The House Swap(81)

At some point, I must fall asleep for more than a few minutes, because when I open my eyes again it’s daylight and Francis is no longer next to me. Instead, there’s a note lying on the pillow: I’m going out for a walk to clear my head. I won’t be more than a couple of hours. Just need some time alone. I’ll see you soon. My heart drops. I have no idea what he’s thinking or how he’s feeling, how the long night might have warped our conversation the evening before.

I drag myself out of bed and get dressed then wander aimlessly down to the kitchen. I stand quietly for a few moments, wondering what to do. It’s bizarrely silent and still – a shaft of sunshine piercing the windowpane, minuscule dust-motes shimmering faintly in its light. When my phone beeps it sends a brusque jolt of shock right through me. I snatch it up and look at the screen. The message is from a number that isn’t in my phone, but as soon as I see the digits I recognize them.

If you want to talk, we can. I’m on my way now to the Garden Café on Castle Street. Come if you like.

Somehow, I’m not surprised. Perhaps because the message is so typical of you, so familiar in tone, that it doesn’t feel unexpected. You haven’t changed; the way you’ve framed it in terms of what I might want, as if your own desires are irrelevant, or maybe non-existent. Back then, I found it charming and thoughtful at first; then, later, frustratingly oblique. I never really knew – still don’t – if what you wanted matched up with what I wanted, or if that mattered to you at all.

I’m already out of the house, walking swiftly down the street and turning out on to the main road towards the street you’ve named. I walked past the café a couple of days ago, dimly registered its dark green walls and soft-hued lighting. I remember noticing two leather sofas, tucked into the back corner and shielded from the rest of the room, and I already know that’s where you’ll be.

It’s only when I’ve turned on to Castle Street and spy the café towards the end of the road that it even occurs to me that I didn’t have to come – shouldn’t have come. I could have sent a polite, dismissive message back, suggesting that there was nothing between us that needed to be said, or simply ignored it. These options were there, and yet they weren’t.

I’m pushing open the café door and turning towards the sofas at the back, and as I see you there – hunched over a newspaper, your head dipped intently over a page I know you aren’t reading – there’s a sliding sense of inevitability, the pieces clicking into place and the knowledge that this was always going to happen one day, and why not today?

I stand in the doorway a moment, watching you, drinking in the sight of you at close range. You’re taller than I remembered, your face narrower. You look older, your features somehow more defined. Your hair is shorter than it was the last time I saw you. You’re wearing a dark green jacket I’ve never seen before and, despite all the differences, you fit exactly into the picture in my head that the years had blurred. It clicks into place with a sense of rightness, as if you had never been away.

I’m only a couple of feet away when you look up and your dark eyes meet mine. Without meaning to, I smile, and you smile back. It’s a strange little twitch of instinct, a throwback. For an instant, it’s as if the past two years have been erased and we’re right back where we were, perhaps in June of 2013, at a time when being together was sweet and precious.

Something in my face must change, because you blink, your expression rapidly turning to awkwardness and confusion. ‘Hi,’ you say, motioning for me to sit down opposite you, and stupidly, I feel the threat of tears rising and stinging along the bridge of my nose because your voice is just as I remember.

I slide into the seat. We’re sitting face to face, and the low light casts shadows across you, hollowing out the skin beneath the ridges of your cheekbones, throwing the line of your jaw into stark relief. I realize that I’m barely blinking. There’s a hunger growing inside me, the violence of which surprises me – the desire not to miss an instant of this, the knowledge that it’s important and that I’ve been waiting for it for so long I can’t afford to let it go. I can feel myself trembling with adrenaline; not knowing how to process this, unable to look away.

We sit in silence for a few moments, and then you sigh and push your hands out across the tabletop, palms down; a gesture of defeat or supplication. ‘This is fucking strange,’ you say simply. ‘I don’t know what the hell’s going on. Tell me honestly, did you follow me here?’

‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘I can see why you’d think that, but no, Carl, I didn’t. Even if I had known where you lived, I wouldn’t do that. Not after all this time.’ Not ever, I think, but I don’t say it. You know as well as I do that I could have done anything back then, half crazed by your absence, and that it was only fear that stopped me.

You look at me hard, your eyes glittering and liquid in the soft lamplight. I’ve never been on the receiving end of it before, this cool appraisal of yours that I’ve seen you employ with others many times. I don’t like it. ‘OK,’ you say finally. ‘It seems like a big coincidence, that’s all.’

‘I didn’t say it was a coincidence.’ I take a breath, and I don’t know where to start; can’t do this here, so unprepared and with so little knowledge of what I want to say. ‘You know the person whose house I’m staying in? Number 21?’