Page 29 of Strap In

And Jean knows precisely who to call. In that moment it’s so obvious, so simple.

Ava picks up on the third ring, and Jean’s eyes prickle at the warmth of her greeting. ‘Hey, Jellybean! What’s new?’

‘Nothing good.’ Jean’s throat thickens, her eyes blurring. Everyone else is too wrapped up in their own drama to care, but she feels utterly ridiculous, tearing up like a character in a soap opera. ‘There was an… accident. I’m alright except for my wrist – they’re going to x-ray it.’

She’s still trying to puzzle out an acceptable way of asking to set aside the terms of their arrangement for a day when Ava speaks: ‘Where are you?’

Jean names the hospital, slumping back against her seat, teeth gritted against the pain.

She breathes deep and slow, in and out, imagining each one as the wall of a square – Dr Byrne’s old exercise for moments of overwhelm.

Then Ava’s there, faster than Jean could have imagined possible, jogging into the waiting room.

Their eyes lock across the rows of chairs, and Jean’s heart seems to levitate, lighter than it’s been since the moment Hugo walked into her office.

Ava rounds the rows of seats and crouches before Jean, openly drinking in every detail. ‘Hey! What happened to your wrist? Are you okay?’

‘Don’t worry; I told you, it’s nothing serious.’ For just a moment, Jean lets herself rest a hand on Ava’s shoulder. But an unbearable longing fills her ribcage. And Jean pulls away before she forgets herself.

Ava reaches up to touch her own shoulder; the place where, moments before, Jean’s fingers had sat.

She closes her eyes, and for the briefest of moments Jean sees her own sorrow echoed on Ava’s face.

Her hair’s combed back into a ponytail, her face, bare arms, and t-shirt all speckled with indigo paint – only then does Jean remember that she’d planned to help her sister decorate the Clark family’s new home this weekend.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jean says, for the interruption and much more besides. ‘You were busy – I shouldn’t have called.’

‘Don’t be silly, Jean! You’re hurt – of course I came.’ She takes the neighbouring seat, undeterred.

‘I’m fine – really. I don’t even think it’s broken.’ Gingerly, Jean lifts her arm for Ava’s inspection.

‘Jesus. That looks sore.’ Ava sucks in a breath as she takes in the swelling, the unmistakable bracelet of fingerprints bruised mauve. ‘How did it happen?’

Jean breathes in air stale with sickness, disinfectant, and canteen food. ‘That I can’t tell you.’

Ava’s tone changes, shifting into something Jean’s never heard before; something utterly at odds with her usual warmth: fury. ‘Who hurt you?’

‘I can’t talk about any of it until we figure out how to proceed.’

‘What’s there to figure out?’ But Ava’s eyes narrow, and a second later she answers her own question. ‘Did a client put his hands on you? Fucking hell, Jean!’

‘ Keep your voice down ,’ Jean hisses. ‘We’re dealing with it – I promise. But I can’t go running my mouth, and neither can you.’

Ava folds her arms. ‘Then why did you ask me to come, if it’s so hush hush?’

‘Because until now you’ve shown a reasonable aptitude for discretion.’ Her wrist throbs, a dull hot ache. ‘And because I like having you around. This has been the shittiest twenty-four hours in a long, long time. And I thought that if I saw you…’

‘Yeah?’ Though Ava’s voice is soft, her eyes shine with brilliant intensity.

‘I thought that—’

‘Jean Howard?’ A nurse peers around the waiting room, and Jean stands.

Ava’s smile grows wry. ‘Saved by the bell.’

The doctor – an enthusiastic young woman – diagnoses a moderate sprain.

Leonides tore the ligaments in a desperate bid to keep himself from falling, though that’s not an explanation Jean can give.

At her caginess the doctor grows alert, alternating between care instructions and oh-so casually delivered questions about Jean’s personal life.

Whether she’s in a relationship. Whether anything like this has ever happened before.

‘It happened at work, not home.’ Jean sighs. ‘I was with a client.’

The doctor’s eyebrows climb. ‘Oh!’

‘I’m a lawyer…’

‘Oh.’ Her shoulders sink down from the vicinity of her ears, the thread of tension cut.

With clever children parents talk as if doctor or lawyer were interchangeable career paths – the underlying belief being it doesn’t matter which is chosen, because both lead to success.

But the doctor’s poker face, or lack thereof, gives a lie to this parental fantasy.

‘Yes, and I’ll need a copy of my medical records for my firm.’

Armed with a splint, prescription painkillers and a print-out of her care instructions, Jean returns to Ava.

They’re in the process of booking an Uber, heads bowed over Jean’s phone in the lobby, when a familiar voice rings out.

Two of them to be precise, both calling her name.

In an instant, dread covers Jean like cold sweat.

She turns to face her two oldest friends, plastering a smile on her face.

If Jean can be open and easy, they’ll suspect nothing, chalking any strangeness up to recent trauma.

But Cora and Ginny both have built careers on their ability to scent unease and follow it all the way to hidden truth.

And they have known Jean longer than anyone.

‘Jean! We were about to text, but there you are.’ Ever so careful, Imogen hugs Jean’s uninjured side. ‘Peter called to say there’d been a situation, and that you could use a hand getting home and settled.’

Jean raises a single eyebrow. ‘More like he sent you to keep me from going back to the office.’

‘That too.’ Cora smiles, unrepentant. ‘Naomi’s still in New York, though she sends her love. I was going to say you’d have to make do with just the two of us… but who’s this?’

She’s eyeing Ava with avid curiosity, gaze lingering on the spatters of paint. But Ava simply tucks her hands in the pockets of her dungarees, that oasis of easy confidence evaporating faster than water under the Saharan sun.

‘This is Ava Harris. As a matter of fact, I’d hoped to introduce you – though under different circumstances.

’ Ava perks up then, stepping closer, all the encouragement Jean needs.

‘She’s a lawyer too, with the Afro-Caribbean Women’s Rights Centre.

But Ava’s currently setting up a charity with the goal of connecting overpoliced communities with first rate representation – which is where you two come in…

Ava, meet Cora Klein, a barrister with Garden Court Chambers.

And you know Imogen from the conference – she represents the interests of an international bank. ’

‘I’d tell you which one, but I’d have to kill you.’ Ginny winks. ‘I’m only kidding – it’s Deutsche Bank.’

Jean risks a glance at Ava then, keen to see what she makes of these introductions. Between them Cora and Ginny have the skills and resources she’s so urgently trying to funnel into the CJC. But Ava’s smile takes on a fixed quality as she shakes their hands, and she won’t meet Jean’s eye.

‘Why don’t you come back to Jean’s with us, and we can talk about it?’ Imogen touches Ava’s elbow, keen to reassure. ‘No sense putting off to tomorrow what can be accomplished today. Besides, I’m curious – there isn’t always much altruism in our profession.’

Ava tucks a flyaway curl back into her ponytail. ‘I, ah, don’t want to intrude. Not when Jean’s tired and in pain.’

‘But how could you be intruding if Jean asked you to come here?’ Cora’s brows knit together. ‘Before her oldest friends.’

Then all eyes are on her – Cora and Imogen curious, Ava searching for a cue. And Jean knows she needs to say something, anything, because suspicion grows with every passing second. But she freezes, mouth gaping, icy panic washing every word from her mind.

Ava clears her throat, and the awful spell is broken. ‘Actually, I was visiting my sister for lunch – she’s a surgeon here. And I bumped into Jean on my way out.’

Relief balloons in Jean’s chest, instant and pure. Until the realisation that this lie hastens Ava’s departure punctures her calm; their quiet afternoon together dissipating into nothing. She speaks without thinking: ‘You’re still welcome to come with us.’

‘Ah, well I—’ This time it’s Ava who freezes.

And this time Jean understands her awkwardness: never before has she witnessed Ava lie.

On top of that, not once in the months they’ve been…

involved has Ava visited her home. And she’s never complained about it, nor any of the measures Jean has taken to compartmentalise her life.

She’d assumed that Ava would be glad of it too – the control that comes with keeping things on your own territory.

But her photos and music, her books and her art, all these things provided Jean with a window into Ava’s life, a sense of her everyday context.

And Jean has offered only a blank wall in return.

‘You wouldn’t be intruding.’ Jean tries to say more with her eyes, but still Ava won’t meet them. ‘Not at all.’

‘There – it’s settled.’ Cora chivvies them out into the afternoon, where even London’s polluted air tastes fresh after the hospital. ‘Besides, we could use an extra pair of hands to whip up freezable dinners for Jean.’

It’s the last thing Jean would have chosen, to have her secret lover and two of her oldest friends who are capable of seeing right through her, all in the same place.

Yet she can’t bring herself to regret Ava’s quiet presence – and not only because the tramadol has buoyed her up above anxiety’s reach.