I’ll take Dominic up to Warchester, I think, metal basket cool and solid between my fingers. He needs a second source, and that’s the most obvious place to find one. No cameras, just us – a fishing trip, as Jemima always calls it. Except this time I’m the one doing the fishing, and I’ve got all the bait I could possibly need. He won’t be able to help himself but talk. I speed up round the aisles as I shove things into my basket. Jumbo bag of crisps … there. Salt and vinegar, always vinegar. Swiss rolls, plump with purple foil, beckon from a high shelf. I reach for one … no, two; resolve hardening with every step. He has to go back to where it all began, and so do I. Everything has been a lie: my new life, Kayleigh’s new start – how can I trust anyone on either side anymore? We both have to know what really happened. And I can’t carry on without knowing it all. Back to the fridges … Wait, where’s the cheese? I shiver as I rifle through neat bricks of Cheddar. Getting to the source doesn’t mean I have to pass it on. I can still decide. When all is said and done, I can still choose. Marie can choose. Carly’s the one that never could.

I turn a corner, reach for some milk. Just to cool my insides down when I’m done.

This is where Marie finally figured it all out, I remind myself, giddy as I join the line to the tills. This is where she first met Jemima, loopy with sleeplessness on the overnight shift, permanently suspended in the half-light between dusk and dawn, bringing order to her own chaos by buying the same thing, at the same time, night after night after night. I shuffle forward, hunching 185 behind the man in front, beer and smoke steaming off his overcoat. It’s always the same before closing time. Everyone mad with something – grief, booze, drugs, you name it – but just enough of us to all stay invisible. My face twitches, the small start of a smile, before the picture flashes up again.

I unload my supplies, shoving the empty basket under the belt before wrapping my arms around myself, the seeds of control returning, just with the promise of my basket.

It will work. It always does. Only once everything’s come up does it all finally go away.

Necessities in hand, I lift my face into the cool night air. I’ll do it at the flat, I think. Carly’s never there. She never was, after all. That place will always be Marie’s.

186

Carly ~ London ~ 2001