Page 7

SEVEN NOVEMBER

They have passed through a whole summer without barbecues, without noisy late-night parties, tents on the lawns, and Dad behind his decks.

They have passed through Dad’s fifty-fifth birthday, Arlo’s twenty-fourth.

And now they have passed through the first anniversary of Paddy’s death.

A full turn of the cosmos. A full complement of birthdays and anniversaries, seasons and holidays. A full year without him.

Ash glances up as Nina dashes into the kitchen, looking a little frantic.

She’s wearing her dyed brown hair up in a topknot, big hoop earrings, red lipstick, a black crew neck, and cropped indigo jeans, platform-soled boots. She’s fifty-one, but she can still get away with dressing like that. As she passes, Ash gets the backdraft of musky perfume.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“No, not going anywhere. Staying in. With Nick.”

Ash exhales and closes her eyes slowly at the mention of his name.

Nick Radcliffe.

He’s so lovely.

Such a lovely man.

But he’s arrived too soon.

“What time is he getting here?”

“Half an hour ago.”

Nina pulls a bottle of Dad’s wine off the shelf and shoves it in the freezer, embedding it between packets of frozen peas and spinach and vegan nuggets that have been there since Paddy was still alive.

A year since he died. That’s not very long.

Not after thirty-three years together, twenty-eight years of marriage, two children, a devastating death.

It’s not very long at all. Nick seems lovely, but if only he’d arrived in their lives another year from now.

Maybe even two. Maybe when there was nothing left in the freezer from when Paddy was still alive.

But Ash can’t say anything, she can’t make a fuss, because she is twenty-six and a half years old, and she should not be living at home.

She should be out in the world, not sitting here watching her mother shove wine in the freezer drawer, not having to smell her mother’s special perfume or watch her mother trying really hard to be wonderful for a man who isn’t Ash’s father.

The doorbell rings.

“Shit,” says Nina, trying in vain to get the freezer drawer to shut.

“I’ll do that,” says Ash, getting to her feet.

Her mother smiles and goes to the door.

“Hello, you,” she hears her say. Then, “Oh! Thank you! They’re beautiful. Come in!”

Ash has just got the freezer drawer to close when he walks in.

Nick is six foot two. Dad was small. Only five foot eight.

But what he lacked in stature he made up for in charisma.

Nick has a full head of thick white hair.

Dad’s was thinning and had just started turning gray, about 20 percent of the way there, mainly around his ears.

Nick wears a shirt and a jacket. Dad never wore a shirt or a jacket, he wore T-shirts and hoodies and denim jackets.

Nick has white teeth. Dad’s were a bit discolored.

He’d had them bleached once, for his fortieth, but all the coffee and red wine had taken them back to normal again in under a year.

Nick has piercing blue-gray eyes. Dad’s were a deep golden brown, like brandy.

Nick is handsome. Dad was just nice-looking.

“Ash,” he says, striding into the room, all teeth and good hair and expansiveness, kindness, warmth, and glow. “Lovely to see you again. How are you?”

“I’m good,” she says, offering herself up to his shoulder hug and cheek kisses. “You?”

“Good, yes! Busy. Mad. But good. And all the better for seeing you both.”

Nina is arranging the flowers in a vase. They’re very beautiful. Nick waves a bottle of champagne about and says, “It’s ice-cold—we could just open it now?”

Nina smiles. “Yes. Good idea! I forgot to chill the wine, so it’s only just gone in the freezer.”

Nick plucks champagne glasses from the open shelving in the kitchen and turns them deftly the right way up using the stems, the same way Dad used to, a restaurant-trade flourish.

He puts a cloth around the bottle, just like Dad always did, like a cloak, and tips the bottle just so toward the rims of the glasses, fills them perfectly, gives the bottle a small twist before putting it in the wine cooler.

Because that is one thing that Nick does have in common with Dad. The restaurant trade.

Nick and her mum had started messaging each other after she’d written to thank him for sending Dad’s Zippo six months ago.

Nick had replied and then she’d replied and so it had gone on and somehow at some point it had blossomed into something, but Ash hadn’t known about any of this.

Nina hadn’t said anything until suddenly, a month ago, she told her she was meeting someone for a drink.

“Someone who ?”

“Nick Radcliffe,” Nina had said, tentatively. “Remember? The man who sent me Dad’s Zippo. The man who owns the wine bar in Mayfair?”

“Oh,” Ash had said. “How come?”

Nina had smiled a smile so uncertain that Ash had physically ached at the sight of it.

Now Nick passes her a glass of champagne and she smiles at him and says, “Thank you.” He pulls out a chair at the kitchen table and folds his long form onto it.

Most of his height is in his legs and they stretch out across the tiled floor toward her, ending in a pair of expensive-looking suede trainers.

“How’s it going?” he asks in that pleasant way he has of asking things.

“Jobwise, you mean?”

“Yes. Did you hear back from the literary agency?”

She shakes her head, even though it’s not true.

She did hear back from the literary agency.

They said that though they were very impressed with her qualifications and found her to be a “very engaging and likeable candidate,” sadly there were others whose experience was more suited to the position and therefore they would not be pursuing her application any further.

“Ah,” says Nick. “I’m sure there’ll be another agency in touch before too long, biting your hand off.”

She smiles tightly. “Yeah,” she says. “Maybe.”

“But meanwhile you’ve still got the boutique?”

“Yes, still got that.”

Nina joins them, and Ash watches the sparkle appear, the sparkle that is only there when Nick is here, the sparkle that always used to be there and then died along with her father.

Her mother is beautiful when she’s with Nick.

Her neck is slender, the curve of her cheek is pronounced, her spine is straight, her shoulders back, everything where it should be.

The light catches the lowlights in her hair, the loose strand next to her ear, the gold hoops. Nick has eyes only for her.

Ash tips the end of the champagne down her throat and stands up. She makes her face soft and smiles. “I’ll leave you to it.”

She glances once behind her as she walks through the door into the hallway. She sees Nick’s hand on her mother’s hand. She tries to make herself want this for her, but she can’t.