Page 33 of The Key to My Heart

‘I shall live,’ she says, bringing a lemon slice to her nose. ‘And Shauna? Is she the woman at the coffee shop?’

‘Yep. We’re staking out the piano.’

I told Priya about the piano, a few days ago. I couldn’t not. I wanted to tell her I’d seen Tom again – Tom who made the effort and polished his own shoes – and I couldn’t really tell her until I’d told her about the music. She’d beamed when I’d told her. Not just about Tom, although she screamed at that, despite my insistence that it was absolutely not a date, and more a rescue, and told me she would very likely have another sleep-gasm now she knew about him buying me a birthday tart. Polished shoes. Pastry. She’s easily bowled over. The bar so low, it’s only just skimming the ground. But she beamedmostly about the station piano. ‘I think it’s beautiful, Natalie. The music itself, of course, but that you play. I think it’s bloody gutsy. Brave. But then you do have balls of steel. Always have.’

‘Have you got any ideas about who it could be yet?’ Priya asks now, a lemon slice between her skinny fingers.

‘Nope. The mystery continues.’

‘It’s exciting, isn’t it?’

‘Totally. But – saying that, there’s been nothing the last two times.’

‘Really? That’s disappointing.’ Priya absent-mindedly rubs the tiny bump beneath her orange wrap dress and sits down as the customer flits off, out into the busy, sunny street. She’s twenty weeks now. Halfway to being someone who has a baby in their arms. Priya. With a baby. Nothing makes you feel more like ‘oh shit, so we are actually adults then,’ than when your friend has a child. ‘I was talking to Will about it at the weekend,’ carries on Priya, ‘and he was proper invested. I mean, we actually pausedLove Island Australiaso we could discuss who we thought it could be, and I’m so addicted to it, I keep talking in an Aussie accent. It’s quite a good one actually …’

I laugh. ‘And what’s the verdict?’

‘On the re-coupling?’

‘Er, no. I mean, what does Will think? About the piano stuff?’

‘Oh.’ Priya giggles and rolls her round, brown eyes. ‘Bloody hell, am I okay? My head’s firmly up my arse at the moment. Sorry. Yes. So, Will reckons it’s someonewho likes you. Someone you know, or don’t know, but an admirer …’

‘Really? Shauna said the same.’ I don’t add that the list on my phone of suspects has grown. I’ve added Edie, although I wish I didn’t need to. Ever since last week and that bloody open mic night thing, she suddenly seems quite an obvious choice (but a choice I truly hope comes to nothing). Before Russ had his accident, we were about to start workshopping a musical we’d written together.Dotted Line– a funny, satirical show about the music business – and she had badly wanted me to carry on. ‘It might be good for you, to have a distraction, Nat. Get away from the hospital.’ And when I didn’t, she started auditioning again, all the while telling me I should think about the workshopping again, think about playing somewhere other than in the hospital again. I’d taken it as my best friend trying to help me through an awful time, but after the funeral, and after our fall-out, I doubted everything about her. Our entire friendship. The years and years of love. And now, she’s back, apparently telling my friends about open mic nights she’s running and recommending that I take part, like an entitled, proprietary know-it-all. It seems like it could very well be her. I don’t know who I hope itis(besides Russ, in some way), but I know I’d prefer it wasn’t anything to do with Edie Matthews. Because it’ll all be for her own conscience. So she can assuage her guilt.See, look, I know I hurt her, but she’s fine now – look, she’s even performing again! And I helped!

‘And what do you think?’ I ask Priya, pulling a tangle of hangers from a bin under the counter. It’s Jodie’sworst job, sorting the hangers and the different types, but weirdly I enjoy it. It’s banal. It’s mind-numbing. Something you can do without really thinking.

‘I don’t know.’ Priya twists a lock of brown, glossy hair around her finger. ‘I can’t decide. I just know it’s so romantic I can’t cope.’

‘Well, that’s if it isn’t someone totallyunromantic.’

‘I’m sort of hoping it’s Russ,’ says Priya. ‘In some way. You know?’

I smile. ‘I think the same most of the time.’

‘And I know some people might think that’s mad,’ adds Priya, rustling through her handbag now, probably for peppermint teabags, or, who knows, a secret stashed-away chicken wing (nothing would surprise me), ‘but I dunno. I have a nice feeling about it. That it’ll lead somewhere. Somewhere good.’

And she would. Priya is the world’s most eternal optimist. She has the kindest, purest heart, especially, if you compare her to the rest of us. Unlike Roxanne (and Lucy, who came in a sort of two-for-one deal with her sister), I didn’t meet Priya at university. I met her at my first job, out of uni, working behind the bar at a tiny live-music venue. I would spend every waking moment trying to avoid pulling pints so I could instead watch the music and meet other musicians, other people in the know, for Edie and me (we were determined at that time, to get a record deal, for a eighties pop sound we were trying), and Priya would spend most of her time counselling drunk girls on why they deserved better than the bass player who hadn’t looked at themall night. ‘You’re so pretty and intelligent,’ she’d say, ‘and I know you don’t believe me, but I spoke to him earlier and he was really boring and smelled awful. Like scalp. Like dirty, sweaty scalp. Do you want a boyfriend who smells like scalp? Course you don’t. You deserve better. Trust me.’ Priya is a girl’s girl; a woman’s woman. She has my back. Always. And that’s why I ask her…

‘Priya?’

‘Mm?’ She looks up from her sliced lemons.

‘Did you know about Edie?’ I ask. ‘The coffee …’

Priya hesitates, her brown eyes widening. She slowly shakes her head. ‘No, Nat,’ she says sadly. ‘I mean, Lucy told me about the open mic night thing a couple of days before your birthday, and I was against putting you forward really. I was more – on the fence. I didn’t realise they did it as an actual gift. And I know they meant well but … Edie …’ Priya’s sentence fades into silence, until she puts down her little plastic tub again and leans across to me, and says, ‘I’m sorry she saw her. That she had coffee with her. And I wouldn’t ever want to throw her under the bus, but … I wouldn’t have. Not without talking to you first at the very least.’

I nod. ‘I know.’

‘And not because it’s my business, the thing between you and Edie, because it isn’t. But … because it would’ve been without you knowing.’

And I suppose, that’s exactly it. What happened between us, and what happened between Edie and Russ all those years ago, isn’t really anyone’s business, butours. But at the same time, my friends know how much it hurt me – how much Edie hurt me, that Lucy could have at least gently and softly mentioned it. But Lucy likes everything in lines, everything clean. She likes friendships how they’ve always been, and in her mind, it’ll bebest friends, fall out, move on, make up, best friends again.Clean. A to B. That’s why this open mic night is nothing but a project. A ‘make Natalie better’ project. A ‘make Natalie back to normal’ project.

‘I’ve got this list of people it could be, leaving the music,’ I tell Priya, ‘and I’ve added Edie to it.’

Priya’s eyebrows knit together. ‘God – really? I mean – why would she—’

‘She wants to make amends. To quell her own guilt, or something.’

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