Follow You Home by Mark Edwards Read Free Book Online Page B

nuclear bomb had detonated in my skull. The rest of the night would pass in a series of shifting hallucinations, some invented, some remembered, and I would try desperately to hold the door shut on my memories.
    Sometimes they snuck through, as if revealed by a camera flashing in the dark.
    Flash . My hand on the warped wooden door.
    Flash . A face as white as bone, twisted in torment.
    Flash . Laura, stumbling on the crooked staircase.
    I swallowed a mouthful of red wine. As it slipped down my throat I could see an image of my mum, shaking her head and saying, ‘This won’t do, will it, Daniel? This can’t go on.’
    I yelled and threw the glass across the room. It shattered against the fireplace, dark wine splattering the walls like blood-spray at a crime scene, glass splinters settling on the carpet.
    This can’t go on.
    As I got to my feet, knowing that I needed to clean up the wine and the glass, a terrible weariness seizing my limbs as I contemplated it, my mobile rang.
    The display read LAURA.
    Eagerly, I pressed ‘answer’ and said, ‘Hello?’
    ‘Daniel? Are you OK? You sound . . . weird.’
    ‘Yes. I just . . .’ I laughed. ‘I dropped a glass. Of orange juice.’
    ‘Oh. Do you want me to call back later?’
    ‘No! I mean, no, now’s fine. Now’s great. What’s up?’ It took all my acting skills to sound normal.
    Why was she hesitating? Was she about to tell me that she wanted to come home? Hope flared in my chest.
    ‘I’ve got something I need to tell you,’ she said.
    ‘What is it?’
    Her voice wobbled. ‘I need to tell you in person.’

Chapter Ten
    E rin and Rob Tranham lived in a house in a leafy back street of Camden, one of the most expensive parts of North London, an area where Laura and I had spent many weekends at the start of our relationship. We used to stay out drinking and dancing half the night before crashing at our friends’ place, then wander, hungover and dazed, through the crowds around the market before going home. Erin’s gran had bought the house for the price of a Starbucks venti latte in the sixties, signing it over to her granddaughter when she retired and moved to France.
    I rang the doorbell and wondered if I looked as horrible as I felt. I was on my third piece of chewing gum, trying to mask the smell of the Merlot I’d drunk at lunchtime.
    Rob opened the door and gestured for me to come in. He would deny it, but he did a double-take when he saw me, giving me time to note how fit and healthy he was, triceps pumped like he’d just been to the gym, and then Erin appeared. Chopsticks held her hair in place and she stood in that pose heavily pregnant women often adopt: one hand on her back. I stared at her enormous bump as Rob put a proud and protective arm around her.
    ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘It must be due soon.’
    ‘Yeah, Erin’s eight months gone. And it is a he ,’ she said. ‘We’re having a boy.’
    ‘A mini Rob. Congrats, mate.’ I shook Rob’s hand. He let go quickly, backing away.
    Erin was looking at me with either sympathy or pity. ‘Laura’s in the kitchen,’ she said. ‘Come through.’
    I knew where the kitchen was, had cooked dinner there, mixed cocktails and cracked open beers before nights out as a foursome. But Erin was acting like I was, if not a stranger, then merely an acquaintance. Someone she used to know.
    Maybe, I thought, that was true. Because she only knew the old me. Not this new version. I was the living embodiment of that expression: a shadow of his former self.
    ‘Hi, Daniel.’
    Laura sat at the solid oak table, clinging to a cup of tea like it was a lifebuoy. Seeing her sent a jolt through me. She was wearing a black jumper and her hair was tied back to expose her face. She was st ill Laura, still lovely. But these many weeks apart allowed me to see the changes in her. Like me, she was thinner, her face paler; there was a new translucent quality to her skin. Her cheekbones were visible,