The Other Side of the Door, Nicci French [new reading .TXT] 📗

as a couple because, after all, we weren’t really adults when we met, but footloose and penniless students. When I had left him, or he had left me, or maybe we really had left each other, he had had to buy me out, money I had used to put down as a deposit on my depressing hole in Camden.

‘You could always sell it,’ I said unsympathetically. ‘But OK, Amos. Come and play your guitar.’

‘It’ll be like the old days.’

‘It will not be like the old days.’

At that moment, a stocky figure came up to us. ‘Bonnie?’

I tried to place him.

‘It’s Frank. We studied music together years ago.’

‘Sorry. Wrong context, you know.’

He took a seat beside us.

‘I’d have recognized you anywhere,’ he said. ‘You still look about twelve.’

‘Thank you.’

‘What are you up to nowadays?’

‘I teach music at a school near here,’ I said.

He wrinkled his nose sympathetically. ‘A teacher?’

‘Yes.’ I looked at him with dislike, willing him to go away.

‘She’s got a band, though,’ Amos put in.

‘I haven’t!’

‘You’ve got a band? What kind of band? What’s it called?’

‘I haven’t got a band and it hasn’t got a name. I’m putting something together for a one-off thing, a friend’s wedding.’

‘I’m going to be the guitarist,’ said Amos.

‘It’s just an amateur thing, then,’ said Frank, dismissively. ‘I thought you meant something serious.’

‘What’s so good about being serious?’ said a voice behind me. I turned in my chair and squinted up to see who was speaking. A tall man with soft brown hair in a wing over his forehead, grey eyes with crows’ marks around them, wide white smile, crumpled shirt.

‘This is Hayden,’ said Frank, then added, as if he couldn’t help himself: ‘He plays in a real band.’

Hayden studied Frank for a moment. His smile disappeared and his face seemed thinner, older, colder. ‘You’re a bit of a tosser, aren’t you?’ he said softly. ‘I play music, that’s all.’

Frank blushed a deep, unbecoming red. It seeped into his hairline. Even his ears turned red. I almost felt sorry for him. He muttered something about getting a drink and left. Hayden remained. ‘What do you play?’ he asked me.

‘Oh, this and that. Piano. Violin.’

‘She plays everything,’ said Amos, proudly. He was behaving as if I was his girlfriend again. ‘She only has to pick up an instrument to know how to play it.’

Hayden ignored him and concentrated on me. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Bonnie.’

‘Hello, Bonnie.’

He held out his hand and I took it. ‘Hi,’ I said. Then: ‘This is Amos.’

Hayden nodded at him. ‘Sorry about Frank,’ he said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘No,’ said Amos.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A spicy tomato juice, please.’

‘One spicy tomato juice coming up—oh, except I don’t seem to have any change on me.’

I laughed and stood up. ‘I’ll get it,’ I said. ‘What are you having?’

‘A lager, I think. I’ll come with you.’

We left Amos scowling at the table and stood at the bar. Several people recognized Hayden, calling out in greeting. There was an ease about him, a casual familiarity.

‘What kind of music will you be playing in this band?’

‘I’m not sure yet—maybe a bit bluegrassy, and country stuff, folk.’

‘Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, that kind of thing?’

‘Yes! Exactly.’

‘I love that. Soulful, spine-tingling music.’

‘Me too.’

Our drinks arrived and we carried them back to the table. Amos was looking sulky. ‘I noticed you didn’t get one for me,’ he said.

‘You said you didn’t want one.’

‘I thought this was going to be just you and me,’ he muttered, and Hayden raised his eyebrows.

‘Sorry, am I interrupting something?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Is there a vacancy?’ asked Hayden.

‘Vacancy?’ Amos leaned forward pugnaciously.

‘In your band, Bonnie. I’d like to be involved—if you need any help.’

‘We don’t need anyone else,’ said Amos. ‘We’re full.’

Hayden ignored him. ‘Bonnie?’

‘You’re probably out of our league.’

‘I don’t know what that means,’ he said. He stared at me as if I was a puzzle he was trying to solve. ‘What about it?’

‘Are you serious? You don’t even know me.’

‘No, but this way I will.’

Later that day I went with Neal to a little street market in Stoke Newington, near his house. Stalls had been set up under striped awnings, selling local honey, organic vegetables, burgers and sausages in soft white rolls, and also beaded cushions, incense sticks, strings of beads—things whose bright charm fades as soon as you get them home. It was another warm evening and there were swallows among the plane trees.

When Neal had rung me, he had been awkward, blurting out the invitation, and now he was shy. We wandered among the stalls. I bought us both a glass of white wine that came from an English vineyard and tasted pale and flowery, and he bought a tub of black-bean salad that we shared.

‘You know,’ he said, as we stood and watched a man walk by on impossibly tall stilts, ‘I used to be a bit scared of you.’

‘Of me? Why?’

‘You had that boyfriend—what was his name?’

‘Eliot?’

‘That’s the one—with a shaved head.’

‘Yeah.’

‘You both used to seem so confident and cool.’

I laughed.

‘No, really. I used to look at you with your weird clothes and think you were this hip couple.’

‘So when did you discover the truth and stop being scared of me?’

‘I didn’t. I was terrified of ringing you up.’

I smiled and put my arm through his. ‘Well, I’m very glad you did. You know what I want now?’

‘What?’

‘One of those enormous chocolate brownies.’

After

‘This is all wrong,’ Sonia said.

‘Wrong? How wrong?’

‘It’s not the way I remembered it.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Look.’ She gestured out of the window at the shallow gravel shore where boats were turned turtle and lay under their tarpaulins in a long line.

‘Yes?’

‘Bonnie.’ She spoke with a stern patience. ‘How are we going to push a car into this? I thought there was a place that went down steeply so we could simply let off the handbrake and roll it.’

‘What shall we do?’ I heard the wildness in my voice.

‘Hang on.’

She got out of the car and I joined her. Our feet crunched over the gravel and we stood