Page 84 of The Spark

He turns to face me. The space suddenly feels too small. It is scented with furniture polish and the faint smell of cut flowers from a vase on a tiny sideboard. One wall is covered in framed photographs of Ash and his sister. I glance sorrowfully at the sweetness of him in his school uniform, aged maybe ten or eleven, side by side with Gabi, whose hair is in bunches. Both their faces are already sparky and defiant, plucky with determination.

I move my gaze back to him. His eyes are hot with hurt. For a moment, we just stare at each other, my betrayal smouldering between us. And I know that what I say or do next will determine whether or not we burn.

‘Be honest with me.’ His voice sounds off-key with anguish and shock. ‘Do you actually believe I’m... Jamie?’

‘Ash,’ I plead, ‘if you just—’

‘I think you’d better leave.’ His jaw is locked firm. He is clearly devastated.

I stand numbly in front of him, wishing I could take back every word of the last twenty minutes. Because though I’d been planning to talk to him, this is not how I wanted to have that conversation.

‘I’m calling you a cab. You can wait here. I’ll get your stuff.’

‘Ash, you’re being—’

‘What?’ His cheeks are wet now with tears, his voice contorted. ‘What am I being?’

I don’t even know what I’d been going to say. Ridiculous? Unfair? Irrational? Because he is, of course, being none of those things. He is never any of those things.

He seems to gather himself. Then, so there can be no confusion: ‘It’s over, Neve.’ His voice is cool and newly calm, unruffled as the air the morning after a storm.

Chapter 36.

I don’t sleep. Of course I don’t. I spend the night emptying and scrubbing down my kitchen cupboards, a futile attempt to circuit-break the turmoil on loop in my mind. Eventually, as dawn unfolds, full mortification kicks in, more brutal than any hangover I have ever experienced.

I can’t stop picturing Ash’s face, last night. The way he looked at me. The man I love, thunderstruck with hurt and bewilderment. And I do love him. Don’t I?

Or is it Jamie I love – Jamie I am still, after all these years, trying to build a life with?

Though my mind is foggy with muddled logic, I try calling him, as I did four times when I got home last night. But his phone is off. So I message him again, though I can’t find a way to word my feelings without sounding as if I am guilty of a crime.

It isn’t how it sounded

I love you

Please call me

Can we talk?

I sent him similar messages in the early hours of this morning. A total of twenty-two now sit delivered but unread at the end of our message thread. I look at them all, then replay my conversation with Juliet, over and over. And of course I see how Ash could think that in fact, I have lost my mind. How he might think he has fallen in love with someone who’s entirely detached from reality.

By eight o’clock, I have been churning with disquiet for so long, I feel as though my brain is filled with mud. So I take a shower then leave the house to walk the thirty minutes or so to Ash’s apartment. Sunday mornings in the city always feel slightly mournful – deserted streets, bags of rubbish in shop doorways, empty bottles abandoned the night before. The clouds today are the colour of wet cement.

I stop at Costa for two coffees, then walk the last five minutes to the Old Yarn Mill, heart pounding with anticipation.

‘Yep,’ he says gruffly, when I buzz.

‘It’s me.’

He doesn’t say anything, and for a moment I think he’s just going to ignore me. But then he buzzes me up, so I head inside and take the lift to the top floor.

He is a long time answering the door, and when he does, he blocks the space with his whole body, as if I’m a religious fanatic, or a charity worker who won’t be told no.

‘Can I come in? I brought coffee.’

A semi-surprised laugh. He doesn’t move. He’s wearing a crumpled T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, and all his features look strangely flat and colourless.

‘I don’t think there’s anything to say,’ he replies.

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