I spoke to Mr Traynor twice during that time. He was anxious to know Lily was well, had started to worry about what she was going to do with her life. ‘I mean, she’s plainly a bright girl. It’s not a good idea for her to drop out of school at sixteen. Do her parents not have anything to say about it?’
‘They don’t seem to speak very much.’
‘Should I have a word with them? Do you think she needs a university fund? I have to say, things are a tad tighter than they were since the divorce, but Will left a fair bit. So I thought that might be … an appropriate use for it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘It might be wise, though, for us not to mention anything to Della just now. I don’t want her getting the wrong idea.’
I resisted the urge to ask what the right idea might be.
‘Louisa, do you think you could persuade Lily to come back? I keep thinking about her. I’d like us to all try again. I know Della would love to get to know her better too.’
I remembered Della’s expression as we had tiptoed around each other in the kitchen, and wondered whether Mr Traynor was wilfully blind or just an eternal optimist.
‘I’ll try,’ I promised.
There is a peculiar sort of silence in a flat when you are on your own in a city on a hot summer weekend. I was on earlies, finished my shift at four, arrived home by five, exhausted, and was secretly grateful that, for a few brief hours, I had my home to myself. I showered, ate some toast, took a look online to see if there were any jobs that either paid more than the minimum wage or were not zero-hours contracts, then sat in the living room with all the windows open to encourage a breeze, listening to the sounds of the city filtering in on the warm air.
Most of the time, I was reasonably content with my life. I had been to enough group sessions now to know that it was important to be grateful for simple pleasures. I was healthy. I had my family again. I was working. If I hadn’t made peace with Will’s death, I did at least feel like I might be crawling out from under its shadow.
And yet.
On evenings like this, when the streets below were filled with couples strolling, and laughing people spilled out of pubs, already planning meals, nights out, trips to clubs, something ached inside me; something primal telling me that I was in the wrong place, that I was missing something.
These were the moments when I felt most left behind.
I tidied up a little, washed my uniform, and then, just as I was sinking into a kind of quiet melancholy, my buzzer went. I stood and picked up the entry-phone wearily, expecting a request for directions from a UPS driver, or some misdirected Hawaiian pizza, but instead I heard a man’s voice.
‘Louisa?’
‘Who is this?’ I said, though I knew immediately who it was.
‘Sam. Ambulance Sam. I was just passing on the way home from work, and I just … Well, you left in such a hurry the other night, I thought I’d make sure you were okay.’
‘A fortnight later? I could have been eaten by cats by now.’
‘I’m guessing you weren’t.’
‘I don’t have a cat.’ A short silence. ‘But I’m fine, Ambulance Sam. Thanks.’
‘Great … That’s good to hear.’
I shifted, so I could see him through the grainy black and white of the little entry video screen. He was wearing a biker jacket instead of his paramedic uniform, and had one hand resting against the wall, which he now removed, and turned to face the road. I saw him let out a breath, and that small motion prompted me to speak. ‘So … what are you up to?’
‘Not much. Trying and failing to chat someone up through an entry-phone, mostly.’
My laugh was too quick. Too loud. ‘I gave up on that ages ago,’ I said. ‘It makes buying them a drink really, really hard.’
I saw him laugh. I looked around at my silent flat. And I spoke before I could think: ‘Stay there. I’ll come down.’
I was going to bring my car, but when he held out a spare motorbike helmet, it seemed prissy to insist on my own transport. I stuffed my keys into my pocket and stood waiting for him to motion me aboard.
‘You’re a paramedic. And you ride a motorbike.’
‘I know. But, as vices go, she’s pretty much the only one I have left.’ He grinned wolfishly. Something inside me lurched unexpectedly. ‘You don’t feel safe with me?’
There was no appropriate answer to that question. I held his gaze and climbed onto the back. If he did anything dangerous he had the skills to patch me up again afterwards.
‘So what do I do?’ I said, as I pulled the helmet over my head. ‘I’ve never been on one of these before.’
‘Hold on to those handlebars on the seat, and just move with the bike. Don’t brace against me. If you’re not happy, tap me on the shoulder and I’ll stop.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘You any good at interior decorating?’
‘Hopeless. Why?’
He fired up the ignition. ‘I thought I’d show you my new house.’
And then we were in the traffic, weaving in and out of the cars and lorries, following signs to the motorway. I had to shut my eyes, press myself against his back and hope that he couldn’t hear me squeal.
We went out to the very edge of the city, a place where the gardens grew larger, then morphed into fields, and houses had names instead of numbers. We came through a village that wasn’t quite separate from the one before it, and Sam slowed the bike at a field gate and finally cut the engine, motioning for me to climb off. I removed the helmet, my heart still thumping in my ears, and tried to lift my sweaty hair from my head with fingers that were still stiff from gripping the pillion handlebars.