Page 158 of Oleander

“No,” he said. “No, you’re not.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that so I started walking again.

“Are you hungry?” I asked him once I was by his side again.

“A little.”

We chose a sushi place near Monument. It was too bright and too busy, and I was glad that conversation would be difficult. His words were still rattling around in my head. My eyes were different. He couldn’t tell what I was thinking as easily as he used to. Initially, these had seemed like good things, so I didn’t understand why it was now causing a stir of panic and worry in my chest.

But then, I did.

There’d been comfort in knowing how well he could read me, how well he knew me, because it was provenance of what existedbetween us. He knew me the way he’d know a book he liked or a piece of music he knew by heart.

He knew me well because I was his, and now that he didn’t...

Cas sat with his back to the window and his broken hand resting on top of the table. His sunglasses were tucked into the neck of his shirt, white again today, and the exposure of the sun from the open theatre had pinked his cheeks and nose. Cas was always distractingly lovely to look at, but especially so in the summer. It was how he’d been when I’d first seen him, first loved him, and in my memories, he was always this way: sun-kissed and glowing with the heat of the warmest season.

In Jersey, he’d looked like a delicate and fragile summer bloom. In London, he took on a different aura: expensive and cosmopolitan. The insouciant way he held his water, the glint of his Cartier watch, the gleam even of his fingernails. He was grace and extravagance, oozing good breeding in a way that made me feel self-conscious. Would people assume we were a couple? If so, that he was roughing it with me?

Did I want them to think that? My head was a noisy clatter of anxiety and doubt.

He seemed not to notice my internal turmoil – perhaps since my eyes no longer gave everything away – while he talked about the play, other performances of it he’d seen and where, all while using his chopsticks to feed himself green sesame tossed salad and sashimi.

Soon, I fell into that familiar trance of watching and listening to him move and speak. That commanding way he’d always had of holding my attention, of being the only thing I could see, of being the sun to my Icarus.

The next day, we went to the British Library. A vast, jaw-dropping space that felt like a portal to another world opening up in front of me. I remember the entrance hall unfolding intoa labyrinth of walkways, escalators, and stairwells all framing the huge six-story King’s Library tower: a stretch of glass-fronted bookshelves ran the height of the building and stood as a centrepoint.

I’ve spent a lot of time here since, writing and reading, but this first visit with Cas was like walking into some modern temple of worship where the book and the word was a deity. Even the smell to me, that great Library smell I’d always loved, was more potent that day in the cool rows of the British Library.

He took me to the treasures gallery first, which he said we wouldn’t be able to do properly in a day but was the best place to start. He pointed me to the original set of Shakespeare’s folio of plays and the Magna Carta, before moving off to wander by himself. I took this to mean I should too.

I gravitated towards a section showing manuscripts dating back to the ninth century; including a gold engraved Qu’ran from North Africa published in 876. I’d teared up at the original handwritten copy of Wilfred Owen’s war poem, with Sassoon’s tender annotations on the margins. Owen had been a child – when I was swimming in the sea and sunbathing with my friends, when I’d been falling in love with Cas, he’d been in a hospital bed in France writing about the pointless horror of war.

I lost a few hours wandering the collection before finding Cas pondering an original sketchbook of Da Vinci’s drawings.

“This place is amazing,” I said. “Did you see the Wilfred Owen section?”

He nodded, still looking at the sketches behind the glass. “Devastating.”

I looked down at the sketches he seemed to be completely absorbed in. They weren’t overly impressive to me, but I knew that wasn’t the point.

“Do you still paint?” I asked him.

“Not really.” Then, he seemed to remember something. “What did you do with the portrait I painted of you?” He asked it in a way that presumed I’d done something destructive with it. For an instant, I thought about lying.

“It’s still on the shelf above my bed at home.”

There was a flicker of surprise in his eyes. Then, like he too was recalling what else happened that day, his mouth parted, and the faintest blush spread across his cheeks. He turned away.

“We should go now if we want to make it to the bookshop,” he said and walked toward the gallery exit.

Nineteen

The following day was a Saturday and to avoid the even busier Saturday crowds the city was famous for, we decided to stay at the house. I woke late, having slept well, to find Cas already showered and dressed, sitting in front of his laptop in the nook again and watching something with earphones in.

As I crossed into the kitchen, he slid them out.

“I made pancakes,” he said. “There are some in the fridge for you if you want to heat them up.”