Free Seeing Other People by Mike Gayle

name again?’
    ‘Bella.’
    ‘And she was an intern at the Correspondent ?’
    ‘Apparently.’
    ‘She’s very pretty.’
    ‘Is she? Can’t say I’ve given it much thought.’
    ‘Mind you, so is that other woman, Angela. How long did you work with her again?’
    ‘Three years, give or take.’
    ‘She’s a bit of a force of nature isn’t she?’
    I shrugged. ‘To me she was always just Angela. But yeah, now you say it, “a force of nature” is a good way to describe her.’
    Penny picked up her bag from the back of the chair. ‘I suppose we’d better be getting off.’
    As we made our way across the café towards the exit, I attempted to engage Penny in conversation, refusing to look anywhere near Angela and Bella’s table. On the way out Penny stopped at the door to wave in the women’s direction, forcing me to join in too. My gaze met Bella’s for a brief instant but there was no hint of recognition on her face. I was just another guy and this was just another day.
     
    Outside I took Penny’s hand in mine and told her I’d walk her to Liverpool Street. I tried making conversation on the way but she seemed lost in thought, only offering half-hearted responses to my questions. I asked her if she was OK and she offered me a half smile.
    ‘I’m probably just tired, that’s all,’ she replied. ‘Still, I finish early today so it’s not too bad.’ For a moment her face wore an expression that I couldn’t quite discern. Was she upset? Was she mulling something over? I couldn’t tell. Then all at once it disappeared. ‘Don’t forget the recital’s at seven,’ she continued. ‘Jack’s told all his friends that his journalist daddy’s coming and will probably be writing a review.’
    As her train arrived to take her back into central London we kissed goodbye but it felt cold and perfunctory, compared to the kiss with which she had greeted me outside Allegro’s. Should I ask her one last time if everything was all right? It seemed like a good idea but before I’d even formed the question she had hopped on the train and taken her seat. As the train doors closed I stood waving goodbye but she didn’t look up once. It was as though she was lost in another world.
     
    Through no fault of my own I ended up being late for the recital. And by late I don’t mean coming in halfway through the evening but rather having missed the entire thing – Jack’s recorder solo, Rosie’s group violin performance and everything in between.
    Penny face was like thunder as she spotted me dodging through the hall full of proud parents gathering together their offspring. This wasn’t going to be an easy sell at all.
    ‘You wouldn’t believe it, Pen; everything that could go wrong did go wrong. My meeting with Camilla took the whole afternoon and then she wanted me to prepare our efforts for a meeting first thing in the morning with the bigwigs upstairs, and once I’d finished that it was gone six and I still had a rewrite to do on some copy that was long past its deadline and then I was stuck on a tube for forty minutes because of an “incident” on the line. Every time I tried to call I had no signal. It was a total nightmare. How did the kids get on?’
    Penny didn’t say a word. Instead she gestured towards the front of the room where Jack and one of his friends were jumping on and off the stairs at the side of the stage. I scanned the room for Rosie and finally spotted her at the back of the hall talking with her friend Amelie.
    I called over to Jack and he came running over dangling his recorder from his fingers. ‘Why weren’t you here, Daddy? Mum said you promised you’d come. Isn’t it bad to break promises?’
    I knelt down and gave Jack the biggest hug in my repertoire. ‘It’s the absolute worst thing you can do but sometimes these things are just out of your hands. I tried really hard to get here but I couldn’t. You forgive me though, don’t you?’
    Jack’s face lit up. Was there ever