Page 51 of The Impossible Fortune (Thursday Murder Club Mysteries #5)

‘Do you suppose you and Donna will get married?’ says Elizabeth, as Bogdan takes down a light fitting in her kitchen.

‘Maybe if she asks,’ says Bogdan.

‘Perhaps she’s waiting for you to ask,’ says Elizabeth.

‘No,’ says Bogdan, taking the new fitting out of a John Lewis box. ‘She’s in charge of that sort of thing.’

‘I see,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And what sort of thing are you in charge of?’

Bogdan shrugs. ‘The bins, I suppose. And being in love with her.’

‘Oh, yuck,’ says Elizabeth.

Bogdan clips the new light into place. ‘How much you pay for this?’

‘I don’t know,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It was on the website.’

Bogdan, happy with his work, pushes himself down from the kitchen island.

‘Does that look nice?’ Elizabeth asks. ‘I’m not very good at knowing.’

Bogdan looks up at it. ‘It’s okay. Stephen would like it.’

‘That’s the main thing,’ says Elizabeth.

‘John Lewis though,’ says Bogdan, shaking his head at the box. ‘You should have asked me. I get you one half the price.’

‘Stephen bought everything from John Lewis,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I wouldn’t know where else to buy things from. I just click and there they are.’

‘Always ask me,’ says Bogdan. ‘I get anything you need from builders’ merchant. Anything I can’t get, I make.’

‘Stephen bought everything from John Lewis,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And I like to keep him happy. So I’ll spend the extra.’

Bogdan sits on a kitchen stool. ‘You look happier. Not happy but happier.’

‘They don’t tell you, Bogdan, no one tells you.’

‘About death?’

‘About death,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Take every word anyone has ever written about grief. Every line every poet has ever written. Every word of every friend who breaks down in front of you, every tear you’ve ever seen shed.

Take the whole lot of them and throw them down a well, and you wouldn’t even hear them hit the bottom. ’

‘You still must say them though,’ says Bogdan.

‘I suppose so,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But here’s the thing. Look at his chair.’

Bogdan peers through to Stephen’s armchair in the living room.

‘Where is he, Bogdan?’ says Elizabeth. ‘Where is Stephen?’

‘Well,’ says Bogdan. ‘I think he’s in a little pot, isn’t he, remember?’

‘Not his ashes,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I know where his ashes are. But where is Stephen? Where on earth did he get to?’

‘Maybe you would like a cup of tea?’ Bogdan suggests.

Elizabeth walks into the living room and runs her hand across the top of Stephen’s chair. ‘The world is so full of people and moments.’

Bogdan walks through to join her. ‘And trees. Lots of things.’

Elizabeth looks up at him. ‘There’s love everywhere, every day, and there’s sadness everywhere every day.

Imagine all of it together. All that sadness, and all that love.

Every kiss, every heartbeat, every second waiting for a lover, and every second realizing your lover won’t be coming. Can you imagine all of it?’

Bogdan looks up and to the left, really giving it a good go.

‘It’s impossible,’ says Elizabeth. ‘It’s beyond comprehension.’

Bogdan looks relieved.

‘And yet,’ says Elizabeth, ‘it’s all here in this chair.

Every single bit of it, in a chair we bought in an antique shop in Stratford or somewhere or other.

And Stephen swore it would fit in the back of the car, but it wouldn’t, so he lashed it to the roof.

Cirencester, that was it, not Stratford.

And we drove home at twenty miles an hour with Stephen’s arm out of the window holding it steady, and when we got it home it wouldn’t fit up the stairs, so someone had to come and saw the legs off –’

‘Who did you get?’ asks Bogdan.

‘I don’t remember,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Someone who’d done some work for Penny.’

Bogdan takes a very close look at the front legs of the armchair. He shakes his head. ‘They haven’t matched the grain properly. I wish I’d been here.’

‘And then we finally got it up here, and it didn’t match the curtains.’

‘No,’ says Bogdan. ‘It still doesn’t.’

‘But Stephen settled back into it and put his feet up,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Stephen and the chair. The chair and Stephen.’

‘And now just the chair,’ says Bogdan. ‘Because Stephen, you know.’

Elizabeth can’t stop a small smile. ‘You know, you don’t always have to be so literal, Bogdan, I’m trying to be poetic.’

Bogdan nods. ‘Okay.’

‘They can’t tell you,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That’s the thing about your own grief. No one can ever know it but you.’

‘I have some new batteries for your remote control,’ says Bogdan. ‘I noticed you need them.’

‘That’s very kind of you, Bogdan,’ says Elizabeth.

‘Batteries I can do,’ says Bogdan. ‘Words are difficult.’

‘They are,’ agrees Elizabeth. ‘You know, if you ever wanted to sit in Stephen’s chair, you could? It seems a shame for it just to be sitting there.’

‘I can’t sit in Stephen’s chair,’ says Bogdan.

‘Of course you can,’ says Elizabeth. ‘That’s what Stephen would want.’

‘I can’t,’ says Bogdan. ‘Stephen is still sitting there.’

Elizabeth nods. ‘I’m glad you see him too. How ridiculous, Bogdan. A chair is just some pieces of wood covered in cloth, isn’t it?’

Bogdan weighs up his next words, and thinks they are important.

‘Well, it’s often galvanized steel these days, but, yes, this one is wood.’

Bogdan’s phone buzzes. He glances at the name and ignores it.

‘Who’s that, Bogdan?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘Is no one,’ says Bogdan.

‘It wouldn’t make a noise if it was no one,’ says Elizabeth.

‘A friend,’ says Bogdan.

‘Which friend?’ Elizabeth asks.

‘Okay, it was Ron,’ says Bogdan.

‘I see,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Read it.’

‘No, is okay.’

‘Read it.’

Bogdan reads the message.

‘And what does Ron want with you?’

‘Just to see me,’ says Bogdan.

‘Come on, then,’ says Elizabeth.

‘He says, “No Elizabeth.”’

Elizabeth places a hand on Bogdan’s shoulder.

‘And what do you imagine I’m going to say to that?’