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THIRTY-SEVEN

Nina is chatting with Nick Radcliffe through the window of his car outside the house.

She laughs uproariously at something he’s just said, and Ash moves closer to the window and tries to listen.

She hears her mother saying, “Are you sure you can’t come in?

” and Nick replying, “No, I’ve got to get back and do some work. ”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yes. Poor old me. But, listen, I miss you, Nina. I’d love to see you soon. Properly. Take you out on the town. Or maybe even get away for a night or two? What do you think?”

Her mother laughs gently and says, “Well, I don’t know. Radio silence for a week. I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me, and now you’re here with ‘out on the town’ and nights away.”

Her tone is light, but Ash knows that her mother has found the last seven days tough.

She’s pretended to be cool about the fact that Nick hasn’t messaged or called, and she has certainly been too cool to message or call him first, but his absence has been a soft but ominous tick-tick in the background of everything.

Ash had started to feel hopeful that maybe “Nick Radcliffe” was about to disappear as quickly and mysteriously as he’d appeared.

But then, twenty minutes ago, he’d pulled up outside and her mother had virtually galloped out of the house to see him.

“I’m so sorry,” Nick says now. “I can’t begin to explain to you how crazy work has been.”

Work? thinks Ash. What work?

“It’s fine,” Nina says. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been pretty crazy too. It’s just really good to see you.”

“Likewise,” says Nick. “Anyway, I’d better get going. But leave it with me. We’ll go somewhere spectacular. I promise. Let me know which nights work best for you. I’m pretty much around all the time now that the busy stretch is over.”

Busy stretch. There it is again. Busy doing what?

“I’ll message you.”

“I’ll be looking out for it,” he says, and then Ash looks away with a slick of disgust as Nick and her mother kiss softly and tenderly for a moment before pulling apart, a look of utter bliss on her mother’s face as she waves him on his way.

Ash doesn’t want to look at her mother when she walks back inside a moment later. “What did he want?” she asks nonchalantly.

“He was just in the area, popped by to say hi.”

“That’s nice. Did he say why he hasn’t been in touch for so long?”

“Just been busy, I guess.”

Nina’s tone is light, but Ash knows that she is burning with relief and restoration.

Ash knows what it feels like when the object of your affections removes themselves from your sphere.

She knows that sick ache in the pit of your stomach, that sense of encroaching darkness, the feeling of someone having cut off a source of light, banished you to an endless winter. She knows how it feels.

“Busy doing what?”

The question is loaded to the point of warfare, but Nina doesn’t seem to notice. “Work. The bar. The manager is away, so it’s very hands-on at the moment.”

“When are you going to go to the bar? Is he going to take you there?”

“At some point, I suppose. There’s no rush.” She’s filling the kettle from the kitchen tap as she speaks.

“My friend went there,” Ash begins gently.

Her mother turns to look at her. “What?”

“My friend Lana. She lives in London. I told her about you going out with the guy who owns it and she said she wanted to go and have a drink there, just to check it out. She said that…” She pauses, plucks at the cuffs of her sweatshirt, uncomfortable with lying to her mother but feeling that she has no option.

“She said that she asked about Nick and that he doesn’t actually work there. ”

Even from behind, Ash can see the rise and fall of her mother’s lungs through the cotton of her shirt. “Oh, Ash.”

“What! I’m just saying! That’s what Lana said. Nobody had heard of him. That’s all. It just seemed really strange. And there are other things.” She feels her pulse quicken.

“What other things?” Nina says the words “other things” as if the possibility of there being any other things can only be pure nonsense.

Ash picks up her phone from the kitchen table and finds the screenshot of the “Justin Warshaw” life-coaching web page from the obsolete site.

Nina pulls on her reading glasses and takes the phone from Ash. “What is this?”

“It’s Nick. Twelve years ago. Going by Justin Warshaw. Did he ever mention that he used to be a life coach? Or that he used to be married?”

“What do you mean, married?”

“Look.” Ash points at the ring on Nick’s finger.

Nina frowns. “That doesn’t mean anything.

He always has his ring from Ruth with him.

And, no, he didn’t tell me about being a life coach, not specifically.

But I do know he’s had quite a colorful career, done a bit of everything, so it doesn’t surprise me in the least.” She hands the phone back to Ash and sighs.

“Baby girl,” she says, “what’s going on here? ”

Ash feels tears building behind her eyes and swallows them back.

“Nothing,” she says. “Nothing. I just—who is this guy? That’s all.

He’s fifty-five or whatever. He says he’s got no children, but someone who used to be a client of his when he was a life coach said he lived in a house with a woman who he said was his wife, and they had two little girls. ”

“Oh, come on now, Ash.”

“Mum! I’m serious! I wasn’t going to say anything, I was going to wait until I had more evidence—”

“Evidence? Ash, what on earth are you talking about? You’re acting like you think Nick is some kind of criminal.”

“Well, how do you know he isn’t?”

“And this… I mean, this woman who said he was living with a wife and children. Where did you find her? Who is she?”

“She’s literally just a woman. And I found her online.”

“Oh, Ash.” She sees concern flicker across her mum’s face. “Is this…? I mean, you’re not…?”

“What? Going mad again? No, Mum, I am not going mad again.”

“I did not say that, Ash. I never said you were mad.”

“Yes, but I was. Clearly I was. And I am many things right now, I am sad and I am grieving and I am lonely and I am lost—but I am not mad. This”—she stabs her finger at the screen of her phone—“this is real. This guy… there’s something off about him, Mum.

And I’m doing this because I love you so much, and I love Dad so much, and I love everything that you built together, and I cannot deal with the thought of anyone coming into this”—she gestures around them—“into Dad’s beautiful world, and making a mess in it.

Mum, please tell me that, at the very least, you’ll talk to him.

Here.” She picks up her phone and messages the screenshot of Justin Warshaw to her mother’s phone.

“Just show Nick that. See how he responds. And ask to go to his wine bar. See how he responds to that too. Please, Mum. Promise me you will. Not for me. But for us.”

“OK,” says Nina slowly. “Of course I will. I’m sure that there’s a perfectly rational explanation for everything. He’s had a very colorful life. He’s had a lot of trauma. A lot of drama. I’m sure this will just be another bizarre episode with a completely benign explanation.”

“Yes,” says Ash, with a sigh. “Maybe it will be.”