When he sat back down, she asked about Zora. He leaned forward: She was perfect, he said. Hilarious, maybe a poet—definitely a genius. They once had a power line go out on the street, and Zora said something amazing about the torch Adam used: It “moved the dark out of your way.” She was three at the time. Wasn’t that amazing? Coralie agreed sincerely that it was. She was aged nearly five and had just started preschool. Her classroom had a giant behavior chart, and all the students had to “stay on the happy smile.” She was always so beautifully behaved, merely the idea of being “on the sad face” made her cry. Adam shook his head. “Can you imagine? In the end, Marina and I had to go to the school. Marina is Zora’s mother.” Coralie had a sudden, vivid flash of him adding “mywife”—she almost gasped. “My ex,” he said. Coralie soberly inclined her head. “I think Marina wanted to tear down the charts, sue them for Zora’s distress, take her out of there forever, put her in a forest school. I was thinking more like—major charm offensive—maybe asking the teacher to tell Zora she was the best girl ever?”
“What did the teacher say?”
“We were sitting in the little chairs at the back of the classroom. We launched into our speeches; the teacher held up her hand. ‘I know these girls,’ she said. ‘Perfectionists. Get to secondary and it’s top marks, violin, piano, eating disorders, ashamed, anxious, hiding themselves. If Zora ever talks back, or sets a foot wrong, you should throw her a party.’ ”
A shiver ran up Coralie’s arm. Until about two years ago, she’d never set a foot wrong either.
“Iknow,” Adam said, though surely he couldn’t.
“So where does she live? With both of you?”
“Yes, with both of us—separately, obviously. We used to have the nanny, so she’d have a week at one house and then swap. But now, because of school, she’s at Marina’s, in Camden, during the week.”
“And is that…not as good?”
“It’s equally bad for both of us, Marina and me, in different ways. I hate missing out on bedtime. Marina feels like she doesn’t get to do anything fun. We make it work.”
“What’s Zora doing this weekend, the long weekend?”
“Marina’s boyfriend, Tom, is veryfamily, family, family. They’ve gone for a big Easter with his parents.”
“Are you not veryfamily, family?” It was the obvious question, but it felt freighted with meaning. Imagine if he said that he wasn’t.
“My mum and her partner don’t get up to London much.” He paused for a second. “And my dad died when I was eighteen.”
She knew, from experience, why he had paused. Death, like terminal illness, was a genuine conversation murderer. “That’s so young, how horrible.” She moved on as naturally as she could. “And do you have siblings?”
Relieved, he said, “No. Do you?”
“I have my brother, Daniel.”
“Older or younger?”
“He’s only twenty-five.” She pictured him at the hospital, picking up Mum, almost trembling with responsibility.
“And you are…”
“Thirty in September.”
“Thirty, okay!” He seemed relieved; this made her like him. “But you and your brother, are you close?”
“In some ways—like, I really love him, as a person. But my dad was in the army, and he was posted to Indonesia when I started Year 7, so I boarded at my school in Canberra, and Daniel went with my parents to Jakarta. I hardly ever saw him. We had two separate childhoods.”
“That’s crazy,” Adam said.
“I know! My own brother!”
“No, it’s crazy because my dad was based in Singapore, and I boarded too! Here, though, in England. From age eleven.”
“Eleven! Same as me!”
“Mine was only weekly boarding—I escaped for the weekend. That’s why I’m more normal and better adjusted than you.”
“But you were boarding a decade before me….”
“A decade!”
“Mental health wasn’t even invented then.”
