Page 81 of The Key to My Heart

James pauses over the box of cables, and watches me.

‘Y-yes,’ I say. ‘Um. I’m … I’m fine.’

‘Are you sure—’

‘Have you got the … the … thing, the—’

‘Paper? Yes. Yes, sorry, don’t know why I’m standing here still holding it.’ And as I stand as if to attention, my head spinning, swirling, like a thousand jumbled words have just been blown by a hurricane in my mind, and as I take the paper from his hands, run a finger along the glossy, shiny surface – I know. I know why I feel sick. I know why my hands are shaking.

The famous station pianist.

And before I can take another breath, Devaj looks to the doorway and grins. ‘Ah,’ he calls out. ‘Joe! We’ve just been talking about you.’

And I can tell by Joe’s colourless face that he knows that I know he’s deceived me. And that it’s Joe who’s been leaving me music.

Rain falls from the sky, and from under an umbrella, out here, in the car park of the rehearsal rooms, I look at Joe across the concrete. His pale skin, his dry mouth. The hood of his coat casting islands of shadows on his face. We’d somehow managed to keep up appearances in front of James and Devaj, and we’d followed them out, watched them drive away, their van jammed with equipment and full-to-the-brim storage tubs. Andnow it’s just us. Just me and Joe and the storm that’s picking up.

‘Melrose,’ is all I say. ‘Tanner was at Melrose. You never said.’

My chest tightens, like a fist squeezing, because if he isn’t withholding things from me, he’d just say, ‘Er. Yes? He was?And?’ But instead, Joe looks at his feet and says, simply, ‘Natalie, I didn’t know when to say.’

I was right. Not saying was on purpose.

‘So, they were in there together. Russ. Your brother. In hospital, together.’

‘He was moved there,’ Joe says sadly. ‘I just didn’t know how to tell you.’

‘You didn’tknow?How about, I don’t know, when I said in Granary Square that day, by the canal, and a million times after, that my husband Russ was at Melrose. How about, oh yeah, I volunteer there, mybrotherwas in there when he was sick, too. And then we’d have known, saidoh wow, we were there at the same time, how weird.’

‘Natalie—’

‘But you already knew, didn’t you? You knew Russ was in there at the same time as Tanner, and you didn’t say.’

Rain hammers down and a small chimney on the side of the building puffs out white steam into the cold air. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, even over the violent drumming of raindrops, and the sound of distant London traffic.

‘I was going to,’ says Joe. ‘I promise. The minute you walked into the rehearsal rooms, for music therapy, I wasgoing to tell you – that I knew you. That I knew you from the hospital. From playing on that piano next to the ward.’

A hand flies to my stomach as he says it. I suspected it – knew it, on a deep level, somewhere within me, just a few moments after Devaj told me it was Melrose that Tanner was treated in. But hearing him say the actual words aloud makes me want to be sick.

‘But it felt like – too much, straight away, you know? To say, okay, yeah, we know each other from the café, but also, I know you from the hospital from two years ago too,’ Joe talks quickly, panickily. ‘Then we went for the walk together that afternoon, and after, at the station, someone had left you music.’

‘Someone,’ I snap. ‘Youleft me music, Joe. Didn’t you?Youhave been leaving me music.’

Joe’s hazel eyes close sadly. ‘Yes,’ he says, his voice catching in his throat. And I feel like my air is being cut off. I can’t seem to take in a deep breath.

‘But not all of it,’ Joe rushes out, his eyes opening again, pleading with me. ‘I stopped leaving it, but it carried on. And I think it might be your friend. Edie. I’ve been wanting to say. She said something to me that day, out here, and—’

‘What?This has nothing to do with Edie. This is about you andme.’

‘I know, I know.’ Joe sounds desperate, like someone pleading for his life, and it makes me want to panic, to run. I hate that he lied – that he’shiddenso much. I hate that he’s known something all along, all the time I have been opening myself up to him. ‘Natalie, I’m sosorry. But … please listen to me.’ Joe steps forward, his trainers scuffing on the concrete. I step back, and he doesn’t attempt to move any closer. He stays where he is, feet firmly on the flooded ground. ‘I used to hear you play every day, in the hospital,’ he says slowly. ‘I’d see you sometimes. And those songs – those songs you’d play, Natalie, I waited for them every single day. And Tanner waited too. We got to know them. The hospital was so quiet and full of fuckin’ weird bleeping sounds and people breathing and crying anddyingand then – then you’d play.’

I stare at him, my vision clouding through tears.

‘And I’d been volunteering at the hospital, in January. At Melrose, for the first time. And, man, it was so rough going back. But I knew it was something I wanted to do. So, I went to the station after, for coffee, to gather my thoughts before I went home, and—’

‘You saw me play.’

Joe smiles sadly, his eyes shining. ‘Heard you. I knew it was you, before I saw you. The way you played. And I wanted to hear those songs again. The ones you played to Tanner and me. Natalie, you have no idea what you gave Tanner and me, in that ward, with your music.’

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