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

boxes already.’ I advanced a few paces more and Amos backed away from me. He looked as though he had just got out of bed, in a baggy and stained pair of shorts and a ragged T-shirt, his face stubbly and his hair standing on end.

‘You’d better come up, then,’ he said, rubbing his face with the back of his hand as he went up the stairs that led to the flat. I remembered when we’d first seen it together. The estate agent had unlocked the door that Amos was pushing open now and we’d stepped through into the main room, empty of furniture, cool and full of sunlight that shone through the two large windows and lay across the grey carpets in slanted rectangles. I’d fallen in love with it at once, imagined sitting there, listening to music, looking out at the street at the end of a day, leading my life, gradually filling the spaces with memories and clutter. Now I was a stranger again, come to remove the clutter. I glanced around. Everything was slightly unfamiliar. The sofa stood in a different place; there was a low coffee-table that hadn’t been there before and on it were several mugs that post-dated me.

‘Coffee?’ asked Amos, hovering awkwardly, unsure of how to treat me—was I a guest? An intruder?

‘That would be good.’

‘With or without milk?’ He blushed. ‘I mean, I know how you used to take it, but you might have changed.’

‘It’s OK. I haven’t. Not with how I take my coffee anyway.’

In the silence there was the sound of a lavatory being flushed, then a tap running.

‘I—um—I should have said.’

Muffled footsteps, and the door opened.

‘Hello, Bonnie.’ Sonia stood in the entrance wearing boxers and a black T-shirt with ‘Dyslexics Untie’ across the front. Her feet were bare, the nails painted deep red.

‘That’s my top,’ I said.

‘I’ll wash it and get it back to you.’ She smiled at me in a kindly fashion. For some reason I felt wrong-footed by the pair of them, horribly ill-at-ease in this place that had been my home until recently. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Good. Fine. Great. I’m collecting my stuff. Then I’ll be off.’

‘No hurry. Let’s have coffee and then I’ll leave you to it.’

‘I’m just going to get it,’ said Amos, and hurried into the little kitchen that adjoined the living room, half tripping in his eagerness to get away.

‘I didn’t know you’d be here.’

‘And I didn’t know you were coming. But it’s all right. Isn’t it?’

‘It’s weird.’

‘I know.’

‘And you and Amos—’ I stopped.

‘Yes?’

‘That’s weird too.’

‘You said it was fine.’

‘Fine, but weird.’

‘Right.’

‘I want to run away.’

‘I can see it’s odd, me being here with Amos and you coming on your own.’

‘It’s not that,’ I said, although of course it was. I felt at a perilous disadvantage.

‘You’ll find someone soon.’

‘I’m sorry?’

The door opened and Amos came in, carrying three mugs of coffee.

‘You’ll meet someone,’ said Sonia. She spoke quietly but she had a clear and carrying voice—she was one of those people whom you could hear in a crowded room.

My cheeks burned. I glared at her to shut her up but she didn’t seem to understand. Amos put the mugs carefully down on the coffee-table before giving me a sympathetic look. ‘It’s true,’ he said.

‘I don’t want to meet someone. I’m quite happy not meeting someone, thank you. It’s nice of you to be concerned, Amos, but I’m much happier being on my own, getting my sense of independence back.’ I couldn’t seem to shut up. ‘I’m having a lovely time. A great summer. I just want to take my things.’

‘I’ll have this, then pop out to get some food, shall I?’ Sonia said to Amos.

‘Yeah, that’d be best.’

‘Stay if you want. You can be our referee.’

‘That’s precisely what I don’t want to be, Bonnie.’ Sonia grinned.

‘I can see it might be difficult. That’s my picture, by the way.’ I pointed to the small black-and-white photograph of swans on a river.

‘I don’t think so,’ Amos said. ‘We bought it together, I clearly remember.’

‘We bought it together with my money.’

‘That’s not how I recall it.’

‘And I don’t think you ever liked it.’

‘Maybe not, but that’s hardly the point. Anyway, I’m coming round to it.’

Sonia sighed and stood up. ‘This is not a competition, Amos,’ she said evenly. He turned beetroot. ‘You don’t get to win or lose. You don’t like it, so don’t hang on to it.’ She lifted the photograph off the wall, dusted the glass with the edge of her shirt—my shirt—and put it into my hands. It was a demonstration to me. ‘Now, I’ll put some clothes on and be out of here. See you, Bonnie.’ She leaned down to where I was sitting on the edge of the sofa, put her hands on my tense shoulders and kissed me, first on one cheek, then the other. I breathed in her clean, soapy smell and felt the softness of her thick hair against my cheek. ‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘It’s OK.’

‘Yes.’ Her voice was firm, like a command. ‘It is.’

It was better after she had left because we could behave in a childish, petty manner without feeling ashamed of ourselves under her grown-up, considering gaze. I got the glass vase but he kept the wok that neither of us had ever used; I got the four champagne flutes that had been a moving-in present from a friend and he kept the shot glasses. I bartered the patchwork throw for the bathroom mats. We bickered over books, almost came to blows over a Crosby, Stills and Nash CD. It’s extraordinary what you accumulate. I had always thought of myself as someone who travelled light, yet an hour and a half later Sally’s car was stuffed with printer ink, DVDs, a pair of speakers, old copies of music magazines, scuffed walking-boots, sheets and pillowcases, a bean bag, a stool, several cushions, a stand-alone mirror, a cafetière and a chipped teapot, wind chimes, posters, lampshades, pot plants, plates, mugs, a large hammer, a small rusty saw,