The Midnight Library. Matt Haig
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You seem happy here. Are we all as happy as you?’
The cat purred a possible affirmation and rubbed his head against Nora’s leg. She picked him up and went over to the bar. There was a row of craft beers on the pumps, stouts and ciders and pale ales and IPAs. Vicar’s Favourite. Lost and Found. Miss Marple. Sleeping Lemons. Broken Dream.
There was a charity tin on the bar for Butterfly Conservation.
She heard the sound of clinking glass. As if a dishwasher was being filled. Nora felt anxiety constrict her chest. A familiar sensation. Then a spindly twenty-something man in a baggy rugby top popped up from behind the bar, hardly giving any attention to Nora as he gathered the last remaining used glasses and put them in the dishwasher. He switched it on then pulled down his coat from a hook, put it on and took out some car keys.
‘Bye, Nora. I’ve done the chairs and wiped all the tables. Dishwasher’s on.’
‘Ah, thanks.’
‘Till Thursday.’
‘Yes,’ Nora said, feeling like a spy about to have her cover blown. ‘See you.’
A moment after the man left, she heard footsteps rising up from somewhere below, heading across the tiles she had just walked down, coming from the back of the pub. And then he was there.
He looked different.
The beard had gone, and there were more wrinkles around his eyes, dark circles. He had a nearly finished pint of dark beer in his hand. He still looked a bit like a TV vet, just a few more series down the line.
‘Dan,’ she said, as if he was something that needed identifying. Like a rabbit by the road. ‘I just want to say I am so proud of you. So proud of us.’
He looked at her, blankly. ‘Was just turning the chiller units off. Got to clean the lines tomorrow. We’ve left it a fortnight.’
Nora had no idea what he was talking about. She stroked the cat. ‘Right. Yes. Of course. The lines.’
Her husband – for in this life, that was who he was – looked around at all the tables and upside-down chairs. He was wearing a faded Jaws T-shirt. ‘Have Blake and Sophie gone home?’
Nora hesitated. She sensed he was talking about people who worked for them. The young man in the baggy rugby top was presumably Blake. There didn’t seem to be anyone else around.
‘Yes,’ she said, trying to sound natural despite the fundamental bizarreness of the circumstances. ‘I think they have. They were pretty on top of things.’
‘Cool.’
She remembered buying him the Jaws T-shirt on his twenty-sixth birthday. Ten years previously.
‘The answers tonight were something else. One of the teams – the one Pete and Jolie were on – thought Maradona painted the Sistine ceiling.’
Nora nodded and stroked Volts Number Two. As if she had any idea who on earth Pete and Jolie were.
‘To be fair, it was a tricky one tonight. Might take them from another website next time. I mean, who actually knows the name of the highest mountain in the Kara-whatsit range?’
‘Karakoram?’ Nora asked. ‘That would be K2.’
‘Well, obviously you know,’ he said, a little too abruptly. A little too tipsily. ‘It’s the kind of thing you would know. Because while most people were into rock music you were into actual rocks and stuff.’
‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I was literally in a band.’
A band, she remembered then, that Dan had hated her being in.
He laughed. She recognised the laugh, but didn’t entirely like it. She had forgotten how often during their relationship Dan’s humour hinged on other people, specifically Nora. When they’d been together, she had tried not to dwell on this aspect of his personality. He’d had so many other aspects – he had been so lovely to her mum when she was ill, and he could talk at ease about anything, he was so full of dreams about the future, he was attractive and easy to be around, and he was passionate about art and always stopped to chat to the homeless. He cared about the world. A person was like a city. You couldn’t let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole. There may be bits you don’t like, a few dodgy side streets and suburbs, but the good stuff makes it worthwhile.
He had listened to a lot of annoying podcasts that he thought Nora should listen to, and laughed in a way that grated on her, and gargled loudly with mouthwash. And yes, he hogged the duvet and could occasionally be arrogant in his opinions on art and film and music, but there was nothing overtly wrong with him. Well – now that she thought about it – he’d never been supportive of her music career, and had advised her that being in The Labyrinths and signing a music deal would be bad for her mental health, and that her brother was being a bit selfish. But at the time she had viewed that not so much as a red flag but a green one. Her thinking was: he cared, and it was nice to have someone who cared, who wasn’t bothered about fame and superficialities, and could help navigate the waters of life. And so when he had asked her to marry him, in the cocktail bar on the top floor of the Oxo Tower, she had agreed and maybe she had always been right to agree.
He stepped forward into the room, placed his pint down momentarily and was now on his phone, looking up better pub quiz questions.
She wondered how much he had drunk tonight. She wondered if the dream of owning a pub had really been a dream of drinking an endless supply of alcohol.
‘What is the name of a twenty-sided polygon?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nora lied, not wanting to risk a similar reaction to the one she’d received a moment ago.
He put the phone in his pocket.
‘We did well, though. They all drank loads tonight. Not bad for a Tuesday. Things are looking up. I mean, there’s something to tell the bank tomorrow. Maybe they’ll give us an extension on the loan . . .’
He stared at the beer in his glass, swilled it around a little, then downed it.
‘Though I’ve got to tell A.J. to change the lunch menu. No one in Littleworth wants to eat candied beetroot and broad bean salad and corn cakes. This isn’t pissing Fitzrovia. And I know they’re going down well, but I think those wines you chose aren’t worth it. Especially the Californian ones.’
‘Okay.’
He turned and looked behind him. ‘Where’s the board?’
‘What?’
‘The chalkboard. Thought you’d brought it in?’
So that was what she had been outside for.
‘No. No. I’m going to do it now.’
‘Thought I saw you go out.’
Nora smiled away her nerves. ‘Yes, well, I did. I had to . . . I was worried about our cat. Volts. Voltaire. I couldn’t find him so I went outside to look for him and then I found him, didn’t I?’
Dan was back behind the bar, pouring himself a scotch.
He seemed to sense she was judging him. ‘This is only my third. Fourth, maybe. It’s quiz night. You know I get nervous doing the compering. And it helps me be funny. And I was funny, don’t you reckon?’
‘Yes. Very funny. Total funniness.’
His face fell into a serious mode. ‘I saw you talking to Erin. What did she say?’
Nora wasn’t sure how best to answer this. ‘Oh, nothing much. The usual stuff. You know Erin.’
‘The usual stuff? I didn’t think you’d ever spoken to her before.’
‘I meant the usual stuff that people say. Not what Erin says. Usual people stuff . . .’
‘How’s