Page 51 of The World Outside My Window

‘Just a sec.’ He gives it one final twist and there’s a gentle ‘click’, the lock turns anticlockwise and the drawer unlocks. Ben widens his eyes disbelief. ‘No way,’ he whispers. ‘I didn’t actually expect that towork.’

‘Well done,’ Laura says. Her palms are clammy.

Slowly, Ben eases the drawer open and they peer inside. Laura isn’t sure what she was expecting to see, but she’s surprised and a little let down by how little it contains after all that effort. She reaches inside and pulls out a bundle of paper folders from the bottom and heads towards the desk and sits down. Ben stands behind her, watching over her shoulder. She can hear him breathing gently.

‘Here goes nothing,’ she says, and feels the press of Ben’s hand on her shoulder as she opens the first folder. She’s not sure how she feels about another man touching her, even innocently, and she tries not to flinch.

She pulls the papers out and lays them across the desk. As she skims her eyes across the first few sheafs she feels disappointment spread through her.

‘Bills,’ she says, flicking through the rest of the bundle of gas, electricity and phone bills.

‘Try the next one,’ Ben says, flicking the flap open. Laura pulls those papers out to find more of the same.

‘Why the hell were these locked away?’ she says.

‘Who knows? Maybe Jim didn’t even realise he’d locked it?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I know it’s not what you hoped for, but it’s probably a good thing,’ Ben says as Laura opens the next folder down and pulls out yet more papers. ‘I mean, you didn’treallywant to find out something terrible about your husband, did you?’

‘No…’ Laura says. ‘But I had hoped to find something that might help me find him.’

All she needs is another clue, something to point her in the right direction, and she pinned all her hopes on this drawer.

She’s about to shove the papers back inside the folder and back into the drawer when something catches her eye – there’s a single piece of paper in the bottom of the drawer. She bends down and picks it up.

‘What’s this?’ She turns it over. It’s a generic card with a picture of a puppy andHappy 30th Birthdayembossed in gold scroll. Laura opens it, reads the few words scrawled inside, and almost drops the card on the floor. She feels breathless, and the walls close in around her…

‘Laura, what is it? What does it say?’ Ben gently prises the card from Laura’s hands and reads the words too.

‘Oh.’

Laura can’t speak. The words keep scrolling in front of her vision as if taunting her.

Dear Jim.

Happy 30th Birthday son.

Always thinking of you,

Dad x

‘It’s from his dad,’ Laura says, her voice barely more than a whisper. ‘But his dad is dead.’ She feels her body start to shake. Ben longs to comfort her but is unsure how welcome a hug would be from him right now, so holds back.

‘But this is from when he was younger,’ he says. ‘It’s not recent.’

Laura shakes her head. ‘He said—’ She stops, clears her throat. ‘His parents died when he was twelve. He was brought up by his aunt, who he doesn’t speak to any more.’ Even as the words come out of her mouth she realises how ridiculous it is that she doesn’t know any more details than that. Seven years she and Jim have been together, and she has barely asked him a single question about himself.

Or is it more that he deflected any questions she did ask him, until she stopped asking him anything?

Her head feels muddled, as though all the things she thought she knew were turning to liquid and dripping through her fingers. She can’t pin anything down in her mind. Is that what he told her, that his parents died when he was twelve? Or has she got confused? Her mind has been so entirely focused on herself and her own problems that she hasn’t paid any attention to Jim.

And yet this is one thing she was fairly sure of. Jim’s parents died when he was twelve. He was brought up by his aunt, whose name she doesn’t think she’s ever known, although the name Bess is hovering at the edges of her mind. Why would she think all this if it wasn’t true? And if it is true, how can his dad have sent him a card for his thirtieth birthday – and what was it doing locked away in this drawer? She can only assume Jim had no idea it was here.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she whispers, her voice cracking. Without hesitation this time, Ben’s arms are around her and she’s sobbing into the shoulder of this man she’s only just met, and feeling comforted and devastated all at the same time.

18

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