Page 34 of The Spark

‘I know it sounds weird, but... This guy I’ve met. It’s like he’s Jamie, nine years on. It’s almost as though... he’s the person Jamie never got to be. If that makes sense.’

Ralph swallows his mouthful with a gulp that makes him sound almost comically alarmed. He pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. ‘It doesn’t entirely, no. I’m sorry, Neve. Can you explain what you mean?’

From upstairs, I hear the creak of floorboards. My mother moving around. I think guiltily that it might be nice if she stayed in bed just a little while longer so I can try to soak up some of Ralph’s soothing energy before the court-jesting starts.

The next thing I know, I am telling him everything. In fact, I give the poor man the whole damn lot. I fill him in on the architecture and the apartment and the books and London Grammar and Nighthawks and Ash’s accident and... well, everything. I explain what I found online, how terrifyingly plausible it seemed, how the whole idea made a warped kind of sense. Like taking a telescope to the night sky and unmuddling the stars.

‘Do you think I’m mad?’ I say, when I eventually finish, my voice small.

‘No,’ he says, firmly. ‘Not at all.’

‘Do you believe in... any of that stuff? You know, souls and the afterlife and things like that.’

‘I think... your mind can convince you of anything, if it serves what you’re looking for in that moment.’

‘Then you do think I’m mad.’

He frowns and shakes his head. ‘Do you want to know why I spend so much time here with your mother, Neve?’

He doesn’t need to tell me. It’s because he loves her. And I do get why: my mother is charming and beautiful in a way I can imagine makes her infuriatingly easy to adore. ‘You love her.’

He nods. ‘Yes. But it’s also because I believe Daniela – your mother – loves me.’

‘Mmm,’ I say, after a couple of moments, trying not to sound dubious.

He smiles, a little sadly. ‘I have no idea if that’s true. But I do know it’s what I want to believe. Neve, life is... well, it’s wonderful, of course. Like living inside a magic show, sometimes. But the trick is to be aware of what you’re seeing. It may not be real, even though you can’t work out how it’s done. An illusion. No matter how plausible it feels. It’s how the world keeps us on our toes.’

‘Then how do you ever know what’s real?’

‘You don’t. You just have to trust, and hope, and follow your heart. That’s what love is, after all, isn’t it? Faith, and blind optimism.’

‘God. That’s depressing.’

His eyes crinkle with a smile. ‘No, it’s the opposite. Isn’t that the beauty of loving another person? How dull would life be if we knew every outcome? Part of the joy lies in the risk.’

At this point, with all the grace and timing of a debt collector, my mother appears in the doorway. She looks pale and unsteady, like she’s just spent the last twenty-four hours at sea. A powerful hit of perfume wafts into the room with her, no doubt freshly sprayed to disguise the various seeping toxins of her hangover.

‘Christ, Ralph. What is that smell?’

‘You?’ I suggest, sweetly.

‘Country vegetable soup,’ says Ralph.

A cloud crosses her face. ‘Oh, hello Neve.’

‘How’s the hangover?’

She groans. ‘Bloody weddings.’ She wobbles to the sink, grabs a mug from the draining board and holds it under the tap. She rummages inside the only functioning drawer (the rest are stuck fast at awkward angles) for a couple of moments before turning and saying, ‘Ralph, be an angel and pop out for some ibuprofen, will you?’

‘Mum,’ I say sharply. ‘Ralph’s eating.’

He shakes his head and gets up. ‘Just finished.’

‘Mum,’ I admonish her again, once he’s disappeared and the front door has shut behind him. ‘You could have got that yourself.’

She switches on her infuriating megawatt smile. ‘Just here for a social visit, were you, darling?’

The answer’s no, of course, but I still can’t talk to her about Ash. Mum doesn’t believe other people have problems, in much the same way that she doubts the existence of God.

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