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*
There wasn’t a drawer I didn’t open or a cupboard I didn’t search. I found my missing sunglasses, a ten-pound note in a jacket pocket, and a pair of earrings I didn’t even know were lost. But nowhere did I find the letter Hannah was convinced Finn had written and left in my flat for me to find.
‘He’ll have put it there when you went to stay at your dad’s,’ she said, convinced in her theory. ‘It would have been easy enough for him to let himself in and leave it somewhere prominent.’
But the letter wasn’t prominent; it wasn’t even hidden. I’d pulled out settee cushions and even looked behind pieces of furniture. But the final version of whatever Finn had been composing on those yellow sheets of paper was nowhere to be found in my home.
‘Because he never wrote any such letter. Hannah’s wrong,’ I said, worryingly talking to myself as I surveyed the mess I’d made, looking for something I’d known I would never find.
Then he must have sent it in the post, Hannah texted back when I messaged her later that day.What a dick, getting the Royal Mail to do his dirty work.It was, I realised, just as surprising to read her new-found vocabulary as it was to hear it.
Fortunately, our text exchange had clashed with Milly’s lunchtime, so I didn’t have to defend Finn yet again or argue that he’d never break up with me in such a cowardly and callous manner.
With a heavy heart, I began the task of tidying up the mess I’d created in my search for the letter. Once done, I surveyed my bedroom, my eyes settling on possibly the only place I’d not thought to check. Resting against the wall, where it was meant to have been easy to grab after the wedding we never had, was the leather holdall that I always used for carry-on luggage.
Would Finn have slipped the letter in there, I wondered? Would it be nestled up against the folder of Australian currency and my passport wallet? It seemed unlikely, but even so I carried the bag to the bed. It was heavy, probably way over the weight limit, but the flight it had been packed forwasto have been the longest I’d ever taken. My fingers had fastened on the zip tag when suddenly a conversation to which I’d assigned no importance a few weeks ago floated back with perfect clarity.
‘Why don’t you give me your passport to hang on to, and I’ll stick it with mine in my carry-on bag?’
Finn had stopped whatever he’d been doing and turned to me. He seemed to take a long time to answer, and his reply when it came was unexpected.
‘No. If you don’t mind, I’ll just hold on to it.’
‘But why? Isn’t it easier to keep all our travel stuff for the honeymoon in one place?’
Again, he’d paused before replying, as though he was running through several replies in his head before finding the one he liked best.
‘I just prefer to keep hold of my own passport, that’s all. It’s no big deal.’
He’d kissed me then, and all thoughts of his slightly odd response had melted under the warmth of his touch.
Until now.
Now, I was asking the questions I should have been asking back then. Why was it so important to Finn to keep hold of his passport? It really wasn’t rocket science, so why had it taken me so many false starts before I finally landed on the reason? Finn hadn’t wanted to surrender his passport, because he needed it to travel.
Just not with me.
*
It was getting late, and more from habit than hunger, I wandered into the kitchen. But after staring disinterestedly at the contents of my fridge and larder for several minutes, I realised the emptiness inside me had nothing to do with lack of food. Although, if I carried on like this, my wedding dress was going to have to be taken in – assuming I ever had reason to wear it again.
Before closing the cupboard, I plucked Finn’s favourite blend of coffee from the top shelf, even though it was far stronger than the one I preferred. I was forever teasing him about being a coffee snob, which he took with unfailing good humour. The aroma of the familiar blend quickly filled the flat, strangely making Finn seem closer and at the same time further away than ever.
10
THECOFFEESHOP
Four years earlier
There was something about the coffee shop that drew me in. It was more than the enticing lure of roasted beans filtering through the open door. It was more than the decor, although that was certainly appealing, with its exposed brickwork, bleached wooden beams and low-hung copper lamps. It was because it felt comfortable and familiar the moment I walked in, which was weird because it was in a road I’d never set foot on before, in a part of the city I didn’t know well.
Perhaps we’d featured it in one of those ‘Trendiest Places to Eat’ articles inGlow, I mused as I took a seat in an empty booth beside the window. I waited for a moment for my eyes to adjust to the change in light, before reaching for the menu. It would probably have been easier to read if I’d taken off my sunglasses, but they were in place to conceal my tired, red-rimmed eyes rather than for UV protection.
I leant back against the padded leather banquette and looked through the coffee shop’s plate-glass window. Beyond the row of boutiques, artisan bakeries and bars, a single building dominated the skyline. Squinting slightly, I tried counting the floors, but from that distance it was impossible to make out which was the seventh, much less which was the window beside Hannah’s hospital bed.
‘What can I get for you?’
I hadn’t heard the approach of the barista and jumped nervously. ‘Just a latte, please.’
