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

sure this is going to cover the colour underneath,’ she said.

‘It’ll do.’

Before

Neal arrived with a bottle of white wine, cold, with little drops of condensation on it, and with a smile so eager and confident it was like a knife being pushed into me. I looked at him standing on the doorstep, his hair brushed into uncharacteristic neatness. He was wearing a lovely linen shirt that he must have ironed before he left his house.

‘Hello, Neal,’ I said. I felt like a murderer, waiting to deal the fatal blow.

‘What happened?’

I touched my fingers lightly to my swollen cheek. ‘I fell over.’

‘You look like you’ve been in a boxing ring.’

‘It looks worse than it feels,’ I said untruthfully.

‘Where did you fall?’

‘Does it matter?’ I said. I hadn’t prepared the follow-up line. I tried to think of something plausible. ‘In the bathroom. Standing on the rim of the bath trying to reach something off the top shelf. My foot slipped and I just crashed down. I hit my face on the edge.’

‘Ouch,’ Neal said sympathetically. ‘When?’

‘Yesterday evening.’

‘It looks pretty fresh. I tried to call you then but there was no reply.’

‘I was probably lying on my bed holding ice to my cheek,’ I said. It was only half a lie.

‘I thought we could go for a picnic,’ he said. ‘If you feel up to it, of course. It’s a lovely day.’ And he kissed me on my mouth, very gently so as not to hurt me. I felt his lips smiling slightly against mine and drew away.

‘Let’s go inside,’ I said.

In the kitchen, I put the table between us. ‘Tea or coffee?’ I asked, playing for time.

‘Neither,’ he replied. There was the faintest frown on his face now, a tremor of anxiety passing through him.

I filled the kettle and turned it on, my back to him so I wouldn’t have to see his face. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ I said.

‘That doesn’t sound good.’ He was trying to keep his voice unconcerned.

‘You and me,’ I said.

‘It’s been ages since I felt like this,’ he intervened, trying to cut off what he knew I was about to say. ‘You know that.’

‘I’ve done you wrong.’ I winced—the line sounded as if it was lifted from a corny country-and-western song, yet it was what I felt. I had done him wrong.

‘I closed down so I wouldn’t get hurt.’

‘I’m not ready,’ I said hopelessly.

‘What does that mean?’

‘It happened too fast, at a strange time in my own life.’

‘I don’t want to rush you.’

‘I think we should just be friends.’ I felt ashamed even as I was uttering the glib words.

‘What happened? I don’t understand.’

I turned to him, made myself look him in the eye. ‘Nothing happened, Neal. I thought things over.’

‘I read it all wrong.’ He rubbed a hand over his face as if there were cobwebs on it. ‘I thought you felt the same as me.’

‘It was lovely, Neal, but I’m not someone you want to have a committed relationship with.’

‘But I do want to,’ he said. He wasn’t giving way. He wasn’t letting me off the hook.

‘It’s not good.’

‘Is there someone else?’

‘That’s not it.’

Something in his expression had changed as he stared at me. ‘There is,’ he said. ‘And your face. It wasn’t an accident, was it? Someone hit you.’

‘That’s enough,’ I said. At last he had given me an excuse to get angry and kick him out and I seized it. ‘You should go now.’

Neal walked round the table and stood a few inches from me. He lifted his hand and touched my bruised face. ‘You can’t get rid of me that easily, Bonnie.’

‘You need to go.’

‘It’s not over,’ he said.

‘I’m not just jerking you around.’

‘It can’t be over. I won’t let it be. I’ll wait for you to change your mind.’

I felt a prickle of unease on my skin. ‘You didn’t hear what I said.’

‘I heard you. I just didn’t believe you.’

Hayden arrived an hour later. I opened the door and pulled him inside. We didn’t speak. He pressed his lips to my bruise, then undid the buttons on my shirt. I knelt on the floor and untied his shoelaces. When I looked up at him, there was such hunger on his face that I almost cried out. We had sex standing against the wall just inside the door, both of us still dressed, and then we went into the bedroom. He took off my clothes very slowly and stared at me as though I were miraculous, touched me as though I were breakable. We lay together on my bed for hours, sometimes holding each other and sometimes simply gazing. I felt as though I were looking deep inside him, at a place people rarely got to see.

When the light outside the window started to soften and then thicken, we got up and showered, and went out to a tapas bar a few minutes from the flat. We ordered potato croquettes, mild green chillies, broad beans with mint, slices of thick omelette and salty cheese, and washed them down with a jug of cheap red wine. I was ravenously greedy, eating with my fingers and swallowing the wine in loose gulps.

We walked back to the flat, wrapped up in each other. He held me tight. I didn’t care what happened after. Nothing mattered any more. Only this.

After

‘What I want to know is, where the fuck is Hayden?’ Amos was pacing about the room with his guitar. His face was red, with heat or anger I couldn’t tell. ‘It’s getting beyond a joke.’

It was oppressively hot that Wednesday evening when we gathered for our rehearsal in my long-suffering friend’s house. He was there this time, but had retired to his bedroom. I had wanted to cancel but Joakim reminded me fiercely that it was only just over a fortnight until 12 September and the wedding. We were certainly a ragged little group, not at all ready to perform.

‘I’m sure he’ll turn up,’ I said. ‘He’s only a bit late.’

Guy checked his watch again.