Page 80 of The Spark

Once we’ve stopped laughing, he turns towards me on the pillow and says, ‘Hey, I want to ask you something.’

‘Okay,’ I say, my heart thumping a little harder, as it always does when he looks at me this way.

‘Will you come to my parents’ house with me, for dinner? Saturday after next?’

I smile cautiously. ‘What’s the occasion?’

‘The occasion of me wanting you to meet them.’ He shuffles a little closer, then rolls onto his front, propping himself up on his elbows. I feel his breath skim my skin. ‘Well, that, and it being my mum’s birthday. Gabi’s going to be there too.’

I have often tried to imagine how life has felt for Ash’s family since his accident; the peculiar agony of losing someone still living and never quite getting them back. What would they say, if I told them what I believe? Maybe they’d be relieved. Perhaps they’d finally feel as though – for the first time in nearly a decade – everything at last made some kind of sense.

But disclosure isn’t an option. I haven’t even talked to Ash yet.

He’d been going to introduce me to his family at a barbecue back in August. But before it could happen, I called him Jamie by mistake. This morning is the first time he’s mentioned me meeting them again since.

‘What have you told them about me?’ I ask him.

He sneaks me a look. ‘I don’t want to say.’

‘Well, you have to.’

‘Why?’

‘So I can prepare. Or, you know. Cancel.’

‘Well,’ he says, ‘I’ve told them I love you, and that I want to make a life with you.’

‘To which they said?’ I whisper.

He bends down to kiss me. ‘Actually... they said they’d never seen me look so happy.’

Even as I melt into the kiss, I know a confession is long overdue. Because if I believe he is not entirely who he appears to be, then I cannot be who he thinks I am, either. We are both living a lie – but only one of us knows it.

He pulls gently back, his pitch-blue eyes seeming to search mine. Does he sense, somehow, that I am fermenting with secrets, with half-finished sentences and hidden sentiments?

I open my mouth to speak, but at the last moment, change my mind.

The timing’s all wrong. I’ll talk to him once I’ve met his family. It’s just a couple more weeks. Maybe meeting them will help me to zoom out of the situation, to view its whole context, make sure I’ve missed nothing. And then I’ll tell him what I believe, the thing that is feeling increasingly like tentacles wrapped around my chest.

Chapter 35.

‘Hair of the dog,’ Ash’s sister Gabi says, passing me a glass brimming with prosecco.

Ash shakes his head. ‘I’m not even going to ask.’

‘Let’s just say it was something that would have been right up your street, back in the day.’

‘Then I definitely don’t want to know.’

‘Probably for the best.’

When we met at the front door, I liked Gabi instantly. She hugged me warmly, made full eye contact. I could see straight away that beneath her brisk demeanour, she was kind, affable. The similarity between her and Ash caught me off guard, which is ridiculous, given they’re twins: same dark blue eyes, playful smiles, rolling laughs. She’s dressed all in black, her hair cropped into a sleek dark bob that reminds me, unexpectedly, of Bev. I could just picture Gabi in a BMW, idling coolly by the kerb, waiting for her lover to get the hell out of his wife’s house. I know this should probably alarm me, but I never hated Bev. Bizarrely, the way I felt about her always came closer to private admiration.

We’re in the Heartwells’ family living room, in a large detached house just south of the city. Everything in here seems to want to swallow me up: I’m trying not to disappear into their enormous gold damask sofa, and the pile of the cream carpet beneath my feet is so deep, it’s practically quicksand. I am paranoid about spilling something, even though Ed and Juliet, Ash’s parents, are all beams and cordiality and welcoming smiles. I’ve been urged to help myself to nibbles several times since we got here. There are bowls of them everywhere – smoked almonds and garlic-stuffed olives, little cubes of Manchego cheese. Classical music is coasting smoothly from a stereo in the corner of the room. I can tell this is a big deal for them – a real occasion. And not just because it’s Juliet’s birthday.

As yet, I’ve seen no evidence of the disconnect between them all that Ash described before. But I know better than anyone that family tensions can run deep.

It’s obvious that the Heartwells have money – that they are what middle-class people would describe as being comfortable – but they’re not showy about it like Jamie’s parents were. I’d be willing to bet they’d be happier in a decent pub than at a Michelin-starred restaurant. I don’t think they own more than one house, nor do I imagine they have a wine fridge reserved especially for champagne.

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