‘Hello Alex.’ She smiled.
‘Hello Nat.’ Her hair was shorter now, and she was slimmer perhaps, or maybe that was just the black business suit playing tricks. Her face was unchanged though, the smile peeling away the years, taking him back immediately to another past, one that wasn’t dominated by the death of Emily Barratt.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she said.
He nodded and she hugged him, almost formally at first but clinging tighter to him as he put his arms around her, as if she were afraid of falling. It felt good to be held like that, one more part of normal life that he’d lost somewhere along the line, and the way she was holding him made him wonder if she’d lost it too.
When she stood back her eyes were moist. She took a tissue from her bag and dabbed them dry, apologized and said, ‘Shall we go for lunch somewhere? Do you have to rush off?’
He looked around, Rebecca still talking to Rob’s family. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to speak to her anyway. Maybe he’d just wanted to speak to someone without feeling like a fraud.
‘No, I don’t have to be anywhere. I’d love to have lunch.’
She smiled warmly.
‘Good. There’s a nice Italian place not far from here. I’m pretty certain they’ll find us a table. Come on, we’ll walk.’
She linked her arm through his as they walked into the street and the barrage of traffic noise. It was something they’d never done as a couple, linked arms or held hands as they’d walked, and it seemed to speak somehow of all the relationships she’d had since, that this kind of affection no longer seemed mawkish to her.
As if thinking along the same lines, she said, ‘Are you seeing anyone?’ He laughed and she said, ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘I’m just laughing because I was wondering the same about you.’ He turned and smiled at her. ‘I don’t think I’d have cut quite to the chase like that though.’
She smiled too and said, ‘Funny thing about being a single woman, when you reach my age you find yourself being a lot more direct. Not that I’m suggesting we’re a potential hook-up, by the way. I’m just curious.’
‘So you’re single?’ She nodded. ‘Me too.’ They walked on for a while in silence and then Alex said, ‘Would it be such an horrendous prospect, hooking up with me again?’
‘Of course not, but you know...’ She looked around her and said, ‘Cross here,’ leading him across the road with a gentle tug on the linked arm. Once they were on the other side and walking again she said, ‘You were my first love Alex, and I’m sure it wasn’t perfect - I certainly hadn’t planned for it to end when it did - but in my memory, it is perfect. So I don’t know, maybe it’s best left like that.’
‘You always told me that boy in the sixth form was your first love. What was his name, Simon?’
‘Stephen,’ she said, laughing. ‘No, I was never in love with Stephen. I just used to tell you that because... Oh, I don’t know, because it’s the kind of lie you tell when you’re young.’
He nodded but didn’t respond, his thoughts sent off on a tangent, sinking under the weight of the lies they’d told when they were young. After a while though, he sensed that he’d been silent too long and said, ‘I didn’t notice you in the church.’
‘I know you didn’t. I noticed you as soon as you walked in but you seemed very preoccupied. Short of whistling I wasn’t sure how to attract your attention.’
‘Whistling probably wouldn’t have been appropriate.’
‘Probably not, though Rob might well have been entertained.’ Her arm seemed to tighten slightly in his and her voice sounded constricted as she said, ‘It was a beautiful service, wasn’t it?’
‘I suppose so. To be truthful, I had trouble concentrating on it. I only had lunch with him the other week and I don’t think it’s quite sunk in yet.’
‘So you and Rob have been in touch with each other? He’s never mentioned it.’
‘That’s the irony,’ said Alex, ‘lunch the other week was the first time we’ve seen each other in ten years. We only got together really to talk over what happened to Will.’
‘Why, what’s happened to him?’ He looked at her, checking from her expression what should have been obvious enough, that she didn’t know. Rob clearly hadn’t found the time to tell her before leaving.
‘He’s dead.’
She slowed to a halt and let go of his arm, turning to face him. ‘Will’s dead?’ He nodded. ‘Was it an overdose?’
‘Sadly predictable, but yeah.’