Chapter 23

23

The riverside pub at the end of the road is dark, low-beamed, the print-lined walls are mottled brown with age. I choose a corner table and Nate comes back with a bottle of red. He smiles as he sits down opposite me, sloshing the wine into two oversized glasses and handing one to me. "To the book," he says and we clink glasses.

"Look, Nate, I—" I stall, watch him distracted by his own thoughts.

"I need to say something first." He leans forward, palms outstretched on the small table. "I'm sorry about last week, the way it all happened. Sending you the text, everything, it wasn't fair on you. You were absolutely right to walk away. I was an idiot." He shakes his head, falls silent. Always on cue with an apology.

"So you're going to New York next month, aren't you?" I ask, neutrally. He opens his mouth but I carry on. "Nate, it's fine. It's an amazing opportunity. You said you needed a change in your life and this is—"

"Wait, Anna, stop. Whatever Priya probably said, it's not what you think. I haven't made up my mind yet. Not completely. There's a book tour opportunity and a three-month tenure at Columbia. Nothing is finalized." He looks at me, frowning in concentration. "Seriously, I wanted to talk to you about all this first. It's not fine. It all depends on—"

"Priya?" I suggest.

"Priya? What makes you say that?"

"You're really asking?"

He sighs. "Anna, she's my editor."

"Well, you should know something else," I say, and he looks back at me warily. "I visited Kath last week, after that evening at the Rosen. She wanted to see me and...I agreed."

"I see. And?"

"She wasn't happy. In fact, she's furious with you. She said Jade had shown her parts of the book. I think she took some chapters from the printer."

I watch his face cloud over and decide to mention nothing I learned of the affair, Nate's lies about Priya and Eva. "Kath's in touch with her lawyer about it. Reckons it's a fabrication, that she doesn't recognize her sister at all."

"I'm not sure she ever did." He lets out a small dismissive laugh. "She's just throwing her weight around because she feels ignored. There's no legal issue, I've spoken to Priya about it."

"I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss her, Nate. You should know something else."

"Really?"

"The cocaine they found, the toxicology report on it. She had it reevaluated. They think it may have been cut with another substance."

"That doesn't surprise me. Street cocaine is cut with all sorts of stuff, talcum powder, laxatives, caffeine, you name it."

"Fentanyl," I say slowly, holding his gaze, my heart pounds in my ears. I can't help myself. Every cell in me needs to know, to witness his reaction, to make up my own mind. His eyes darken but he doesn't blink, doesn't miss a beat.

"You know about my prescription you saw in the bathroom that day. It's not as if I tried to dispose of them. I told you about my slipped disc, excruciating pain for six weeks. What? You think I tampered with some cocaine, who do you take me for?" He looks at me, indignant, defiant. "It would be an insane move, especially if I casually left my medication lying around for anyone nosy enough to look."

I nod, the inner critic silenced, for now.

"I'd be better at covering my tracks, believe me." Nate moves his hand toward mine across the table. His defensiveness has thawed slightly, and now his eyes are almost pleading. "Anna, whatever Kath told you, remember she has an agenda too. I know what she's like, it's in her interest to turn you against me."

"But why?" I say. "Why would she do that?"

"Because she needs someone to blame it all on, to point her finger at, to other . And that person is me. I understand that, I get it."

"She's convinced, Nate, that's why Jade left—she wanted her out of there, away from you ."

He laughs, incredulous.

"I pushed for a second inquest to support Kath, I still do. Why would I do that if I was hiding something?"

"Do you ever talk about any of this with Kath? Knowing she's like that, shouldn't you have involved her a bit more in the book? Given her even an illusion of being involved?"

"Probably you're right. But it would have been painful, for both of us and after all, it is my grief memoir."

I say nothing and he studies my expression.

"She told you more about her theories of me? That's what you're still thinking about." He exhales, pressing his fingertips into his temples. "Kath really did get to you, didn't she?"

"I hate all this, Nate."

"Don't say that," he says, gently. "Whatever doubts you have, ask me."

My head spins, torn between all their conflicting stories. Priya, Kath, Nate, each so plausible in their own way, winning me over whenever I'm in their presence. I despise myself, needling, insecure, on the attack, his answers to my questions only creating more subterfuge, not less.

I take another sip of wine, feel the alcohol slip through my system, blurring the edges.

"Look, I really don't know what to think, who to believe. Except, you know, who cares, really?" I throw my hands up. "What's it got to do with me? Seriously. I'm only your fucking ghostwriter."

He opens his mouth to object but starts to laugh instead and so do I, at the absurdity of it all. A waiter hovers next to us with plates of food. Nate leans back, folds his arms, as he arranges the small dishes of tapas between us. There is salt cod in crispy batter, deep-fried cheese laced with honey and buttery prawns, but neither of us are interested. Nate leans in, speaks softly, urgently, into the distance between us.

"Seriously though, you're not only my ghostwriter. You know that." He doesn't laugh this time and I look down, break his stare. When I look up, a self-conscious grin flickers across his face.

"Have you ever thought about working in America, Anna?" he asks, his tone quiet. "I think it could be perfect for you. The next step up for your work. Another book we could work on, but this time in your name?"

I say nothing for a moment, struggle to conceal the slow fuse of my smile reflected in his. He refills my glass and I take a long sip, allow myself briefly to luxuriate in the possibilities. New York. Away from my worst fears, my past, the ultimate reinvention. Nate's profile igniting mine. I could sell up my apartment, pay back Tony's share with interest, even have a little extra to support him if he needs it. Escape all the secrets, live in the future and kill the past.

Doubts still needle, but I try to bat them away. Nate's response about Columbia was pretty flawless. Emotionally genuine, logical. Maybe I am too cynical. We both have pasts that are flawed, twisty and messy. I think once more of those diary entries and wonder what right I have to judge anyone, least of all him? And he wants me to come. Isn't this what I wanted?

I swirl my glass, watch the wine undulate like a crimson wave, silk and oil at its edges. I register how featherlight I feel, soaring outside myself, existing only in the moment.

That way he checks his watch, his sleeves rolled up, the glint of steel bracelet on his wrist, the tendons working beneath. Even though I despise myself for abandoning my resolve so quickly, something inside me contracts, quickens with anticipation.

The waiter clears our plates and late afternoon presses in on us as we exit the pub. Outside it begins to pour and I make a show of scrolling through my phone to order an Uber home. Nate shakes his head, flicks his hand in the air. I feel a twist inside, watching him walk ahead of me, bristling with innate conviction, no faltering, no flip-flopping.

"Come on, you'll get soaked," he calls back to me, his voice raised above the sound of the downpour. "Book a cab from my house."

Algos feels empty and cavernous, the rain beats on the glass above us, casting liquid shadows on the walls. He opens the glass door and we stand next to each other under a strip of awning. The air is humming, charged.

"Cigarette?" he says, shaking his jacket pocket absentmindedly, searching for a lighter. I take one and we smoke in reflective silence for a moment.

"I've been thinking of that brother of yours," Nate says thoughtfully. "How are things between you two?"

"Oh, same old. I'm not sure if anything will ever really change."

"You know, your insights when we were editing together got me thinking. You were so perceptive about loss and pain. It was the kind of perception one could only really know if they went through something themselves. Perhaps...with their own family?"

"I guess I do have experience of it too. I lost my parents when I was relatively young. So, I did know what you were talking about, what you went through, to an extent."

"Anna, that's terrible. How? I mean both at the same time or—"

"No. Mom died of cancer when I was young and my dad from an asthma attack when I was around nineteen. Tony was there too. We tried so hard to save him..."

"I'm sure there was nothing you or your brother could have done. Had he had attacks like that before?"

"Yes, it was a pattern," I say. His attention is like a balm, an invitation I so desperately want to take. When you experience any sort of shocking death, it creates these strange points of connection with other people's shocking losses. You search them out for comparison, reassurance too.

Of course, I can't tell him everything about that night. I still struggle to fit the pieces together myself, a night measured out in chaotic sensations and snatched images, nothing close to coherent memory. I remember how much I was looking forward to a night out at my best friend's house party. How long I had spent getting ready. The red ankle boots, the midriff top, my pale bare legs. My dad took one look at me and started yelling. Why would I go out looking like a slut? That word, burnt into my memory, was the catalyst for me. At this point in the evening, Tony was only the passive observer, while I was a whirling dervish of white heat. "I'm nineteen years old. I'm an adult. Fuck off!" I screamed back at him, failing to register the rage etched on my father's face. The rigid fury in his angled features. The scrape of my heels on the hall tiles.

The rest I remember in slow motion. The feel of my father's hands like iron circling my ankles, dragging me down the stairs step by step. The way I struggled for breath. A taste of what was to come. His arm on me, twisting mine. The rip of pain, the pitch of my howl. It had all happened before, to me and to Tony. By then we knew my father's temper was unpredictable and extreme. If I hadn't riled him that evening, how differently things could have turned out, as Tony often used to remind me.

Nate is looking at me intently, waiting for answers.

"There's not that much to tell really. I was meant to be going out that evening but in the end I didn't. I went upstairs to change and when I came down, all I remember is that he'd collapsed. His inhaler ran out. We called an ambulance but it was too late. It was tough. Really tough," I manage.

"God, I'm sorry, Anna. You let me talk so much about my loss and all the time—" He shakes his head, features creasing in sympathy.

"Well, ghostwriters aren't hired to talk about themselves, are they?" I say, crisply. "Anyway, my parents died a long time ago. Before I knew it, I was at uni... Now I'm more or less fine about it all. I feel sorry for my friends when I know what they'll have to go through. I can see the fear in their eyes and I know it's behind me. People assume it's been so terrible for me but really it hasn't."

Nate looks at me doubtfully, clearly not buying my plucky survivor performance. "I perfected a similar speech about Eva too. You probably remember. Most people swallowed it and moved on, except you. You were the first one to ask how I'd really felt when we first sat down to write the book. You told me that rehearsing a speech about how well I was managing was a sign that possibly I wasn't doing that well, and you were right."

"It's a coping mechanism, isn't it? I guess it's that thing of people feeling sorry for you, seeing you as this tragic figure to tiptoe around. Don't you hate that look in their eyes?"

He nods. "When they tell you you're brave."

"Brave's a killer," I agree and we grimace. "I know, pity is the worst, isn't it? I can remember bumping into a neighbor in the park after my dad died, asking all about me and saying something like, you poor, poor children , with this strange little smile on her face. I hated her. She made me feel like a Victorian orphan."

We both fall silent for a moment, hurled into our separate wounds. I tilt my head back and shoot a trail of blue smoke into the air. I thought I'd drunk myself sober over lunch but now I realize I'm struggling to hold myself straight. I glance around mournfully at the garden. Somehow it has never looked lusher or greener. I inhale the earthy tang that comes with heavy rain, aware that it looks all the more perfect because it's about to end.

"You know it would be such a shame to lose this place." My tone is a little more wistful than I intended.

"Selling up Algos House? I'm not sure I have any choice."

"I understand. You said yourself it feels wrong being here for so long, that it's like a mausoleum." The word makes me shudder and I can't help picturing Eva's bedroom, all that teal, frosted and frozen, a boudoir fit for an ice queen.

He sighs and lights another cigarette and I watch the amber singe glow as he inhales. "You know there's so much I hadn't really realized about myself until this book, talking it through with you day after day. I guess I realize how much I've struggled bearing it all alone."

"I think the memoir has been cathartic for you."

"Not just the memoir," he muses. A gust of wind sweeps leaves up into the air and it starts to pour again.

"We should go." I turn away sharply and an acute wave of pain shoots across one eye, a piece of grit must have slipped behind my contact lens. I rub it reflexively, which only exacerbates it. "Bloody contact lens," I gasp, cupping my eye. "Excuse me, I'll just be a moment."

Nate waves me in and I dart straight into the downstairs cloakroom. Pinching the lens off my pupil, I study the tiny dark speck at its edge, marvel how something so infinitesimally small can create such obliterating agony. I'm still tending to my inflamed eye when I see him behind me, leaning in the doorway.

"Your eyes, they're different colors," he says as I hold up my fingertip, one lens balanced on it, catching eyes with him in the mirror, as if I've been caught in a weirdly intimate act.

"Green contacts, yes. They're my spares, a freebie I was sent at work. Not my first choice but I lost my glasses recently." I overexplain but he's not really listening. I thought maybe they made me look more attractive, perhaps even a bit inspired by Eva, with her gray-green eyes.

"Sometimes I wonder if there's anything real about you at all," he says. His words land as an accusation, but he is smiling, as if he's seduced by his own idea of me.

We've shared our vulnerabilities, but in the grander picture, it's as if the less he knows, the more he desires me. I think of everything I've learned about Nate, and wonder if maybe it's the same for me too. He watches me adjust my lens, blinking to regain my vision.

"I could ask the same thing," I reply. "What is remotely real about you?"

He catches my reflection in the mirror and we lock eyes.

"What is remotely real at this moment is how I feel— " he smiles, lingering on that word "—about you. That's what's real."

I say nothing, turn around to face him, watch the outline of his collarbone under his open shirt, the curve of his skin there. My eyes travel up to meet his, and we look at one another for a brief moment, holding our breath. "You know that, Anna, don't you?" he whispers and I nod.

I don't say a thing and he reaches out, gently, lifts my hair from my neck and kisses me there. I tilt back my head, close my eyes as his mouth moves over mine. His hands move up my back as he presses me against the wall, lifting my legs around his waist. I register this from a distance until I register nothing at all, dissolving into the moment, all sensible thought melting away.