Page 61 of The Spark

‘I really do love him, you know.’

‘I know,’ I say, because that’s not what I feel hesitant about.

‘And for what it’s worth? I think Ash is in love with you. It’s written all over his face, the way he feels.’

I feel a blush of pleasure creep through me, thinking about the heart he sketched onto my steamed-up shower screen before we left the house tonight. ‘It’s only been a couple of months.’

‘So? Do you love him?’

It surprises me, the swiftness with which my whole body says yes. The certainty is like a tiny wingbeat inside me, right in time with my heart.

‘Yes. But it’s so fast to feel this way,’ I confess. I think of my mother, how quickly she gets in deep with people. How fiercely I’ve resisted doing that, since all the devastation with my dad.

‘Want to know how long it took me to fall in love with Felix?’

‘Go on.’

‘A day. Well, a night, actually. Well, about five hours.’

‘That’s not like you.’

‘No,’ she agrees. ‘But that’s how you know it’s love.’

Upstairs, after Ash has dropped off to sleep, I stay awake for hours, blinking into the blackness, listening to the gentle percussion of his breath. Wondering for the millionth time if I’m losing my mind.

I have a craving to get up and clean something – anything – to try to stem the overwhelm of my thoughts. But I resist. I don’t want Ash to wake up and find me scrubbing down the toilet at three a.m. in a pair of rubber gloves.

By nature, I’m a sceptic. I’ve never been into ghosts, or past lives, or those psychics who tell you your dead nan’s got a message for you. I’ve always believed that when you’re gone, you’re gone. Which was maybe why losing Jamie was so hard. I could never really draw comfort from the idea that he was looking down on me, or that if I talked to him, he was listening. When he died, it was as if he’d simply vanished – evaporated like morning mist as the sun rose without him. He was dead, gone for ever.

So how can I possibly turn my back now on an unexpected chance to reclaim him? To live out the future that was stolen from us? Ash is, in a million tiny ways, the person Jamie was destined to become.

I’m pretty sure Ash won’t take it well, if I tell him any of this. But I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try. I need him to know that on the night of his accident, I believe that – mad as it sounds – Jamie’s spirit occupied his body somehow. That what Jamie and I had was too good, too magical, for our premature goodbye. That our love simply shed its leaves for a season – a winter that arrived without warning – and now our summer has come again.

Chapter 27.

On a hot Friday night after work, Lara picks me up in a silver convertible.

I afford the vehicle the staggered gawp it deserves. ‘What is this?’

She pulls a face, despite the fact that with her shades and floral headband, the whole look really quite suits her. ‘It’s Mum’s, she loves it, she bought it right after Dad died, so no-one can say anything. It’s horrible, it’s embarrassing, get in.’

I smile, and do as I’m told.

‘Felix thinks she’d be offended if we got a hire car while we’re here. So... we’re just going to act like delusional OAPs for the evening, okay?’

‘Why act?’ I say, pulling on my seatbelt. ‘I’m knackered. I quite fancy early retirement.’

Lara laughs, and starts the engine.

It doesn’t escape me how carefully she pulls away from the kerb.

There is a nature reserve a ten-minute drive from Norwich, on the south bank of the river Yare. Lara tells me she can’t be arsed to walk, that she knows a good bench. At this, I’m relieved – being July, it’s way too hot for hiking, and anyway, I’m wearing sandals.

She leads the way along a winding grassy path to a bench overlooking a glistening web of silver streams spun into the heart of the reed bed. It’s a private and tranquil corner of the reserve, a summer-lit segment of solitude, our only company the frogs and grebes and reed warblers and coots.

‘This is actually my dad’s bench,’ Lara says, as we gaze out over the cluster of lush green wetland. Above our heads, tiny vaporous clouds roll past, soft like kettle steam. ‘He loved this place.’

I turn to look at the brass plaque behind my right shoulder.

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