I nod. He pours the wine and I sip it. I find I like the taste of the heavy red. I never used to.
Laura arrives at my elbow. She’s wearing different clothes. Almost office wear. Cropped, patterned trousers. A black vest top. Her hair’s been straightened.
‘Your second outing,’ Laura says. ‘How does it feel?’
It occurs to me, as she asks, that Reuben hasn’t, and I dart an uncomfortable glance at him, as though I shouldn’t be discussing it.
‘Weird,’ I say.
She doesn’t laugh, though Reuben does, a small exhale of air through his nose. She merely appraises me, her head tilted to one side.
The spring heatwave continues, and outside the air is warm and sticky. Reuben sips his wine, looking up at me. His eyes are squinting at the last rays of the sun. His eyelashes ginger. I used to love looking at those eyelashes in the early days, when we’d spend entire days in bed together. I used to stare at them while he slept, terrified he’d wake up and think me a psychopath.
‘She’s catching up, aren’t you?’ Reuben says.
I nod. He’s told me all about what I’ve missed. A referendum. Three plane crashes. Two local council elections. A vote for air strikes on Syria. Two Beyoncé albums. Reuben was the best person to tell me – but it’s like being given a synopsis of a movie. I don’t know. I wasn’t there.
‘So what’s changed?’ Laura says. ‘I’m interested in an alien’s perspective,’ she adds, with a grin.
The joke’s not funny, though. I wouldn’t be so alienated if you had visited, I think.
Jonty joins us, holding a glass up to me.
‘Nothing and everything,’ I say.
Reuben has stepped a few feet away from me, just outside of the circle. He’s looking over the side of the boat, at something down in the canal.
I look up, at the pale moon and the first stars.
Laura’s gaze strays to him momentarily. She’s wearing a choker, terracotta lipstick.
‘Are chokers in fashion now?’ I say, trying to keep my tone light.
Laura laughs. ‘Yep,’ she says. ‘They are.’
One of Jonty’s friends is standing nearby, holding a beer in a Mason jar. He’s got a beard and is wearing braces. ‘Be sad to see you leave the boat,’ he says.
‘Corporate life beckons,’ says Jonty.
‘I think I should get a job,’ I say to Laura.
She beckons me over, frowning, and we sit together on the edge of the boat. It’s bobbing gently. It feels like me, that boat. Untethered.
‘What’re you going to do?’ she says.
‘All recruiters want references. And – bloody hell. I have a record. I’m out on licence.’ It still sounds distasteful as I say it, even though I’m used to it, have had enough therapy to accept it.
‘Don’t they – help?’ she says.
‘Yeah, my probation offic–’
‘God.’
It’s the tone that gets me. The harsh cut-off, my sentence sliced cleanly as if by a guillotine. She doesn’t want me to discuss it. I am a pariah, like somebody who insists on discussing the death penalty or their sex life at a party.
‘I want to be a counsellor – I think,’ I say. Move on, Joanna. Just move the conversation on. ‘I think I’d be good at it. I don’t know.’
I say it quietly to her, while Reuben, Jonty and the stranger stand a few feet away from us. She’s the first person I’ve told, other than my own counsellor. I shrug awkwardly. I look down to the end of the boat again and out at the canal. ‘It’s boiling,’ I say. ‘Is this global warming?’
Laura smiles, shifting closer to me, bumping her knee against mine. ‘I think you’ll be a great counsellor,’ she says. ‘You’re – you know. Sympathetic, but not off the wall like me.’
‘Do you still do your hippy stuff, even though you’re a corporate suit now?’ I say.
‘Yeah – of course. I read your cards the night before your trial. I never told you.’ She brushes her hair off her shoulders.
And I see that she’s not changed. She’s just … grown up. We’ve all had to. Whether we liked it or not. Because of me. Because of lots of things.
‘It said you’d be betrayed,’ she says. ‘I got the ten of swords.’
‘Betrayed,’ I say. ‘Huh. The State betrayed me – maybe.’
‘Maybe,’ she says, though she looks as though she knows something else.
I want to press her on it, but don’t. I’m too afraid to.
‘It’s all totally messed up,’ I say. ‘Every night, while I was inside, I ticked off another day. But now it feels … well, it doesn’t go away. I was a criminal. Now I’m an ex-criminal. Nothing’s changed, really. I’m free but … not.’
‘You are free,’ she says emphatically.
‘Not from the past, though. My record. I don’t even know where to start. It’s – I can’t describe it to you,’ I say. ‘Once you leave society you’re sort of – rudderless. It’s not a case of just walking to the nearest recruitment office. They’re not interested in me. I’ve committed one of the worst violent offences. Every criminal’s got an answer. I’d just sound like the rest of them if I said I wasn’t really violent.’ I stop speaking, then try to start again. Even you, I want to add. Even you lost interest.
‘But you’re not,’ she says.
She is being so nice. I can’t say it. I can’t accuse her.
I shrug. ‘I was convicted.’
‘Yeah, but –’
I hold up a hand and she goes silent. I’ve worked hard at accepting what I did. How wrong it was; my remorse is now a part of me, too.
‘It’s just hard, is all,’ I say after a few minutes. The sun’s set, and the outside of the boat is lit by the fairy lights alone. ‘It’s not how I expected. I can’t just … slot back in. Everything’s changed. I’ve changed. I’ve got to – start again.’
‘Why?’ Her face is knitted with concern.
‘I’m thirty-two. I mean – I want a baby. But we need to … we need to get used to each other again. Living together.’
‘Just tell him,’ she says in a low voice. ‘He should know that sort of thing.’
‘It’s … I don’t know. I don’t have any right to complain,’ I say. ‘I committed a crime. But it’s so knotty. I’ve been robbed of time, and now I feel like I can’t just try to catch up with life, because everything’s different. But I’m thirty-two and if we wait another year …’
‘Well. You’ll be a better mum now – after. After this,’ she says.
I turn and look at her. A thin layer of sweat sits on her upper lip.
‘You think so?’ I say.
‘Yeah. Totally. You have a plan. You’re – I dunno. Different. You’ll be a good mum,’ she says. ‘You seem … you seem different. More yourself. Less timid.’
‘I wasn’t timid.’
‘I don’t know. Not timid. But you seemed to be apologizing for yourself. Now you sit up straight. Properly.’
‘Excuse me,’ the man with the braces says. He’s turned away from Reuben and Jonty and is looking down at us, his hands on his hips. ‘I do know who you are,’ he says. He’s just remembered something, his gaze on me.
I feel my cheeks heat up, as though someone’s pressed two hot pads to them, like Wilf used to do with the oven gloves when we were baking. I would shriek with joy in our kitchen while Mum and Dad tried to shush us.
‘Sorry?’ Laura says to him.
‘I do know who you are, and I don’t mind you being here … but it makes me –’ He stops, looking thoughtfully up at the scenery beyond us, then down again.
Laura and I stand up. Reuben and Jonty are looking on, confused.
‘It makes me uncomfortable to hear you discussing what you did,’ he says, fixing me with his gaze. ‘When we’re all out trying to enjoy ourselves.’
‘You mean our private conversation about her life?’ Laura says.
‘Leave it,’ I mutter. ‘I’ll just – I’ll just go.’
‘Mate,’ Jonty says. Calm, happy, mild Jonty’s face has gone ashen, his brow pulled downwards. ‘Mate, I think it’s about time you took your uncomfortable feelings at my very good friend’s suffering, and got the fuck off my boat,’ he says.
Reuben gets his phone out and looks down at it, ignoring us.