Having wiped the muddy key on her hem, Lizzie pushed it into the lock, turned it but found the door wouldn’t open.
‘Come on,’ said Mona. ‘My toes are going to drop off if you don’t let us in soon.’
Lizzie looked puzzled. Turning the key back the other way, she felt it click and reached for the shed’s door handle. The shed had been unlocked all along.
‘Here we go,’ she said, pushing open the door, and stopped . . .
Lizzie could hear breathing. There was someone in there. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, the toes of a scuffed pair of shoes came into view. Church’s brogues.
‘D-David,’ she asked, ‘is that you?’ Her mind raced through their conversation. Had they said anything he shouldn’t have overheard?
‘Yes,’ said a familiar voice, and she felt her shoulders sag. ‘It’s me. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you jump, I just had to . . . you know . . . get away for a bit. I couldn’t think where else to go. Every room in the house is . . . and Nicci always . . .’ David stopped, unable to go on. After a careful breath, he said, ‘She came down here when she wanted peace, you know. Said it was the only place she could think. Away from the house, with the sounds of the garden.’
‘And the A3 in the distance,’ Mona said wryly.
David flipped a switch and Nicci’s shed came into focus. It was larger than Lizzie expected. The light came from two small lamps. They were the kind of lights her gran might have had: dark wood sculpted base, lampshades of faded chintz. Lizzie wouldn’t have given them houseroom. Typically, here they looked somehow stylish. The one nearest David sat on an old sideboard, which doubled as a worktop, a kettle, glazed brown teapot and assorted mugs, plus a couple of boxes of herbal tea, piled haphazardly on its surface. In the far corner was an old-school Victorian sink. It appeared to be plumbed in.
One of the mugs Lizzie recognised: she’d bought them all ‘I
‘I always wondered what happened to that chair,’ Lizzie said. ‘And those cushions . . .’
‘What did she need a kettle for?’ Mona said. ‘I know it’s a big garden, but it’s not that big.’
‘Mona,’ Jo said crossly. ‘What?’
‘Think about it.’
An awkward silence fell. Lizzie and Jo were thinking the same thing: a couple of hundred feet is a long way when you’ve had chemo.
‘Like I said,’ David got to his feet, ‘Nicci used to spend time down here thinking. Until the last few weeks. Then the state of the garden made her feel too guilty. She hadn’t been well enough to put it to bed for winter, and she felt bad about that. Said it wore its neglect like unloved clothes.’
Yes, Lizzie thought, that sounded like Nicci.
David looked wrung out. Anyone who hadn’t known him with a purple Mohican would have thought the same hair-dresser had cut his short brown hair in the same style since he was a toddler. His brown eyes were bloodshot, his face puffy. His mouth, usually ready with a quiet smile, was set in a tense line, as if one wobble would bring his composure crashing down.
‘I’m sorry,’ Lizzie said. ‘We didn’t realise . . . I mean, if we’d known you were here we wouldn’t have intruded.’
‘OK,’ he said, brushing off his trousers, even though there was nothing on them. ‘I should get back anyway. After all, it’s my party . . .’
‘And I’ll cry if I want to,’ the women finished for him.
‘David,’ Lizzie said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I know,’ he said, his voice almost inaudible. ‘But not as sorry as I am.’
‘He knows,’ Mona said, when David had shut the shed door firmly behind him. ‘About the letters. He knows.’
‘What makes you say that?’ Lizzie asked. ‘He’d say something, wouldn’t he? If he did.’
‘We know,’ Jo pointed out. ‘And we haven’t.’
‘Of course he knows,’ Mona said. ‘When has it ever been that awkward with David? He’s known us as long as he’s known Nicci. It’s never been awkward. If you’d asked me a couple of weeks ago I’d have said I was closer to him than my brothers, by a mile. Dan certainly is. I’ve seen a lot more of David in the last fifteen years than I have of them.’ She grinned. ‘Hell, when we lived in that dive in Hove he probably saw us naked almost as often as Nicci.’
A memory of David walking in on her in the bathroom came to Mona and her grin slipped as fast as it had arrived. His appraising glance, before embarrassment hit them both. Nicci’s forty-eight hours of coolness, David’s mumbled apology in Nicci’s presence, and the wariness with which she watched David and Mona for a few weeks after that. It was unnecessary. Even if Mona would have, David wouldn’t.
‘Damn it,’ she said. ‘He knows.’
‘The awkwardness could be coming from us,’ Lizzie said. ‘I know I’ve never felt uncomfortable around him before, but look at what we just did. We barged in on him in his own shed – a shed to which I now have the key – like we owned the place.’
‘Which you do,’ Mona said. ‘If those letters mean anything. Which is a whole other conversation.’
‘Look,’ Jo interrupted, ‘suppose Mona’s right?’ She’d been standing at the small window watching David’s back recede in the darkness. His drooping shoulders and scuffing walk radiated anguish. ‘And given that we just let ourselves into his shed – with his wife’s key – and he didn’t bat an eyelid, I think she is, then he’s waiting for us to make the first move.’
It took a while to sink in.
‘What did he say?’ Lizzie turned to Mona. ‘When he delivered your letter, I mean. How did he look?’
Mona shrugged. ‘Rough as hell. Like he hadn’t slept in days. Which he probably hadn’t. And he didn’t say anything much. Certainly wasn’t up for a cup of tea and a chat. He just handed me the envelope and said something like, “Nicci wanted me to give you this.” We hugged, just barely, now I think about it. He definitely wanted to get away as quickly as possible. Said he had the girls in the car.’
‘Which he did,’ Jo pointed out.
‘I found this,’ she said, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from her coat pocket. ‘After I’d read the letter – about a hundred times – I went up in the attic and dug out the copy of The Bell Jar Nicci gave me for my birthday.’
Mona and Lizzie groaned.
‘She was obsessed with that damn book for a while,’ Lizzie said.
‘Bloody depressing,’ Mona added. ‘I’m pretty sure I binned mine years ago, before I went to Australia.’
‘Anyway,’ Jo interrupted them, ‘this fell out. I must have been using it as a bookmark and forgot all about it.’
Smoothing the square of paper flat with her hand, Jo held it up. The picture was faded where the flare of the flash had turned pink. Blu-Tack stains still speckled its back.
‘I remember that night!’ Mona exclaimed. ‘It wasn’t long after I moved in with you.’
Jo glanced at her friend anxiously. She knew the fact that Mona had joined their little group a year after the others still smarted, but if Mona was thinking that it didn’t show.
The