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Back Afterlove
Chapters (86)
  1. Title Page
  2. CONTENTS
  3. Love
  4. Before
  5. One
  6. ONE
  7. Two
  8. TWO
  9. Three
  10. THREE
  11. Four
  12. FOUR
  13. Five
  14. FIVE
  15. Six
  16. SIX
  17. Seven
  18. SEVEN
  19. Eight
  20. EIGHT
  21. Nine
  22. NINE
  23. Ten
  24. TEN
  25. Eleven
  26. ELEVEN
  27. After
  28. One
  29. ONE
  30. Two
  31. TWO
  32. Three
  33. THREE
  34. Four
  35. FOUR
  36. Five
  37. FIVE
  38. Six
  39. SIX
  40. Seven
  41. SEVEN
  42. Eight
  43. EIGHT
  44. Nine
  45. NINE
  46. Ten
  47. TEN
  48. Eleven
  49. ELEVEN
  50. Twelve
  51. TWELVE
  52. Thirteen
  53. THIRTEEN
  54. Fourteen
  55. FOURTEEN
  56. Fifteen
  57. FIFTEEN
  58. Sixteen
  59. SIXTEEN
  60. Seventeen
  61. SEVENTEEN
  62. Eighteen
  63. EIGHTEEN
  64. Nineteen
  65. NINETEEN
  66. Twenty
  67. TWENTY
  68. Twenty-One
  69. TWENTY-ONE
  70. Twenty-Two
  71. TWENTY-TWO
  72. Twenty-Three
  73. TWENTY-THREE
  74. Twenty-Four
  75. TWENTY-FOUR
  76. Twenty-Five
  77. TWENTY-FIVE
  78. Twenty-Six
  79. TWENTY-SIX
  80. Twenty-Seven
  81. TWENTY-SEVEN
  82. Twenty-Eight
  83. TWENTY-EIGHT
  84. Eleven Months Later
  85. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  86. Copyright

She chuckles softly. ‘Unfortunately not. Everyone gets a one-hour slot. Well, not everyone. Today’s slots are already sold out. Thank goodness I had the foresight to book the tickets online the other night.’

‘Tickets?’ I panic. I didn’t know we needed to buy tickets. ‘How much were they?’

‘£17. Don’t worry, though.’ She waves her hand at me. ‘My parents are members so they were free.’

Seventeen pounds? Bloody hell. What an idiot. I should have checked that before we came. Can you imagine if her parents weren’t members and I had to buy one? Given I just used what was left of my birthday money to buy the train ticket, I now only have the tenner my mother gave me, which would only just cover half a ticket so we would have come all this way and not been able to see the exhibition.

Not that Poppy would have let that happen. She insists on paying for everything. She relents sometimes and lets me buy her the odd coffee but, for the most part, she pays before I can stop her. It used to make me super uncomfortable, like I was a charity case or something, but she’s deeply logical about it, pointing out that I’d be using my own money, while she’s using her father’s and he owes her. For what, I don’t know, but she always has a wicked look on her face when she taps her credit card to the card reader.

‘Come on,’ Poppy says with an eager smile, holding out her hand. ‘I want to show you something.’

I take it and let her lead me towards the other end of the Turbine Hall, which seems to be where everyone else is heading as well. There’s a crowd gathered and as we get closer, I realise that they’re looking at a massive iceberg that’s so high, it almost reaches the ceiling.

Poppy, tenacious as ever, manages to slip between everyone, bringing me with her, and we get to the front to find that the iceberg is sitting in a deep, round stone tub. I feel myself shiver as I look up at it, my lips parted. When I see my breath, I realise that the iceberg is real, steam coming off the sides so the peak is obscured. As I lean in closer, I can see tears of melting ice chasing one another down to settle in the tub beneath and ask, ‘What is this?’

Is it a sculpture? The ones I’ve seen in galleries or on the street are usually of solemn-looking men with strong jaws and long coats that are carved out of smooth cool stone or bronze that has weathered to the colour of maple syrup over the years. But it’s as though this is determined to be the opposite of that.

It almost feels alive.