Page 59

FIFTY-SEVEN

Nick has been cooking. There is a smell of garlic in the air, something on the hob exuding spice and heat, a damp tea towel on the counter.

The recycling bin, when Ash lifts the lid, is full of unfamiliar packaging, and a pan of uncooked rice is soaking in cloudy water next to the hob.

She exhales slowly. This man who steals women’s money and abandons children and follows women on the street for kicks, this man who lies and finagles and uses people, this man has been in her kitchen cooking food with her dead father’s kitchen utensils, and for a moment Ash is subsumed by so much violent rage that her vision turns purple.

She resists the urge to lift up the casserole dish with both hands and hurl it across the room and breathes in hard to make herself think straight.

She cannot scare this man away. Not yet.

She needs to let him breathe, settle, think he’s found a place to rest his hat, a family to manipulate.

So, when Nick walks into the kitchen a minute later, she turns and hits him with a radiant smile.

“Christ, Nick,” she says, “it smells amazing in here. What are you making?”

His face lights up. “Oh,” he says, looking pathetically happy. “It’s a railway curry.”

“A what?”

“Don’t you know?” he asks playfully. “It’s all the rage. Based on what they used to serve up on the Indian railways. Lamb and potatoes. Pretty easy, just needs some time to sit.”

“Well,” she says lightly, “it smells amazing. But I’ll have to pass, being vegan and all.”

“I thought of that,” he says, and then goes to the fridge and pulls out a bowl of vegetable curry. “Same spices, no ghee, no meat, one hundred percent pure vegan. You can heat it up whenever you want. Should last a few days.”

She smiles at him and says, “God, that’s so sweet. Thank you!”

“You’re very welcome. Least I can do. I do get it,” he says, turning so that his back is against the counter, folding his arms across his stomach, one ankle angled across the other.

“I do get that it’s a big deal having me here.

That it’s probably not what you wanted. I get that you’re used to having your mum to yourself, having all this”—he rolls his eyes in an arc around the huge open kitchen—“space to yourself. And that me being here is probably really, really annoying. Not to mention that I’m stepping into places that used to belong exclusively to your father.

That must be really hard for you. I see all of this.

And I see you. And I swear that I will never overstep boundaries.

And I will never, ever hurt your mother.

I hope you believe me. Your mother. She’s…

” He stops for a beat and sighs. When he looks back at her there is a thin sheen of tears across his eyes.

He smiles a watery smile and says, “She’s safe with me. Really.”

He smiles the watery smile again and touches the corner of his eye delicately with a fingertip, then turns back to the casserole and lifts the lid, sniffs and stirs, closes the lid. Ash contemplates his back.

“Oh,” she says lightly. “By the way, that soap you bought me for Christmas? It’s amazing! And I want to buy some for my friend for her birthday next week and I’ve looked all over the internet for the shop, but I just can’t find it.”

She watches his back and sees a bolt of alarm pass through him, straight up his spine. Then she sees it soften again, but the delay was there, and she already knows that anything that comes out of his mouth at this moment will be a lie.

“You know,” he says, turning to face her, his expression soft and thoughtful.

“I might have told a little fib about those soaps. Or at the very least been a little economical with the truth. I did buy them from a shop in Mayfair. But it was about four years ago and they were for a woman I was seeing, but she broke it off and I put them away and then dug them out for you, and the shop has probably closed down now, probably another Covid casualty. And yes, classic man. I know. And I’m sorry. But you liked them? Yes?”

“I did,” she says with a big smile. “I loved them. That’s why I wanted to buy them for my friend too. Never mind.”

“Yes,” he says. “Never mind.”

He turns back to the casserole dish and Ash stares at his back for one more moment before leaving him.

Soap does not keep its scent for four years.

Old soap smells of nothing but fat. And the soap Nick bought her for Christmas smells so intensely of its ingredients that she can smell it even before she walks into her bathroom.

She grabs her phone and sends a message to Jason, Marcelline’s farrier ex.

Hi Jason it’s Ash again. Sorry to bother you, but can you tell me where your mum lived? Or where she used to do her shopping? Still trying to track down these stupid soaps! And thanks in advance.

A message appears a minute later.

No worries Ash. She lived in a village called Newington. Nearest town was Enderford. But she did most of her shopping online bless her. Parcel deliveries every five minutes. So they could have come from anywhere. Good luck. Say hi to Marcy, don’t forget to tell her I’m still single lol

Ash goes straight to her browser and types in “shops enderford kent.”

She scrolls down looking for a gift shop, a pharmacy, a boutique, any kind of shop that would sell fancy soaps, but there’s nothing.

Just a butcher, a farm shop, a florist, an art shop, a pet shop, a bookshop, and a delicatessen.

She looks at the time: 6:05. All the shops have closed by now. She’ll try calling them in the morning.