Page 4 of The Spark

‘I don’t think that would be appropriate,’ I say, eventually. ‘But... I sincerely wish you all the best, Leo.’

For a couple of moments, he doesn’t respond, just fiddles with his lighter. Click, click.

‘Can I offer you some advice, Neve? As a friend?’

I bristle at both suggestions. ‘Sure. Why not?’

‘You work too hard.’

‘That’s not advice.’

‘Okay. Well, call it . . . a well-intentioned observation.’

I consider reminding him that if I were prone to needing life tips, the last person I would take them from is a man who’s been fired from three jobs in the past four years. But instead, I draw a breath and smile, the way I do whenever a client is losing their cool. ‘Is that everything?’

Click, click. ‘Yeah, I guess.’

‘Good luck, Leo.’

At this, he just laughs, then rings off.

I block his number, and return to my screen.

I walk home along deserted streets blanched with moonlight. I answer a message from my colleague Parveen, who’s up with her young son but still finding time to worry about my work ethic. She mentions high blood pressure. I assure her I’ve left for the night, then stop off at the shop just before it closes to buy a bottle of wine.

Back home, I kick off my shoes, ditch my bag, stick the white wine in the freezer.

I have spent the last few years lovingly renovating my tiny terraced house, saving hard for quality pieces from designers I adore, scouring junkyards at weekends for reclaimed fireplaces and doors with stained-glass panels, and wooden shutters for my windows. I can’t imagine ever leaving this place, now. Leo once asked if I fancied getting a flat together and I reacted like he’d suggested we take up organised crime for a hobby.

I can hear my neighbours arguing. Nothing new there. Something to do with him not making an effort on the night out they’ve just got home from. I switch on the TV, turn up the volume. I sit in front of it for about five minutes, failing to observe a single thing, then decide I may as well tick a few items off my to-do list while I’m waiting for the wine to chill.

Leo asked me to marry him, once. The context was inexplicable. We were in a bar in Greece. Both drunk in an unstable way, being passive-aggressive about money. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to turn him down. I knew in my heart – maybe I’d always known – that he wasn’t my person.

He did have some attractive qualities. He was very good at making me laugh, and tended not to sweat the small stuff, which offset my inclination to do the opposite. He was also infuriatingly handsome, which probably kept the spark alive well past the point at which we should have jointly snuffed it out. But ultimately, I knew I didn’t want to open my eyes when I was eighty, and see Leo lying next to me. For me, the decision was that simple.

I slip on a pair of rubber gloves and set to in my bathroom with steaming water and spray cleaner. I mop the kitchen floor. I run the dishwater on empty with half a lemon stuffed into the top rack, fold linen, apply a hair mask. I steam the creases from my bedsheets.

It’s two in the morning by the time I turn out the light. My neighbours have swapped the fight for a session of agonisingly vocal sex. I shut my eyes against the migrainous thump of it, fumble for some headphones so I don’t have to hear the things they’re taking it in turns to say. I try not to think about my last time, with Leo. And though I do manage that, I don’t succeed in stemming the spate of thoughts that follows.

Which is how I find myself downstairs, cross-legged in my pyjamas at three thirty in the morning, trying to meditate my way to relaxation. I fail quite quickly. I never did get the hang of meditating. I just don’t have the right wiring for it.

Eventually, I give up on sleep and all efforts to empty my head and make my way into my tiny back garden. Drawing a breath of early-morning air into my chest, I think – as I often do – of Jamie, and of Lara.

I stay out on the patio till I’m shivering, then remember with a jolt something I forgot to do.

Which is how my Friday begins: with the hazardous extraction of glass shards from the white wine explosion inside my freezer. Well, it saved me the hangover, at least.

Chapter 3.

At lunchtime, Parveen returns from a meeting at a local architect’s firm.

She is humming.

Parveen never hums. In fact, none of us do. This isn’t that kind of office.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s a happy place to work. But it’s the opposite of leisurely. We are never carefree enough to hum. Some days, we barely have time to caffeinate.

‘What’s got into you?’ I ask her with a smile, as she slides into the chair next to mine.

---