Being Henry Applebee. Celia Reynolds

fine,’ he replied to the room at large. ‘Fine, that is, aside from the fact I’m sitting here, in my living room, talking to you.’

      He stared into the flat, empty space ahead of him and beamed.

      Following up his Wyedean article with a notebook of ‘recollections’ (memoirs seemed too worthy a concept, too weighty, too proud) had been the result of an overwhelming urge to continue writing, only this time Henry was determined to do it for himself alone – no expectations, no limitations, no holds barred. What he hadn’t bargained on was the way the focused bursts of concentrated silence gave rise to many strange and wonderful occurrences, not least of all these fleeting, otherworldly conversations with Devlin, two years gone.

      Occasionally, like today, Henry answered him out loud, but he didn’t like to make a habit of it in case he forgot himself and did it in public. Next thing you knew, if anyone saw him chuckling or talking to his dead brother while he was queuing for his pension at the post office, they’d be carting him off to the funny farm.

      ‘I’m going away,’ Henry ventured with a faint whiff of heroism. ‘And the truth is, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so simultaneously terrified and exhilarated at the prospect of anything in my entire life. I leave for Scotland tomorrow morning on the nine o’clock train.’

      He lowered his gaze. Deep inside his chest, his heart began to quiver.

      Away? Devlin’s voice, bolder now, slipped a little further beneath Henry’s skin. It’s her, isn’t it? The girl? Don’t tell me you’ve actually gone and found her after all this time?

      Henry bristled. ‘She has a name, Devlin. And as to finding her, yes, it would seem to be the case.’

      There was a momentary pause.

       Hellfire. So what’s the problem?

      Henry shifted in his seat. ‘Well – if you must know – I’ve had a premonition. But I won’t be stopped,’ he added in a tremulous voice. ‘Not by you. Not by anyone.’

      Have you finally gone loco? Devlin shot back. When have I ever discouraged you from doing anything? The way I remember it, it was always you who’d be running after me! Ah Jesus, Hen, what’s with the premonition, anyway? I leave you alone for two minutes and you’re moonlighting as some kind of oracle? Sounds to me like someone’s got way too much free time on their hands!

      There was another brief pause. Well go on. Let’s have it then.

      Just the tiniest bit miffed, Henry cleared his throat. ‘That despite all my hopes and prayers for the contrary, nothing at all is going to go to plan.’

      He sucked in his cheeks and waited for Devlin’s disembodied response. When it didn’t come he shook his head, waited, shook it again, but the signal – for want of a better word – was gone.

      Alone once again, Henry slipped off his tortoiseshell glasses, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and rose stiffly from his chair. He carried his notebook into his bedroom and placed it next to a jar of Vicks VapoRub on the bedside table. Banjo, his Parson Russell Terrier, padded into the room behind him and hovered at his side, his ears drawn back, his face full of mistrust.

      ‘Banjo, come on now, get out from under my feet,’ Henry said gently.

      On the eiderdown, his small brown suitcase lay open and ready, the air around it lightly tinged with must. A faint tremor rippled upwards from Henry’s fingertips as he stepped towards it, and with painstaking care and attention proceeded to remove a series of bundles from the elasticated pocket running along its side:

      1 1. a silver hair-slide, a pearl and diamanté butterfly perched on its tip, wings spread;

      2 2. a uniform cap, field service, blue-grey;

      3 3. a paper napkin the colour of turned cream, bearing the faintest imprint of coral lipstick;

      4 4. a picture postcard, the back of which was filled with a seemingly random miscellany of words and phrases, each forward-sloping letter jostling against its neighbour like links in a tightly woven chain;

      5 5. a jagged strip of dark red velour.

      Henry unwrapped each item individually and turned it over in his hand. Raising his gaze, he cast a surreptitious glance at the alarm clock by his bed.

       Twelve hours exactly to departure.

      One memory at a time, Henry placed his past back in his case. His preparations complete, he made his way back to the living room and lowered himself into his wing-back chair with a cup of Ceylon Orange Pekoe and three custard creams.

      ‘Amended Mantra of the Day,’ he said, turning to Banjo’s upturned face. ‘No matter what age we reach, or however much our lives may settle beneath the inevitable cloak of familiarity, it is never, ever too late to be amazed.’

      Henry wondered what the people from Wyedean would say if they knew the context behind his words. That he was a fool, probably. That after a lifetime of so-called academic excellence, how banal, how unoriginal of him to admit that what mattered to him most now was love.

      He shifted his gaze to the antiquated furniture and mountains of yellowing books as though viewing everything for the first, or last, time. He would not return. The world could mock him all it liked, he wouldn’t give up until he’d said the words he needed to say to the only person alive who mattered to him now.

      Henry’s hand drifted to an envelope peeking out from his cardigan pocket. Inside it: pre-purchased train tickets for Edinburgh. First Class. Two.

      ‘Perhaps it’ll be fine after all,’ he said, his spirits revived by a resurgent ray of optimism. He leaned over and rubbed the back of Banjo’s head. ‘And if it’s not fine, then stone me, at least it’ll be illuminating…’

       2

      Wide Awake

      FINSBURY PARK, LONDON, DECEMBER 5: JOURNEY EVE

       Ariel

      Somewhere along a dusky stretch of track, Ariel felt her nerve waver. She drew her face back from the window as the train decelerated, leaving the grainy, urban blackness behind and easing its way beneath the vast, multi-arched roof of Paddington Station.

      A stranger standing in the aisle purred into her phone: ‘We’re pulling in now… I’ll meet you in the usual place… Yes… Yes, me too.’

      Ariel lowered her eyes and picked at a hangnail embedded in her thumb. If anything should happen to her over the next few days – some random accident, some freakish act of nature, or God, or destiny, or whatever – Linus would be the one to get a phone call. It could come from London, Edinburgh, or just about anywhere in between; the point was that a police officer would call with the news, and none of it would make any sense because she hadn’t told him the truth about where she was going. It would be a disaster. The worst possible way for him to find out she’d lied.

      Actually, that she’d been lying to him for days.

      She squeezed her eyes shut and tugged. A quick, sharp flare of pain and the hangnail came away in her fingers, a tiny droplet of blood mushrooming upwards and outwards over the rosy surface of her skin. Don’t be a wuss, she told herself. It’s two days! Forty-eight hours from now it’ll all be over.

      At 20:37, Ariel stepped down onto a freezing cold platform, her wheelie bag in her hand. She pulled her multicoloured scarf tighter around her neck and joined a fast-moving line of