Page 60 of Days You Were Mine

At lunchtime, I go shopping for our supper. Jake always cooks, but I think that tonight I will surprise him. I will make my mother’s chicken, mushroom and courgette casserole, the one fail-safe dish she taught me.

Jake isn’t in the flat when I arrive back in the late afternoon and I miss walking in to the strumming of his guitar or the blast of The Rolling Stones or Fleetwood Mac from the record player. But I’m contented enough as I begin to prepare the casserole, rolling chicken thighs and drumsticks into a plate of seasoned flour. Frying mushrooms, onions and courgettes into a soft, sticky mush, then browning the chicken pieces.

By eight the casserole is ready and Jake still hasn’t come home. I turn the oven down to its lowest setting and then I pace around the sitting room, too stressed to listen to music or read or draw or do anything except stare out at the street below, my whole being waiting for the sound of his key in the door.

In desperation I ring Rick and catch him on his way out to meet Tom at The Coach and Horses.

‘Thank God,’ I say. ‘If Jake’s there ask him to ring me. I am going out of my mind. Tell him I’ve cooked.’

‘Alice, my love,’ the unexpressed laughter in Rick’s voice soothes me. ‘Do you think you might be overreacting just a teensy bit? You are nineteen not forty. So what if Jake wants to go out and get smashed?’

‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘I know you’re right. But Rick—’

I catch him just before he hangs up.

‘Phone me if he’s not in the pub. Please?’

At a quarter to nine I turn the oven off and take out the casserole. I have no appetite for this greasy pale-grey sludge which used to be my favourite thing to eat not so long ago. I return to the sitting room and resume my wait, an unopened book on the sofa beside me, the television on with the sound turned low.

Rick calls at ten. He’s been at The Coach and Horses and now he’s in the French House and there is no sign of Jake.

‘He was here with Eddie earlier, they’ve probably gone on somewhere else. Maybe they went to get some food.’

‘Why hasn’t he called me?’

We are interrupted by the beeps as Rick’s money runs out.

I sit in darkness for a while, the street lamps below throwing occasional stripes of light across the brown carpet. Jake is out getting drunk with his oldest friend, the one person who knows the truth about his childhood. There is no reason for me to worry.

Why then as I lie in bed is my chest tight, my mind a blizzard of fear and anxiety? Beneath the romance and the passion and the euphoria of our love, there has always been this stubborn, inextinguishable truth. The man I love once tried to take his own life. I live in dread of that ever happening again.

Now

Luke

Michael is in the States this week and there’s a holiday atmosphere at work. At lunchtime, we all disperse in different directions, some to the pub, some up to Wandsworth for an hour of retail therapy and me to Soho for a liquid lunch with Ben.

First to Liberty. It’s Hannah’s birthday in a couple of weeks and I’m doing a recce of ground-floor accessories: scarves, necklaces, bracelets, hats. She has unchanging but definite taste, which makes her easy to buy for; if it’s crafted and hand-made she is certain to love it. Almost immediately I find the perfect thing – a black beaded necklace with hand-painted wooden discs, slightly gothic, shades of Madonna in her eighties incarnation. Hannah will love it.

Without quite knowing why, I find myself taking the escalator up to the fragrance department on the first floor. The necklace was steep (£130) and Hannah would be cross if I bought her anything else. Why then am I uncapping bottles and spraying my wrists, quick sniff, decisive shake of the head, no that’s not it, nope, nor is that, on and on until I’ve tried around twenty fragrances.

‘Can I help?’

The woman behind the counter looks kind; I think that’s thedeciding factor. The truth blurts out before I’ve had time to recognise it.

‘I’m trying to find this scent I keep smelling. It’s driving me mad. But it’s none of these …’

I wave my hand at the ranks of Chanel, Guerlain, Dior.

‘Can you describe the smell? Who is wearing it?’

‘It’s nothing like these perfumes; they are all too sweet, too heavy. It’s light, lemony, spicy and smoky. Hard to describe. And it’s a woman I know who wears it.’

I hate the smile she gives me; I feel ashamed. She thinks I’m trying to buy the perfume of someone I’ve fallen in love with; perhaps she pictures me dousing myself in it each day like some kind of weirdo. One step away from wearing women’s pants to work.

‘Could it be cologne? Or aftershave?’

I nod, glad that someone is taking me seriously at last.

---