The Most Difficult Thing. Charlotte Philby
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words dried up after that. I briefly tried to speak, to fill the silence with the sounds she needed to hear. I wonder now how different things might have been if I had. But my throat clammed up. Instead, I led her to her bed and pulled the blankets around her neck, lying down beside her, my arms wrapped in hers, until her breath slowed into sleep.
Meg was standing by the counter when I emerged in the kitchen the following morning. She was facing the window, the glass streaked with rain.
‘I have to go.’ She did not look at me as I pulled a mug from a pile on the draining board.
‘OK, I’ll be off soon, too. I’m going into the office to catch up on a few things.’
Clarissa had assured me there was no need to work this weekend, but we had a big commercial pitch coming up and I knew she planned to go in and crack on – and I knew how much it would please her to see me there as she arrived, perched in front of my computer, notes neatly stretched across my desk. If I was going to climb the ladder the way I needed to, I had to show how keen I was, how much more I was capable of than endless admin.
‘I’m leaving London.’ Meg turned away from me, her voice matter-of-fact.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve been offered a job in Bristol.’
Finally, she turned back to face me, her skin bare, free of the heavy eyeliner she always applied within minutes of showering.
‘What? When?’ My eyes scoured her face for signs of something I could hold onto.
‘I can’t talk now. This flat, it’s—’
‘Bristol?’
‘You can stay on, if you can cover the rent on your own, or … It’s paid up until the end of the month. We’ll talk later. I’ve got to go.’
‘Meg, what the fuck? Where are you going?’
I followed her to the front door, willing her to turn around as she gripped the handrail, her free arm raised defensively as she reached the bottom of the stairs.
But I didn’t follow her. Instead, I went to the office, rather than waiting there in the flat for her return, making the effort she would have made to stop me from leaving, had the shoe been on the other foot. If I had, could I have saved us all?
Harry’s phone was off when I tried it at lunchtime, on my way to the noisy coffee shop where I ordered a salad box for Clarissa before heading back to the office. Again, I was met by the monotony of his answerphone as I wrestled with the front door later that evening, the smell of frying meat following me in from the kebab shop, my voice struggling to remain light.
‘Harry, it’s me, just seeing how you are. I’m at the office but I wondered what you were doing tonight, or tomorrow. Call me …’
I paused before I hung up, slipping the phone back into my pocket, darkness descending as I shut the door against the street.
Even before I reached the upstairs landing, something felt different. In the dark, fumbling for the light switch, my key turning quietly in the lock, I pushed the door open with a nervous hand.
‘Meg?’
Inside, the flat was still and instinctively I knew.
I called her name again, already knowing it was too late. Feeling it, the guillotine falling, severing the space between then and now.
It was October, that first year at university in Brighton, and a late burst of summer sun meant the city was awash with life: swarms of Italian tour groups smoking cigarettes in the grounds of the Pavilion; elderly couples walking in companionable silence along the shore, hands held behind their backs.
The beach had been a heaving mass of bodies by the time I arrived late that afternoon. Walking across the pebbles, I was aware of the glances from a group of guys sprawled out by my feet as I made my way towards the pub where we had arranged to meet. It was less than a month into our first term and Meg had suggested a group of us have afternoon drinks before heading to a drum’n’bass night at the club on the sea front.
Scared of getting it wrong, of being exposed for the fraud I was, I had spent the previous week watching the other students stumble along the path in front of my window, gathering hints about what to wear. In the end I had chosen denim cut-offs, a slick of pink lip gloss, hair pulled away from my face.
David’s skin was lightly tanned and his sandy-coloured hair shaven, self-consciously, into a low undercut on one side of his head.
‘So, what are your plans for Christmas?’ he asked that afternoon as we sat opposite each other outside the Fortune of War, the two of us the first to arrive.
I took a long sip of wine, watching his pupils dilate like two dark wells in the glare of the sun.
‘Not much. Studying. My dad’s still in Singapore, so I’ll stay with my aunt.’
‘You said your dad’s in the RAF?’
I smiled, taking a sip of my drink.
‘So where do you stay when you’re in the UK?’
‘I have an aunt, in Surrey. It’s dull but convenient.’
We were silent for a moment, him drawing lines with his finger on the sweat of his glass.
‘How about you?’
He looked up again, a flicker of embarrassment immediately succeeded by pride.
‘Maldives, probably. My dad has lots of international clients and that’s where they … It’s work for him, but you know, could be worse …’
My mind flicked to my parents’ dining room, the sound of my mother’s best cutlery scratching against our plates at the mahogany table laid for three – the empty chair filling every inch of the room.
I had nothing to say, but needed to push the conversation on, away from my life.
‘So you travel a lot?’
David shrugged. ‘We spend most of the summer between the South of France and Greece. My dad has a place on the edge of this island, in the Sporades.’ He looked at me, as if to ask if I had heard of them.
I took another sip of my drink, waiting for him to continue.
‘It’s a few islands along from Skiathos. Our one’s much smaller, though, low-key.’
‘Cool.’ I nodded, working to suppress my jealousy as a cube of ice slipped down the back of my throat.
By the time Meg arrived, followed by a stream of faces I didn’t recognise from campus, David had already bought three rounds, insisting he was closer to the bar whenever I made a half-hearted attempt to stand. The moon hovered precariously above the water as we made our way along the beach, hours later, towards Concorde 2.
‘Have you seen LCD Soundsystem live before?’ David asked, holding back as Meg and some of the others took off their shoes, screaming with laughter as they waded through the low waves, their voices drowned out by the thrashing beats as we approached the club.
The temperature had dropped dramatically and I felt ripples moving across my arms and legs as I pushed my hands into the pockets of my shorts. David at once started to unzip his hoodie.
‘Take this.’ His eyes worked hard to hold mine as I went to take the sweater. His mouth opened to speak but then Meg appeared, her wet clothes clinging to her skinny frame. Without saying anything, she laughed, tugging the hoodie from his fingers and wrapping it around her.
‘Jesus, Meg,’ the disapproval in my laughter was laced with