The Girl Before

“We had a brief affair,” he says at last. “It was over long before she died.”

“Was it…” I don’t know how to ask this. “Was it like this?”

He comes very close to me, holding my head in both hands, fixing me with his gaze. “Listen to me, Jane. Emma was a fascinating person,” he says gently. “But she’s in the past now. What’s happening right now, with us—this is perfect. We don’t need to talk about her again.”

—

Despite his words, there’s an itch of curiosity I can’t quite satisfy.

Because I know that when I know more about the women he’s loved, I’ll understand him better.

I will tunnel beneath the walls he’s erected around himself, the strange invisible labyrinth that keeps me at a distance.

Next morning, after he’s gone, I hunt out the card I found in Emma’s sleeping bag. CAROL YOUNSON. ACCREDITED PSYCHOTHERAPIST. There’s a website as well as a phone number. I’m about to look it up on my laptop when I recall what the man in my bedroom said. No one who lives in this house should expect privacy. You signed that away, remember?

I take my phone and walk to the extreme corner of the sitting room, where I pick up a faint trace of a neighbor’s unsecured Wi-Fi, just enough for me to connect to Carol Younson’s website. She has a diploma in something called integrative psychotherapy and her specialties are listed as post-traumatic stress, rape counseling, and bereavement.

I call the number.

“Hello,” I say when a woman answers. “I recently suffered a bereavement. I was wondering if I could come and see you about it.”

6. A person close to you confesses in confidence that they ran someone over while drunk. As a result they have given up drinking for good. Would you feel obliged to report it to the police?

? Report

? Don’t report

THEN: EMMA

Watching Edward getting ready to cook is like watching a surgeon preparing to operate, everything neatly laid out in its correct place before he even starts. Today he’s brought two lobsters, still alive, their big boxing-glove claws cuffed with cable ties. I ask for a job and am given a daikon, a heavy Japanese radish, to grate.

He’s cheerful tonight. I’m hoping it’s from being with me, but then he says he’s had some good news.

That speech I made at the AJ awards, Emma. Someone who heard it has asked us to submit designs for a competition.

Is it a big one?

Very. If we win, we’ll be building a whole new town. It’s a chance to do what I was talking about, to design more than just buildings. A new kind of community, perhaps.

A whole town like this? I say, looking at the stark minimalism of One Folgate Street.

Why not?

I just can’t believe most people would want to live like this, I say.

I don’t tell him that whenever he comes to the house I still frantically rush around pushing dirty clothes into cupboards, scraping half-eaten plates of food into the trash, and hiding magazines and newspapers under the sofa cushions.

You’re the proof it can work, he says. An ordinary person who’s been changed by architecture.

I’ve been changed by you, I say. And I don’t think even you can have sex with an entire town.

He’s brought some Japanese tea to go with the lobster. The leaves come in a tiny paper wrap, like an origami puzzle. From the Uji region, he says. The tea’s name is Gyokuro, which means “jewel dew.” I try to pronounce it and he corrects me several times before giving up in pretend disgust.

His reaction when I produce my art deco teapot, however, is anything but pretend.

What on earth is that? he says, frowning at it.

It was my birthday present from Simon. Don’t you like it?

I suppose it’ll do the job.

He leaves the tea to infuse while he deals with the lobsters. Taking a knife, he slips the blade under the armored helmets. Moments later there’s a cracking sound as he twists the heads away. The legs continue to twitch as he gets to work on the tails, slicing down each side. The meat slides out easily, a fat column of pale gristle. A few more movements and he’s removed the brown skin, rinsing the tails again under cold water before cutting them into sashimi. A dipping sauce made from lemon juice, soy, and rice vinegar is the final touch. The whole assembly only takes a few minutes.

We eat with chopsticks, then one thing leads to another and we end up in bed. I almost always come before him and tonight is no exception—by design, I suspect: Our lovemaking is as carefully thought out as everything else he does.

I wonder what would happen if I could make him lose control, what revelations or hidden truths lie beyond this rigid self-restraint. One day, I decide, I’ll find out.

Afterward, as I’m drifting off, I hear him murmur, You’re mine now, Emma. You know that, don’t you? Mine.

Mmmm, I say sleepily. Yours.

—