Stonemouth

Ellie invited Grier to come and stay at hers, while she had to stick around, but Grier chose to remain at Hill House. Didn’t want Don to feel all the Murston women were abandoning him, she said.

I still wanted to talk to Grier properly, but she still didn’t want to talk to me, so we haven’t met up.

I spent one night in hospital, being observed, though the concussion, if I actually had any, seemed about as mild as it was possible to get. When I came back home, Mum insisted on putting a baby monitor on my bedside table for the first night. A baby monitor. So she could check I was still breathing. My dad looked embarrassed on behalf of all of us but refused to say he thought it was daft. In the end I indulged this piece of nonsense but it was a close-run thing.

I hadn’t told Al and Morven I was thinking about resigning; it all sort of depended on Ellie and I didn’t want to say anything until she’d made up her mind. And I couldn’t tell Ellie this or I’d be putting pressure on her, so I just had to wait.

I saw Ellie every day. I dropped into the centre where she worked and we went for drives and walks in the country. She came over to Mum and Dad’s, just to watch TV, and, after my first couple of nights at home, invited me to hers for another meal. She limped up the steps to her flat in the tower, refusing any help beyond me carrying the groceries.

We ended up sleeping together, but only sleeping, because she just needed to be held, nothing else.

The next night she said it might be the same, but then it wasn’t.

‘What now?’ she asked me, as we lay together in her bed.

I could just see her in the faint light coming from the hall through the open bedroom door. Her sheets were white, her body — lying there, both of us still too hot for sheets — looked dark, almost black against that paleness. Her hair described a dark fan across the pillow. A sheen of sweat by her collarbone reflected a little of the cool blue light spilling from the iPod dock on her bedside table, trembling with her still-quick pulse.

‘For us?’ I said.

‘Yeah, for us.’

‘What do you want?’

‘What do you want?’

‘I want you and me to be together.’

‘Married?’

‘Not married, unless that really matters to you.’

‘It doesn’t.’

‘Okay. Me neither. But back together. You and me. And I will be faithful. I swear to you, El. No more Jels, no more anybody else. Come and live with me.’

‘And be your love?’

‘And be my love, for ever.’

‘Till death do us part?’

‘Yes. So?’

‘Children?’

‘Eh? Oh, absolutely. Well?’

‘Absolutely yes or absolutely not?’

‘Absolutely whatever you want.’

‘Where would we live?’

‘Anywhere.’

‘London?’

‘If you like.’

‘London wouldn’t be my first choice.’

‘Okay, where would?’

‘I don’t know. Not here either. And not — everywhere; not all over the world, either.’

‘Well, I’m probably going to resign.’ I sighed.

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, really. I’m ashamed how easily I gave up the idea of being a struggling artist for the idea of having a proper job. I should at least try making a living from what I love. Or I might become an eco warrior or something. I think I’d be good climbing up trees and that sort of shit. Or I could just do something else that was actually worthwhile.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’m not stupid. Neither are you. Whatever we do we’ll be okay; we’ll always survive. We’d always be okay just as individuals but together we’ll be brilliant, unbeatable. Come on. You up for all this or not?’

‘Somewhere warm,’ she said, and reached out, stroking my chest, my shoulder. ‘Warm and sunny. Then…maybe.’

‘Only maybe?’

She was silent for a long time, still stroking, kneading my shoulder. Then she said, ‘Still sorting my feelings out. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry.’

And there we’ve kind of left it, over these last few days of recovery and stonewalling journalists and lots of quiet, sympathetic conversations with people and interviews with matter-of-fact police and a visit to a trauma counsellor.

We’ve been to the MacAvetts’, taken tea with Mike and Sue and with Jel, who is still quiet, closed off, hardly speaking. Needs the counselling, I guess. Ryan wasn’t there when we went. Still, it was all a bit awkward, and when Ellie and I left we drove up to Vatton and the forest car park and walked through the trees out onto the wide, stump-punctuated beach there, in a smir of rain carried on a damp, warm, westerly breeze. We both still enjoy walking on a big, wide-open beach. Not that traumatised, then.

Which is just as well, if we’re going to end up somewhere warm and sunny, I guess. I want to ask her again: are we okay? Will she come and live with me? Fuck, I’d come and live with her here, even though this is the last place on earth I want to live, for all its steely coastal beauty and sylvan rolling hills. But I don’t. I don’t ask her again, not while she thinks things through and decides how she feels.

We stay together, sleep together each night, catching up on five years of make-up sex.