‘Those are fruit, aren’t they?’

I laugh, closing my eyes and leaning my head against the back of the sofa. I’m feeling a little better, like the life’s coming back to my limbs, tingling in my toes and fingers as if I’ve just come in from the cold.

‘You know, Eileen, your cupboards are a state,’ Arnold says, coming back into the room with two large mugs of steaming tea. ‘There’s a tin of broad beans in there from 1994.’

‘Good year, 1994,’ I say, taking my mug.

Arnold smiles. ‘How was it, then? The big city?’ He looks at me shrewdly. ‘Did you find your one true love?’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘What? You didn’t bring a man back with you, then?’ He looks around as if checking the corners for Romeos.

‘You know I didn’t,’ I say, whacking his arm. ‘Though I did have a rather torrid love affair.’

He looks back at me very quickly. ‘Torrid?’

‘Well, I think so. I’ve never actually been very sure of what that means.’ I shrug. ‘An actor, from the West End. It was never going to last, but it was good fun.’

Arnold is looking very serious all of a sudden. I suppress a grin. I’ve missed winding Arnold up.

‘But it’s over now?’ he asks. ‘And there wasn’t anyone else?’

‘Well,’ I say coyly. ‘There was one other man. But I was only chatting to him online.’

Arnold sits up a little straighter and begins to smile. ‘Oh, aye?’ he says.

‘He’s lovely. A really sensitive man. His life hasn’t been easy, and he has his troubles, but he’s so kind and thoughtful.’

‘Sensitive, eh?’ Arnold says, raising his eyebrows.

‘He’s been reading Agatha Christie because he knows she’s my favourite author.’ I smile, thinking of Howard tucked up in his flat, coming to the end of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

‘Oh, he has, has he? How do you know that? Did someone dob him in?’ Arnold asks, still smiling.

I tilt my head at him. ‘He told me himself.’

Arnold’s smile wavers. ‘Eh?’ he says.

‘About the books. He lets me know when he finishes each one, and tells me when lines make him think of me, and …’

Arnold gets up so abruptly he spills tea down his shirt. ‘Bugger,’ he says, dabbing at it with his sleeve.

‘Don’t dab with that, you’re just making it worse!’ I say, moving to stand. ‘I’ll fetch you a—’

‘Don’t bother,’ he says gruffly. ‘I’d better be gone.’ He puts down the half-empty tea mug and strides out of the living room. A moment later I hear the front door slam.

Well. What on earth’s got into Arnold?

*

As soon as I have the energy, I get myself up and pull my shoes on and I walk rather more slowly than usual to Marian’s house. This is the loveliest part of coming home, knowing I’ll see her again. At least, I hope it’ll be lovely. A little part of me is afraid she might be doing worse, not better, and I’ll realise I shouldn’t have left Hamleigh after all.

She knows I’m home today, but when I give her a knock nobody answers the door. I swallow uneasily and try calling her, but she doesn’t answer. She’s probably just nipped out. I’ll see if she’s down at the village shop.

I turn away from Marian’s front door and then pause, looking down at the mobile phone in my hand. It’s not mine. It’s Leena’s. We were supposed to swap back once I got home, but then she left for London.

Of course, we told everyone we speak to regularly that we’d changed our phone numbers, but I know for a fact that Leena didn’t tell Ceci.

If Leena had proof that Ethan was being unfaithful to her … Surely then she’d believe me. And I could get proof. I just have to pretend to be Leena. Just for one little text message.

What I’m about to do is most certainly wrong. It’s meddling of the worst kind. But if I’ve learned anything these last two months, it’s that sometimes everyone’s better off if you speak up and step in.

Hello, Ceci. Ethan has told me everything. How could you?

33

Leena

The journey back to London feels hazy, as though my ears have popped and everything’s a little muffled. I find my way to my flat on autopilot; it’s only when I step into the building that I really connect with where I am. It’s all different. The whole downstairs space looks beautiful: exposed floorboards, a seating area, a dining table pushed to the back of the room. Grandma must have done this. There are bright, amateurish paintings stuck to the walls and a stack of bowls in one corner of the dining table; it seems lived-in, well loved.

Once I get to the flat, though, I forget all about the downstairs area. From the moment I open our door and smell that scent of home, all I can see is my life with Ethan. We cook in that kitchen, we curl up on that sofa, we kiss in this doorway, over and over, at the start and end of every evening we spend together. I can almost see him here, like the faint lines you leave in a notebook when you press down hard as you write.

He would never hurt me. He wouldn’t. I won’t believe it.

Fitz returns home half an hour later to find me sobbing on the floor, my back against the sofa. He’s at my side in an instant. He pulls me against his shoulder and I cry into his cashmere sweater and he doesn’t even tell me off for getting his dry-clean-only jumper all wet.

‘Everything’s a mess,’ I say between sobs.

Fitz kisses the top of my head. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Ethan … Grandma … He … She …’

‘I think I need some of the linking words here, Leena. I was always shit at Mad Libs.’

I can’t bring myself to tell him. There’s this one particular thing Grandma said that I’ve been hearing over and over, playing on a loop over the train announcements, the saxophonist in King’s Cross Station, the chatter of passers-by as I made my way here. He said you’ve been a different person.

I don’t believe Grandma. I trust Ethan. I love him, so much, he’s my happy place, my comfort blanket, he would never hurt me like that. He’s Ethan.

Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe if it’s true I can just forgive him and we can go back to how we were before. I’ve had a crush on Jackson, haven’t I? It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean I have to stop being Ethan’s Leena.

But even as I think it, I know I’m wrong. If Ethan’s — if he’s — with Ceci—

‘Jeez, Leena honey, stop, if you keep crying like this you’ll run out of water,’ Fitz says, pulling me in tighter against him. ‘Talk to me. What’s happened?’

‘I can’t talk about it,’ I manage. ‘I can’t. Please. Distract me.’

Fitz sighs. ‘No, Leena, don’t do that. Let’s talk about it, come on. Has Ethan done something bad?’

‘I can’t,’ I tell him, more firmly this time, pulling away. I wipe my face on my sleeve; my breath is coming in quiet gasps even now the tears are stopping, and I try to steady my breathing as best I can. ‘Is that my laptop?’ I say, spotting it on the coffee table under a heap of Martha’s old interior design magazines.