Page 32 of The Key to My Heart

Tom stares at me for a second and, like a light bulb pinged on in his head, he points a finger at me. ‘You’re the girl. With the cottage. And the pipes.’

‘That’s me,’ I laugh. ‘Jesus.’

‘What?’ chuckles Tom, stretching his long legs out in front of him on the wet grass, crossing them at the ankles.

‘Nothing, just, you’re Shauna’s Thomas. Thomas the twin. HerTommy Button.Tommy Button Madden. Right here. A meet-and-greet with the real deal—’

‘Oh, shit, she says that? To actual strangers? Tommy Button …’

‘I’m afraid she does. Jason really ribs her about it. That and the fact she calls Laurie and Mark hersquishes.’

‘Laurie’ll die when I tell him that.’ Tom looks at me side on, and smiles. ‘I can help, by the way. With the house. If you want it. Roofing, tiling – that’s what I did before the photos. Like the rest of the …squishes.’

‘Before you started collecting Adam Driver stories to share with women you have to pretend to stand up in bars?’

‘Actually,’ Tom says as the owner of the narrowboat comes out again, and hangs two more towels on the airer. One says, ‘Sea you later’ and has a cartoon of a dolphin on it. ‘Sort of got a confession. Do you know, Si, my mate, who was there that night?’

‘The night we met?’

‘Yeah. Well, about an hour before you came over, he’d set me up with this girl. For similar reasons to yours. Can’t bear me being single.’

‘Really?’

‘Yup.’ He nods. ‘It was –bad.She talked a lot about Peter Andre. And then she kept staring down at my crotch like there was a movie screening on it. And I wanted rid of her.’

‘Bloody hell.’ I laugh. ‘Oh.Hang on.Iwas also a stand-in?’

‘Yep.’ Tom grins. ‘I even told them you stoodmeup. That when I got back from the bathroom, you’d gone, and I was gutted.’

‘So, I was nothing but a poor little pawn.’

‘Afraid so,’ says Tom. ‘Natalie, the poor little unsuspecting pawn …’

‘With nothing but an open mic night and frozen pipes to her name,’ I say. ‘And … why don’t you just tell your friends to stop?’

Tom laughs. ‘I’m sorry, areyouasking me that? The woman who made me talk about my job just to kill time in front ofherfriends?’

After a few moments, we stand from the bench, and Tom bends, to pick up his bag.

‘And how are your pipes, these days, by the way,’ he says, ‘if I may ask?’

‘Bit personal for a Thursday, Thomas.’

And as he passes me my birthday tarts, holding the box for a second longer than needed, he looks me in the eyes and says, ‘That’s Thomas Button. To you.’

Chapter Eleven

I stare down at the text message from Shauna as, beside me, Priya serves a customer, her nostrils flared. Her morning sickness has tapered off a bit now, but at lunchtime, when food from nearby stalls and restaurants wafts in, she takes breaks to sniff from a Tupperware full of freshly cut lemons to stop the nausea. It’s the only thing that helps. That and Pizza Hut chicken wings.

‘Nothing again today, angel,’ the text says. ‘I’ll look again later, but I say it’s one hundred per cent something that only happens on the days you’re knocking about! WE’RE CIRCLING EVER CLOSER!!!’

Disappointment settles in my stomach like a stone. Sometimes it feels unbearable not knowing who it is, and sometimes, so exciting, I feel like I might explode, grab passers-by, say, ‘Have you heard about this thing that’s happening to me? Yes, me! Me, Natalie Fincher!’ Lately, it’s all that keeps me awake at night (when the foxes aren’t copping off), with berry tea and Russ’s old smelly neanderthal books: who it is leaving me it, and why the stool has been empty for a week, since my birthday. Because I don’t want it to stop, this sunbeam in the dark.

I avoided for years, playing those songs again, thinking it’d be like opening a wound, thinking cynically that revisiting happy times from the past was just for the delusional, for people who don’t want to admit how shit life is without them. But instead, playing them – Russ’s favourite song, our wedding song, that The Outfield tune … it really is the opposite. It’s healing. It brings back such happy memories I’d forgotten, and so vividly, it’s like I’m living them again, eyes closed, fingers on the keys. Whoever is leaving it has given me that, along with so much more. The thought of it stopping makes me want to be sick.

‘You all right?’ Priya asks, her noise poised over the little square tub in her hand. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, these are losing their smell …’

‘Yeah. Just a text from Shauna. Areyouall right?’

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