There’s a missed call from Simone on my phone, and one email. I skim read the email intro in the preview pane. Looks like she’s found another two places that might be suitable. The word “might” is surrounded by about six asterisks, and for some reason those tiny little black stars make my heart soar.
I choose not to return her call. I can deal with that tomorrow. Instead, as I slip into my Range Rover, I Bluetooth David Bowie’s greatest hits to the speakers and drive back to Mudford-upon-Hooke.
When I left this morning at eight thirty, the kids and Owen were still asleep. The youths dead to the world in my spare bedroom, and Owen on the larger sofa in the living room. Despite offering my bed, he’d insisted. Said hecouldn’t let me go to media day with a stiff neck. Did an impression of me with Batman-style mobility.
“Jones, can you turn to the side and face the camera?”he’d said, pretending to be someone from the press.
“Nope.”He’d switched to playing me, shoulders hunched, neck and head rigid as he looked left and right by turning his entire body.
Then he’d reassured me that he’s at the age now where falling asleep on the couch is a regular occurrence.“Can’t function if I don’t have a thirty-minute sofa nap at four p.m.”
The house is empty when I return home. It no longer stinks like an isolation cabin on a cruise ship. Instead, the bathroom smells of lemon cleaning products and the spare room of laundry detergent, meaning Owen had stripped the bedding, washed and dried it, then re-dressed the beds.
On the dining table is a pint glass with a handful of daffs, and a note scribbled on a piece of paper torn from the “shopping list” pad stuck to the boiler in the kitchen.
Thanks for all your help last night,
Owen
That’s all it says. I’m just about to grab a snack when I spot other letters and words on the note. Not written in ink, but left in indentations by someone pressing too hard on the sheet above it.
Can’t have been me. The magnetic notepad was a gift from my nan, and I only took it out of the plastic wrap on moving day. I had full intentions of using it to write my shopping lists, but pen and paper are just so . . . inconvenient. I much prefer making lists on my phone. So until now, the pad has sat untouched, stuck to the only metal thing in the kitchen, the boiler, since the integrated fridge is tucked away behind a cupboard door.
I hold the note up to the window, face it this way and that, let the light flood the surface, but I still can’t make out what was written before.
“Alexa, how do I reveal a hidden message left on paper with indentations?”
The echo whirs into life. “To reveal indented writing left on paper, you can use the simple technique of rubbing a pencil over the top,” it says in its soothing feminine voice.
“Cheers,” I reply. I’m already in the study, opening and closing drawers, looking for an HB—
Aha! A pencil! I scribble over the area and watch as the letters appear in reverse, like a photographic negative. Where Owen’s pen had once graced the page above this one, the lines shine out bright white against the granite-grey backdrop. He writes in fat, slanted all caps that seem unnecessarily looping.
My heart beats in overtime and I have the sudden thought I shouldn’t be reading it. Owen had clearly not wanted me to see whatever he’d written. I’m crossing a boundary, but also . . . I just uncovered the word love, and I’m no longer breathing.
Thanks for all your help last night.
I had fun.
Come over tonight?
I’d love for you to witness the fruits of your labour,
Owen
I read the note five, six times, then I stuff it into one of the desk drawers, cross through to the living room, and stare out the front window. There are cars in the pub’s car park and movement inside the building, but I can’t make out anything distinct. Someone is posing outside the phone box for photos. Tourists, I expect.
Why would Owen not want me to know he had fun?
Come over tonight?Is he rescinding that invitation by destroying the first note? Or is he making sure he never extended it in the first place? Does he not want me there? Last night he gave me the impression he wanted me there.
I had fun.
Fuck, I did too. So much fun. Un-Mathias amounts of fun.
I’m on the edge of spiralling, getting sucked into yet another vortex of self-doubt.
There are two more hours before the start of the quiz, before I’m needed to set up the laptop with all the songs, so I go into the kitchen and make myself a snack. I use the hob on the AGA, because I’m still not sure how the bastard oven works, and I fry up chicken, onions, and spices. I grate half a block of Cheddar and assemble four fajitas. Two are for tomorrow, so I leave them on a plate to cool down, and I smash the other two while standing over the sink staring out the windows into the cottage’s back garden. It’s a relief I don’t have to keep glancing at the pub, wondering what Owen meant by that note. What he meant by destroying it. What he’s doing now.
