Page 88 of Famous Last Words

‘I think Niall is going to tell me something bad, tomorrow,’ she says.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I think Luke was into something pretty dark,’ she says, deliberately vague.

Charlie nods. ‘You don’t need to – you don’t need to beembarrassed, Cam,’ he says, his voice muted, low key, empathetic. The perfect reaction. ‘I understand. It happenedtoyou.’

Cam gazes at him. She didn’t expect this. That this would feel so intimate, and so right, while Niall is out there with some unknown piece of information. Funny how things happen sometimes. Maybe she really will move on, and maybe she will get answers, too, and maybe one of those things will aid the other.

Cam closes her eyes, draws her cardigan down over her hands, and sits back in the chair. ‘I’m exhausted,’ she says. ‘I’m exhausted by it.’

‘I can only imagine.’

‘Tell me something dysfunctional about you.’

‘I’m attracted to baggage,’ he says, quick as a cat, and she lets out a surprised burst of laughter.

‘Something real,’ she says.

‘Well, I’m childless even though I didn’t want to be, I’m a researcher even though it’s boring. I think …’ He clears his throat. ‘… that maybe it’s easy to regard yourself asother– and obviously what happened to you is huge. But, actually, may I remind you that most everyone feels utterly fucked up by life.’

Cam pauses. ‘That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me,’ she says.

Charlie laughs. ‘Oh dear – a very depressing message from me.’

‘Really not.’

‘What do you think he knows – this Niall?’ he asks, after a few seconds’ pause.

‘I have no idea. It could be anything. But I’ve never had good news about it, you know? It’s always been somethingworse. First that he had taken hostages. Then that he’d killed them. Then that he’d disappeared.’

‘Understood.’

The air cools to a scented chill, later. They switch to red wine. ‘Inside, or stay out?’ she asks when it’s become too dark to see.

‘Out, I think, don’t you?’ Charlie says. He tilts his head back, the orb of London sky above them fading from worn to new denim.

‘I have no lights. Just a horrible security one,’ Cam says, thinking about it clicking on the previous night. She’s glad Charlie’s here.

‘None needed.’

Charlie moves from the table and on to Cam’s back step, the door to her bedroom open behind him, his legs stretched out in front. He pats the space next to him. There is an unopened bottle of white wine lined up ready. Cam hesitates, then joins him, shifting a tall planter out of the way.

Charlie waves a hand in the darkness. The security light clicks on eventually. ‘This is very not ambient,’ Cam says, when it blinds them.

‘Kind of industrial,’ Charlie says with a small laugh. ‘But better than nothing. You said you read out here?’

‘Sometimes. In the summer,’ she says.

‘Kindle and wine?’

‘Bliss.’

Cam wants to keep him here. She’s not felt that before, but she does tonight. Telling him has unlocked something for her, and on the strangest night, too.

The light pops off again and they’re back in the swampy dark. Charlie leans over and tops up their wine. That aftershave.His closeness. ‘Nice to layer the white on top of the dregs of the red, as all wine connoisseurs would say.’

Cam laughs. ‘I can’t even see the glasses.’