Page 4 of The Key to My Heart

‘Of course they are,’ I say, and I feel a weird bloom of affection towards Tom the Target for being a good sport, for aiding and abetting with me, for being on my side. ‘And I dunno. How about … ramble about your job? For say, ten minutes. That should do it.’

‘Okay, that’s easy. Photographer.’

‘Interesting.’

‘Interesting.’Tom groans, pulls his mouth into a grimace. ‘Jesus, Natalie, go easy on me—’

‘I mean it!’ I laugh. ‘Itisinteresting. Seriously.’

‘Oh, shit, you were being sincere.’

‘Yes.’

Tom laughs, moves in closer, a warm, taut, shirted arm touching mine, and I know the girls will be watching from afar, feeling victorious, nudging one another, hopeful thatthis is it, and the thought makes me want to dive over the bar and drown myself in a keg, to be found months later, like an oversized tequila worm. ‘Shall I start with photography equipment? Or shall I go for cool celebrity encounters or—’

‘Oh, definitely cool celebs.’

‘I’ve got an Adam Driver story actually.’

‘Do you?’

Tom grins. ‘They chose wisely with me, your mates, eh?’

Chapter Two

‘Three Sycamore, was it?’

‘Please. Off Dark Lane.’

The taxi driver nods from the dim, fuzzy darkness of the front seat, and the car rumbles away, the golden strip of lit-up pubs and bars blurring in the distance through the window like distant searchlights. Thank God it’s over. Another night out – done. Big tick in the box. And this one was successful enough that it should keep them at bay for a few weeks at least. Six, maybe even into the two-month zone.God.How bloody depressing am I? I used to love these nights with my friends. I used to love how our lives were all so busy that our nights out used to feel more like a challenge as to how many words and pieces of news we could cram into a four-hour slot. I used to love listening. I used to love laughing. I used to love planning the next one at the end of the night, our phones under our noses, all of us with our calendar apps open, the jolt of joy when a date worked for us all. Now I just spend them planning my escape, like a margarita-fuelled hostage.

They bought it of course. Lucy, Roxanne and Priya bought the whole Tom thing, hook, line and sinker,and I think evenImight’ve bought it too, if I wasn’t the one sitting at the bar. We made quite the team in the end–Best British Single and Tom the Target with the Teeth. We were the perfect duet. We talked non-stop, and for longer than the agreed few minutes, and he actually made me laugh. Andreally laugh –not one of those fake, hoggy snorts I usually have to tiresomely force through my nostrils whenever Lucy decides to put on her ridiculous matchmaker’s hat. Then his phone lit up in his hand, his eyes flicking down to it, and I felt a pang of relief. Finally, I could go home; leave Avocado Clash and its chicken carcasses and overpriced guacamole behind.

‘Ah. I’ve got to go and get drunken Si on a bus home,’ he said, finishing his drink. ‘He left with that stare-y woman and now he’s somehow … chundering outside that Burger King on the corner? But, listen, I can come back. Or I’m happy to not, for you to blame me. Say I … ducked out or something?’

‘Went to the loo,’ I added.

‘Never came back.’

‘Yes.A perfect arsehole. Tom the Perfect Arsehole.’

‘That’s me,’ he laughed, a glimpse of those lovely straight teeth. ‘So, I’ll see you then, Natalie?’

I nodded once, in a grateful bow.

‘I’d better go and, er … get to standing you up.’

Then he hesitated, touched my arm, just a gentle brush of fingers, and disappeared into the bustling, garlicky fug of the restaurant. I sat at the bar for a little while longer after, fraying the edges of a damp napkin, swallowingdown the tears that were globbing together, desperate to break free, turn my face into a snotty, blotchy mess a little too ahead of schedule. Of course, when I turned back to my friends, they were already angled towards me. Three settled women out for the night away from their busy, full lives, watching a tragic play, starring: Me.

‘Stood me up,’ I mouthed over to them with a theatrical shrug, then I finished my cocktail, feigned exhaustion and excused myself to the rainy street to meet my Uber. And I’m glad I talked Priya into staying inside with the others, because I was crying before I’d even got out onto the pavement, and now they’re streaming. Hot, plump tears. Buckets of them, running down my face, endlessly, like the rain from the broken guttering outside our bedroom at home. Tom the perfect arsehole, me the perfect cliché – drunk and crying on a Friday night in a trying-to-happen commuter town. And it was the margarita effect, sure, but, of course,not, all at once. It was the bar, full of happy people. It was Priya, newly married, newly pregnant, Roxanne texting Ian about what time she’d be home, a tiny curl of a contented smile on her face. It was seeing Russ’s favourite meal on the Specials menu. It was knowing this empty taxi ride awaited. It was Tom. Lovely, kind, normal, handsome, funny Tom – and how I’d felt nothing. And it was the music – that single song I found at the piano yesterday, at the train station. A song I played countless times for Russ over the years. At the keyboard in my tiny student digs, as he sat propped up watching me from my bed, messy hair, sleepy grin. At home. At a hotel piano inCrete as we waited for our taxi to the airport. At the hospital, before he died. And I know that it probably means nothing. But then, why was it there?Wasit meant for me? In all the time I’ve been playing there, it’s never happened before …

Traffic radio bumbles on and on in the taxi – delays on the M25, a road closure, a diversion – and the car seems to take too many corners as it leaves the bustling town behind us, for the dark, leafy outskirts. My head shudders against the damp, cold window, raindrops trailing the glass like rivers on a map. I’ve lost count of the amount of taxi rides we took, Russ and I, squashed together on the back seat, him brushing the hair from my face, the smell of our fabric softener, exactly the same – evidence of our shared lives. Russ’s work shirts and my tops and our pyjamas, going around and around together in the machine, a tangle. And I wish so much I could tangle myself up in him now. I wish I was going home to him. I wish I was a few miles away from stumbling through the front door to find him on the sofa, asleep, an anime on Netflix left playing to nobody, our cat Toast curled up on his chest.

‘Is it too hot for you back there?’ asks the driver, his fingers poised over a glowing, fire-orange button on the dashboard.

‘No. It’s fine,’ I say thickly.

‘Right-o.’ At that, a gust of warm air encircles my feet.

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