Kissed a Sad Goodbye

home in his own bed he tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable, especially when Sid settled himself heavily across his feet. At last he gave the cat a gentle boot and made a concentrated attempt to clear his mind of all its circular, nagging thoughts. As he drifted off to sleep, an image came to him with the bright lucidity of a dream.
    Gemma stood in a sunlit field of barley, the light sparking from her hair as she laughed. Then as he watched, he realized it wasn’t Gemma he saw at all, but Annabelle Hammond.
     
    AT A TINY TABLE WEDGED IN the pub’s back corner, Teresa sat across from Reg Mortimer.
    When she’d finally got home after shutting things down at the warehouse for the day, she’d found a message from him on her answer phone, asking her to meet him at The Grapes in Limehouse, on Narrow Street. It was the first she’d heard from him since he’d left the solicitor’s office after lunch, and his voice held an odd note, pleading, almost. As the machine clicked off, she automatically ran a hand through her hair and straightened her blouse, then chided herself for thinking he’d asked to see her for any reason other than business.
    But she’d not been able to stop herself from brushing her hair and putting on a bit of makeup before she ran out of the flat to catch the DLR at Crossharbour.
    At Westferry Station she left the train and, jostled by homeward bound commuters, made her way down the concrete steps from the platform. Squinting against the low evening sun, she turned right into Limehouse Causeway, then walked along Narrow Street until she came to the pub. The establishment was one of the historic fixtures of Limehouse, catering now to the upwardly mobile, and she knew it only by reputation, as it was not the sort of place one went on one’s own for a bite of shepherd’s pie or fish and chips.
    She entered tentatively, squeezing her way among the suit-and-tied clientele packed sardinelike in the long, narrow space, until she spotted Reg in the far corner. He waved to her, and when she reached the table he stood and gave her an unexpected kiss on the cheek. He looked slightly flushed; his hair fell untidily on his brow and he looked even more handsome than usual.
    “Thanks awfully for coming,” he said as he seated her. “Have you been here before? The crowds will thin out in a bit, and the food’s brilliant. I thought you could use a good meal. But first I’ll get you something from the bar, shall I? There’s a nice summer ale, a bit citrusy.”
    “Lovely,” Teresa managed, and as he turned away towards the bar she leaned forwards and sniffed surreptitiously at his drink. Unadulterated lemonade, as far as she could tell, and not surprising, as he didn’t ordinarily drink—yet she could have sworn he was tiddly. Frowning, she watched him chatting to the barman with the same feverish jollity.
    He came back with her drink and a menu, and when he sat their knees touched unavoidably in the small space under the table. “I’d recommend the fish cakes,” he said, opening her menu for her. “I know they sound boringly pedestrian, but they’re divine. And I’m sure there’s some sort of historical precedent—Dickens ate them, or something. Did you know this is supposed to be the pub Dickens called the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters in Our Mutual Friend ? He described the bar as ‘not much bigger than a hackney coach,’ and that’s still true enough. It had the veranda overlooking the river in those days, too, though I daresay it’s a bit sturdier now, and the wooden ladder that descended to the ships so the watermen could climb up to the bar is long gone. We’ll go outside afterwards and have a drink, if you like, and in the meantime you can just imagine the bowsprit of an anchored square-rigger poking through the window and the hearty fellows drinking their pints.” He nodded at the window above her head and raised his glass. “To bygone spirits.”
    Their eyes met as he seemed to realize what he’d said, and in the uncomfortable silence that followed neither of them spoke the name that hovered between them. Normally adept at filling silences and putting others at their ease, Reg was the least likely person she knew to make such an awkward remark. And yet tonight he seemed to be possessed by a sort of reckless desperation.
    Searching for a way to rescue them both, she closed the menu without looking at it and said, “What about you, Reg? Aren’t you having