I Found You by Lisa Jewell Page B

cutter-outer and sticker-oner of tiny bits of maps into flower shapes.’ She looks at him. ‘Told you my life was weird,’ she said.
    ‘Well, speaking as someone with no life whatsoever , I’d say that sounds pretty great.’
    ‘Yeah. It’s good. It’s weird, but it’s good. And means I can work round the kids, which is brilliant.’
    ‘Not to mention this lot.’ He indicates the dogs. ‘And them.’ He gestures at the iPad with its sinisterly glowing vignette of an empty room. ‘You’ve got a lot on your plate.’
    ‘Yes. I do. But no more than a million other women. Women are amazing, you know.’ She smiles and he smiles back.
    ‘I’ll have to take your word for it. Since I can’t actually remember any women.’
    ‘Well, you know me, and take it from me, I am completely amazing.’
    He doesn’t laugh but he does smile. ‘OK. You are Woman A and from now on will be the benchmark for every other woman I meet.’
    ‘Oh Christ, I’ve become your mother!’
    This time he laughs and as he rocks back his leg presses briefly against Alice’s leg and she feels it openup inside her, the big gaping hole of loneliness and neediness she’s been trying to ignore for six years. Outside the low-slung window a lightbulb on the string is fizzing and flickering. Finally it extinguishes completely and the room is suddenly a degree darker. She hears the floorboards creak overhead as a child makes its way to the bathroom. And then something remarkable happens. Griff, who has been watching their conversation from the other side of the room, suddenly unfolds his elegant legs and wanders towards them. Alice expects that he is coming for some fuss from her but instead the dog stops at Frank and rests his chin on Frank’s knee.
    ‘Oh,’ says Frank, cupping his hand over the dog’s skull. He looks up at Alice and smiles.
    Alice looks from her dog to Frank and then back at her dog. Her stomach eddies. Griff, unlike Sadie and Hero, is her dog. She chose him from a rescue centre when he was a year old. He’s been with her since her London days, since before she had Romaine. He is the kindest, nicest dog in the world. But he is not a friendly dog. He keeps his distance from people. But here he is, offering himself up to a stranger, echoing, in some poetic way, Alice’s own subliminal desires.
    ‘You must be a good guy,’ she says. ‘Dogs always know.’
    ‘You reckon?’
    ‘I reckon.’ And then she feels something softening deep inside her, something that had once been tender and, over time, without her even noticing, became hard. She puts her hand over Frank’s hand where it rests on Griff’s tightly domed head. Frank brings his other hand to cover hers. And there it is. An exquisite moment of suspended existence beyond which lies the potential for everything. Remember , they might say in years to come, that night. When we first touched?
    But for now there is the clank of the plumbing upstairs as a child flushes the toilet. Then there is the sound of footsteps coming down the wooden stairs. And there is Romaine in glorious disarray, eyes puffed with sleep, pulling at the sides of her off-white nightdress and saying, ‘Mummy. I keep waking up.’
    Alice takes her hand from beneath his and sighs and says to him, ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
    But he’s already shifting in his seat, trying to dislodge Hero from his lap, putting down his tumbler of Scotch and saying, ‘You know, I’m shattered, actually. Is it OK . . .?’
    ‘Stay as long as you like,’ she says. ‘Any friend of Griff’s is a friend of mine.’
    She takes Romaine’s outstretched hand and walks her up the stairs. ‘I’ll leave the back door unlocked,’ she calls down to him. ‘See you in the morning.’

Fourteen
     
    1993
    That night they went out for dinner. The impromptu tea at Kitty’s mansion had slightly upended their day and there’d been no time to go shopping for food so Kirsty had said, ‘Why don’t we eat by the beach