Page 68 of Don't Let Him In

“And then, last year, just a few months before Paddy died. Oh, Jesus… I probably shouldn’t be telling you, but—hold on.” She smiles and picks up the wine bottle. “Wait.” She tops up our glasses, then knocks back a large gulp and readies herself. “She had a lovely flatshare near Greenwich, two nice flatmates, a great job working for a lifestyle publisher, a fairly OK salary, although it was never really about that because we were happy to keep supporting her here and there. She had an allowance. And it was all going so well. I thought, Finally my girl has grown wings. And then one night, one of her flatmates called me. She said the police were at their flat, questioning Ash about something, and that Ash was totally losing the plot and the police were saying if she didn’t calm down, they’d have to take her in, and could I talk to her. So, they put me on the phone with her and I couldn’t understand a word she was saying, had to count her down, you know, eight, seven, six, five, etc., until she was calm enough to tell me that her boss had made a complaint about her. Apparently,” she says with a sigh, “she’d been stalking him. She was convinced that he was in love with her, that he’d sent her love letters, that he was going to leave his wife for her. She had the letters, but it turned out that they weren’t from him—that they were most likely from her.”

I throw her a quizzical look.

“Lots of things didn’t add up,” she replies. “She’d been sending him letters too, and the police established that they were printed on exactly the same paper as the letters she claimed he’d been sending her. So she must have been typing them herself and sending them to herself. And they were full of instructions from this man of what to do and where to be and she started turning up places where he was and taking photos, and then, oh God, she followed him to his familyholiday in Ibiza, just turned up on the beach one day, said he’d invited her, looked shocked to see his family there, and I can’t tell you. It was such a bombshell. Our beautiful baby girl, behaving like a lunatic, making this poor man fear for his life. She had a kind of mini nervous breakdown and was hospitalized for a few days, then she was in therapy for a while, and finally she was diagnosed—with borderline personality disorder.”

“Wow,” I say, thoughtfully. “That’s…”

“I know,” she says. “What can you say? It’s one of those things. There’s always been something fragile about Ash, an ongoing fantasy, like she was living inside the pages of a novel.”

“I’m really sorry,” I say. “That sounds very tough. And where is she now? What happened?”

“Oh, she moved home when she left the clinic, got a job locally in a clothes shop. She’s let all her friendships wither, has this low-level phobia of going into London, and she’s just… she’s always there, and it sounds harsh, but I’m starting to resent her a little bit? She’s quite clingy and immature and she has a tendency to make everything about herself, and I can tell she doesn’t think I’m sad enough about Paddy. She judges me for getting on with my life. Which makes me feel guilty. Makes me feel bad.”

“And are you?” I push gently. “Sad about Paddy?”

“Oh God, of course I’m sad about Paddy. Of course I am. But also I feel… liberated? I know, that sounds terrible. But Paddy was the main character, you know, everything was about Paddy. His music, his food, his moods, his job, his friends, his world. And I loved it, but I also hated it. And he could be… quite patronizing? Quite belittling? If you didn’t fully subscribe to his view of things, if you didn’t like a piece of music, or if you didn’t like some weird bit of fish, or a really spicy dish, if you wanted to sit in the shade, or not have a drink, or skip a dinner party or go somewhere different on holiday—no give. No flexibility. He would make you feel like you were an idiot. AndAsh, of course, just fully subscribed to the whole shebang, was just a mini-Paddy, idolized him. Which was, of course, exactly what he wanted. Big ego, our Paddy, as I’m sure you remember.” She smiles ruefully and takes another sip of her wine. “Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to say any of that. I’ve never said any of that. I’m not sure why I did…”

I give her a humble and encouraging smile. “It’s fine,” I say. “I get it. I really do. He was larger-than-life. And sometimes you just want someone who’s the same size as you.”

“Yes,” says Nina, emphatically. “Yes. Exactly. And you know…” She pauses and turns her wineglass around by its stem. “I nearly left him.”

I raise a brow and blow out my cheeks. “Wow. When was this?”

“Oh, a while ago. There was a guy. He was younger than me, but he was just… well, he was nothing special, but when I was with him, I was just with him? If that makes sense? We talked. We watched TV. We were quiet together. He noticed things about me. Like, for example, at home Paddy was always opening windows because he said it was too hot. Even though it made me cold. But this guy, if I shivered even once, he’d say, ‘Oh, let me close the window, you’re cold.’ Tiny things. But what I needed. That contrast. And he had a nine-to-five job, so he was always around in the evenings, unlike Paddy, who was just never, ever, ever there. And anyway, it went on for a couple of years and then the thing with Ash happened and then Paddy died, and it fizzled out. But there was a moment during that affair when I was mentally preparing to leave Paddy. I really was. And I know I should probably feel guilty now. But I don’t. I just don’t.”

I stare at this woman, and I ache to tell her that her husband had been having an affair too, but I suspect that she already knows that, whether factually or instinctively. She knows. I find myself wanting to reach for her hand. She’s so much more than I thought she’d be. And Paddy is so much less. She really does deserve a man like me.Someone who will close windows when she’s cold, spend evenings with her, notice her.

“You shouldn’t,” I say to her. “You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re a good, good woman.”

“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you. I really needed to hear that. And you?” she asks, eyeing me. “Are you a good man?”

“I think am,” I say. “I really do think I am.”

SIXTY-TWO

Emma Greenlaw is a tall, angular woman with the gaunt, shrunken look of a mother who has lost too much weight too quickly after having her children. On the lock screen of her phone there is a little girl with hair in bunches holding a baby inexpertly in her arms. “Sadie,” she says to Ash, pointing at the older girl, “and Robyn. Four and one.” She sighs. “And my mum has never met either of them.”

Ash and Emma are sitting in a branch of Costa Coffee outside Emma’s nearest train station. She said she couldn’t get into town, too many commitments between the children and her job. She is brusque and dry.

Emma stirs sugar into her coffee and looks up at Ash. “So, he’s in your house, is he?” she asks. “As we speak?”

“Yes,” says Ash. “According to the girl in the flower shop, he’s told his wife that he’s in the Midlands looking after his elderly mother. But he’s been at our place since the day after Boxing Day. No elderly mother mentioned.”

“Wow,” says Emma bitterly. “That fucking bastard.” Then she lifts her head and looks at Ash. “So tell me the story. Of how he ended up with your mother?”

Ash tells her about the Zippo in the pink box, the impromptu visits, the wining and dining, the wine bar in Mayfair where nobody has heard ofhim, the flat in Tooting, the soaps from the pretty flower shop in Enderford. The wife called Martha.

Emma nods sagely throughout, her fingertips running around the edges of the tabletop. “And how do you think your mother feels about him? Right now.”

Ash shrugs. It’s a good question. “I think she really likes him. I think she’s into him. You know?”

“Is she in love with him?”

Ash thinks about it. “I’m going to say no? But it’s only a matter of time. Whenever she’s with him she has this glow, she looks prettier. She looks happier.”

Emma groans quietly. “Yup,” she says. “Sounds about right. And how has he been with you?”

“Sweet, I guess. Not too try-hard. Just pleasant.”

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