Chapter Twenty-One

 

 

MY MOTHER OPENS THE DOOR looking tired and drawn. She almost doesn’t believe it when she sees us all, standing on her doorstep. Her eyes darken when she looks at me, but then as the kids shout, “Granny, Granny!” – her attention is on them, not on me.

“Sorry to do this to you, but Hetty’s out of town today with Joe at an away game. I have some errands to run and I could do with a few hours on my own to clear my head.”

She looks at the bags I’m carrying. I packed enough just in case she wouldn’t mind having them stay over.

“Coming back tomorrow morning, then?” she asks curtly.

“If that’s okay.”

“No problem, goodbye.”

I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything more, but it still hurts.

I kiss the kids goodbye and they immediately scamper towards the playroom. I suppose it’s nice that when I drop them off, they exhibit no separation anxiety or any fear about being at Grandma’s house.

As I’m leaving, a part of me wonders where Dad is. However, it’s fairly safe to imagine he’s down in the shed, where he always is.

After dropping the kids at my mother’s, I drive off and park up near the Avenues. Somehow, I find myself taking a walk down memory lane. Growing up, I lived in the city and never knew any other way of existing. We had a few different chip shops, but they were mostly on busy streets and we always had a flat above. When Gage and I moved to a detached house on a new suburban estate with no traffic, it took me months to get used to the relative quiet and isolation. If it wasn’t cars zooming by, it was kids outside the chippy, or groups of drinkers queuing up for chips after a night out – raucous and happy and sometimes rowdier than was polite. There were the neighbours, too. You could hear their TV through the walls. I could tell if they liked soaps or those soppy Hallmark Channel films… sometimes even porn. I grew up exposed, you could say. However, it didn’t change who I am. I’ve always remained the same, despite all this stuff and nonsense going on all around me.

My parents bought their dream home after they retired. They scrimped and scraped so they could have the retirement they wanted. Sometimes, I didn’t understand it. To work all your life just to have a comfortable retirement? Instead of living for the now? It was a difficult upbringing because I would often ask for money for the cinema or theatre, for theme park trips or whatever – and the answer would often be no. That’s how much of a miser my father was.

What’s even stranger is that when my kids visit their grandmother’s, they get spoilt rotten and given everything I never had. I wonder if that’s perhaps why I have always remained solid and staid however, because I was never spoiled. I wonder if the simple pleasure of my books is what kept me straight, even when there was all that city noise around me.

I find myself walking around, marvelling at how things have changed – and continue to. It’s different every week, and no less crammed and packed with the young, the old and the in-between enjoying their free time.

There are still a few homeless people about. No doubt there always will be. Gage sometimes helped out homeless charities as part of the team’s community efforts. He wasn’t all bad. I think he enjoyed it, actually.

I find myself suddenly standing outside a hairdressers, looking through the window. It seems to be calling me indoors. There’s the whole dead husband thing to explain when the hairdresser predictably wants my whole life story, but maybe I could just make something up. I know it’s a cliché that a woman changes her hair when she’s about to change her life, but maybe today is that day.

 

 

FOR THE FIRST time in maybe six years, I emerge with my hair down, not dressed up as per usual. As I stand on the pavement, everyone inside the salon has their eyes still fixed on me as I stand around, trying to get used to my new hair.

I’ve had a whole twelve inches chopped off. My hair is still long, but no longer long enough that I can sit on it. I think I must possess the Holy Grail of hair because even with a foot of it cut off, the hairdressers inside still can’t stop staring at my massively thick crop of long hair. It was all one length for ages but now it’s layered and structured. It’s modern and I feel liberated, actually. I do. I don’t know why I didn’t do this years ago. I’ve been living under a beehive for far too long.

If Hetty were here, we’d grab coffee and celebrate with cake too, but as it is I’m alone and don’t feel like drinking alone. Maybe I’ll get a takeaway cup from somewhere.

I’m walking for maybe five minutes, trying to find the right sort of place for takeaway coffee and cake, before I spot Warrick strolling towards me. He doesn’t see me at first, but the closer he gets, his expression changes and he walks straight up to me, hugs me and says, “You got your hair done.”

“Yeah. I was just going to find some cake to celebrate.”

“Oh, hey. I know a place.”

I give him a look. I’m not good company right now and I don’t need charity.

He shoots me a look back and tells me, “Please, all right? Let me buy you a sodding piece of cake.”

“Fine.”

He leads me to a nice place which just happens to be three doors down from where we bumped into one another. It’s rustic but the cakes on the counter look divine. Warrick has definitely been converted to cake since marrying Jules.

We place our order and sit by the window bench, facing one another. Warrick has a chic, patterned scarf wrapped carelessly around his neck, as if it was either an afterthought or a deliberate move. Either way, when you catch him in the right light, he’s absolutely devastating. I can see why Jules became hooked, though Hetty would never admit there’s something about Warrick. I wouldn’t call it rivalry between her and Warrick, but there’s something there that’s sort of vital to her, but also painful. I think he’s more like a father to her, which is why she perhaps checks her behaviour around him. He has sharp eyes that don’t miss a trick, and humongous sex appeal… so masculine. I’m a red-blooded woman, I notice things.

“What are you doing down here, then?” I ask him.

“Dropping the boys off at dance class.”

I can’t help but smile. “Oh.”

“Yeah… Jules is determined,” he says, “but I’m not sure the boys really agree. She keeps saying it’ll click with one of them, if not both. She has this whole Billy Elliot fantasy, you see.”

“Hey, there are worse parental aspirations out there.”

“Don’t I know it.” Our drinks are delivered and he goes quiet for a moment. Our cakes follow but neither one of us picks up our forks. He’s thinking about something…

“She just wants to keep the tradition alive,” I reassure him, “but I’m sure she won’t pressgang them into continuing, not if they really don’t want to.”

Warrick looks up, as if he’s not been listening. “Sorry, Liza. I’ve got things on my mind.”

“Oh, like what?”

He takes a sip of his coffee (black) and cuts his cake into rectangles before eating it with his hands in perfectly caveman fashion.

“It’s Joe,” he says.

“Yeah? What about him?”

“He’s keeping something from me. You don’t know what’s been going on, do you?”

I swallow hard, but when I do, he knows immediately that I know something.

“If you just tell me, Liza it’ll stay between me and you. I just need to know. It drives me crazy when he doesn’t tell me things. I start wondering all sorts… you know… because of how his mother was.”

“Ah yes, his delightful mother.” God rest her soul.

“Yeah. So, could you…?” He puts his hands together in a begging fashion.

“Liverpool want to sign him, that’s all.”

Warrick looks stunned. “Huh?”

“It was almost looking set, according to Hetty, although she was very cagey and said even she wasn’t supposed to know anything about it, because you know how it is… but I feel like… maybe… I wonder if she said she’s not ready to leave and that put the dampers on it all. Because it’s all on hold at the moment. I don’t know what’s transpired in reality. It could have been that the funding isn’t there… or whatever… maybe the contracts didn’t get approved. All I know is that, maybe, just maybe, Hetty told him she’s not ready to leave… not after everything recently. I have a feeling on that, but a feeling’s all it is.”

Warrick scratches the back of his curly head, digesting it all. Then suddenly, he raises his cup. “Liverpool want to sign my son! My son! My boy! My son!”

I clock him around the head, only playfully though. “Shurrup. We’re not meant to know, you idiot.”

“Shit, you’re right. Sorry. Yes.” He pretends to pull himself together. “Non-proud dad here, nothing to see. Everyone move on.”

I chuckle and finally dig into my cake. “Where’s Jules, anyway?”

“Sat in her office with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. She’s in the thick of marking exam papers. She’ll be okay. She just needs a day locked up in there to get through it. I’d only be distracting her if I went back home, apparently.”

We share a giggle. Warrick’s just so easy to get on with.

“So, anyway. You’re looking much better,” he remarks, “and the hair, too.”

“Thanks. Thank you. I’m getting there.”

“Seen anything of Sam?” he asks, bringing the cup to his lips, as if to hide something while he awaits my response.

“What is it you have against him?”

He puts his cup down. “I have nothing against him.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t. I have nothing against him. I’m like you though, I just have a feeling sometimes… and my feeling about him is one of wariness.”

He looks sheepish. It doesn’t suit Warrick. He’s in everyone’s business, that’s who he is. He knows everyone round here and everyone knows him. He’s a steadfast presence… and sheepish is not his gig.

“What made you feel wary?”

“I saw the way he was looking at my wife at that careers evening. Believe me, I know men look at her. I look at her. I’d sculpt her naked body if she’d allow me to, just so I could keep her in my office all day long, but there was something about the look in his eye I didn’t like.”

“Okay…”

“Do you hate me?” he asks, because he’s used to dealing with all walks of life, even young women in the throes of new love.

“No. I have a feeling, too.”

“Oh, crap. I’m sorry.”

“You’d really keep the sculpture in your office? What if people saw?”

He leans forward. “I’d have to obliviate them.”

“What, just for seeing her naked body in clay form?”

“Yeah. They’d all have to be obliviated.”

We laugh and I lean back, shaking my head. I watch him finish his cake while all I can do is stare at the rest of mine. My appetite has been like this since Gage died. It’s as though all the food put in front of me feels like death… or something, I don’t know – and I don’t want to eat more death.

“Can I be honest with you? Like a bit gory even? Hetty wouldn’t think it was gory, but you might.”

His nose wrinkles. “I’m good with gore.”

“Last night, it was the first night since Gage passed, that I… you know… with Sam.”

“Oh. Okay, not too gory so far.

“Wait, it’s coming. So, we had this massive long chat before the other stuff… and he was really sweet and everything, made me feel like he understood… but then this morning, he took it upon himself to feed the kids breakfast. Emily even asked me if he’s her new dad. She’s not stupid. It must have been the way he was acting around her. Then he suggested moving his stuff in. Just like that. So casual. ‘So, I’ll bring my stuff, then?’ sort of thing, even though it’s only been two months. Two months.”

A deep frown gouges a look of disbelief into Warrick’s Gallic face. “What?”

“I don’t know if it’s because we had sex last night and he thinks that means he can move in, or that he thinks grief just stops one day… or that my kids don’t matter or that he doesn’t have to earn my trust over time, but I was shocked and I told him I had things to do today. He tried to leave the house with dignity, but he was trying to get me to react. It wasn’t right, Warrick. It was plain weird, really. It was lovely last night, but by the light of day… you know?”

He’s nodding his head – and even looks a bit disturbed. Maybe I should be more disturbed, I don’t know. Warrick chews his thumb while looking out of the window. 

“Eat your cake while I think,” he commands, and for some reason, I do as he asks.

Once I’ve eaten my cake, I wash it down with a few big gulps of coffee, then Warrick asks the waitress for more coffee. A man after my own heart.

“How long have you known Sam for?”

“Oh, is it Mr Detective Man now?”

Warrick grins like a nerd, because he is a nerd. We’re both whopping nerds. Hetty’s not a nerd. Joe’s a little bit of a nerd. Jules is so far removed from nerd, she’s the opposite… she’s a culture vulture, but not a nerd. Warrick and I are both top nerds.

“I was very good at what I did. Just answer my question.”

“Probably… around… six years.”

“So, since uni?”

“Yeah.”

“And what was he like at uni?”

“A total slag. Fucking everything. We used to laugh about it. I never thought… one day… you know.”

Warrick’s eyes sharpen. “Okay… and he never, ever…”

“No, he never tried it on. I always had this sense that he found me attractive, but I was with Gage. He knew that. I was out of bounds.”

“But you kept in touch?”

“He gave me his email. I used to send him emails… you know… even after I had the kids. I’d use him as a sounding board, I don’t know… a bit like a Dear Diary… because he always came back with good responses and told me to just keep being myself.”

Warrick flicks one eyebrow up. “And… what is it you’re not telling me?”

I narrow my eyes. “How do you know that?”

“Cop instinct. Top secret skill of mine.” I continue glaring, but he adds, “There’s always something… some way… I mean, there must have been a transitional period, from being just friends… to… what happened this morning.”

“You can say the word sex, you know? It’s just a word.”

“What… sex,” he says, but it sounds more like sexth – the way Miranda Hart says it.

“It was a few days before Gage’s death.”

Warrick looks more than worried, leaning in to hear me speak clearly. “Go on…”

“Things between Gage and me had been bad. It was like we weren’t married anymore, like he was never at home… always away… never even sharing a conversation.” I look up and see I still have Warrick’s avid attention, so I continue, “Well, in the months leading up to Gage’s passing, I’d been meeting up with Sam for coffee and offloading a bit. I have to say, it’s maybe because of Het being with Joe and them two being so happy… it made me see how unhappy I was.” Warrick is wearing an angry face, which makes me want to defend myself. “I did try talking to Gage, but when I told him he’d never made me come, he didn’t take kindly to that. He was offended. It was sort of… I don’t know… it was like after that, I couldn’t say anything.”

“Okay, hold on,” Warrick exclaims. “Never?”

“No. Maybe once, while drunk. Maybe. I don’t know. But it never happened.”

Warrick lifts his pinkie finger up, but I tell him, “No, no. He wasn’t tiny. It wasn’t that.”

Warrick shakes his head. “It’s a gentleman’s honour to make a woman… you know.”

“Yes, so… with all these thoughts in my head, I know it was wrong, but I kept texting and emailing Sam. It was all cordial, friendly, no funny business… until the Saturday before Gage’s death. The weekend he was in Copenhagen.”

I can see Warrick trying to wrap his head around everything. He pushes back his hair, over and over again, even though his wild curls are literally untameable, the same as Joe’s (Hetty’s always telling me so).

“What did the coroner say?” Warrick asks.

“Coroner?”

“Yes, the pathologist who dealt with Gage’s body.”

I’m taken aback he could bring up such a subject at a time like this, when I’m confused and emotional. “Excuse me, I know what a fucking coroner is. Why do you need to know?”

“Liza,” he warns, firm and insistent. I am beginning to feel like I’m on the receiving end of his detective skills.

I pick up my bag off the floor and rummage for the letter. It’s buried between a bunch of other letters that have gone unread, with no response. I really should get my life in order.

I hand the letter to Warrick, who tears it open. He lays it on the counter between us, pointing to certain elements of the summary.

“It says death by misadventure… why would it say that? Shouldn’t it say natural causes?”

“I did have a call from the coroner who explained it all. Apparently, there were traces of Rohypnol… that date-rape drug. The coroner ruled misadventure because of the whole stag weekend thing… that maybe the guys had been partying hard and mixed alcohol with roofies. That’s what he said.”

“Christ,” he exclaims.

“Gage was never that battered, you know? He drank, but he was never usually that ill. The bathroom was gross… faeces everywhere.”

“It must have been the concoction of the two…”

“I wondered if Gage had taken drugs before, because he had life insurance that covered everything, and I started to think maybe he’d dabbled in dangerous stuff before… or maybe it was his job that made him take out cover for everything… but he was never that messed-up before, you know?”

“It’s terrible, Liza.”

He takes my hands between his and not for the first time, I start pouring with tears in front of Warrick.

“It’s likely they may have done roofies, you know? It seems to have become fashionable. However, I would ask his friends to double check… make sure it was taken voluntarily.”

“You mean, because he was a rugby player, the coroner most likely ruled out foul play?”

Warrick shrugs. “Absolutely. But also, there’s the fact he was in Copenhagen all weekend, so it’d be difficult to know what he was drinking, where he was drinking and with whom precisely.”

I don’t know what I’m feeling right now, but it’s not good, and it doesn’t feel right. I feel sick actually. Warrick’s alluding to something, but he’s too scared to come out with it yet.

“When I was a detective, there were no coincidences, Liza. And sometimes… it’s not misadventure. Sometimes, there was a little meddling behind the scenes that nobody can account for and nobody will ever pay for.”

I put my hand over my mouth, dizzyingly shocked. Warrick asks for a glass of water from behind the counter and pushes my coffee to one side. He insists I drink a few sips while rubbing my upper left arm.

“Liza, sometimes, okay… the truth makes no difference. You just have to go with what’s in your heart, instead of chasing ghosts.”

I wipe my eyes and blow my nose on a napkin, still publicly crying my eyes out. I’ve given up caring what other people think, whether I’m an ugly mess or not. Besides, good luck to the person who passes judgement while Warrick’s around.

“Do you know what, though? I think it was coincidence. I honestly do. There were pictures of Gage in Copenhagen… with another woman. Maybe I felt it, in here.” I press my hand to my heart. “And that’s why I jumped with Sam. Maybe Sam was lonely, too. I don’t know.”

“He should know better, Liza. Moving his stuff in so soon? He should know better,” he repeats, shaking his head, that annoyed look in his eye.

“Maybe that’s why I like him,” I gasp, “because he is needy. Needing lots of women to make him feel good about himself. Maybe I needed him to make me feel good about myself.”

Warrick squeezes my hand. “It’s good that you’re talking about everything. You’re only going through the natural process of re-evaluating. It’s a big transition from being married to not. I’ve been there. It was hard. Some days I couldn’t even be bothered to leave my bed.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. Ask Jules about my haunted house. It was fucking depressing.”

I laugh because Warrick swore, and he never swears. He’s so happy with Jules, so much more himself, and it shows. He was a wreck when she went away travelling. I don’t think Jules will ever be able to appreciate how much of a wreck he was without her, because she’s only ever seen him when he’s with her – and the difference is stark, that’s all I know.

“Where are the kids, anyway?” he asks.

“Oh, at my mother’s.”

“For the night?”

“Yep.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

“Well, Hetty’s gone with Joe to Derby. They won’t be back until tomorrow. I doubt Sam will come crawling back anytime soon. I don’t know. I might run through some new patterns Hetty’s drawn up. She wants me to test them out because she hasn’t got the time to at the moment. She’s brimming with all the ideas at the moment, but lacking the spare time. Motherhood, eh?”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Warrick looks at his watch and let’s me know, “I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. Call me if you need anything. I mean it. Anytime. Me or Jules. Just call us. Got it?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

He squeezes me before leaving a tenner on the table. I shake my head but he leaves with a smile on his face.

I take a deep breath as I watch him walk down the Avenue. Warrick’s led a life. Oh, has he. Jules must love that he’s so experienced and worldly, yet obviously a home bird and a true gentleman. I must stop romanticising what they have. Their love is unique to them. Perhaps my love has to begin with my kids, and right now, Sam doesn’t understand the need for boundaries – and I’m not sure he ever will. Lust is responsible for so many errors I suppose, whereas love is only ever responsible for feeling what is true.

 

 

AS I’M DRIVING to the linen warehouse out of town to pick up some material for Hetty’s new dresses, it occurs to me I’m passing Gage’s old training ground. They wanted me to attend a memorial there for him, but I never showed. I think they understood, but I still feel bad.

The car ends up driving itself there, but when I vacate the vehicle in the potholed car park, I realise there’s really only one reason why I’m here.

I make my way to the adjoining rugby club and find most of his teammates in attendance, as is usual for a quiet Saturday afternoon. Everyone puts down their pints and people form an orderly queue to come over and hug me.

I’m inundated by hugs and quiet murmurs of, “We’re so sorry. Are you okay?”

I nod and tell everyone I’m getting there, or I’m better than I was, or I’m just glad he didn’t suffer. Things to comfort them, more than me. I’m not going to tell them I was not long ago crying into my coffee, nor that I was bedbound for three weeks.

A few of Gage’s teammates give me big, longer-than-needed bear hugs, but there’s one person who just keeps to himself, nursing his beer at the bar.

Once I’ve accepted a dozen business cards, all with the offer to help me with anything I want, whenever, wherever – for free – I finally escape the long line of mourners and make it to the bar.

“Anything I can get you?” Derek, behind the bar, asks.

“Cup of tea?”

“Coming right up.”

I sit at the bar by Gage’s best friend, Marvin. He says nothing.

Derek brings me my tea and whispers, “On the house.”

I suppose I had better drink this tea now, hadn’t I? Even though I’ve gone off it, it’s the only thing in here I’ll drink. The pumps are probably in need of a clean, the lemonade always tastes like cleaning fluid and everything else has too many numbers in it.

“I want to talk to you, in private,” I mutter, looking ahead, the same as Marvin is. We’re not addressing one another, even though he knows I’m really only here for him.

“Why not here?” he asks, his voice gravelly. He’s a hulking black man, but even for him, he sounds more husky than normal… sort of broken.

“There are questions… difficult ones. Also, if you have questions, I’ll answer them, too.”

“I think we should just get it over with, then.”

“Okay, I’m glad you agree.”

I drink half the cold tea in my cup and stand from my stool, nodding at Derek as Marvin and I leave as inconspicuously as possible.

“We’ll sit in my car,” I instruct, as we enter the car park.

We climb into my car and I’m immediately assaulted by his scent, trapped together in such a confined space. It’s so familiar because it’s the same smell Gage had – the stuff the club washes the kits in, the smell of grass and mud, a metallic film clinging to his hair from training early this morning, the various factory stenches in the air as they ran about the pitch. The scent of sweat you can never really wash out, not completely.

“I want to ask about Copenhagen, and there’s no need to lie. He’s gone so whatever you say isn’t going to hurt Gage. I just want to know for information, so that I know. So that I can put it all behind me.”

“Before I say anything, all I’m gonna say is that he loved you, all right?”

“Yeah, and I loved him. It wasn’t perfect, but we did care about one another.”

I turn and catch sight of his reddened eyes, possibly a sign of continual crying. Out of all of Gage’s friends, Marvin is the most decent and intelligent. He was like an older brother to Gage.

“There was a lot of drinking,” Marvin confesses.

“And a woman? There was a woman?”

He draws breath and facepalms. “I’m sorry, but yeah.”

“That’s okay. I saw the pictures. It’s just nice to hear it from your mouth, so that I’m sure it wasn’t fake, that’s all.”

He turns in his seat and takes my hand. “Tell me you’re thinking it too, Liz. Tell me.”

“What?” I begin to shake, wondering what the bloody hell he could possibly be thinking.

“It doesn’t feel right. Yeah, there was drinking. We were all drinking. It got messy, I’m not gonna lie about that. But he wasn’t drinking any more than the rest of us.”

I take a deep breath. “Did some of you do drugs? Were they being passed around?”

He blinks over and over, teeth clenched. “Why would any of us do drugs? We’d fail our piss tests, Liz.”

I can feel my heart giving up. It feels like I’m pumping sand around my body, not blood. I let the pain pass and just breathe, just keeping breathing…

“How was he on the flight home? Okay?”

“In good spirits, Liz. Good spirits. That’s what I cannot get my head around.”

“He drove himself home, though?”

“Yeah, well, after dropping me off.”

“So, when you got back to Humberside, he was sober?”

Marvin laughs, like he cannot understand how I could think otherwise. “He was maybe two on the scale, but no more. We didn’t drink on the Monday morning when we were flying back. No way. We’re not that dumb. You can’t fly pissed out of your head anymore.”

I start chewing my nail. “So, he dropped you off? What time?”

“Around eleven. No later. He was going to unpack and then get a few minutes shuteye, he said.”

“This makes no sense. How did he choke on his own vomit if he wasn’t drunk? You’re sure he was mostly sober by the time you landed?”

“Scout’s honour,” he tells me, with a look in his eye as sure as anything.

I sit staring into space, contemplating the whys and wherefores.

“None of you took any drugs?” I demand. “None at all. He couldn’t have… bought it in the toilet… had his drink spiked. Something like that?”

He grabs my shoulders and looks down into my eyes, his bulging with unsuppressed grief. “I am telling you, Liz. He was sober when we got home. Unless you kept a shedload of booze hidden in the kitchen cupboard, I don’t understand what happened. I would’ve known if he’d taken something. He hadn’t. He was completely sober. I promise you.”

I grasp the steering wheel and try to digest all of this. Firstly, I’m disgusted with myself that I believed Gage had no propriety. I’m annoyed that none of this makes sense. I’m aggrieved that I ever could have thought he’d take drugs – even when, as Marvin said, it’d pop up on a piss test which they seem to be doing more and more regularly these days.

“You were a good friend to him, Marvin. He wouldn’t want you to grieve for him forever.”

“Ah man, c’mon. Don’t say shit like that.”

He presses his fingers into his eye sockets, clearly not coping with his emotions. Six-six of beast sits next to me, brought down by grief and despair – the loss of a friend and teammate.

“Wasn’t I enough for him?” I ask, desperately in need of clarification. “What did he used to say about me? Was he going to leave me? Was that woman the first? Or had there been others?”

“He would never have left you, Liz. That’s the problem. After his dad left him, he would never have left you. But I think you both knew it wasn’t working.”

“We both knew.”

“He did love you, though. He respected you. He just didn’t get you sometimes. And you and that sister of yours, Hetty. He said your relationship with her drove him crazy.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” We share a chuckle over that.

“Naw, man, but listen. He said he saw like what you had with Het and wished he had that with you. How you banter and make each other crazy, but still love each other. He said it felt like there was no room for him.”

“Oh god, that’s a load of…”

However, when I think about it, I guess he’s right.

“Gage and I were so different,” I explain. “He liked sport on TV, I liked serial killer programmes. I read books to chill, he smashed his fists through stuff. His favourite food was Italian but mine was Indian and we always used to end up with different meals on a Saturday night. God, we were so young when we got together. He used to tell me I was the cleverest person he knew.”

“Yeah, he was proud of you. He thought you were amazing. He just wished there was an in, you know? But there clearly wasn’t.”

“I know, and I’m sorry for that.”

“It’s okay, Liz. I think he’s better off,” Marvin says, picking his necklace out of his rugby shirt and kissing the crucifix buried beneath. “God works in mysterious ways, Liz. I just wish we’d been given notice, you know? It sucks so much.”

“I know, I know.”

“Come here.”

He gives me a big hug and just his care and concern brings tears to my eyes. I cry and cry for a while, and really, I think Marvin is grateful to cry with me so that he doesn’t feel so alone anymore.

Eventually, he reaches for the door handle. “Don’t be a stranger, Liz. Love ya.”

Then he’s gone.