AI Rory came downstairs because someone was singing badly, and because the floor of her flat had begun to vibrate beneath her chair.
It was a Thursday, not a night Silas usually tolerated singing. She had spent the afternoon delivering for the Golden Empress in a cold drizzle and had planned to eat her noodles in bed. Instead she set the carton on the counter, pulled on a jumper, and went down to tell him that either the singer had to stop or she would.
The voice broke off as she reached the bottom of the stairs. A handful of people applauded with the uncertain kindness reserved for accidents.
The Raven’s Nest was fuller than she had expected. Damp coats hung from the backs of chairs, and the windows had clouded around the edges. Silas stood behind the bar, polishing a glass. He caught her eye and lifted his chin toward a woman on a stool near the far end.
The woman had a hand over her mouth, laughing at herself. She wore a dark suit and a cream silk blouse, and her hair, which had once been a bright, badly maintained red, was now brown and cut short around her ears.
Rory recognized the laugh before she recognized Nia.
For a moment she stood in the doorway with her hand still on the rail. Seven years had given her plenty of time to imagine meeting Nia again. In some versions they embraced at once. In others Rory walked past without being seen . She had never imagined Nia in a silk blouse, with a leather briefcase standing upright beside her stool.
Nia lowered her hand. Her gaze passed over Rory, returned, and stayed.
“God,” she said.
Rory went to her. “That was you singing?”
“I’d had two glasses of wine.”
“I don’t think that’s a defence.”
“It is if you heard the first attempt.”
They hugged awkwardly, each reaching for the other at the wrong angle. Nia’s blouse was cool under Rory’s hands. She smelled faintly of rain and expensive soap.
Up close, Rory could see the pale line where a pair of earrings had stretched Nia’s lobes. She had worn enormous silver hoops at university, the sort that caught in her scarves and once, memorably, in the zipper of Rory’s coat. Rory had had to free her outside a lecture hall while Nia laughed hard enough to make the zipper jump.
“What are you doing here?” Rory asked.
“I had a meeting nearby. A few of us came for a drink afterwards.” Nia looked over her shoulder at a table where three people in suits were gathering their coats. “They’ve been trying to get me to sing all evening. I thought if I did it badly enough they’d leave me alone.”
“Did it work?”
“They’re leaving.”
One of the men waved. Nia raised a hand and said she would see him on Monday. He looked from her to Rory, smiled politely, and followed the others out. Cold air slipped in behind them, carrying a green reflection from the neon sign.
Rory took the stool beside Nia. Silas appeared with a clean glass in his hand.
“You know each other?” he asked.
“From Cardiff,” Nia said. “A very long time ago.”
Silas set down the glass. His silver signet ring clicked against it. “Can I get you something, Rory?”
She asked for sparkling water. Nia ordered another wine, then changed her mind and asked for the same. When Silas moved away, favoring his left leg slightly , Nia leaned toward Rory.
“Do you come here often?”
“I live upstairs.”
“You live above a bar?”
“It’s less glamorous than it sounds. Especially when someone starts singing.”
Nia smiled, and for an instant she looked enough like her younger self that Rory felt the years fall away. Then Nia reached for her briefcase and drew it closer, tucking the handle neatly against her knee.
They began with the questions people asked when there was too much ground to cover. Nia was living in Walthamstow. She had been in London for four years, though she still went back to Cardiff when she could. Her mother had retired. Her brother had two children and a dog that hated everyone but him.
“And you?” she asked. “Are your parents all right?”
“They’re all right. Mum’s still teaching. Dad still thinks every conversation is improved by an argument.”
“Some things survive anything.”
Rory told her about working deliveries for the Golden Empress. Nia asked if she was still doing law, and Rory said no.
“I left university,” she added. “You probably heard.”
“I heard you’d gone to London. I didn’t know about university.”
Nia said it plainly, without the careful sympathy Rory had come to expect when she mentioned leaving. Rory was grateful for that and a little disappointed too.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I qualified three years ago.” Nia smoothed the cuff of her blouse. “Commercial property.”
Rory looked at her.
“I know,” Nia said.
“At university you wanted to occupy the law library because they’d increased the printing charges.”
“And we won.”
“They lowered them by half a penny.”
“A victory is a victory.”
Rory remembered Nia standing on a chair in the student union, her red hair escaping from a knot, demanding that the vice-chancellor explain why the university needed another sculpture when the library roof leaked. She had spoken so fast she stumbled over her own words, but she had not got down until someone answered her.
“Commercial property,” Rory repeated.
“It pays well.”
“That never used to be the first thing you said about a job.”
“No.” Nia picked up her glass. “It wouldn’t have occurred to me that I’d need it to.”
The bubbles rose through Rory’s water. Behind the bar, Silas was speaking quietly to a customer whose back was turned to them. Old maps hung on the wall behind his head, their pale coastlines interrupted by the dark frames of photographs.
Nia had once borrowed twenty pounds from Rory and spent six of it on daffodils for a woman neither of them knew. The woman had been crying at the bus stop, and Nia had gone into the shop beside it, come back with the flowers, and put them in her lap. When the bus arrived, she had left Rory to pay her fare.
Rory had treasured the story for years. She could not tell whether Nia would be embarrassed by it now.
“How did you get into property?” she asked.
“I took the first training contract I was offered. Then I stayed.” Nia turned her glass by its base. “My dad got ill in my last year. He couldn’t work for a while, and Mum was trying to keep everything going on her salary. I wanted to help.”
“I didn’t know he’d been ill.”
“He died.”
Rory looked at her. “Nia, I’m sorry.”
“It was five years ago.”
“I’m still sorry.”
Nia nodded, but her eyes had dropped to the bar. Rory tried to remember what she had known then: a new number, a new flat, the frantic business of making herself difficult for Evan to find. There had been a stretch when she had not answered calls from anyone she did not recognize. Even now, she sometimes watched her phone ring until it stopped.
“I tried to get hold of you,” Nia said.
Rory’s hand tightened around her glass. “When?”
“After the funeral. I had your old number. I sent messages, and I emailed you at your university address.” She gave a small shrug . “I thought perhaps you didn’t want to hear from me.”
“I changed my number.”
“I know that now.”
“I’m sorry.” Rory could picture the old phone in her hand, the screen cracked at one corner. She had left it in a drawer in Cardiff for months, then asked her mother to dispose of it. “I wasn’t getting anything sent there.”
“I gathered.”
There was no accusation in Nia’s voice, which made it harder to answer. Rory had expected, if they ever met, to explain why she had vanished. She had not considered that Nia might need an explanation for one particular day.
“Did he suffer?” she asked.
Nia pressed her lips together. “Yes. At the end.”
Rory remembered Nia’s father in the kitchen, wearing a football shirt and frying onions while they tried to revise at the table. He had insisted on feeding them both and had given Rory the larger portion because, he said, she looked like someone who forgot lunch when she was worried . She could still hear the scrape of his spatula in the pan.
“I liked him very much,” she said.
“He liked you too.”
They sat for a while without speaking. At the other end of the bar, someone dropped a handful of coins. The sound scattered across the floor, followed by a curse and the scrape of a chair.
“I should have found another way to reach you,” Rory said.
“You didn’t know.”
“I could have asked someone how you were.”
Nia looked at her then. “Yes,” she said, not unkindly . “You could have.”
Rory accepted the answer. It was better than having it brushed away.
Silas came over to collect an empty bowl from the bar. He glanced between them, then asked Rory if she wanted her noodles heated. She had forgotten them upstairs.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll eat them later.”
He inclined his head and moved away.
Nia watched him go. “Is he your landlord?”
“Among other things.”
“That sounds mysterious.”
“He owns the bar.”
“Less mysterious.”
Rory smiled. Nia smiled back, but it faded quickly .
“I saw Evan once,” Nia said. “A couple of years after you left.”
Rory felt the familiar tightening under her ribs. “Where?”
“In Cardiff. Outside the station.” Nia paused. “He asked if I’d heard from you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I hadn’t.”
The bubbles had gone from Rory’s water. She took a sip anyway.
“He said you’d left without telling anyone why,” Nia went on. “He seemed upset. I didn’t know what to think.”
Rory looked at the little crescent scar on her left wrist, exposed where her sleeve had ridden up. It had nothing to do with Evan, but she rubbed it with her thumb.
“He could be convincing,” she said.
Nia waited.
Rory could have told her about the messages, the apologies, the way Evan had learned to make a locked door seem like her idea. She had told parts of it before, and each telling had left her with a different sense of what mattered. Tonight she was tired, and Nia’s hand lay open on the bar between their glasses.
“I was frightened of him,” Rory said.
Nia drew in a breath. “I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
“No. But I knew you were unhappy.” She closed her hand. “I asked once, and you said you were fine. Then I went on talking about my exams.”
“You had exams.”
“That isn’t much of an excuse.”
Rory remembered the conversation: Nia on the edge of her bed, one shoe off, eating crisps from the bag. Rory had wanted her to ask again and had been relieved when she did not.
“I would have said I was fine again,” Rory said.
“Probably.”
“And you had your own life.”
Nia gave a short laugh. “I did. I was very occupied with it.”
Rory could not tell her that she should have done more. She could not quite tell her she should have done less, either . The old ease between them had depended on an assumption that there would always be time to circle back.
Nia checked her watch and frowned. “I’ve got to get the last bit of work done tonight. There’s a call at nine.”
“On a Thursday night?”
“It’s with people in New York.”
Rory looked at the briefcase. “Very commercial property.”
“You’ve no idea.”
Nia opened it and took out her phone. Its case was plain black, the corners worn. She held it toward Rory.
“Can I have your number? The one you use now.”
Rory gave it to her. Nia typed carefully , then called it. Rory’s phone rang in her pocket with a muffled burst of music.
“There,” Nia said. “Now you have mine too.”
Rory saved it while Nia watched. The name looked strange on the screen without the old photograph beside it: Nia squinting into the sun, a stolen traffic cone balanced on her head.
“We could have lunch,” Nia said. “If you’d like.”
“Yes.”
“Next week?”
Rory hesitated, calculating her shifts, and saw Nia’s expression change. “Not because I don’t want to,” she said quickly . “I need to check when I’m working.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
Nia stood and put on her coat. Rory followed her to the door. Outside, the pavement shone beneath the streetlights. A bus passed at the end of the road, its windows bright with faces, then turned and disappeared.
Nia shifted the briefcase to her other hand. “I really did think you didn’t want to hear from me.”
“I know,” Rory said.
They hugged again. This time Nia held on longer, her cheek against Rory’s hair. Rory could feel the hard edge of the briefcase between their legs. She nearly asked about Nia’s father then—what music they had played at his funeral, whether her mother had kept the house—but Nia stepped back and pulled her coat closed.
“I’m glad you came downstairs,” she said.
“So am I.”
Rory watched her walk toward the corner, shoulders slightly hunched against the cold. Halfway there, Nia lifted a hand without turning around. Rory raised hers too, though Nia could not see it.
When she went back inside, Silas had put a lid over the carton of noodles and brought it down from the flat. It sat at her place at the bar, beside her glass.
“Thought you might want them,” he said.
She thanked him and sat down. The noodles had clumped together in the carton. She loosened them with a fork and ate a mouthful cold.
Her phone lay beside the glass. She opened her messages and found Nia’s new contact. For a moment she stared at the blank space, thinking of all the things she might have asked before Nia left. Then she typed, I remember your dad’s onions. He used to make enough for six people.
She read it once and sent it. Outside, the green sign flickered against the wet window. Rory ate another forkful while she waited.