62.
Number 62. St Mary’s something in Upper Harringdon.
Immediately I am opening the taxi app on my phone. Summoning a cab. Momentarily I think about slipping back inside the pub to tell Nell and Josh where I am going but they would only insist on coming with me. But whatever is waiting is the last new thing I will ever find out about my husband and I want to be alone. Besides, I can’t face an endless round of goodbye hugs, of sympathetic smiles and tear-filled eyes, not to mention the ‘if there’s anything you need’.
This.
Going to Upper Harringdon is what I need.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Anna
During the journey to Upper Harringdon, I deliberate over what I might find waiting for me. A shop? But it’s a long way to come to buy something you could probably get online. A pub? A restaurant? Adam loved to eat. To try new places. Perhaps he was jotting down a recommendation. My mind veers from the mundane to the unimaginable. Adam had a secret girlfriend. A secret family. Children he’d never told me about. I dismiss this but the thought keeps creeping back in. What if I’m about to come face to face with his other woman? A part of me, a large part, thinks this notion is ridiculous. I knew Adam better than anyone and he would never cheat on me, but then I feel Ross’s lips on mine. I remember I contemplated leaving Adam more than once. There are things he never knew about me. Can we every really properly know what goes on in someone else’s head? What secrets they carry?
The last thought, as we pull into Upper Harringdon, is that I might find an empty building. Nothing at all. This would be the hardest to bear.
‘This is St Mary’s Street, but there’s a St Mary’s Road, do you want me—’
‘No.’ I shove too much money at the cab driver and stumble out of the car. I need to find out the truth and put an end to my black thoughts once and for all.
Speculation is dangerous. I need cold, hard facts.
Rain pours down the collar of my blouse. I run the length of the road. Lungs burning. Disappointment bitter in my mouth. The highest-numbered building is 48.
There is no 62 St Mary’s Street.
Google Maps tells me that St Mary’s Road is a five-minute walk in the opposite direction. I spin around, skid on the wet pavement and a sharp pain circles my ankle as the heel on my shoe snaps. I fall forwards onto the hard concrete, slamming hard onto my knees. My tights are torn, my skin grazed and bloodied. I wrench off my shoes, and carry them in my hand as I limp. Hair plastered to my face with rain. I am freezing cold, and frustrated tears are not far away but I try to keep them inside. I can imagine my mascara streaking down my cheeks. In the unlikely event I am about to come face to face with Adam’s secret girlfriend, she will only need one quick glance to wonder what he ever saw in me.
By the time I find St Mary’s Road I am soaked to the bone. These are all three-storey Victorian homes, most of them converted to businesses. I pass a dentist. A solicitor. An optician. I hobble slowly, checking the numbers carefully. Number 62 doesn’t have a bronze plaque outside and I wonder whether it’s a family home. Blinds shield the windows.
This is it.
My ankle and knees sting. I climb the six steps before I am standing in front of an imposing black door with a silver lion’s-head knocker.
Before I can change my mind, I rap three times.
It seems an age before I hear heels click-click-clicking down the hallway.
The door cracks open. ‘Yes?’ The woman before me is probably around my age. Pretty in her vintage A-line polka-dot dress, her dark brown up-do and deep red lipstick. Her eyes sweep from my hair, dripping with rain, to my torn tights, the blood running down my leg.
‘I’m here for…’ I falter. What am I here for? ‘Adam. Adam Curtis.’ I study her carefully. There isn’t a flicker of recognition on her face when I speak his name. ‘There’s no one here called Adam.’
‘This building? What is it? What happens here?’
‘Do you have an appointment?’
‘I…’ I think about saying yes but know I’ll be caught out right away.
‘No.’
‘Then I can’t help you.’ She begins to close the door.
‘Please.’ I step forward, my foot over the threshold preventing the door from closing. ‘Please. I…’ I don’t know what I can say. What I should say. It sounds crazy. It is crazy but Adam wanted me to come here, I know it. ‘My husband. Adam. He’s…’ I try to stop myself from crying but I can’t. Wiping furiously at my cheeks while I try to steady my voice. ‘My husband died. We buried him… today. I’ve just come from the wake.’ Her face softens. The pressure against my foot eases as she stops pushing the door towards me.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
‘I… it’s hard to explain all of it but Adam, he… he wrote down this address on a piece of paper and left it for me to find. It was the last thing he wrote.’ I have fished a tissue from my pocket and am dabbing at the tears that won’t stop falling. ‘There’s something here that Adam needed me to see, or someone he wanted me to meet. Please…’
‘It’s against the rules to let anyone in without an appointment,’ she says, but she doesn’t ask me to leave. I can feel her wavering.
‘Look.’ I rummage in my bag for my phone. I hold it up. My screensaver photo is of our wedding day. ‘This is Adam… was Adam. I have to know why he wrote this address. I have to.’
‘I don’t know—’
‘Please. I’ve lost my husband. My son.’
‘Your son?’
Her eyes meet mine. I see pity. Indecision and something else. An understanding. She has lost too; I can sense it.
After a moment, she nods. Pulls the door open wide. ‘I’m Nancy. You’d better come inside.’
Chapter Eighty
Anna
My stomach jitters with nerves. I step into the hallway of 62 St Mary’s Road. I have no idea what I’m walking into. I stamp my feet on the doormat, trying to dislodge the raindrops that cling to my skin, my clothes. I can sense that I am being watched. Nancy must have some idea of why I’m here. When I’m as dry as I can be, I raise my face to see her eyes are still filled with sympathy. For a split second I think about running away, unsure if I’m strong enough to cope with what she might reveal.
‘Come on through.’ Nancy leads the way into a small room to our left and gestures for me to sit on a dark wooden chair. I perch on the edge of the seat, not wanting my wet skirt to dampen the deep green velvet cushion. She pulls out a chair from behind the impossibly shiny desk and sits opposite me. Waiting for her to speak, I lick my dry lips, tasting the furniture polish that lingers in the air.
‘Can I fetch you a hot drink?’ she says. ‘You look freezing.’
I am torn between demanding answers and wanting to delay them.
‘Please.’
Rather than leaving the room, she crosses to the short bookcase under the window where there’s a kettle. She flicks it on. I look around for some sort of indication of what this room, what this building is. There’s nothing other than a gold cross on the wall. Neither of us talk while she spoons coffee into mugs and splashes on boiling water.