Her by Harriet Lane Page B

Henry on the step, ‘He seemed quite happy, he wasn’t distressed at all.’
    Hearing his name, Christopher has cocked his head. ‘Do you remember, Christopher?’ Nina asks, ‘Do you remember, that afternoon you came here?’ and I hold my breath, not sure what I hope.
    ‘Jelly snakes,’ he says. ‘You said you had purple jelly snakes. But you didn’t.’
    Nina laughs, tickled by the detail. ‘You’re quite right,’ she says. ‘I didn’t.’
    ‘And,’ he adds, ‘you said to leave the scooter. You put it in the trees.’
    ‘Scooter?’ she says. ‘In the trees ? I don’t think you had a scooter, did you? I don’t remember that. Maybe it was someone else. But I do remember the jelly snakes.’ She tears a flatbread in two, reaches for the aubergine. ‘I wanted to get him into the house,’ she says to me. ‘It was getting cold, I had to ring the police. So I promised him jelly snakes and lured him indoors. What did I give you in the end?’
    ‘Smarties,’ he says. ‘A whole packet!’
    ‘Lucky,’ I say, and he wriggles in his seat, asking to get down. ‘Can we go to the swings?’ he asks.
    ‘Not now. Maybe when I’m finished,’ I say, my fork poised, but Sophie pushes back her plate and says, ‘Oh, I could take him, if you like. Just for half an hour or so?’
    ‘Really?’ I say, unsure if she means it, unsure if Christopher will agree; but he does.
    The offer is made so casually, it’s barely even a kindness. And yet at this moment, at this point in my life, there’s nothing more appealing than being excused some of the endless responsibility. Five minutes, half an hour of not being in charge: it’s hard to explain how wonderful this can be.
    I guess I wouldn’t mind being alone with Nina, so cool, so together, so inexplicably interested in me. Just for a bit.
    Once Sophie and Christopher have left the house with their cupcakes, I let Nina top up my glass. I never touch alcohol at lunchtime. I drink and experience that pleasant slippage, the exuberant, dangerous sense that in ten minutes, or twenty, I might say almost anything.
    As women must, we talk a little about partners: I tell her about Ben, TV, the gloom of the freelancing landscape, and I hint at the gnawing anxieties that accompany the drying-up of my earnings; and she says things aren’t great for Charles and herself either, though I sense she’s being tactful. This house and its location on this particular street don’t suggest financial insecurity. Anyway, it is somehow obvious that she makes, or has, her own money.
    Out in the garden – as orderly and disciplined as the study – the sun comes and goes behind thin whipping clouds. The stone bench shines and darkens and shines again. Henry picks his way over the lawn, and vanishes into the shrubbery. There’s a patter of applause from the radio as the lunchtime concert comes to an end.
    ‘How was your show?’ I say.
    ‘I thought you were going to come to the opening,’ Nina says, reminded of some old half-forgotten surprise. ‘I told Marnie at the gallery to send you an invite. Didn’t it get to you? God, she’s hopeless . . . or maybe I got the address wrong. It went pretty well, thanks. I sold a few. That always helps.’
    ‘I’d love to see your work,’ I say. ‘I’ve googled you, I couldn’t find anything. I was thinking you must work under your maiden name, is that right?’
    ‘No – I use Nina Setting. My first husband’s surname, Sophie’s father. We were very young, I was just starting out. One of those rash idealistic decisions you come to regret quite quickly.’
    I’m not sure if she means the marriage, or taking his name, or both, but it’s too soon to ask that sort of question.
    ‘That’s one of mine,’ she says, collecting plates and nodding at the canvas over the fireplace. I pick up my glass and walk down the room towards it. I’m anticipating the same blank nonplussed sensation that I experienced when I looked at her husband’s