‘She said.’

‘So it’s still a thing? You two? You’re together?’

He shrugs. ‘At least Helen likes me,’ he says.

Maddy stares at him, her eyes filling with tears. Because with this irrefutable truth, he’s won the argument.

33

The Nightingale

Helga pauses in the bathroom, her heart leaping as she hears it.

It’s back. The nightingale has returned.

He usually comes in April and stays until June, if she’s lucky. She pulls the light string to switch off the overhead light, then pushes the window sash up, but it’ll only budge a little way. She kneels down, so that she can lean on her forearms.

There’s a tiny yard at the back of her cottage, the back wall of which is covered in an overgrown tangle of plants, half a metre thick. Despite being an ‘eyesore’, according to the neighbours, Helga preserves the brown branches and thorns, so that the little reclusive bird can nest down in its impenetrable depths.

This sound was the only thing she ever really missed when she’d been at sea, and the only thing worth being on land for. She can hear the nightingale, but she can’t yet see the little bird, although, to be honest, a nightingale is not much to look at. No bigger than a robin and without a red breast, it’s just a plain little brown bird, but its song announces its presence to the world in the most astonishing acrobatics. The nightingale is living proof that you should never judge anything by appearances only.

She closes her eyes, listening to the rippling, trilling whistles, astonished by the range of his tone. There’s a good reason why the little bird has been celebrated in song and literature for centuries.

The cool dawn air is chilly and she opens her eyes as other birds join in the dawn chorus in the pink sky. She can identify a chaffinch, a blackbird and maybe a lark, she thinks, but her knees are hurting from kneeling on the tiles. Behind the hedge, she can see a tiny line of blue sea between the buildings and she wonders how long it’ll be before she can put out a message for the others to join her for a swim. This damn insomnia is driving her to distraction. She doesn’t know why she can’t sleep, only that her heart beats fitfully, like she’s been running, even when she’s resting, her mind worrying over the knots of the past and the tangle of the future. Hopefully, once she’s swum, she’ll be able to have a snooze.

She gets up too fast, the action making her feel dizzy, and she curses, holding on to the window frame. The same thing happened at Will’s house when she got up too fast. What would happen if she fell backwards and smashed her head on the bath? Who would find her?

Downstairs, there’s a big brown envelope on her mat along with a smaller airmail packet. She opens the envelope and inside is a child’s drawing of a boat. The latest one from Josh. Helga smiles and puts the drawing on her fridge with one of the magnets along with a few of the others he’s done for her. The one good deed she did keeps on giving, she thinks, touched that the little boy wants to impress her. Or maybe the pictures are payment for her not complaining about the screaming newborn. Who knows? She stands back to admire the yacht he’s drawn, hoping she’s inspired the little boy to take to the sea one day.