Page 89 of Carry Me Home

Nina looks at me. And I watch her hear it – friend. I watch her face fold, close, slam doors shut.

‘Right,’ she says. ‘Your friend.’

‘Nina—’

‘I need to go.’ She’s already backing away. ‘I can’t be here right now. I can’t even loo—’ Her eyes go to the door behind me. The half-closed door with Cara’s asleep behind it. ‘I just can’t.’

‘Let me walk you home.’

‘No.’ Sharp. Final. ‘I walked myself here. I can walk myself back.’

She turns and goes. I watch her cross the cobblestones – the cardigan pulled tight, the ring box clutched in her hand, the untied laces trailing. She doesn’t look back. She turns the corner of the harbour and the dark takes her.

I stand on the doorstep and I feel the absence of her like a change in atmospheric pressure. The street is empty. The harbour is still. The fairy lights in the café are on.

I’ve been watching those lights for weeks. Months. They’ve been a comfort. A sign of her, a proof of her, a small warm signal across the water.

Tonight they look like something left behind.

The door opens behind me.

‘Tom?’ Cara’s voice, soft with sleep. ‘Who was that?’

I don’t turn around. I’m still looking at the corner where Nina disappeared.

‘It was Nina.’ I almost shudder her name. ‘She found a ring,’ I say. ‘Peter’s ring. And I … and I, told her I knew about it.’ I turn from where I’ve been watching the empty space Nina left behind.

Cara’s in her dressing gown, hair mussed, face creased from the pillow. She looks tired and real and completely here.

‘Come inside,’ she says.

I let her lead me to the kitchen. She puts the kettle on. I sit at the table and I look at my hands and I try to understand what just happened.

‘I told her I was there when Peter bought it. I told her I knew.’ My voice sounds distant. ‘She asked me why I didn’t tell her. She asked me why I do any of it – the fuchsias, the windows, all of it. Why I show up.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said because she’s my friend.’

Cara is quiet for a moment. She pours two mugs. Sets one in front of me. Sits across the table.

‘Is that what you are?’ she asks. ‘Her friend?’

‘It’s what I’ve been.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

I wrap my hands around the mug. The heat presses into my palms. The kitchen is dark except for the light over the stove, and in the half-dark Cara’s face is gentle and clear-eyed and asking me to be honest.

‘No,’ I say. ‘It’s not what I am.’

The admission costs me something down deep.

Cara nods. Not surprised. She was never going to be surprised.

‘I’ve known since about five minutes after I arrived,’ she says. ‘The way you talk about her. The way you look at her. The way you light up when she walks into a room and dim again when she leaves.’ She wraps her hands around her own mug. ‘I’m not blind, Tom. I’ve never been blind.’

‘Then why did you stay?’