Mary’s gate was still hanging off its hinges as it had done for years. Her front garden was still a mess of weeds, and the broken pane of glass in the door was still held together with Scotch tape. Eleanor rang the bell, and Maisie answered, which meant Eleanor had to smile.
“Hi, Ellie.” Maisie smiled, her newly acquired teenage spots heartbreaking. “I didn’t know you were coming round.”
“I’m not. At least, I am, but nobody knew.”
“Mum!” Maisie shouted. “Ellie’s here.”
Mary came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands down her skirt, her hair hanging by her face in long strands, and Eleanor found herself thinking she should cut it, as if that would resolve something.
“Ellie, what a lovely surprise,” Mary said, stepping forward. “Is everything okay? You don’t look well.”
Eleanor found that something had lodged in her throat, so even though she opened her mouth, all she could do was cry. “Mimi,” Mary shouted up the stairs, “come here.”
There was a thud, and then Mimi was there, staring at Ellie along with her little sister, and Eleanor knew it was all wrong, she was doing it all wrong.
“Take Maisie and go and watch some telly or something,” Mary said. “Don’t come into the kitchen.” Then she took Eleanor by the elbow and led her through to the hot, steamy room that smelled of mince, and closed the door. “Sit down,” she instructed, and Eleanor did because otherwise she was going faint anyway. “Do you want anything?”
“Some wine. Or whiskey. Or anything.”
Mary opened the fridge. “Howard’s got a beer in here.”
“That’ll do.”
Mary handed her the cold black can and sat next to her. “What the hell’s happened, Els?”
She tried to think of a good way of saying what she knew, but there was none. “Nancy’s dead. The police seem to think she was murdered.” The beer tasted yeasty and reminded her why she didn’t like it, but at least it stopped her crying.
“What on earth do you mean?” Mary’s eyes were wide behind her glasses. She looked like a cartoon character.
“Oh my God, Mary, she’s dead.”
Mary sank into a chair and started crying in a way Eleanor wished she could, in a pure and complete way, with noise and tears and snot. Eleanor moved her chair closer and put her arms around her old friend, and they sat together while Mary heaved and moaned.
Eventually Mary’s tears subsided, and when she pulled away, her eyes were swollen, her cheeks blotchy. “But how? I mean why? When?”
“They found her really early this morning, on a path by the river in Hammersmith, right next to the bridge. She died from a large wound on the back of her head.”
Mary cupped her hand to her mouth as if she might be sick. “Oh my God. But I mean, who did it? Do they know why?”
“No.” Eleanor felt the weight of all the conversations she’d had that day.
“Was she raped?”
The question felt like a jolt. “God, I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, surely they’d have told us that.” Maybe they’d said something to Robert, and the thought churned her stomach.
“Was it a mugging that went wrong or something?”
“It could be. Her bag was next to her, but her cash and phone are missing.”
“Oh God, she can’t be dead over an iPhone.”
Eleanor took her friend’s hand. “Did you know she was having an affair?”
“No. My God, did she tell you?”
Eleanor thought it was always there in friendships, even this far down the line—that possibility of jealousy. “Yes, but I think only because she was desperate.”
“So they think he did it?”
“Yes, maybe. I saw Nancy last night, and she was going to meet him afterward. She’s been trying to end it for a couple of months, but he’s been making it very hard for her.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. She never told me.”
“How long have you known?”
“About a year.”
“Is that how long it’s been going on?”
“I don’t know. I think so, pretty much.”
Mary looked at her like everyone else had that day. A year of knowing that about one of your best friends, and you don’t get her to tell you who it is? What sort of friend does that make you? What sort of person? Eleanor felt like she might float away soon.
“She must have told you something.”
“She didn’t talk about it much. I know he was called David and she met him through work, but that hardly narrows it down.”
“God, poor Robert,” Mary said finally. “How is he? And Zara?”
“Terrible, as you’d expect.”
Mary’s face folded in on itself, and the tears came again. “Oh, I can’t bear to think about them.”
Eleanor gulped from the metal beer can again, forcing the thick liquid down her throat.
“I can’t get my head around any of it,” Mary said.
“Mary Mary Mary…” There was no pause between the words. They simply rolled down from upstairs and through the door of the kitchen.
“What’s Howard doing home?” Eleanor didn’t bother to keep the harshness out of her voice.
“He’s been here all day. Some sort of sick bug.”
Howard continued to bang on the door, repeating Mary’s name, and Eleanor watched her friend stand automatically. “For God’s sake tell him to shut up,” she said, so unlike herself that Mary paused on her way to the door and sat down again.
“You should have done that years ago,” said Eleanor.
“What?”
“Not answered him.”
Mary leaned forward onto the table, her greasy hair pooled across her arms. “Oh God, Ellie, not now, please. We’ve got to get through this first.”
* * *
In the end, Eleanor arrived home relatively early, just after half past eight, although she felt so ungrounded that time didn’t seem entirely real. She had found herself unable to stay at Mary’s, finding something grotesque about how, even in the depth of misery, Mary still had to pull herself together and consider other things. The full house made it impossible not to acknowledge that life was going to continue and much would stay the same. And Howard went on needing things that Mary provided too easily, in Eleanor’s opinion, although her friend was right, it was not the time to go back down that well-trodden path. Besides, Eleanor’s dislike of Howard was insignificant compared with her misery at what had happened to Nancy.
She had made her excuses and left, promising to call in the morning. But as she let herself into her house and stepped into the bland hallway she shared with her downstairs neighbor, Irena, she felt a crushing dread at the thought of going upstairs, opening her own front door, and being confronted with all the empty space in her flat. She’d seen the light on in Irena’s front room as she’d walked up the path, and she stood outside the door now, her hand raised, unsure whether to knock.
Eleanor’s flat was the top floor of a house that had once belonged entirely to Irena, who had lived there for more than fifty years, since she’d arrived from Poland with her new husband all that time ago, bringing up her children and creating a life. A life that had its own share of terrible losses and hardships—her parents had been murdered in the war, and she nursed her husband through a fatal illness when their two children were very young. It made Eleanor hesitate to impose her own sadness on the woman, but she was also desperate for her understanding.