Strangers. Rosie Thomas

didn’t look round. She put an armful of clothes on hangers into the case and slammed it shut.

      ‘I’m leaving you,’ she said flatly. ‘I hate you. You disgust me.’

      ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid.’

      He had lifted himself up on to his elbows to look at her, and he felt his awkward heat, the frustrated redness of his face. His anger intensified. Cass put her feet into a pair of suede boots. She swept a clutter of things, keys and her chequebook and her precious Filofax, off the bedside table and into her bag.

      She went to the door and then, finally, turned back to look at him.

      ‘Goodbye, Steve,’ she said. She hadn’t been able to resist the final pose.

      ‘Where the hell are you going?’

      ‘Nowhere that concerns you.’

      His wife walked out, closing the door behind her.

      Steve lay motionless for a moment, and then he flung himself off the bed and went to the window. He tucked his shirt back into his trousers and opened the curtain. He saw Cass come out into the street and put her suitcase into her car. It was a little gold-coloured Renault 5, and Steve remembered that he had booked it in for a service later in the week. Cass revved the engine, backed the car up and then shot forwards. He stood at the window watching the street for a long time after the Renault had vanished.

      She’ll be back, he told himself. It won’t last more than a couple of days. But she had never come back.

      ‘I’ve never told anyone exactly what happened,’ Steve said. ‘I just said we’d split up. Out of shame, I suppose. But I’m telling you, now.’

      ‘I don’t think shame matters very much,’ the girl said quietly, ‘if you’re going to die.’

      Annie heard his quick movement, and then his breath catch as pain gripped him somewhere.

      ‘We aren’t going to die,’ he said. ‘Do you hear?’ And then, when there was no answer, ‘Say something, Annie. We aren’t going to die. They’ll dig us out of here. I know they will.’

      ‘They’ll dig us out,’ she echoed him, at last. They lay still, their hands clasped.

      Annie hated the quiet seeping around them. It seemed to be only a superficial quiet, masking all kind of noises, perhaps the first rumble of the avalanche that would bring the weight of rubble down to crush their precarious shelter.

      ‘Do you want her to come back?’ she asked quickly.

      ‘I don’t know. No, I don’t think so.’

      Not any more. He still saw Vicky, and one or two others just like her. He worked very hard – it was his own production company, and he had to – and when there was no Vicky or anyone else he came home to the empty flat.

      ‘You sound sorry for yourself.’

      Her words made him look into the blank darkness, wishing he could see her. He had had only the vaguest impression of her turning away from the counter and walking ahead of him towards the door. She had a pleasant, preoccupied face. Ordinary.

      ‘And you sound like a schoolmistress.’

      She did. There was a faint bossiness, a moral certainty. No, it wasn’t a schoolmistress – it was a mother, used to delivering crisp reprimands. Steve heard something that might almost have been a low, painful laugh.

      ‘Don’t you think it’s odd that we’re buried here, holding hands and insulting each other?’ the girl asked.

      His answering smile flickered automatically before the pain in his leg made him wince again.

      ‘I like the spirit, Annie,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s odd, down here, is it? Say what you like. Talk to me some more. Tell me, are you happily married?’

      What was the cold hand that had touched her, when she remembered the day in the garden? It came again now, tightening its hold, and she was already so cold. The shivering took hold of her and she went stiff, trying to stop it because it shook the pain deeper into her side, like a knife stabbing her.

      ‘Yes. Yes, we’re happy together. I am. I think Martin is.’ She could hear herself gabbling and she made herself talk more slowly, shaping the words in her mouth before she uttered them.

      Years, succeeding one another. Changing their texture a little, the colours fading from bright to dim, but all woven in the same, even way.

      ‘I’m just a housewife. I’ve got two children, boys, eight and three.’

      Oh, Thomas, Benjy, I love you so much. Don’t let me die here without seeing you.

      ‘My husband’s a designer, interiors. His company does shops, that kind of thing. I used to do similar work, before Tom was born. Now I look after the children and Martin, and the house. I’m happy doing it. You can’t imagine what it would be like, can you?’

      I know you now, Steve thought. I’ve seen you, all of you, in the park with your kids, or struggling to get off the tube with one in a buggy and the other hanging on to your coat.

      ‘Cass wanted to be like that, I think. For all her wild outfits and dotty behaviour. I think she really wanted to have dinner ready every evening at eight o’clock, get the holiday brochures in January and make plans for July, have a regular night out together every week.’

      ‘And you didn’t?

      ‘No, I didn’t. It was the routine of being married that I couldn’t bear.’

      ‘Like always going to Costa’s,’ Annie said.

      ‘I don’t always want dolmades. I like to see different things on the menu. I like to eat in different restaurants.’

      She listened carefully to the sound of his words, and felt his hand holding hers. His hand was large, and still quite warm. Annie felt suddenly irrationally angry. ‘I think you sound a bit of a pig.’

      Steve did laugh this time, a spluttering cough of laughter. ‘But I’m a pig who survives. And you’ll survive too, my love. I’ll make you.’

      Annie’s anger went away as quickly as it had come. Hearing his conviction, a man she had never seen, she believed him. It was important to believe, she understood that too.

      ‘How long have we been here?’ Her voice sounded childlike now. ‘How long will it be before they come?’

      ‘We might have been here an hour. Perhaps not even as long as that. Does your watch have hands?’

      ‘Hands?’ Annie could only think of their own, linked together.

      ‘Mine’s digital. But if yours has hands, and it isn’t broken, we should be able to feel the time. We can keep track, then. It will help.’

      He was practical, seemingly neither afraid nor disorientated. Annie closed her eyes. The pain in her head and her side made it difficult to think. All kinds of other impressions, memories that were more vivid than reality, came crowding in on her, but the simplest coherent thought slipped out of her grasp.

      With an effort she said, ‘My watch is on this arm.’ She lifted her hand a little in his. At once the warmth of his hand let go. She felt him reach for her wrist, searching for the watch strap. It was a tiny buckle, and she heard the effort that the little, fumbling movements cost him. At last the strap loosened and the watch slid off her wrist. It dropped through Steve’s fingers and there was a faint chink as it fell somewhere beneath their hands. It was as if a lifeline had been thrown at them, only to drift out of reach.

      Steve gathered his strength and hunched his shoulders, trying to edge sideways, reaching down another inch. With his fingertips he explored the rubble, to and fro, probing between the splintered wood and chunks of plaster.

      Annie was silent, waiting. Then, miraculously, Steve’s fingers found the leather