‘Oh, right,’ she said, sounding pleasantly surprised. ‘Yeah, come on in. He’s in the kitchen.’
She led him through the house into the kitchen where Rob was sitting at a table working on a laptop, unaware of them at first. He was deeply tanned and looked older, weathered. Alex could just see him cutting a dash as a newspaper correspondent.
The girl turned and smiled at Alex, amused because Rob hadn’t noticed them. Maybe he had though, because as he typed and stared at the screen he said, ‘Hello Alex,’ and turned only a moment or two after he’d said it, smiling, showing a long pale scar now above his right eyebrow, the perfect finishing touch.
‘Hello Rob.’ Alex smiled too and nodded, as if acknowledging the strangeness of seeing each other again after all this time.
The girl laughed and said, ‘So is that it? This is the great friend you haven’t seen for ten years - the least you can do is give each other a bloody hug.’
Straight-faced, Rob said, ‘Alex, meet Rebecca - she’s Australian you know.’
‘Pleased to meet you.’
She smiled and said, ‘Yeah, me too. I’ll leave you to it.’ She gave Rob a knowing smile and walked back out, a door closing on the room where the radio was playing.
Alex waited till she’d gone and said, ‘Girlfriend?’
‘Only known her a fortnight,’ said Rob. ‘It’s a complicated arrangement. She’s my lodger but came through a friend of a friend. I didn’t meet her until I came back from Africa. Nice girl though.’
‘Yeah, seems nice enough.’
Rob got up and shook Alex’s hand and said, ‘Have you had no sleep or have you just aged really badly?’
‘Bit of both.’
‘Jesus, I’m kidding!’ Alex laughed because Rob’s accent sounded briefly Australian, a hint of why there seemed to be so much chemistry between him and the girl. ‘Come on, let’s go straight to lunch. There’s a pub down the road does great food, got a separate dining room.’
Rob popped his head in the door to say bye to Rebecca as they left and then talked about her as they walked along the road, nothing specific, just a general enthusiasm for who she was, a vague frustration too that he was leaving in a couple of days.
Alex was envious somehow, trying to remember the last time he’d been energized like that by meeting someone new - Ruth perhaps, Kate definitely, though that had been six years ago. Listening to Rob he felt void of life, cold, like a part of him had died in the last ten years and he was only noticing now.
It was obscene that he’d allowed his own life to drain away like that. Yet even as he became angry with himself his thoughts were laid over a background hiss, a faint voice, whispering, irrational but persistent, that he hadn’t allowed it, that his life was being drained from him night by night, a process beyond his control - justice.
Justice. He thought of Will and wondered when Rob would finally mention it. He seemed to be talking about anything but, an odd aversion considering some of the things he’d witnessed and written about during his time in Africa. Possibly he found this more difficult because it was personal. Possibly he just didn’t know what to say.
They’d ordered their food when Alex finally broached the subject.
‘You seemed uncomfortable talking about Will on the phone yesterday.’
Rob nodded, thinking about it before he said, ‘Partly force of habit. I haven’t spoken about that night since college. Not once.’
‘Me neither, except to Will, but even then, I always tried to steer him away from it. He used to go round in circles, over and over the same things, the what ifs.’
‘Didn’t we all?’ Rob smiled awkwardly and said, ‘The other thing is, I wasn’t particularly shocked. If it had been you or Matt or Natalie, I wouldn’t have believed it, but Will always had it in him to be pushed over the edge. All that business with his family.’
‘What business with his family?’ Alex didn’t remember and yet felt like he should, like it was something he knew, the same family who hadn’t wanted their son’s belongings.
Rob frowned like he was confused and said, ‘Have you had a knock on the head? Will’s family were bastards. Politics, law, all that business?’
It came back to him fully formed and he felt bad now for needing to be reminded. He was embarrassed too at the thought of how he’d distanced himself from Will over the years, someone who’d probably needed all the friendship he could have got.
‘Of course. It’s amazing that I didn’t remember that.’
‘You got that right. Well that’s what I’m saying anyway. He was a sensitive guy with an horrendously mean family. I’m not denying the accident was the catalyst, but Will was always gonna fall.’