Page 35 of The Key to My Heart

‘Too early for vampire jokes, is it?’

‘Isn’t it always?’

I step aside and Tom squeezes by. I wish I’d remembered. I’d have cleaned up, cleared away last night’s dinner and the explosion of crap on the coffee table. I’d have got dressed in something other than this. Tom looks fresh, like someone who sprang out of bed and into the shower at seven, waving happily to neighbours as he put out his bins to bloody lark song. Whereas me – Monster Mash would have suited my wake from sleep this morning. God, and he smells amazing …

‘Do ignore my outfit,’ I say, ‘and the mess. And the … house in general. Everything really. Ignore everything.’

‘You should’ve said. I’d have arrived blindfolded.’ Tom laughs, pretends not to see last night’s dinner and frozen cocktail sachets still on the table, plus my towel, which my wet hair was in until I went to bed, tossed over the back of the sofa. Instead, he just says, ‘I’m taken with that fireplace, though, if I’m allowed to look at it …’

‘I never really use it,’ I say. ‘It’s highly likely I’d start a house fire if I tried. I like central heating. I like pressing a button to be warm.’

‘Well. It’s a beauty.’

He follows me into the kitchen. Sunshine streams in, illuminating the old-fashioned, seventies-style brown tiles to an almost fiery orange. Russ actuallylikedthese tiles – used to say, they ‘don’t make them like they used to.’ (And he was right, and there’s good reason for that, like the way we don’t burn people at the stakeanymore, and make children sleep in workhouses.) But Russ was traditional, loved things with history, with a story. I like IKEA. I like bright and white and neutrals that never age and storage baskets in every shape and size. He liked house-clearance sales and furniture that might very well be haunted.

‘Coffee?’ I press the lit-up espresso button on the coffee machine and it fills the room with a loud buzz.

‘Yeah, great. Thanks.’ Tom puts down the case at his feet, slips his hands in his pockets. ‘Love the beams,’ he says, reaching up to the low ceiling and running a hand along the wood above his head.

‘Not so sure on these tiles, though, eh?’

‘Yeah,’ he laughs, dropping his gaze to the breakfast bar. ‘Bit special, aren’t they? You can get paint you know.’

‘For tiles?’

‘Yup. Cheap and easy fix.’

‘God, I had no idea.’

He smiles over at me. ‘I’ve got all the tricks, me.’

We take our coffee outside in Three Sycamore’s tiny, wild garden – but not before I nip off to do something with my hair and get dressed. I find a top that isn’t creased, and some jeans fresh off the radiator, and realise, looking in the mirror, that there are two blobs of old eyeliner under my eyes.God.

When I get outside (yesterday’s make-up removed and extra concealer reapplied), Tom has cleared the old planters off the rusty, cast-iron bench, and our coffees sit there beside each other, on the matching table, among a tower of overturned plastic plant pots and a bag ofcompost, opened and folded over at the seam. The steam wisps into the warm June air. I’m not sure I’ve sat out here since Russ died. He loved this garden, and although wild, it was total organised chaos. He knew every wild tuft and bush, planted them on purpose. ‘These are for the butterflies,’ he’d say, ‘and these – the bees love these.’

I sit down on the tiny bench beside Tom. It creaks. He shifts, but our legs still touch, just a tiny bit, his jeans against mine.

‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘that I forgot. That I’m totally disorganised and half asleep. That my garden is a jungle and—’

‘Ah, pack it in.’ Tom sips his coffee. ‘You’re apologising for everything today. Outfits. Flowers. And for –sleeping?’

‘Apparently so.’ I gulp down a huge mouthful of coffee. ‘Although, I didn’t really sleep so …’

‘No?’

‘Nope. Couldn’t sleep. Then the foxes. Again.’

Tom laughs, sits back on the bench, resting his coffee cup on his knee. ‘Proverbial or actual?’

‘Proverbial?’

‘I dunno. I wondered if maybe “the foxes” was some sort of nickname for being kept up at night worrying. You know when you lie awake at night thinking about that embarrassing shit you said when you were fifteen andif only I could go back and not say it!’

‘Oh. No,’ I laugh. ‘Well, yes, that, always, and actual real shagging foxes to add to it.’

‘Seriously?’

‘Seriously. They’resoloud.’

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