Free House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill

‘tired’ for at least a month now.
    She interrogated his face with her eyes. He wouldn’t look at her. Something was up. This was the first time she’d seen him in a week, too. He’d been ‘busy’, but
with what? He didn’t work. She’d only noticed his expression now she’d finished her breathless monologue about the Red House, a narration only interrupted by her frantic mouthfuls
of wine. She was getting giddy and needed to slow down.
    His expression was also unfamiliar. Furtive. He kept biting at his bottom lip and it looked red. His eyelids seemed half closed as if to protect her from an unstable intensity behind them. A
realization that she’d not seen Mike like this for a while gave her a little shock. He might have been smoking cannabis all day in his dismal room again, but hadn’t he promised her
he’d stopped to make himself more fertile?
    A waitress brought the main courses. Mike didn’t look at his. Catherine was ravenous, but held back. ‘What? What is it?’ She reached over the table to touch his hand that
reappeared to hold his pint glass. He’d been fingering his mobile phone in his lap. He had been sending a text when she arrived, too.
To who?
    ‘Not easy,’ he said, then swallowed.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing.’
    ‘Black pepper?’ the waitress asked, through an uncomfortable half-smile inspired by her suspicion of a lover’s tiff at the table she served.
    But there was no trouble between her and Mike. They were stronger than ever, even after what happened last winter. And they had found each other again after seventeen years apart, as if their
reunion had been destiny. They’d once been a couple of hesitant sixth formers who only managed to speak to each other three months before school ended, and who then loved each other with a
consuming and volatile passion for the following two years as geographic undesirables at their respective universities. Until, way back then, he’d broken up with her and broken her. But they
had been reunited through Facebook two summers back, because a connection like theirs not even time could dim.
    I often think about you.
He’d left her a message after finding her, after he came looking for her. They’d exchanged fifty-three messages during that first evening of
reconnecting. She’d fallen in love with him all over again after reading the first message. It was the
often
that did it. Mike had quickly become another reason to leave London, the
clincher.
    Catherine shook her head at the offer of the pepper grinder. The smile on her face was tight enough to ache. The waitress withdrew silently on black ballet pumps.
    ‘There’s something wrong. Is it . . . ?’
    He looked at her. Shook his head. ‘No. Not that. Not everything is about that.’ Then Mike looked about himself as if he saw the pub’s restaurant for the first time and was
puzzled as to how he had come to be sitting inside it.
    She smarted at his defensive response. They’d both been upset about the miscarriage, though she suspected he’d never been able to articulate his own disappointment so as not to hurt
her feelings. But it had to come out eventually,
because things like that just do.
She was thirty-eight and he wanted to be a dad. Her irritation must have shown on her face.
    ‘Sorry. That was unkind.’ His tone didn’t convince her the apology was genuine. ‘Look, this is not a good idea. Let’s take off.’
    ‘But—’
    ‘Sorry.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t eat this now. No appetite.’
    She wondered whether she would be able to eat ever again,
once he’s said what he has to,
and banished the thought as soon as it flared red inside her head.
Once you refuse to
deal with an enquiry, it becomes a habit. It’s easy really.
    ‘Then . . .’ But she couldn’t say any more, her throat had constricted. She suddenly felt sick.
    ‘I haven’t slept all night.’ He smiled without any warmth. ‘I’ve even been bloody crying. I didn’t want . .