his voice. Jen can hear them, detectable only to her, like the shivering after a piano key is depressed.
‘Good shot,’ another voice says, perhaps Ezra.
‘Hope I’m not interrupting.’ This time, a female voice. Jen shifts so she can see. A woman has entered from a dark door at the other side of the snooker room. She’s about Jen’s own age, maybe slightly older. She has greying hair scraped back into a tidy ponytail. Her outfit looks casual, jogging bottoms and a T-shirt. She walks in an alert sort of way, full of verve, like an athlete.
‘Nicola,’ Joseph says. ‘A nice surprise.’
Nicola. Jen just about manages not to gasp.
‘Long time no see.’
‘Indeed.’ Joseph walks into view, leaning on the cue. Nicola follows him. ‘This is Todd, and Clio. And you know Ezra. Nicola used to work for us.’
‘Nicola Williams, one and the same,’ Ezra says.
Jen frowns, sitting there on the steps, listening to this play out. Todd is being introduced to Nicola. But Todd has already texted Nicola. Hasn’t he? She runs over the dates in the phone messages. Yes, he has. He has. He texted her on the fifteenth, saying Nice to chat. Today is the sixteenth. But he meets her on the seventeenth. Doesn’t he?
Jen shifts as quietly as possible, straining her eyes, looking past the lit-green of the snooker table, and beyond. On the red plush sofa attached to the far wall is Clio. Golden legs, short fringe, the lot. Jen blinks, just watching, waiting for the small talk to end.
‘Room for a little one?’ Nicola says. She grabs the cue off Todd, who sits down. It seems like a perfectly normal outing. Todd’s girlfriend, her family. But Nicola’s appearance has set something off, perhaps because Jen knows Todd’s lying, perhaps not. There is some sinister undercurrent now, like a shark in the water.
