Page 94 of The Key to My Heart

‘Course,’ I say, ‘but just so you know, I don’t stay anywhere without pansy garnishes. It’s a new rule of mine.’

Joe barks a laugh, and behind us, someone tuts and says, ‘Rude.’

Two poets go on, one after the other, and one talks so beautifully about love that I’m moved to tears. After she bows, and the room explodes into applause, Joe leans and nudges his arm to mine.

‘You going a bit soft in your old age?’

‘Sort of. I think I might be … falling in love.’ I turn to Joe in the dim light of the club. ‘Am I fucked?’

Joe raises his eyebrows, and laughs. ‘With Tom, right?’

‘Um –yes?’

‘Sorry,’ he shrugs. ‘Was a bit obvious.’

‘And it was him. The music. Tom carried it on.’

‘Ah, ofcourseit was.’ Joe puts his arm around me then.

‘And I’m gassed for you. Seriously, I am. And yes. You are fucked—Sorry. In love. Fucked. Same difference, if you’re asking me.’

I laugh, and as I look to the side, at his gorgeous, sweet face, I realise how glad I am to have met him, and to have been, mere metres from each other, even if we didn’t know, as the pair of our hearts broke, almost in unison. And now we’re here. Now, they’re healing.

‘I’m glad I found you,’ I say to Joe, and he nods and says, ‘Same. Might even go as far as to say you’re better than pasta.’

And then it’s Joe’s turn. He’s called up onto the stage, and I watch him meander through the crowd, his notebook, bursting with words, in his hand. He stands under the hazy spotlight and puffing out a long breath, he taps the mic, twice, and says, ‘My name is Joe Jacobs. And this is a poem called “The Hospital Piano”.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Dear Russ,

I’ve never been very good at talking to the air, when I visit you, so I thought I’d try this. Something I can write and slip in an envelope. Something I can leave by your tree, and hope, somehow, you’re able to read or know or feel these words.

Visiting you used to be one of my favourite things to do. Filling the thermos flask you used to take to work, eating lunch from the same Tupperware boxes we’d take on long journeys. Do you remember the first car journey we took? To try to look for your drunk friend on New Year’s Eve. Mike was his name? Mick? I can’t remember. I just remember that as we waited in traffic, you said, ‘What’s your favourite tree?’ and I said, ‘Who even has a favourite tree,’ and you said, ‘Me.’ I’d known then, after those words, after that shy smile, I’d love you forever, and if you’d let me, for a very long time. I did. And I do. I listed the reasons once, to help you fall asleep, in hospital. Do you remember, that Christmas morning? There were Christmas lights and the nurses had put up a little tree, and I felt somehow like you knew what was coming. The infection, the sudden deterioration. You woke me up at three a.m. and you told me not to be alone if you died. And I hated you for saying it. I hated for you saying the word ‘die’, and for even thinking for a moment there would ever be a time we’d be apart like that. And I told you off. I told you to fuck off actually. I remember that part very clearly. Then you held my hand, and I remember analysing every part of your hand, the skin, the nails, everything, because I never wanted to forget how that felt. Having you there. Holding on.

But I feel I have to let go a little now, Russ. I can’t just drop your hand though, not right away, but I wondered if I could loosen my grip – just a little at first. For me. If not for anyone else. I need to slowly let you go.

But know I will always love you.

Your Natalie

Chapter Thirty

Me:Three words

Me:I miss you

Maxwell steps inside Three Sycamore and looks up and around it, in a way that could only be described as ‘like an estate agent’. Looking for flaws, looking for period features, and looking for things he canjustabout leave out in photos for Rightmove to hook in buyers. And it’s like it’s showing off today, done a deal with the weather gods, knows it’s got to put its best foot forward, because, despite it being shivering December temperatures outside, the sun is out, and the cottage is lit up from the inside out, sun streaming through the windows, bathing itself in golden light.

‘It’s nice to be back,’ says Maxwell, lifting a brown paper bag up in the air beside him. ‘And I brought some coffee. And pastries. No basil, this time. Not a crumb.’

‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that, Max—’

‘Nah, you’re all right,’ he says, with a stiff shrug. ‘I was rattled that day. Probably wasn’t the greatest company in the world.’

‘Were you?’ I shut the front door behind us. It lets out its usual sad little wail. (Couldn’t quite hold that in for the nice estate agent, could you, little door?)

Maxwell nods, rocks back on those shiny curly shoes’ heels. ‘A little. I’d just been dumped so …’

---