Page 43 of The Life She Could Have Lived

NO

Anna looked at the woman in front of her.

Jade. She was twenty-three, well-spoken, well-educated, keen.

She had a degree in English Literature from a good university.

She was the best candidate Anna had seen that day.

But there was one more to go. She stood up and showed Jade out of the room, pointed her back in the direction of reception, and then she spent a couple of minutes gathering her thoughts before calling the receptionist to ask for the final candidate to be sent up.

While she waited, Anna finished her coffee and stood up to look out of the window.

They were on the fifth floor, and she looked down at the busy Soho street below, the people like little Lego figures.

When she heard a knock, she turned around and called for the candidate to come in.

She had to hide her surprise when a woman of around forty entered the room.

Every other interviewee had been in their early twenties.

‘Hello,’ she said, walking back over to the desk. ‘I’m Anna, Head of Publicity, thanks for coming in.’

The woman reached out a hand and shook Anna’s. ‘Julia, nice to meet you.’

Anna asked the same questions she’d asked the others, and Julia answered well.

She didn’t have experience, but then neither did any of those younger women.

But she seemed to have done her research, to know what the job would entail and to be interested.

What Anna really wanted to know was what she’d been doing for all those years since she’d graduated.

Probably being a mum, she guessed. She wished she’d looked more closely at Julia’s CV.

‘Is there anything you want to ask me, or discuss?’ Anna asked, as she always did at the end of an interview.

Julia bit her lip, swallowed. ‘Sort of. I just wanted to say that I know most people go for this sort of job almost straight out of university. I know I’m not your typical candidate.

I’ve been raising my three children for the past fifteen years and now that they’re a bit older, I want to reach out for the career I had planned before they came along. ’

Anna nodded. She wasn’t sure what to say. And then suddenly, she was.

‘Do you think there are any skills that you’ve developed over your years as a mother that you could bring to this role?’

Julia smiled. ‘I do. Parenting teaches you about multi-tasking. Clearly the specifics are very different but once you’ve changed a baby’s nappy while also talking a four-year-old through putting his socks on and listening to a six-year-old read his school reading book, you’re not really fazed when someone asks you to do a couple of different things at once. ’

Anna laughed. ‘I can imagine.’ She liked this woman, she realised. She could imagine working alongside her.

‘And resilience, too. Teaching a child to read or use the toilet or tell the time can be pretty soul-destroying. One day you think they’re getting it, the next you’re back to the beginning. I’m used to having to keep trying until I get things right.’

‘Great,’ Anna said.

They both stood up, shook hands again. Anna sensed that Julia had something else to say, and she nodded encouragingly.

‘I hope you’ll give me a chance. I really feel like I could be a good fit for this role, and I would give it my all.’

‘Thank you,’ Anna said. ‘It was really nice to meet you.’

All afternoon, she thought it over. Jade would fit in better with the rest of the team, simply because of her age.

But she really felt that Julia would be better at the job.

It was a gut feeling, but that’s what she had always gone with in the past. By the time she left for the day, it was decided.

She sent a quick email to HR before leaving, asking them to make the offer.

On her way out, she said goodnight to the receptionist, Bryony.

‘Interviews go okay?’ Bryony asked.

‘Yes, great, thank you. I think I found the right person.’

‘Perfect. Have a good evening.’

Anna felt a shiver of sadness. Sometimes, when she’d had a busy, productive day, she forgot that she was going home to an empty flat.

And when it struck her, often as she turned the key in her front door, she had to fight against a wave of dread, had to force herself to make something more than toast for dinner, to go to bed earlier than one in the morning. It was a struggle, still.

She made her way to the Tube, let herself be pushed along by the crowd. Down the escalator, onto the hot, busy platform. She stepped onto a train, jostled her way to the middle of the carriage. A teenage boy touched her arm.

‘Would you like to sit down?’

Anna looked at him, smiled and shook her head. She used to worry, when that happened, that the person offering must think she looked pregnant. Now, she worried that they thought she looked old.

She stole a look at the boy who’d spoken.

He was sitting beside a man who was probably his dad, and they were chatting, their heads close together.

Anna felt a twinge of recognition, and something else.

She put her headphones on and turned on an audiobook, but she wasn’t really listening to it.

She was watching this man, the way he was carefully explaining something to his son, the way they were interacting as if they were the only people there.

Without warning, the man looked up and caught her eye for a moment, gave her a half smile, and Anna felt something tugging at her, felt her insides soften.

She had a sudden memory from years ago, of standing outside the flat she’d shared with Edward, on her way to see Nia just after Cara had been born.

She’d picked up a toy dropped by a little boy who was walking with his dad, and she’d felt a strange kind of connection there.

She’d forgotten about it afterwards, because she’d got caught up in meeting Cara and also in discovering that Nia’s Jamie was her James.

She did the maths, based on how old Cara was now.

Could it be the same father and son? Was that crazy?

When Anna changed to the other branch of the Northern Line at Kennington, the father and son did too.

But they went past Clapham without getting off, and Anna pushed the thought away, decided she was being ridiculous.

At Balham, she made her way to the doors, and saw that they were doing the same thing.

She followed them up the escalator and out into the light, carefully stepped over a pair of kids’ sunglasses that were smashed on the pavement.

And then they turned into a shop, and she carried on.

Once she’d let herself in, flicked on the kettle and made tea, Anna had a look through the post that she’d brought in from the mat.

A gas bill, a couple of leaflets, and something that wasn’t for her.

It was addressed to John Murphy. Not the previous owner.

And then she noticed that it wasn’t just the name that was wrong, but the address.

It was for next door. She grabbed her keys and went down her front path and up the next one, and just as she was about to push the envelope through the letterbox, the door opened.

It was him. The man with the son from the Tube. He ran a hand through his sandy hair, and Anna took a moment to really look at him, his broad shoulders and his beard and his crinkly eyes.

‘I’m Anna,’ she said. ‘I live next door. I…’ She gestured towards the envelope in her hands. ‘This is yours. Or… for someone here.’

He smiled, reached out a hand to take it, and in the transfer, their fingers touched and Anna felt like she’d had a small electric shock.

‘Thanks, it’s mine,’ he said. ‘New postie, he seems to get a bit muddled up. I’m Steve.’

‘Steve? But…’

He folded his arms, looked at her, waiting.

‘Sorry, I just thought the letter was addressed to a John.’

‘Oh, that. Yes, I go by Steve. Middle name.’

Anna grinned, couldn’t help it. She imagined telling Nia she’d met her handsome neighbour and his name began with J.

‘Did I see you on the Tube just now?’ Steve asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re my next-door neighbour?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve only been here a couple of weeks. It’s just me, and sometimes my son, Luke. Is it just you, next door?’

It seemed like a blatant attempt to find out whether she was single. To her surprise, she found that she didn’t mind .

‘Just me.’

‘Well, have a good evening.’

Something in her didn’t want to leave, but she forced herself to.

Back up one path, down the other. Since Ben, there had been no one.

And she’d thought that was just how it was, now.

She’d thought that side of her life was over.

But there was no denying that there was something there, with Steve, with her neighbour.

She felt a little shiver run through her at the thought of it.

Here she was, feeling a bit like a teenager with a crush, feeling like she sort of knew this man who she’d almost certainly never met, or definitely only met in passing.

It was exhilarating, and scary, and nice.

Anna let herself back into her flat and leaned back against the door. Took a deep breath. And then she went into her kitchen and started making herself a salad for dinner. A little later, once she’d eaten and she was sitting on the sofa with a book in her hand, she called Nia.

‘Hey,’ Nia said.

‘Hey yourself. Guess what happened today?’

‘You finally pitched that book idea I keep telling you about, the one about my boss and Ellen? Fifty Shades of Dull Office Romance .’

Anna laughed. ‘Are they back together?’

‘Oh, who the hell knows? I’ve given up trying to keep track. But I do have a lot of material, you know, for the book.’

‘I did have a good day at work, actually. I found a new publicity person.’

Anna thought back to the interviews, to Jade and Julia and the other girls she’d seen, all preened and out to impress. It seemed like a long time ago.

‘That’s good,’ Nia said. ‘But I don’t think that’s why you’re calling. ’

‘No, you’re right. On the way home, I met my new neighbour, and I think I might have a crush on him.’

Nia laughed. ‘No one thinks they have a crush. When you have a crush, you know.’

‘Okay, I have a crush on him.’

It was a big thing to admit, and Anna knew that Nia understood that.

‘That’s exciting!’ Nia said. ‘What’s his name? Tell me it’s Jeremy.’

‘This is the bit you won’t believe. He goes by Steve, but he’s really John.’

‘And what does he do for a job?’ Nia asked, her voice a bit squeaky.

‘I don’t know that yet.’

‘Did you invite him round for coffee?’

‘No.’ Did people actually do that? Was anyone bold enough? Probably. ‘I just wanted to tell you.’

‘I’m glad you did.’

‘It feels a bit like a betrayal, of Ben. Tell me it shouldn’t.’

‘It shouldn’t,’ Nia said.

‘It doesn’t make me miss him any less.’

‘I know.’

They stayed on the phone for another ten minutes, talking about Cara and what Jamie was cooking and whether Anna was free to join them for lunch on Sunday. She was.

‘You sound excited,’ Nia said, just before they ended the call. ‘It’s nice.’

‘It is nice,’ Anna said.

After they’d hung up, Anna sat for a long time, thinking about Ben, about Steve. About falling in love, and how much it could end up hurting, but how it was worth it for those moments of pure joy. That feeling.