you’re a phantom would do that to anyone.
‘How did you know Stephen?’ he had asked.
Kate had been aware of Jack looking up at her. Part of her wanted to turn and run. But she was hypnotised by the face of this stranger who looked so much like the man she’d loved long ago. Alongside unease, his face showed kindness, just as Stephen’s had. She had the sudden urge to launch herself at him, wrap her arms around him and kiss him. For years she had dreamt of a moment like this – of bumping into Stephen and him telling her, ‘It was all a mistake. Reports of my demise were exaggerated.’ And they’d embrace, and the years would disappear.
Except this wasn’t Stephen.
‘We were friends,’ she said.
‘At university?’
She almost told a second lie, but said, ‘No. I met him at the Cold Research Unit in Salisbury.’
‘Oh.’
She said, ‘I was there.’
He spoke softly. ‘There . . . when he . . .?’
‘Yes.’
Jack had spoken up then. ‘Mummy, what are you talking about? Billy’s bored. And he needs to pee.’
Jack’s words broke the tension and the adults laughed.
Kate said, ‘Look, I’m really sorry. I don’t normally follow strangers through the streets.’
Paul smiled. ‘It’s okay. It’s understandable.’
‘Maybe. But I’d better go and get Billy and his master back to the hotel.’
‘Hotel? You don’t live in London?’
‘We live in Boston,’ said Jack.
‘Really?’
Kate went to turn away, but hesitated. She didn’t want to say goodbye, but lingering there was pointless.
Paul said, ‘Wait,’ even though she hadn’t yet moved. ‘Would you like to meet for dinner?’
‘I . . .’
‘It would be nice to talk to someone who knew my brother. Our parents won’t talk about him because it’s too upsetting. I never see any of our old friends these days. Sometimes it feels like he never existed.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Except I see him every time I look in the mirror.’
Kate didn’t know what to say.
‘So, dinner? You can bring Jack and – Billy, is it? – if you like.’
Before she could change her mind, she blurted, ‘Where? What time?’
He pointed up the street at a restaurant. ‘Do you like Chinese? We could meet there at seven.’
‘Alright.’ She turned away, then realised she hadn’t told him her own name.
‘I’m Kate,’ she said.
Something happened when she said that; it was as if the name meant something to him but he wasn’t sure what. The moment passed and he smiled. ‘Okay, I’ll see you later.’
She killed twenty minutes walking slowly through Soho towards the Chinese restaurant. It was a warm, overcast evening, and the streets were rammed with people in T-shirts standing outside pubs. She hadn’t smoked for years, but she had a craving for cigarettes. And cider. She thought she knew why, too: she was going to meet a man she didn’t know for dinner, something she hadn’t done for a long, long time. It threw her back in time, made her feel like a teenager. She wouldn’t smoke or drink cider, or go to bed with this man, but she wouldn’t be enormously surprised with herself if she did. She’d done enough out-of-character things recently.
She paused outside the restaurant, inhaled the smell of cooking rice and sweet and sour sauce and MSG. She watched a trio of chickens rotating on a spit in a window opposite and had to look away. She hadn’t eaten meat, either, for years. Another thing that irritated Vernon – living with a goddamn vegetarian.
‘You enjoyed the taste of meat when we met,’ he said, the underlying innuendo making her shudder. She had to stop thinking about him. But how could she? When he found out what she’d done, as he would very soon . . . She didn’t want to think about it.
She didn’t have to. Paul arrived at that moment, appearing out of nowhere and grinning nervously at her.
‘I left Jack with a babysitter at the hotel,’ she said. ‘I hope he’s OK. I just thought it would be easier to talk without interruption.’
‘Sure,’ he said, easily.
She’d been worried that he might think she was planning to come on to him, farming her son out to a stranger, being a bad mother – but he didn’t seem at all fazed. ‘I’m starving,’ he added.
‘Me too,’ she said, although she wasn’t.
He led the way into the hot, noisy restaurant, waves of chatter rising and falling against a backdrop of the clatter of plates at a service hatch. A waiter showed them to a table, chucked a pair of menus down on the table and zoomed away again.
Seeing how taken aback Kate was, Paul said, ‘They’re famously rude in here. It’s part of the appeal.’
They exchanged pleasantries about the warm weather and Chinese food for a few minutes, ordered drinks and studied their menus.
The waiter reappeared. ‘Yes?’ he demanded, looking as though he wished he was anywhere else but here.
Paul gave the waiter a few numbers from the menu, and Kate did the same.
‘You’re vegetarian?’ he asked. When she nodded, he asked, ‘Do you eat fish?’
‘No, I’m vegetarian.’ She immediately regretted her snappiness. ‘Sorry, it’s just that everyone always says that – it’s like an automatic response. Proper veggies don’t eat fish.’
‘I’ll remember that.’ He pretended to make a note on an invisible notepad. ‘Fish have feelings too.’
He was charming. Just like Stephen – or rather, how Stephen would be if he’d had sixteen more years to practice. She had to keep reminding herself, though, that this wasn’t Stephen. She had to remember that she had only met this man this afternoon. Her fantasies were not coming true. On the way over, she kept asking herself why she was doing this, what her motives were. There were, in the end, two things.
One, she had never been able to talk to anyone else about Stephen. Now, like his brother, she relished the chance to talk to somebody about him, somebody who knew him intimately. Perhaps that way, after all these years, she could achieve some kind of – and she hated the word but couldn’t think of a better one – closure.
Two, she was glad of the distraction. She had only been able to think about one thing since arriving in London, and her brain needed a break from the worry. What better way to stop fretting about the future than to concentrate on the past?
