Nikki looked faintly uncomfortable, shifting in her chair. The pub was starting to fill up with lunch trade, people coming in for the five-pound curry deal. “Auntie Shanice wouldn’t believe it at first. Said that Mr. Ramsey must be talking out of his ass … Heather, suicide is difficult to understand. Your mum must have been very unhappy, troubled even, possibly for a very long time, and it’s possible that no one even knew she was suffering. Mental illness can be devastating like that.”

“Yeah. And I’d be the last person to know, wouldn’t I? It’s just …” Heather shrugged. “You remember my mum? I know you do. Never wanted a fuss, preferred everything to be as quiet as possible. It feels like such a gesture, like she was telling me something, or she wanted to, I don’t know, punish me maybe.” Seeing the look on Nikki’s face, she sighed. “I know, I sound like a bloody cliché. Refusing to accept what’s right in front of me because the truth is a little too uncomfortable. Making it all about me, for Christ sake. But I can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something. Did your aunt notice anything wrong with her? Recently, I mean?”

“Hev …” Nikki reached over and squeezed her hand briefly, and again Heather found she couldn’t look at her friend’s face. “Some things … Some things can’t be figured out, or reasoned away.”

Heather nodded, looking down at the sticky table top.

“Anyway, let’s not talk about this, shall we? It’s rubbish. How are you? It’s been a little while since we last did one of these random booze ups. What are you up to now? Still teaching, I assume?”

“I am, and I can tell from the face you make when I say that, that you’re horrified.” Nikki smiled and took a sip of her spritzer. “I’m teaching at a college now, which you would know if you ever paid attention to my Facebook updates. I’m covering the English and History departments. Are you still at the newspaper?’

Heather winced, then tried to hide it by eating several chips at once. “It didn’t work out. I’ve been freelancing for a while and it suits me better.” More bad memories. She downed the rest of her drink, and raised her eyebrows. “Another?”

They spent the rest of the afternoon in the pub, both switching to soft drinks when the edges of the room started to blur. At some point, one of them suggested getting food, and soon the table was crowded with plates, with smears and blobs of alarmingly bright yellow curry sauce and scattered bits of poppadum. They talked about school, dredging up all the old stories that must by tradition be dredged up at such times. Eventually, the evening crowd began to arrive, and they agreed that it was likely time to make their way home—spending all day in the pub was not, Nikki pointed out, a great look for a teacher.

“Suit yourself, professor.”