Told in Silence

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‘I’m going,’ I say, and through my anger, to my own shock, I hear my voice crack even though my eyes are dry. ‘Thanks for…for everything.’ I sound hard and bitter, but I don’t care. My father’s face is stern and set, betraying no emotion. I’ve seen him more animated in front of the TV.

‘There’s really no need for this, Violet. This isn’t like you,’ my mother says. I am silent. Again she looks to my father, and finds no encouragement. I see her grasping for words. ‘Perhaps a couple of days away will help you get things in perspective,’ she says. ‘When you’ve calmed down, then…Well, be in touch soon in any case, won’t you? Let us know where you’re staying.’ She sounds as if I’m going on holiday. Already I can tell that she’s reframing the incident in her mind, trying to force it within the bounds of acceptability, unable to cope with the reality of what is happening. She has always been a coward. I won’t turn out that way, not if I can help it. This is my chance to stop it happening.

I move towards the door, put my hand on the latch, hesitate for an instant. Now that I am on the point of leaving, it feels so surreal that I almost laugh. The fight threatens to drain out of me as I stand there. How much easier it would be to do as they want. I glance back and see my parents’ faces, and for a second they seem different, older. I look at the tiny wrinkles around my mother’s eyes, the sprinkling of grey in my father’s hair, and my heart contracts unthinkingly, taking me back to a time when I loved them so much that I couldn’t bear them to be out of my sight. It’s so long ago, but I can barely understand how we have got from there to here. I want to scream with the unfairness of it. I want those people back – not these two painted dolls who no longer know anything about me. It seems that in the past few years we’ve peeled apart so subtly that I’m no longer sure where the threads between us are, and now it’s far too late to stitch us back together, ever again. I have spent eighteen years following in their footsteps, and somehow I know that unless I act now, I will spend the next eighteen doing the same.

Sometimes the biggest decisions are made in a split second. In the half-light of the hall, I think I see my father’s face start to change and sag with sorrow, and I can’t watch. I open the door into the dark and pull it shut behind me. A light drizzle is beating down on to the ground beyond the porch, splattering wetly on to the gravel. I step out into it and start to walk. In fifteen minutes I will be on a train to London; in a little over an hour I will be with Jonathan again. Unless he offers me one, I no longer have a home.

Already I can feel my memories sealing over. If I am not to regret this decision and go crawling back out of weakness, I must put my parents in a box where no one can find them but me, and I’ll only open it when I’m ready. It’s a vow that I will keep to, and while they’re there, locked and trapped somewhere I don’t want to reach, I find that I don’t miss them much. I barely miss them at all.

I put on my best dress – black, dotted all over with tiny indigo violets. I hope that Jonathan will pick up on the violet reference, and find it endearing rather than trite. In front of his floor-length mirror, I brush my hair slowly and luxuriously, drawing out the crackling of static. I have spent almost twenty minutes doing my make-up, anxious to strike the right note. The tension between the sex symbol I want to be for Jonathan and the homemaker I want to seem to his parents still shows itself on my face, in the battle between my heavily kohl-lined eyes and the neutral, subdued gloss of my mouth. In the mirror I see him approaching behind me, buttoning a white shirt, naked but for boxer shorts from the waist down. He’s sizing me up, his eyes running carefully from top to toe. What he sees seems to please him; he comes closer and slips his hands round my waist, encircling me.

‘Stunning,’ he says into my hair, and I see his eyes flick up to look at us together in the reflection. ‘My father ought to like it anyway, randy old devil.’

‘Jonathan!’ I twist round in his arms. ‘He’s not really like that, is he?’

‘Ah, no,’ Jonathan says dismissively, loosening his hold on me. ‘Not really. We’d better get going – I said we’d be there by one.’

‘Better put some trousers on,’ I suggest, heading for the door. Nervous though I am, happiness floods me. Quickly, I run back through the events of the night before in my head: turning up at Jonathan’s door, finding him eager and unquestioning, not caring about what has happened with my parents or why, just pulling me into bed and making love to me until I was sore with exhilaration and exhaustion. Later, he did ask, but when I told him that I had moved out, it seemed to be taken for granted that I would stay on with him. Amazingly, this flat already feels like home. I love it, its slickly painted walls and gleaming polished floorboards, its tasteful array of ornaments and clean gleaming gadgets. Compared to what I have come from, it feels like a palace, and although I know it is disloyal to think so, I feel that it suits me. I should have been born to this.

Outside it is raining again. The harsh smells of diesel and damp ground press in on me as we step into the road. Jonathan hails a cab effortlessly, seeming to only briefly raise one hand for it to do his bidding and screech to a halt. I climb into the back and listen to him ask for the Sherbourne Club, reel off an address I don’t recognise. I barely know London at all. As we drive, I see the city rushing past the window: a jumble of streets and houses and towering industrial blocks, parks and roundabouts, all so unfamiliar that the instant they are out of sight I forget them again.

‘It’ll be fine, don’t worry,’ I hear Jonathan murmur next to me, and I realise that I am shaking. I look at him. In his casual suit, his blond hair just brushing the edge of his collar, he looks so beautiful and desirable that I can hardly bear it. His blue eyes are full of kindness and concern; a tenderness that I have never seen in them before.

‘I love you,’ I blurt out, and as I say the words I realise that I have still not heard them from him, not exactly, not in as many words. I hold my breath.

He just looks back at me, smiling. ‘Here we are,’ he says, moving across me to release the catch. It is almost as if he has not heard me. I force down my panic and follow him out of the taxi. On the pavement he takes my hand and squeezes it, and I remind myself that it is actions which count. Holding on to his hand, I let myself be drawn into the building’s lobby. Everything is panelled in luxurious dark oak, giving it a secret, cloistered feel. A long, low, green baize desk stretches out across one wall; an immaculately dressed receptionist sits behind it, her shining blonde helmet of hair dazzling my eyes. She smiles at Jonathan as if she knows him. Her eyes don’t move from his face. She knows who is in control here. For a perverse moment I almost want to stamp my feet and draw attention to myself.

‘We’re lunching in the club,’ Jonathan says. ‘Is my father here yet?’

‘Yes, Mr Blackwood and his wife took his table a few minutes ago,’ the receptionist says. ‘Mr Blackwood senior, that is.’ She laughs prettily, revealing teeth like polished pearls, narrowing her eyes so that her lashes sweep across them. She’s flirting with him. I steal a glance at Jonathan; he’s smiling back as if she has made the best joke in the world. I have to fight to keep all the muscles in my face under control.

‘Thanks, Alice,’ Jonathan says. ‘We’ll head through now, then. Oh…’ He stops, glancing at me. ‘This is Violet, by the way.’ He doesn’t put a label on me: my girlfriend, my lover – but it doesn’t matter. I smile genuinely at Alice now, but I know that my eyes are sending her a warning.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ says Alice sweetly. Her complexion is perfect and smooth, as if it has been painted on. For an instant I imagine that perfection reproduced all over her neat slim body. She lowers her head, as if engrossed in her appointments book, dismissing me.

‘Do you know her well?’ I ask Jonathan as he steers me through the hallway and into the restaurant. My voice sounds appropriately light and curious to my ears, but I can feel the early stirrings of jealousy prickling my skin.

He snorts, his shoulder rising and falling lazily in a shrug. ‘As well as you know anyone you see three times a week and exchange a couple of sentences with,’ he says. ‘Look, there they are.’

I follow his pointing finger. There, across the banks of heavy wooden tables, I see a corner banquette, tucked tastefully on to a slightly raised level, allowing those seated there to have a view of the whole restaurant. The best seat in the house. Seated at the banquette, talking privately to each other, are two figures; my vision suddenly blurred by panic, I can’t take in anything about them. I move forward, guided by Jonathan’s hand. When we’re up closer his father lays the menu aside and stands up. He must be around sixty, but he’s extraordinarily well preserved, as if he’s been kept on ice for a decade or more. His silver hair is smooth and immaculate, and for a moment I find myself wondering whether it is a wig and have to drag my eyes away. His face is alert and aquiline, a sharpened version of Jonathan’s. Immediately I can sense that same hardness in him; the hint of a threat that fascinated me so much when I first saw his son. With his father, though, it’s more than a hint. I sense straight away that it runs right through him like fault lines through rock.

‘You must be Violet,’ he says to me, piercing me with imperturbable blue eyes. ‘I must say, this is the first time that a summer secretary has made quite such an impression.’ He smiles genuinely enough, despite the dismissive undercurrent to his words. For a brief moment I shake his hand; firm, dry and enclosing.

‘This is my father, Harvey,’ Jonathan says, ignoring the snub, if snub it was. ‘I expect you’ve seen him around the offices, anyway.’

I nod, but the truth is that I have never seen this man before. I am sure I would have remembered. I have heard his name, of course – whispered deferentially and fearfully by administrators, cited lordly over the telephone to clients. Now that I can put a face to it, I realise that there is no other face that could fit.

‘And this is my mother, Laura,’ Jonathan continues, indicating the woman sat next to Harvey. I look at her for the first time. She has the palest skin I have ever seen, stretched tight like cling film over a finely modelled face. Her strawcoloured hair is tied in a chignon at the back of her neck. She wears an understated black dress, but her fingers are heavy with gold and sapphire rings, which she is twisting round and round automatically. She raises her eyes to mine and nods. Before, I never would have expected anyone to rise when they greeted me, but now it feels strange that she has remained seated. I sit down myself, slipping quickly into the nearest chair. For a full twenty seconds there is absolute silence as they all peruse the menu. I glance down at it, but the words jump before my eyes, shaking themselves together like dice so that I can barely make them out. Unfamiliar French phrases leap out at me: filet mignon, sole meunière. Underneath the table, I can feel my legs twitching. For an instant, the thought of sitting here with these people for another hour or more is almost too much for me, and I shift in my seat, glancing at the exit. Jonathan doesn’t look at me, but he puts out his hand under the table and rests it on my thigh.

‘So, are you thinking of pursuing the law?’ Laura asks. Her voice is such a soft drawl that I have to bend forward to hear it, and yet she doesn’t seem shy, just very confident that what she says deserves to be heard.

Harvey and Jonathan both snort with laughter, glancing at each other with easy complicity. ‘Rather a strange way of putting it,’ Harvey remarks, pouring the wine. I have never been a big drinker, but I let him fill my glass up to the brim. I don’t want to do anything that calls attention to myself, or to my youth. Tentatively, I smile too, trying to share in the joke. Laura seems unmoved. Her eyebrows are still raised in polite enquiry.

‘Well, I wouldn’t rule it out for the future,’ I say, and am almost instantly conscious that somehow it has been the wrong thing to say. It isn’t even true: I’ve never thought about law as a potential career path. At Manchester, I was going to study philosophy. I’m not sure what career options might have arisen from that – probably none. ‘But no, I doubt it,’ I backtrack, taking a large gulp of white wine. It tastes bitter and dry, raping the back of my throat.

‘Violet is more of a homemaker,’ Jonathan says. ‘She wants to settle down and get married and have lots of babies.’ His light tone tells me that he is teasing me, and yet there is a flicker of hopeful sincerity in his eyes. I suddenly can’t think of anything better than to do those things, and with him. I smile radiantly across at him, and see Harvey watching me, and slowly nodding.

‘Right.’ Harvey snaps his menu shut, and within seconds a waiter is hovering attentively at his side. ‘I’ll have the sweetbreads, and my wife will take the sole, please.’

Jonathan glances at me. ‘The sole, too, please,’ I whisper almost at random. Was I supposed to have somehow made him aware of my choice in advance, as Laura has obviously done? Or perhaps Harvey has simply chosen for her, and I should have kept quiet and allowed Jonathan to do the same. I feel my cheeks warm and know that I am blushing, stare down at the table. This is not the world I have been used to.

‘It’s very good here,’ I hear Laura say, rather kindly. I force myself to look up and smile. I have never felt so shy, and it doesn’t feel like me at all.

The wait for our meals passes in a blur; Harvey and Jonathan talk briskly about office matters, sharing details of some case. I vaguely remember the main players’ names from a letter I typed under Jonathan’s dictation several days ago, but the niceties of the matter completely elude me. Laura is quiet, but watchful. She tops up Harvey’s glass when it is empty, passes him the butter when he splits open his roll. I take note, marking down her little gestures as ones that I could replicate with Jonathan, some other time.

‘We should stop talking shop,’ says Jonathan as our lunch arrives. A huge sole is placed in front of me, its eye gleaming blankly up at me. I force my gaze away from it. ‘Violet is probably bored stiff,’ he elaborates unnecessarily, grinning.

‘Quite right,’ says Harvey smoothly, looking at me. ‘Tell us about you.’

My mind empties. There is nothing to say, nothing that could possibly be of interest to him. I think of the things that, up until a matter of weeks ago, occupied my time. Hanging around the local shopping centre with my school-friends, going to the multiplex and eating popcorn noisily in the dark, dressing up and going to our town’s excuse for a nightclub, where we would sip lurid fizzy cocktails and dance unenthusiastically with slurring teenage boys. I have always felt mature for my age, but looking back at these things now, they horrify me. Harvey would think I was nothing but a child.

The silence threatens to become uncomfortable. I take another large gulp of wine to buy myself a few more seconds. ‘I come from Sussex,’ I say. ‘I’m an only child. I like art a lot.’ This is even worse – extracts from a primary school essay.

‘Looking at it, or creating it?’ Harvey asks.

‘Well, both.’ I search for words. ‘I sometimes go up to galleries – the Tate, the National. But I like painting in my spare time.’ Harvey waits. ‘Modern stuff, mostly,’ I say. ‘Abstract.’

‘Yes,’ Harvey says thoughtfully. His cool blue eyes sweep my face. ‘Well, it’s always nice to have a hobby.’

I put a forkful of sole into my mouth and swallow. A tiny bone rakes the roof of my mouth, bringing a smart of pain to my eyes.

‘And what about your parents?’ Harvey continues. ‘What do they do?’

I contemplate inventing something, turning my family into something other than what they are. As I run through the possibilities swiftly in my head, I feel suddenly defiant. I will tell them the truth. ‘My father works in a garage as a mechanic,’ I say. ‘My mother used to work in a shop, but she stopped that a few months ago.’

‘An honest crust,’ says Jonathan, seemingly to fill the silence. He is looking at me with new eyes. Of course, he knows nothing about my background – why should he? Perhaps he has assumed that because I landed up in his law firm for the summer, I must have sprung from suitable soil. Opposite, Harvey and Laura are exchanging eloquent glances, saying nothing.

‘Excuse me for a minute,’ I say, standing up. I walk shakily away from the table, unsure as to where I am going. A waiter steers me confidently back, pointing at a small gold door set into the back wall. I nod and thank him, slip into the cloakroom and lock myself into the nearest cubicle. I lean my back against the wall, closing my eyes. The air conditioning blasts down on me, making me shiver. I feel humiliated and furious. I don’t care what they think of me – I only care about Jonathan. I don’t want them to colour his opinion of me, to make him see me as a laughable mistake. I curl my hands into tight fists. Already I can feel it happening.

I unlock the cubicle and push my way out, going to the mirror. I glare at my reflection, gold-lit and soft-focused. I will not be made a fool of. I will go back in there and show them just how contemptuous I am of them and everyone like them. Jonathan will take my side, and if he doesn’t…I draw in breath sharply and wheel around, fighting my way through the heavy gold door. I walk slowly and deliberately back to the table, approaching it from behind. They cannot see me, but as I draw nearer, I can hear their voices. I stop, momentarily frozen. She’s very pretty, I hear Laura saying, and there is a general murmur of assent. And she has spirit, Harvey says. She’s very young, of course, but that’s all right. If anything, it’s a good thing. His voice drops lower, and I can’t hear what he is saying, but I can hear his tone: purring, warm and approving. Now and again, Jonathan makes some eager interjection. She’s very special, I think I hear him say.

I can feel my whole body glowing, pulsing with delight and excitement. All at once my scorn withers up into nothing, and my heart feels light and empty, as if the hurt were never there. Now that I have heard them praising me, I realise that it is what I have wanted all along. I don’t hate these people. I want them, need them, to love me. As I walk back to the table, my head held high now, I can barely stop myself from laughing out loud with relief.

Later, outside the restaurant, Jonathan embraces me in the rain and pulls me closely against him, planting kisses in my hair. They like you, he murmurs. I knew they would. He kisses me long and hard, then strokes the damp hair back from my face, holding it in his cupped hands, studying me as if I am a rare and thrilling discovery. ‘I love you,’ he says. When I hear him say it, I start to cry, tears spilling from my eyes and dissolving into the rain, and I have never, never been like this – so luminous with happiness that it is raging and burning inside me, and I can’t control it, I can’t contain it, it feels as if nothing can extinguish it ever again.

Catherine was good with customers. She always seemed to know exactly what to say to them, when to compliment and when to offer a tactful alternative, how to close a sale and leave them feeling proud and boosted by their purchases. Behind the till, I sat and watched her. Head cocked prettily to one side, Catherine admired the girl as she came out of the changing room and did a self-conscious twirl, glancing at her reflection in the mirror. The jeans were slightly too small for her, cutting into her flesh and sending a faint red line running across her back. I tried to think of what I would say if I were in Catherine’s place. Sorry, I think you need the next size up? I wouldn’t be able to do it. I would lie and tell her that they looked great, and then when she got home she would try them on again at more leisure in a less flattering light, and wonder what I had really thought.

‘Lovely!’ Catherine said. ‘Why don’t you try these with them, though?’ She handed the girl a wide blue belt and a pair of tan high heels. As the girl fastened the belt around her and slipped her feet into the shoes, I saw her transform before my eyes. The belt hid the tightness of the jeans at her waist, the heels elongating her legs and making her look elegant and almost willowy. From the look on her face, she was seeing the same thing. Ten minutes later she was loading her purchases on to the counter and pulling out her card. I rang the sale through, smiling at Catherine over the girl’s shoulder. She was clearly glowing with her success, eyes bright and eager. What would it be like to have that kind of talent for something, that kind of satisfaction in what life had given to you?

‘So how was the party?’ she asked when the girl had bounced out of the shop, bags jauntily in hand. Her voice was light, but she was looking at me with the same thinly veiled expression of curiosity and sympathy that she had worn since I had told her about my marriage. ‘Did Harvey enjoy it?’

This seemed to be everyone’s primary concern. ‘I think so,’ I said. ‘Everything went smoothly, anyway. Well, except—’ I broke off. I felt unaccountably shy about mentioning Max – perhaps because to the best of my recollection she had never mentioned him herself. A flash of his dark, scowling face came to me; the rough, earthy smell of smoke that had risen off him as he grabbed my wrist and leant in towards me. The previous night, I had dreamt about him. In my dream he had been cutting down the old apple tree in the garden after dark, naked from the waist up, bare muscular arms swinging with contained power as he hacked with a gleaming silver saw at its trunk. I went forward to greet him, but he acted as if he could not see me, his black eyes burning through me with ferocious concentration, wide and oblivious to the sparks of wood that flew all around us and stung the air. I had woken in a sweat, my heart thumping as if an intruder had slid into something far more threatening than my dreams.

‘I think you met my brother, didn’t you?’ Catherine said, as if she had read my mind. She was watching me very intently now, as if searching my thoughts.

‘Yes – yes, I did,’ I stammered. ‘You don’t look alike, at all.’

‘Everyone says that,’ said Catherine, shrugging. ‘I think we do.’

I almost laughed, looking at her fragile prettiness; the white-blonde hair feathered around her face, the pert nose and full pink lips. ‘Maybe if I saw you together,’ I said.

‘Well, you’ll get your chance,’ she said. ‘He said he was going to pop in here around midday, so he should be here soon.’

‘What? Why would he do that?’ I asked sharply. I saw Catherine’s face crease in confusion, and bit my lip. The echo of my voice, unnaturally and unnecessarily harsh, hung between us. I knew that I was being ridiculous, but the thought of seeing Max again frightened me. I felt an instinctive wariness, the prickling of a sixth sense running over me from top to toe.

‘I wondered that myself,’ Catherine said. ‘He never has before. But maybe it’s not me he’s coming to see.’ Her voice was teasing, but there was anxiety in her eyes. ‘Only joking – I think he just wants to catch up. He moved out from our parents’ a few years ago, so we don’t see each other so much these days. But if there’s a problem – I could call him and tell him not to bother, if you like.’

I hesitated; it would be easy to say yes, but I didn’t want any awkwardness to develop between myself and Catherine, not so soon after I had finally begun to sense the potential for a friendship between us. ‘No, no, of course not,’ I said, softening my voice to compensate for my outburst. ‘I’m sorry. To be honest, I’m just a bit cautious around men these days. I know it’s silly, but since Jonathan, I don’t have much to do with them – well, except Harvey, of course.’ I was speaking without consideration, almost at random, but as I did so I realised that there was more than a grain of truth in what I was saying, and it comforted me a little.

Catherine looked indecisive, her fingers agitatedly running back and forth along the long strands of green glass beads she wore around her neck. ‘Of course,’ she echoed. ‘I didn’t think.’

I sensed her automatic deference to a situation she knew nothing about, and felt guilty. ‘Honestly, it’s fine,’ I said, more firmly this time. ‘I can’t hide away for ever.’ These words had been said to me many times over the past few months, mostly in the form of unanswered voicemails from my former school-friends that had graded from sympathy to worry to sulkiness, and eventually through to silence. I had always hated the sentiment: I wasn’t hiding away, just had no desire to see them or anyone else. Now, though, I discovered that it could be a useful panacea – and when I was the one saying it, I found that I didn’t mind it so much.

‘Well, that’s good,’ said Catherine, breaking away and giggling nervously, ‘because speak of the devil…’

…And he’ll draw near, I thought. The bell above the shop door jangled with brittle force as Max pushed the door open and came in. Hands in pockets, he surveyed the shop for a few seconds, as if it were some curious new world. He was wearing a charcoal-coloured T-shirt that hugged the tops of his arms tightly, outlining the muscle beneath. Seeing him again, I noticed anew the brutally close cut of his hair against his skull, and how tall he was – taller than Jonathan, maybe by three inches or more. He didn’t take off his sunglasses, and it was impossible to tell exactly where he was looking. I found it unsettling.

‘All right, Catherine,’ he said, striding forward and slinging one arm around her neck briefly to kiss her cheek. With a shock, I saw that although I could still see nothing of her in him, there was something of him in her – warped, softened and feminised, but unmistakable. He must have felt me staring, because he wheeled round and directed the blank dark glare of his glasses towards me. ‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Hello.’ I was determined to be polite, but all the same I could think of nothing more to say. Now that we were face to face, all I could feel was humiliation at our last meeting – my childish protestations that he had not been invited to Harvey’s garden party. ‘I could make you some tea, if you like.’ I clutched at the idea with relief. It had felt like the right thing to say, but as soon as the words were out, I wished I had kept quiet: it sounded like an absurdly middle-class offer. I felt as embarrassed as if I had suggested that we should all sit out on the lawn together in Edwardian dress, drinking out of bone-china cups and eating scones with jam.

‘Tea,’ Max repeated. ‘Yeah, well, why not.’ He spoke the words in a flat monotone that to my ears was tinged with sarcasm, as if he was doing me a favour rather than the other way around, but all the same I was grateful for the acceptance. I ducked into the back room, pulling the door shut behind me to drown out their voices. I put the kettle on, lined the mugs up with trembling hands. I felt totally out of control of my own body. For a second I screwed my eyes tight shut, breathing deeply, but when I opened them again everything looked eerie and unreal, brightly coloured and two-dimensional. I gritted my teeth; it was ridiculous to be so nervous, nervous at nothing. I bent down and took the milk out of the fridge, then realised that I had no idea whether or not Max took it, or sugar for that matter. The thought of going back in to ask paralysed me. I tapped my fingers against the mugs, willing myself to think. Jonathan had taken milk and one sugar; I would give Max the same. The logic made no sense, but I didn’t care. I filled the mugs with exaggerated care and put them on to a tray. Briefly I considered adding some biscuits, but thought better of it; I didn’t want to seem like an overeager housewife. I pushed my way through the door, tray in hand. Max and Catherine were talking by the counter, their heads close together in a way that suggested something more than idle chit-chat.

‘Tea!’ I said brightly, brandishing the tray. Catherine sprang apart from Max, coming towards me. For a fraction of a second, like a trick of the light, her beaming face looked false and untrustworthy.

I handed Max his mug and watched as he raised it to his lips. From the wince that passed over his face, I assumed that I had been wrong about the sugar, but he continued to drink without comment; it gave me a perverse sort of satisfaction. Silence fell. We made a strange little tableau: Catherine perched on the counter, bright watchful eyes on her brother as she sipped, myself and Max standing a couple of feet apart in front of her. I felt a dizzy, vertiginous sense of rising and falling – as if I had been plucked out of the scene, surveying it from a great height, then returned to earth again.

‘Do you get a lunch break?’ Max asked suddenly. I thought at first that the question was directed at Catherine, but she just looked steadily back at me, awaiting my answer. As I floundered in shock, Max pushed the sunglasses up on to his forehead and his unsmiling eyes met mine. With the contact, I felt my heart twitch, not understanding why.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I usually just go to the café across the road.’

‘Let’s go, then.’ He put down his mug, still half full. The set of his shoulders was challenging, tensed for combat. I swallowed, tasting an acrid tang behind the sweetness of the tea. My eyes flicked to Catherine again. What exactly was happening here? The thought that I was somehow being set up, pimped out to this ridiculously unsuitable man, was so incredible that I could barely give it credence, and yet what other explanation could there be? Catherine’s face was tentatively eager, urging me on, but she looked so innocent, as if there was nothing here to worry about or be afraid of. Perhaps she thought that I needed a male friend. If so, I wished she had alighted on a less threatening candidate. I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders. I was an adult – I had no obligation to waste my lunch hour with a complete stranger.

I opened my mouth to say that I was busy, but in the brief pulse between the decision and the words, something happened. Slowly and deliberately, Max held out his arm, as if to encourage me to slip mine through his – an exaggerated pantomime of a polite Victorian gentleman. The gesture looked so ludicrous on him that a sharp peal of laughter burst from me. I glanced up and saw that he was smiling too, teeth glinting wickedly in the dark cavern of his mouth. On impulse, I picked up my handbag and moved towards him. It was only a lunch, after all. There could be no harm in this.

‘I’ll be back by one,’ I told Catherine.

‘No worries – I’ve got sandwiches here, anyway,’ she said airily. ‘I’ll see you at Mum and Dad’s next week, Max?’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ Max threw back over his shoulder as he pushed the door open. I had been used to chivalry, but all the same I was surprised when he held it open for me to go through. I did so, blinking as light flooded my eyes. The heat of the day had intensified over the morning, and now everything looked faintly sticky and glistening. I could feel the heat of the pavement through the thin soles of my sandals. I pulled my cardigan off, leaving my shoulders bare to the sun, and I thought I saw Max’s eyes flick there, a quick reflexive action that was over almost as soon as it had begun. We walked in silence to the café. A few people passed us as we went, and I thought I saw something in their eyes: wariness, perhaps, or concern. Watching Max stride along the street, I could understand why. He walked with controlled force, as if he were on a mission that would not end well. Staring straight ahead, he seemed to dismiss everything around him. He doesn’t fit this quiet town,