Page 89 of Famous Last Words

Charlie hands her hers. The night air is sweet and dark, and Cam suddenly feels safe here, with him. The loneliness she carries around with her has frayed just slightly at the edges into softness.

‘What was your very boring job? The one in 2017?’

‘It was my job to look after a set of masts. It was called project management, though I have no idea why. It was really, really fucking dull.’ The wine has loosened his tongue, and she likes it.

‘What did you actually do?’

‘Honestly, Cam, I have no idea,’ he says with a small, self-deprecating laugh. ‘All I remember is being so bored that one day I changed my email signature to a different name, just to see if anyone would notice.’

‘And did they?’

‘No.’ He sets his glass down with another sniff of a laugh.

Cam gazes at him, thinking that she doesn’t like him as much as Luke, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like him at all. That there can be shades of grey here, in the afterworld.

‘You know,’ she says, ‘I wish I’d told you about the coordinates.’

‘You should’ve,’ Charlie murmurs.

He looks behind them, up at the house, and she’s glad he doesn’t push it, wanting to know more about Luke, the way a lot of people might. ‘So you’re declaring him dead to move from here? I bet you’ll be happy. I moved after Saskia left. Was nice to just – put a stamp on somewhere new. You know?’

‘I know,’ she says softly. ‘Maybe. I don’t know if I’ll move yet.’

‘You will.’ Charlie is drinking quickly, maybe preparing to leave. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘I know what it’s like to …’

Cam waits, but he doesn’t continue. ‘You know what it’s like to …’ she prompts.

He pauses for a second, his eyes down, then looks straight at her. ‘To not ever have any answers,’ he says simply. He hesitates, his fingers on the base of the wine glass, then adds, ‘Saskia, I mean. It’s not the same as what you went through.’

‘But …?’

‘I don’t know whether she just didn’t want a babywith me. You see? Did she need to meet someone else, or … did she just change her mind, down the line?’

‘I see.’

‘It was just – well, I imagine you know exactly how I feel.’

‘I thought he was alive for the longest time. Maybe I still do.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I don’t know. But, anyway, he didn’t …’

Charlie nods. ‘I know. Even if he’s out there,’ he says, ‘even if he didn’t mean to do it, he never came back to you.’

‘That’s it,’ Cam says. ‘Really, I can never forgive him. There can’t be an excuse for what he did. For staying away so long.’

She leans against Charlie, then. His shoulder next to hers, his body warm, his arm around her. And, for the first time in forever, she doesn’t want to go to bed and read and shut out the world.

Maybe it’s Charlie, or maybe she’s simply putting it off, the way you feel sometimes the night before test results you’re expecting the worst from. She wants to stay up, with him, and let tomorrow be damned. Let them come for her. She doesn’t care: she has him.

40

Anonymous Reporting on Camilla

I stand and look up at Camilla’s house. A typical London home on a typical London street. Chimneys on the roofs, bay windows, street parking.

But I’m not paying much attention to any of that. No, I’m going over the conversation in the garden. How very fascinating, I think, hitching my bag over my shoulder as I take one last look at the house. All information is good information. Especially all that, straight from the horse’s mouth.

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