‘That’s because you’re you. I’m pleased by this new jealous side of yours, but no, I’ve never been attracted to her – Holly?!’

‘Did you see the flashing lights?’

‘You’re overtired.’

‘Did you – did you put something in my water earlier?’

‘Of course not.’ I could hear him trying to temper his response, trying not to sound too furious. ‘You’re acting mad.’

‘Don’t call me that.’ I flung his arm off, sat up as fast as I could and stumbled out of bed towards the bathroom.

I didn’t make it to the sink. I’d barely stepped through the door before yesterday’s omelette and juice spattered onto the white tiles. I was bent over, my hands on my knees, shaking so much I wasn’t sure if it was me who was moving or the floor itself. Zac came from behind and wrapped his arms around me, as if I were in labour.

When I’d finished, when there was nothing left and I was so floppy and exhausted my head seemed too heavy for my own neck, he sat me on the edge of the bath, turned on the taps, and peeled the sticky clothes from my body. He got in with me, seeming to fear I would slide under the water and drown if he didn’t. Washing the sick from my hair and my skin, washing us both everywhere.

Now
The Visit

Two years and one month later

Bath, Friday, 5 April 2019

Eliza’s house is early Victorian, and sits low on a hill on one of the most expensive streets in the city. It has to be worth several million. There is a gravelled forecourt big enough for five cars, and black iron gates that are over two metres tall. I really need to find out where all this money comes from.

The gates are locked, so I push a button above an intercom. Eliza’s voice greets me as she buzzes me in and the gates swing open. I hate being captured on film. But cameras are what people who live in houses like this insist on, so there is no avoiding them.

I smile as I crunch across the gravel towards Eliza and the open front door. Alice is anaemic. Her doctor wants her on iron straightaway, but Eliza didn’t get the blood results until late yesterday, through a voicemail that was left while she was on her way to meet me at the pizza restaurant. She listened to the message in horror as we waited for our wine, so I offered to pick up the prescription and bring it over as soon as I could this morning. Anaemia is something I know about first-hand but don’t like to remember.

‘Do you have time for a coffee?’ she says.

Knowing that Zac is safely in Edinburgh, I say that I’d love one, then follow her into what appears to be a beautiful mausoleum. The floors are white marble, and the stairs, which go up and down and in all directions in a fair imitation of Hogwarts, are white marble too. Is there a danger of Alice falling? There are no stair gates.