‘So did you enjoy last night?’ asked Elliot as they snaked through the quiet, leafy streets, turning left at Barnes Bridge station and taking the Thames towpath.
‘I had fun.’ She smiled, enjoying the warm sun on her face. ‘You’ve got a perfect house for parties.’
‘It’s why I bought it. I have to keep reminding myself that otherwise I might as well be living in a studio in Knightsbridge.’
‘I remember one of the reasons we bought our house in Wimbledon was because it was a great entertaining house. I mean, it’s tiny compared to your place, but it’s got this big kitchen diner and doors that open on to the garden. But we were there three years and never threw one party. It probably won’t ever happen now.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘I’m not really in the mood for parties.’
‘Could have fooled me last night,’ he smiled.
‘I needed cheering up. It’s probably why I drank so much of your posh whisky.’
‘No, that was my dad’s fault.’
There was a pause.
‘Is it amicable?’ said Elliot after a moment. ‘The divorce?’
‘How do you know about that?’
‘You told me you were separated. At lunch.’ He looked at her as if he had logged every single detail about her.
Abby felt her cheeks colour.
‘I’m trying not to think about it, but it’s hard. I’m just getting on with things, but every now and then, even when – especially when – I’m doing something really mundane like the supermarket shop or walking to work, I just stop and have this sense that things are not the same. That my life isn’t right. It feels like a magician has come along – you know, the ones you used to get on TV variety shows – and whipped off the tablecloth, leaving the plates and cutlery in place, leaving everything the same, but actually it’s all so very, very different.’
Elliot nodded. ‘It is strange. You have this intense relationship with another person. You share the detail of your life with them, you’re intimate with each other in every conceivable way, and then, boom, you never see them again. They’re gone but you can’t get rid of their imprint.’
‘Has it happened to you?’ she asked. His words seemed heartfelt, like an honest expression of an experience they had shared.
‘I was engaged a few years back,’ he shrugged. ‘And don’t look so surprised.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was stupid. I was unfaithful.’
‘Hmm,’ said Abby disapprovingly.
‘It was a few weeks before the wedding and I felt trapped. She didn’t forgive me. Moved back to Argentina. And I regret it. I regret my selfishness, which came back to bite me on the arse because I lost the person who really meant something to me. I would never do it again.’
‘Men,’ muttered Abby.
‘You told me about Nick, last night.’
‘He was unfaithful too.’
‘I know.’
She didn’t want to know what else she had told him last night, so instead she kept quiet and concentrated on the path.
They left Barnes behind and walked through Mortlake towards Kew. Sometimes the path was muddy and overgrown with dandelions and nettles, other times it was smooth and tarmacked. Although she only lived a few miles away, Abby had never done this walk before, and Elliot pointed out some places of interest along the way. The fi
nish point of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, the National Archives, and Oliver’s Island in the middle of the Thames, where rumour had it Cromwell once hid during the Civil War. She enjoyed his knowledge, liked the way he didn’t patronise her, but threw comments into the air as an equal and made her feel smart and interesting in the process.
‘I love London,’ sighed Abby as Kew Gardens came into view.