Page 19 of The Key to My Heart

And Maxwell, Russ’s best friend, keeps playing on my mind – I even added him underneath Tom, in my notes app, in my rather dramatically named ‘Suspects’ list. Maxwell works in London, he and Russ were like brothers. He was the best man at our wedding, and he did not miss a single day of visiting when Russ was in hospital. If Russ was planning something, I feel sure that Maxwell would know. He also knew I played on the hospital piano for him. He was probably there sometimes, as I did, listening to those songs float down the corridor. Besides Maxwell though, and the completely slim chance it’s Tom the Target, I’m totally clueless. Out of ideas, full stop.

I make a mug of tea – the berry tea Russ used to drink, and hesitate as I pass through the living room. Our little sofa, tossed with a thick, black throw to hide the old threadbare patches and stains, sits there, like so many things do in this house, an old relic. It was a hand-me-down from Mum and Dad, from their annexe, before they started redecorating, and I hated it, longed for a new, fresh, neutral one from IKEA or DFS. Russ loved the oldness of it though. ‘Nah. It smells of … stories,’ he laughed when I complained it was musty, like my parents’ garage, and I’d whinge, show him a ream of plain, modern (soulless, as Russ would say) sofas on my phone screen.

I should call them, my parents. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next week.

I decide against the sofa and head upstairs to our bed.

Under the duvet, I lift my legs and bend them, make a little cubby for my mug. Rain splatters the windows and the sound of it hammering is all I can hear now. No foxes. No Goosebumps movie screaming. It’s stopped. I’m safe. Everything’s okay. Peaceful.Thank God.

I tip my head, to the heavy, splintered beam on the ceiling, and at the water-colour blooms of damp in the corners of the room. We had a Pinterest board, Russ and me, a place where we pinned and bookmarked ideas for the house. Shelves of cool framed prints. Wall colours. Storage ideas. Flower bed hacks (but that was more for Russ, of course). It hasn’t been opened in almost three years, and the damp hasn’t been touched either. None of it has. Life stopped the morning Russ had his accident really – the morning that with one, false move, one turn of a steering wheel, a stranger threw Russ off his bike. Everything we were going to do just ceased to exist. And sometimes I think about that last normal moment before he left the house: his kiss, his wave, the bag of plastic he’d put in the recycling box on his way out, my smile and coffee and bowl of cereal on the coffee table, freeze-framed, and floating somewhere, in time and space, like those old abandoned apartments found untouched, a hundred years later, that are reported in the newspapers every so often.

‘You know where they are,’ Shauna had said about her sons, and maybe it wouldn’t hurt if I booked one of them in to help me, they could help me get the place in shape, ready to sell. I have some savings …

But sell. Do I really want to sell Three Sycamore? Like –really, really?

My heart aches. I do. I think I do. But it’s the guilt. The bloodyguiltthat never seems to stop rearing its ugly little head, like a rude guest who won’t leave.

I sip my tea, wish the guilt inside of me was a ball, dissolving, like a lozenge, but, of course, it stays there, swells to a lump in my throat.

I’ll speak to Maxwell first. It’s not totally out of left-field to suspect him of leaving the music for me, really – he works in the city, and St Pancras would be where his train comes in. Maybe I can arrange to see him on a work day – he’s still in the city, not far from Tina. I think it’s best toseehim too, to ask about the music. If he’s lying, I’ll know by his face. Even if he’s just concealing it to aid in the surprise. Whatever that surprise is, and whose. Maxwell was always a shitty liar.

‘Heisan estate agent after all,’ I mumble to myself, and I laugh at my own joke in the darkness.

‘First sign of madness, that is, Nat,’ says Russ’s voice in my mind.

Chapter Nine

‘Do you think this looks like … celebrity dress-down chic?’ Jodie stands, her arm around a mannequin as if she’s about to introduce me to her new fiancé. ‘You know, imagine a celeb nipping out on a Sunday, sunglasses on, hoodie, teddy coat, holding a coffee. Or do you think it looks like a bag of filthy washing?’

‘Um?’

‘It’s such a hard balance to strike, Nat. Take Sienna Miller. Sometimes she dresses like a jumble sale—’

‘Mm.’

‘Layers and layers of scruffy clothing, but somehow it looks cool, it looks –sexy.’

‘Yeah.’

‘—But it’s what they want.The kids.You know?’

‘Jodie, did you just say the kids?’

‘Just checking you were listening,’ says Jodie, smoothing down the lapels of a woolly teddy coat on a mannequin out here, on the pavement, in front of Tina’s shop window. ‘Thought you’d zoned out. I actually meant the opposite to the kids. Older women. Women who have shit to do but want to look nice and cool andtrendy. I want to make this shopinclusive.Not just to youngerwomen, but also older – and older women that don’t want to wear bloody curtains and uni-slippers—’

‘She looks like Sienna Miller.’

Jodie stares at me, hopefully, her eyes round and bright. ‘Do you really think? Mum’s on her way down and … I want it to be right.’

‘Definitely,’ I say. ‘She looks like … like Sienna who’s knackered and has just popped to Starbucks and hoped to get there and back in peace but gets papped on the way home.’

Jodie smiles at me and I breathe a sigh of relief – I’ve said the right thing. She’s always like this when Mum is due to come down to check on things – like someone who’s had too much coffee. Like someone who’s been told they have an hour to prepare an outfit for the Queen, and will be publicly executed if it isn’t agreeable. I’m sort of glad I won’t be here, and that I’ll instead be with Maxwell, having lunch (because Jodie has talked more about Sienna Miller today thanOK!magazine did in the entirety of 2005).

I’d texted Maxwell the morning after the foxes woke me, and he’d texted immediately back. ‘Sure, Natalie! It’ll be great to catch up.’ And, within five minutes, he’d sent me a calendar invite for today, the following Friday, becauseof coursehe did. Maxwell’s life is one long scheduled string of meetings, with breaks to poo and sleep in between. And it’s not that I don’t want to see Mum. It’s just, I always find myself wanting to show her progress when I see her. Like ‘look, I’ve renovated the living room!’ or ‘I’m engaged to be wed, Ma-ma, to a man offifty-thousand ayear.’ But I never really have a thing to report, perhaps except a new ailment, or the discovery of a new brand of frozen chicken goujons I’ve taken to.

I’m lucky really. Mum is anicemum – okay, she’s dramatic, but, mostly, she’s unproblematic. A loving mum, an accepting mum (most of the time). I wouldn’t describe her as even ten per cent critical. She’d love both Jodie and me even if we sprouted tails, even if we suddenly announced we were handing ourselves over to a science experiment and would from now on be heads in jars. She’d carry us around in her handbag. She’d polish the jar, admire our skin through the glass, say, ‘You’re ever so glowy. But then, you both take after me. It was all those grapes I ate when I was pregnant. The doctors marvelled at my placentas. Did I ever tell you that? They werein awe.’ But still, I sort of try to avoid her and Dad these days. For classic ‘I don’t want to disappoint my parents’ reasons.

‘Shit, my phone’s dead,’ I say, looking down at the blank screen in my palm. ‘What’s the time, Jode? Any ideas?’

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