‘Don’t be fucking obtuse. You’re not doing the piece on Kattan for either the Chronicle or Xavier bloody Smith, and that’s that.’

The slip-road to Heathrow was coming up.

‘Well, I’m not going to, you’re quite right. I’d decided not to already. But actually, I don’t think,’ carefully I indicated left, ‘I don’t think it’s up to you.’

James left to catch his plane without so much as a backwards glance, without giving me a kiss or even saying goodbye.

I sat outside the airport in the fumes and endless stream of vehicles, the airport I flew from at least once a month in the old days, and I put my head in my hands and cried.

I cried for my new confusion. I cried for my children and the inadequate mother I often felt I was, and my guilt at wanting other things, old things, like work and the buzz that used to be the career I had loved.

And most of all I cried with relief that my husband had gone.

When I pulled away from the airport, heading not for home but for London, so did another vehicle, tight on my wheels, though I didn’t know it at the time.

Chapter Nine
LONDON, MARCH 2008

I spotted her straight away, sitting in the corner of the small restaurant by the window, Jackie O sunglasses shading half her face, a slash of dark red lipstick across the voluptuous mouth, an expensive green coat, thick wool despite the spring sun, collar turned up against a world she found grievous.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t sure you would.’

‘I was very pleased to.’ I smiled at her, and ordered salami and cheese, olives and sparkling water. ‘Though I don’t think your dad would be. What would you like? Some wine?’

‘I’ve already ordered,’ she said. She crumbled bread from the basket incessantly as we spoke, the henna tattoos still intricate across her slim hands. On her left she wore a twisted diamond ring that flashed blue when the sunlight hit it.

‘Were you engaged?’ I was direct. From our phone call, I knew she was ready to talk, and she’d told me she wouldn’t have much time.

She shrugged. ‘I was about to be married,’ she said, loosening her coat. ‘For all that it matters now. Then my father found out.’ She removed her glasses, and I was shocked at how sore her eyes looked. ‘My father is a terrible bully, you know. He likes everything the way he believes it should be. He is a relic.’ She spat the last word. ‘He is so old-fashioned, he refuses to come into this century.’

The waiter bought a carafe of red wine and Maya poured herself a large glass and drank half of it in one go. Then she offered to pour me some.

‘Just a little, thanks. I don’t really drink these days.’