Page 34 of The Key to My Heart

‘Then surely she’d just … call you?’ says Priya. ‘That’s one thing that’s bothering me about it all, actually. If it’s someone you know, why are they doing it anonymously. It’s like Lucy said, if it’s someone we know—’

‘Does Lucy know?’ I cut in. ‘About the music?’

‘Did you not tell her? She … she didn’t act like she didn’t know, she acted like she’d seen you recently.’

‘I haven’t seen her.’ She’d wanted to. Lucy had sent a text a few days ago – breakfast, she’d suggested, with her and Roxanne, but I’d lied, said I was busy.

Priya freezes and then looks down at her feet. She wriggles her toes in her white, slider sandals and looks sheepishly back up at me. ‘She did ask me a lot of questions. I didn’t think. Ugh. I just assumed she knew because you’d told me and – I sort of just said about it,how exciting it was, and she didn’t exactly saywhat are you on about?So I just assumed …’

Of course she didn’t. Lucy hates to be the last to know anything, because of what that says about her. She wants to be the A-plus, passed-with-a-first friend. She would’ve hated to say to Priya, ‘What? Natalie never told me that. I’m out of the loop’ because that’s almost admitting out loud that she isn’t someone’s absolutely perfect first choice. (Lucy once read a book on how to be a good friend and carried it around with a highlighter pen.)

‘God, I hope that’s okay, Nat.’

‘No, no, of course it is, sorry, I just … What did she say?’

‘Oh – nothing really.’

‘Priya.’

Priya’s eyes close and she winces, her red-painted lips dimpling at the corners. ‘She thinks maybe you forgot about them. That they’re your pieces of music, and you just forgot you kept them in there.’

‘So I’m planting them on myself.’

‘But she didn’t say it meanly, honestly, she didn’t. I think … I think she just worries about you. She’s super happy you’re playing again though—’

‘Does she worry? It’s just she never actually asks me how I am or if I’m okay, not properly … Are you worried about me?’

Priya stares at me for a moment, then steps closer, stretches a hand over to mine, holding the tips of my fingers. She smells like lemon zest. ‘Nat,’ she says, everybit that counselling barmaid with the Doc Martens and flowers in her hair. ‘Am I allowed to say sometimes?’

I soften. ‘I suppose.’

‘Then:sometimes.Because of course I do, and I love you. But in general – no. Absolutely not.’

‘Why not?’

Priya smiles at that. ‘Because you’re Natalie Fincher. Like I said. Balls of steel.’

WhatsApp from Tom (stand-in):Yo, sad little pawn I have a few hours Saturday morning. I can come over and look at the damp (and pipes if still an issue?) (What a fetching offer!) Let me know if you’re around.

Chapter Twelve

I had totally forgotten he was coming. It slipped out of my mind, like something greased, and he knows it, the second I open the door to him in Russ’s old cricket hoodie, a pair of pyjama shorts and hair like the BFG used me for a twirl around a candyfloss machine, my body, the stick.

‘Ah, shit,’ Tom says. ‘You forgot I was coming.’

‘I – didn’t …’ The morning sun illuminates me like a spotlight, and I squint. An unsuspecting hamster, with its little house removed. ‘Okay, I confess I did. Sorry.’

‘Do you want me to go and come back? I can go and find a Starbucks or something—’

‘No, no,’ I croak. ‘I’ve just put some coffee on. Come in.’

‘Are you sure?’ Tom raises an eyebrow at me, and chuckles. ‘Nosferatu.’

‘Sorry?’

He bends to pick up a large, handled black case at his feet – a drill perhaps? Whatever it is builders carry these days. Hammers.Tools.The man who came to fit our guttering last year even brought his own espresso machine. ‘Dracula,’ says Tom. ‘You know. The sun, vampires …’

‘Oh.Course.’

---