Page 34 of The Love of My Afterlife
“Well, there hasn’t been anyone in rather a while but when there was, they were one after the other and they all looked the same.”
Cooper rolls his eyes and his dad chuckles.
“How was it that Em used to describe them?” his dad asks.
Amy laughs. “Like a rotation of Wednesday Addamses walking for Chanel.”
I laugh and think of the dark-haired woman in Cooper’s doorway. The description fits. “Who’s Em?”
Amy’s face crumples. She gives Cooper a wounded glance. “You haven’t told Delphie about Em?”
Cooper’s nostrils flare. He drains his glass of water as if it’s the prosecco he was offered but turned down on account of driving. “It’s fine,” I say to the table. “You absolutely don’t need to tell me anything! I’ve only known Cooper a few weeks after all.”
“Em is Cooper’s twin sister,” Malcolm says softly. “Was. She passed away in 2018.”
My heart sinks for Cooper. For all of them. “It sounds like she had a great sense of humour.”
“Oh, she did. She was absolutely crackers.” Amy’s eyes water slightly. “Smart as all heck too. Top of her class in grammar school just like her brother and then a full scholarship to Trinity College. This one here went to Oxford.” She thumbs at Cooper.
“As I’m sure he mentioned within two seconds of meeting you,” Lester adds.
“When I say I was a proud mother…” Amy raises her voice to drown out Lester.
Cooper went to grammar school and Oxford? That explains the blue-blooded tones of a man whose family is pure North London.
“I’m sorry you lost her,” I say directly to Cooper.
I’ve lost a few people over the years, but never anyone to death. I can’t begin to imagine how painful that would be.
“Thick as thieves, they were,” Malcom sighs, putting a hand on his son’s arm. “Em and Cooper, Cooper and Em.”
Cooper clears his throat, gently moving his arm away fromMalcolm’s touch. “Let’s not talk about Em,” he says brightly. “We’re here for you to meet Delphie.”
“Of course, you’re right, love. Delphie. Tell us all about you!” Amy rubs my shoulder. I flinch because I’m not used to people touching me. But flinching looks bonkers, so I style it out with a little shimmy.
Cooper’s eyes widen. He’s clearly nervous about me taking centre stage.
Screw him. I can be delightful. I set my jaw.
“I work at a pharmacy in West London. I love running in Kensington Gardens. I’m part of a club there in fact. I also like…” What else do delightful women do? I get a vision of period dramas in which all the women are trained to be cultured and well-rounded. It’s a stupid, outdated reference, but it’s all my mind can glom on to in the moment. “I read poetry and, um, often partake in…crochet?”
“You don’t sound so sure about that,” Lester grunts, his words already melting into one another.
Malcolm, though, seems delighted with my answer and leans forward, his chin in his hands.
“I adore poetry. Lester read Byron’s ‘She Walks in Beauty’ at mine and Amy’s wedding. Oh, do recite us something, won’t you, Delphie?”
Ah shit. Why did I say poetry? I know no poems. None. I’m going to be immediately outed as a fraud. Cooper was right to worry about me.
He clears his throat. “Ah, let’s not put Delphie on the spot!” he says faux cheerily.
“Delphie doesn’t mind!” Amy says, patting me again. “I too would love to hear a poem. It’s so romantic. A poetry reading in our living room!”
I can’t feel my face. I slurp down the rest of my prosecco and then in a state of acute panic stand up onto suddenly trembling legs. I take a deep breath.
A poem. A poem…Think of something that rhymes at least, for fuck’s sake, Delphie.
“Lo, back up now and give a woman room. The fuse is…alit and I’m about to go boom.”
