‘Look at you,’ he said, and he took her face in his hands, tipping it up towards his so that he could kiss her, very softly, on the mouth, a careful, tender placing of lips on lips. ‘There,’ he said, and drew away to look at her, but she pressed close to him, so close that their bodies connected, and she reached for the back of his head, pulled it towards her until they were kissing again; then, when it ended, she rested her head against his shoulder and inhaled the smell of his warm skin, and he wrapped his arms around her, and there they stood for a while, like survivors, happy just to be alive.

22

ADELAIDE,
3 FEBRUARY 2013

There was a table in the corner, away from the crush of drinkers. Ali was well known in this pub, she’d been here many a time, and yet she’d stood at the bar and kissed Dan Lawrence as if they had the place to themselves. She scanned the crowd while the barman fetched her a bottle of Shiraz and two glasses, but there were no familiar faces, no shocked or reproachful stares, only the young barman, who winked at her in a cocky, presumptuous way, but she stared him down, then crossed the room to where Dan was waiting, and he said, ‘You look so fucking beautiful, more beautiful than you have any right to look.’

Ali said nothing, just sat down next to him and looked him over for a while, taking him in.

‘You’re the same,’ she said. ‘Older, obviously, as am I, but you wear it well. I’d have known you anywhere.’

‘But you’re an Aussie,’ he said. ‘Your accent – it’s like listening to Kylie.’

She laughed, poured the wine, raised a glass. ‘Cheers, Daniel,’ she said.

‘Cheers, Alison.’

They drank, their eyes locked.

‘You came to Adelaide,’ she said. ‘That’s probably the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.’

He grinned and said, ‘Well, look, I was already in Hong Kong for work, so …’ and Ali laughed.

‘What would you have done if I hadn’t been here?’ she asked.

He reached out to gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, a gesture of ordinary intimacy that made her momentarily sad for all those many other moments they hadn’t had. ‘I knew you would be,’ he said. ‘Knew it in my bones.’

‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said.

‘You too.’

‘But this is sheer madness, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘And no.’

She was sitting in the Exeter with Daniel Lawrence, her first love, the boy who’d known her when she was Alison Connor, her uptown boy from Nether Edge with the Sheffield Wednesday season ticket, the lovely family and a penchant for mix tapes, and this fact, in all its miraculous simplicity, suddenly hit her like a breaker, left her winded and a little disorientated.

‘Alison?’ he said. ‘You OK?’