style="font-size:15px;"> ‘Come downstairs while you wait for it?’ Paul said.
Before she could stop him, he’d darted round, got hold of her trolley case and bumped it down the staircase, standing it upright in the hall.
Delia followed him and bent down to pet Parsnip in his basket, making it quick so she didn’t cry. She kissed the top of his head, rubbed his ears and inhaled his biscuity smell. He blinked baleful chocolate eyes and did what passed for a wonky Parsnip smile, before resuming snoring. Paul would take good care of him in the interim, she still trusted him that much.
‘Are you leaving for good?’ Paul asked, once Delia had made it clear she wouldn’t be sitting down.
‘I’m leaving for a while. I don’t know how long,’ Delia said.
‘Does this mean you don’t want to stay together?’
‘All I know is, I can’t live here with you for the time being.’
‘… OK. Can I call you from time to time?’
‘You still have my number.’
‘You’ll be looking for work in London?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll probably be there for a while, then.’
Delia simply shrugged.
‘Can I ask you some questions?’ she said, after a short pause.
Paul nodded.
‘When did you start seeing Celine?’
Paul coloured, instantly. ‘As in a date …? I don’t know …’
‘You went on a date?’ Delia said, to increase the discomfort, folding her arms.
‘No. I mean as in, the day it started.’
‘Was it before February this year?’
Paul frowned. ‘No …?’
‘Later, then?’
‘Yeah. Like I said, about three months ago.’
‘You bought a Valentine’s card. I saw it, and you never gave it to me.’
Paul frowned. ‘You saw one before you were meant to, so I had to buy another one. You still got one.’
‘You never buy me Valentines’ cards.’
‘I know. It being the twentieth anniversary with my parents … it made me more sentimental than usual.’
If he was invoking his parents’ death to get Delia to back down, it was the most craven gambit imaginable. If he wasn’t? Delia’s former feelings finally stirred.
‘So, what date did you get together with Celine? I find it hard to believe that it wouldn’t stick out in your memory.’
Paul ruffled his hair, shifted from foot to foot.
‘Late March,’ he said, gruffly.
‘You know that, how?’
As with the text, Delia had the sense that Paul was trying to edit his reply to filter out sensitive content, but had no time.
‘It was Mother’s Day, the next day.’
‘You said you never even noticed when it was Mother’s Day. Did you go to the graves after all?’
She and Paul had a whole conversation about how he never celebrated Mothering Sunday when his mum was alive, so it had no particular meaning for him. They’d planned to do something for the anniversary of the crash, in November, though it had been fraught, discussing it with his brother. Michael felt differently about that date: he saw marking it as according importance to a senseless, horrible event.
Delia didn’t know how it felt to lose your parents but suspected you never get to choose which dates in life are significant for you, bar your wedding.
‘No. We talked about it. She asked if I had got my mum a gift.’
Ah. Now Delia got it. Paul’s emotive orphaning had got Celine into bed? The idea that Paul might’ve seduced Celine occurred for the first time, and she couldn’t believe she hadn’t properly considered it before.
‘Where did it happen, the first time? The store cupboard? It’s your happy place.’
‘No, I told you. I’d never … do that, in the pub. It was at hers.’
‘She said, fancy a nightcap?’
‘Not exactly. I was locking up on my own after that … and she came back. I was outside.’
‘You went home with her, that easy?’
‘It had been building up. Then there she was.’
‘I need the words. I need to know what was said.’
Paul cast his eyes heavenwards and ground his teeth. ‘Dee, I get this is the grimmest thing. Why torture yourself with the details? It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.’
‘It matters, because it’s the only way I can start getting my head around how you could do this. It’s such a mystery to me, I need to know how you went from “I don’t shag twenty-four-year-olds I meet in my bar” to, “yeah sounds fun, whereabouts in Jesmond?”’
Delia hated how bitter he’d made her sound.
‘She came up and said she couldn’t stop thinking about me and we should do something about what was going on between us. She said you only live once.’ He rattled it out.
Delia sensed what wasn’t being said.
‘She used your parents’ deaths as an argument for why you should cheat on me? I assume she knew there was a me.’
‘Yeah, not much, but she knew.’
‘That is …’ Delia shook her head, ‘Tasteless isn’t even the word, is it?’
‘It sounds worse than it was. Pissed people talking nonsense …’
‘Nonsense that was good enough to see you going back with her.’
‘Yes.’
Paul looked beat. Not much hope of gilding the lily.
‘And that was enough, what she said?’
‘In that moment, yes. It was a take the red pill, follow this thing and see where it leads. It was about risk taking, I guess.’
‘Was it monkey sex?’
‘What?’
Paul
