The Start of Us Read online

  The Start of Us

  HANNAH EMERY

  One More Chapter

  a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2020

  Copyright © Hannah Emery 2020

  Cover design by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2020

  Cover images © Shutterstock.com

  Hannah Emery asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008389017

  Ebook Edition © 2020 ISBN: 9780008389000

  Version: 2020-05-22

  Content notices: child bereavement.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue: 7th September 2017

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1: September 2013

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11: 7th September 1997

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  PART TWO

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  PART THREE

  Chapter 32: 7th September 2017

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48: 7th September 2017

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Epilogue: 7th September 2018

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Hannah Emery

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  For Hayley

  Prologue

  7th September 2017

  I’ve seen another version of me.

  I wonder what I’d be like, people sometimes think, if I hadn’t met that person when I did or missed that party or caught the train earlier or later or not at all. Who would I be if I’d refused that job instead of taken it, if I’d gone on the trip or if I’d stayed at home that day?

  I don’t have to wonder this, because I have seen the other me. I have watched her dart between different countries whilst I stayed in the same place, ignore the job that I took, laugh on the day I thought grief would rip me into a thousand pieces.

  And now, I am faced with a choice.

  I stand at the kitchen window and stare out at the wilderness of our garden. The leathery green leaves twist and thrash against one another. Some of them are already edged with the gold of autumn. The wind is cold even though it’s only September. It screams through the gap between the glass and the battered wooden pane and I sigh and flick on the radio beside me.

  The tension is still here in the room, hanging above me like a shimmering heat. The argument, yet another, looped around and around in tiresome knots.

  I close my eyes, and feel the other life calling me, promising me answers and a way out. I picture him in Luigi’s, waiting for me. We haven’t been in a long time, but I know where he’ll sit: at the third table on the right, next to the wall with the picture of Charlie Chaplin above him. He’ll face the door. He will sit fiddling with the cutlery, his jaw set with tension. If I don’t arrive, he will put his head in his hands, tufts of his hair escaping through his fingers. He will sigh, and stand, nodding a goodbye to the staff, explaining nothing.

  And after that I don’t know what he’ll do or what will happen, because I cannot imagine a life without him, a life where he hasn’t met me yet and hasn’t turned grey with sadness. But maybe that’s the whole problem. Maybe we are together too much and our shared pain has started to weather us both like the sea has weathered our house: splintering us, cracking the beautiful strength that we started out with.

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  September 2013

  When Mike picks me up for the engagement party, I am distracted and wrapped up in things that seem important at the time. That’s because I don’t know that everything is about to change, that time is about to be sliced into one of my many Befores and Afters.

  Mike drives us from my flat along the promenade and we don’t talk much. We never talk much in the car because he always has his music too loud, so that the thuds of the beat wash away our words. I rest my head on the window, staring out at the soft pale blue of the sky. I’m worried that I don’t know many people going to the party. I am a reluctant party-goer and leave Mike to it when I can, but he persuaded me to come to this one. That’s who Mike is. He makes me socialise with his hundreds of acquaintances and stay up late when I have work the next day. He makes me eat out too much and spend my money on things I don’t need instead of saving it. He makes it easy enough to be persuaded and easy enough to stand politely in his shadow. I suppose it’s one of the things I like about being with him: he takes over and lets me blend into whatever crowd he’s entertaining.

  But tonight, Mike is still unusually quiet as we get out of the car and enter the house. When I take off my boots, shards of heart-shaped confetti stick to my feet. I glance at the huge silver heart-shaped balloons that float around like extra guests and then look at Mike with a grimace. He nods quickly, awkwardly, and I wonder for a split second if his face is tense because he’s thinking of proposing to me soon, too. I laugh out loud at the thought, which is clearly ridiculous because it’s Mike, and then I realise I’ve probably downed the glass of Champagne that someone gave me at the front door far too quickly.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Mike asks me.

  ‘Oh, well I … nothing.’ A tall man I don’t know tops up my glass and I smile at him, say thank you, then take a sip. The man grins at me, then turns away and I look back at Mike.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I ask Mike. He’s always been the first one to do shots at parties. He’s the opposite of me: a party boy who is happy to have all eyes on him. He never wants to stop drinking or dancing. On the way, I braced myself for him to hurl himsel
f, on arrival, into amusing anecdotes and jokes at the light-hearted expense of other people. But there’s none of that tonight, just quiet nods in greeting to people he knows, small smiles instead of laughter.

  He shakes his head, hands thrust deep into his pockets.

  ‘I still don’t know why you brought the car,’ I tell him as he shrugs. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a drink?’

  ‘Mike!’ Kevin, the host of the party slurs in greeting, clapping Mike on the back. ‘Jaegerbombs later. Yeah?’

  Mike nods, but says nothing. Kevin carries on through to the kitchen, too preoccupied to notice or care that something is obviously wrong.

  ‘I wondered if you might be thinking of proposing,’ I admit, trying to do what Mike always does and lighten the mood with a joke. And it’s not just any joke; it’s our very own standing joke. All of our friends are doing this all of a sudden: throwing engagement parties and planning weddings and announcing Big Things with wide smiles and helium balloons. Mike and I are avoiding all of that, and it’s working for us.

  Or maybe it’s not.

  He pales and swallows, looks away.

  ‘Oh God, Mike? You’re not actually proposing, are you?’ I try to collect my panicked thoughts. I don’t want to get married. He knows that. And he doesn’t want to get married either. Or so I thought. I can’t hurt Mike. And that would hurt him beyond repair, wouldn’t it? Disregarding it as a joke? Saying no?

  I touch his shoulder gently and he stands up.

  ‘I can’t talk about it now,’ he says, his voice flat. ‘Not in here.’

  He looks at me, but his eyes don’t quite reach mine. I stand up, push my hair from my eyes, and take his hand. Is he ill? In debt? Why didn’t I know about this? I lead him upstairs to a bedroom that is painted a violent purple. The house is a maze: I don’t even know whose room it is, or if whomever it belongs to will mind us being in there, sitting on the matching purple duvet that hasn’t been made, but left in a wrinkled heap in the middle of the mattress.

  ‘Mike?’

  And then I see that it’s not what I thought at all. He hasn’t hidden a solitaire in his pocket, and he wasn’t anxious about proposing to me. It’s not illness or debt or anything that I can support him with by being the girl who always laughs at his jokes. It’s something else, and as I watch Mike’s face, and see his eyes redden, it dawns on me exactly what’s happening.

  As I realise it, he says it, and the pain is doubled.

  ‘I don’t want to be with you anymore, Erica.’

  The Champagne I had when I arrived, when things were normal and okay and I was just someone at a party, threatens to flow back up. I cover my mouth with my hand. A piece of heart confetti sticks to the edge of my palm, glistens.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve tried. I can’t.’

  And that’s it. Six words and it’s all over.

  He opens the door and noises from the party drift in. A silver balloon floats past the door.

  ‘You can’t leave me here,’ I say. I see him reach in his pocket for something. His car keys.

  ‘You knew! You knew you were going to leave the party earlier than me, and that’s why you drove! Why did you even bring me?’

  He shrugs. He’s pale and I know that he can’t want to do this to me. Yet here he is, still doing it. ‘I’m sorry, Erica.’

  ‘But we have to talk!’ I say. My voice doesn’t sound like mine and I’m vaguely aware that I need to reclaim it and sort out the pitch so that I don’t sound like someone who has no control. ‘Let’s go back to mine, and talk.’

  ‘I don’t want to, Erica.’

  ‘But I haven’t!’ We went on a weekend to London a few months ago. Did he know then? Does he have someone else? The dull thud of music from outside the room hurts my head and makes me feel dizzy. I lift a hand up to my temple, press it against my skin to try and numb the pain and the sensation that I might fall to the floor. ‘Why now?’

  He shrugs. ‘I’ve just had enough. We’ve had some good times. But we’re just too different.’

  ‘But that’s good!’ I say. ‘Opposites attract!’ But even as I’m saying it, I’m wondering if it’s really true.

  ‘Nah. You’re happy around here, talking about old stuff and the museum and things … And anyway, I’m moving,’ Mike says next, abruptly, his eyes still focusing on something beyond me. ‘Kath, from the Cardiff branch, has offered me a position there. It’s just cover for a few weeks. Then after that I’m going to go abroad for a bit,’ he says, doing a ridiculous gesture with his hand to illustrate his flight, his travel, his vanishing from my life. It distracts me, and I almost don’t notice the flicker in his eyes. But then I see it, and I realise why.

  Kath.

  Kath, the manager of the Cardiff branch of the bank where Mike works, who saved the day by doing long-term cover at the Blackpool branch last year, who always looked me up and down at Mike’s work parties and threw her immaculate head back with constant, too-loud laughter.

  I stare at him, at his blonde hair and the faintest acne scar on his forehead and the shadow of gold stubble on his jaw. I thought he was mine, but he’s not. The thought is sharp, but I am strangely numb to it.

  ‘So Kath doesn’t talk about old stuff? She doesn’t bore you like I do?’ I say, trying to sound cutting, like I have my act together, but my voice is thick with hurt.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘But you’re the one who took the museum job and stopped us travelling about. And I thought I could wait, but I can’t. I want to try something different right now, Erica. I’m fed up here. I’m bored.’

  ‘Bored? But my museum job is only for three months. And then after that, I—’

  ‘Well yeah,’ he interrupts, and I recall vaguely that him interrupting me is something that has irritated me before, but that it was a small irritation, and I never really properly registered it. Now it’s meaningless: a bubble floating before me and popping just as I reach out to touch it. ‘But then after that there will be another reason, won’t there? It’s fine. But it’s not for me. I want more, Erica. I literally cannot stay another second.’ He lowers his eyes and shifts away from me slightly as I try to take his hand. ‘Let me go.’

  And then he’s gone from the room, keys jangling, off to Cardiff and Kath and a world where he will talk about his ex and falling out of love and being too bored to stay for another second.

  The numbness in my mind spreads to my whole body, and I don’t follow him, or try to change his mind or make him stay. I sit on the bed, quite still, thinking about his words, unable to do anything with them other than hear them over and over again. And then after a few minutes, the numbness wears off. My tears are sudden and ugly, my breaths unable to keep up.

  I don’t know how long I’ve been in the room, crying in strange, gulping episodes, huddled against the purple duvet, when the door opens and someone comes in. It’s the man who topped up my glass when I first arrived. I take in how he looks: perhaps early thirties, tall, dark hair, black-rimmed glasses and wide straight teeth … He raises his eyebrows and suddenly self-aware, I put my hand up to my streaming nose.

  ‘Sorry. I just came up to see if I can find my coat. But I can come back in a minute,’ he offers.

  I wipe my throbbing eyes. ‘I don’t mind.’

  He stands by the door looking concerned. ‘Do you want a drink?’

  ‘Actually, some tissues would be really good.’

  He smiles and leaves the room, closing the door softly behind him before returning a few minutes later with a wad of toilet roll. He sits on the edge of the bed, drumming his hands on his knees.

  ‘I had no idea,’ I say. I should elaborate, but I don’t have the words or the energy.

  ‘I just saw the guy that you arrived with leave. Mike, is it? I’m guessing he’s not coming back?’

  I shake my head. ‘Why would he bring me here and do that?’

  ‘I’m really not sure,’ the man says, even though the answer lingers between us, unspoken. Mike is a c
oward and if he’d broken up with me at my flat, he would have had to talk about it and I would have shouted and clung to him and not let him out of the door. I would have talked about our plans to see the world together, and asked him to just wait for me to finish my three-month job at the museum. But he didn’t want me to do that.

  ‘He’s moving away,’ I say. ‘Cardiff and then travelling. I think he’s got someone else.’ I hear my own words and cringe at how open I’m being with this complete stranger. I’d never usually tell anyone something so personal. Maybe I’m a different version of myself now.

  The man shakes his head. ‘I’m so sorry. It was poor form, doing this at a party. So as cliched as it sounds, you’re probably better off without him.’

  I stare past him, trying to think, but every tangled thought leads back to Mike. I vaguely recognise a fear from my childhood snaking through my blood. Being alone and having nobody to hide behind. That’s how things will be again now. ‘I thought I’d always have him.’ My voice shakes so much that I’m surprised he can work out what I’ve said. It crosses my mind that having Mike was different to wanting him and that my words might be giving away more than I even thought I knew, but the man doesn’t seem to notice.

  He stands up and I think for a minute he’s going to leave the room, but he doesn’t. He just has an apparent inability to sit still for more than a few seconds at a time. ‘Well then, I suppose all you can do is find a different life to live. See what else there is, other than him.’

  I close my eyes. ‘We were going to travel together. Have adventures. Why couldn’t he just wait so that we could stick to our plan?’

  ‘You can still have a plan. Just not with him.’

  ‘You seem very sure.’ I sniff, then regret it because of the ugly sound it makes in front of this polite stranger. There’s something convincing about his words, and I wonder if he’s speaking from experience.

  ‘I am sure. I’m an architect. It’s my job to think about the bigger picture. Buildings, life, it’s all the same. Each tiny detail impacts on another and that sometimes causes real problems. You start off drawing one building, but then you find something out that changes a small detail on your plan. So the building has to change into something different. You can’t just carry on as though it hasn’t happened.’