‘You know we’d totally have you at ours if we could, right?’ Alice leaned her neat pixie crop on my shoulder. ‘It’s just there’s barely enough room for the two of us as it is, you’d quite literally have to sleep in the bathtub – and even that’s half-sized.’
‘Of course, don’t be silly.’ Although sleeping in Alice and Jacob’s ridiculously tiny bathtub in their ridiculously tiny, ridiculously overpriced flat that they’d bought together six months ago – technically a one-bedroom, but with an additional sofa bed taking up most of the open plan lounge/kitchen/dining room/hallway – seemed marginally less tragic than moving back into my childhood bedroom. It was like a time warp in here. Thesame quilted bedspread, the same cracked-spinedHarry Potterbooks lined up on the windowsill, the sameTop of the Popsposters stuck to the walls, their age-curled edges and outdated fashions the only hint of just how much time had passed since I’d last called the flat above the pub home. It was as if nothing had changed. My hands balled into duvet-filled fists at the thought, because nothing could be further from the truth.Everythinghad changed. That was the problem.
‘How’s it all going in here?’
After loitering in the hall for the past half an hour, Mum had finally appeared in the doorway. She was sporting a long blonde fishtail braid over one shoulder. Last week it had been a Debbie Harry-style bob. Next week my money was on an 80s Cher-era mullet. Never afraid to try something new, my mother. I saw her eyes linger briefly on my hole-ridden tracksuit bottoms that I’d been wearing since – well, I couldn’t remember ever not wearing them at this stage – and Joe’s stain-ridden Yale sweatshirt that fell just above my knees. I had zero intention of ever washing it, of replacing Joe’s scent with generic cotton-fresh laundry detergent. But, if I was being honest with myself, his scent had faded long ago.
Mum pressed her lips together, swallowing the words she so clearly wanted to say and instead opting for, ‘Can I get anyone a cuppa?’
‘Thanks, Mrs T, but I’d better get going,’ Alice said, glancing at her watch. It was 5:30 p.m. She was due back at the hospital again in half an hour. She stood up, smoothing the back of her already immaculate hair before hesitating. ‘Unless you need me to stay—’
‘No, you go,’ I said quickly, trying to arrange my face into something vaguely reassuring. ‘Honestly, you’ve done more than enough already. You both have,’ I added, my voice thick with gratitude at the sight of my two best friends who’d droppedeverything to be there for me. Again.
‘Cup of tea, Jacob? Or I could open a bottle of rosé?’
‘Now you’re speaking my language, Mrs T!’ Jacob clapped both his hands together, jumping to his feet and heading straight down the hall towards the tiny galley kitchen as though the bottle of rosé in the fridge door were some sort of homing beacon. I’m not sure why Alice and Jacob called MumMrsT. She’d never been married. Never even had a serious relationship after the man who was mine and Matt’s father – in the biological sense of the word only – had left before I was even born. And yet they’d called her Mrs T for as long as I could remember. The idea of a grown woman, and a mother at that, not being married was apparently not an option in a five-year-old’s mind.
‘I’ll be right there,’ I called after them, forcing a smile when Mum turned back with a concerned look on her face. My shoulders caved as soon as they were out of sight, slipping like the mask I’d being trying so hard to keep in place all day. It didn’t matter how many glasses of wine I drank, how many times I managed to shower and put on clean(ish) clothes, or how many things I wrote I was grateful for in that stupid mindfulness app Mum had recommended. It didn’t get any easier. Any of it.
‘Blimey, who’s that absolute hunk?’
My breath caught in my throat at the sound of Joe’s voice, that familiar baritone I’d recognise in a thousand different lifetimes making my heart skip a beat. I sat bolt upright on the bed, hardly daring to believe it, but there he was. Sat on the duvet beside me, as though he’d been there this whole time.
‘That is one seriously lucky girl, is all I’m saying,’ he added, eyes twinkling mischievously as he nodded towards the heart-shaped picture frame on the bedside table. Sixteen-year-old Joe and me beaming in the pub car park. Me in my cherry-red satin prom dress. Joe in his ill-fitting, off-black suit and spiky gelled hair. He had his arms around me from behind, my hands overhis as I smiled up at him over my left shoulder. We looked happy.
‘You’re here.’ I breathed a sigh of relief, a genuine smile gracing my face for the first time all day as I let go of the crippling fear that had taken over me ever since I’d closed the door to our flat for the final time. The fear that I’d never see Joe again. That these visions – whatever you wanted to call them – would stop.
‘Of course I’m here.’ He sounded mildly offended that I’d thought otherwise. ‘When do I miss an opportunity to see your darling mother?’
For once, his unwavering humour grated on me slightly, the fact that he had the luxury of sitting there and joking around while I was freefalling in a never-ending spiral. I shifted awkwardly on the bed, the squeaky springs giving away my discomfort.
‘Hey,’ Joe said, softer this time, his hand reaching out across the bedspread. The tiny scar still visible on his little finger, the skin all pink and puckered from when he’d slipped and fallen off a groyne on Hove beach.
‘I really needed you today,’ I whispered, my eyes fixed firmly in my lap before inevitably finding his, like a magnet drawn towards its partner. There was no fighting it. It was chemical. Undeniable.
‘I know,’ he said simply, a troubled frown darkening his brow. ‘But just because you can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not with you, Jenny. You can’t get rid of me that easy,’ he added in a teasing voice, trying to lighten the mood once again. I gave a weak smile this time, more at the irony of it all than at Joe’s poor attempt at humour.
‘I just miss them,’ I sighed, running my forefinger over the two smiling faces in the photograph, a streak of dust coming with it. ‘I miss us.’
‘You coming, Jenny?
Mum had appeared in the doorway, a hint of a frown just visible beneath her clip-in fringe.Shit, how long had she been standing there?My eyes flicked guiltily to my right, but the bedspread was empty where Joe had previously sat.
I was alone.
‘It has to be in here somewhere. It just has to.’
‘Have you tried the box labelledKitchen?’ Mum asked for the fourth time.
‘Of course I have,’ I snapped, upending the contents of yet another box onto the already overflowing bed.
‘Well, I’m sure it’ll turn up, love. Why don’t I make you a cuppa in yourHarry Pottermug? You know, the one that changes colour when you put the hot water in? That was always your favourite—’
‘I don’t want another mug, I wantthatmug. I drink my coffee out ofthatmug every morning,’ I insisted between clenched teeth, growing increasingly panicked in my search for said mug. It was theStar Warsone with the small hairline crack down one side. Joe’s favourite. He drank everything out of that mug. Water. His teeth-achingly sweet coffee. Even wine. I knew I was being ridiculous. It was just a mug after all. But I couldn’t bear the thought of losing yet another part of him. However small and insignificant that part might be.
‘I must have left it at the flat,’ I declared, slapping both hands against my thighs in resignation. We stood in silence for a minute, my ragged breathing suddenly very obvious in the otherwise silent room as I took in the mess before me. It looked like a tornado had passed through, empty cardboard boxes flung everywhere, their contents now three inches deep on the floor.
‘Sweetheart,’ Mum said gently, pausing in a way that told me she was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. ‘Do youthink maybe this is about something other than the mug?’
