The Girl with the Fragile Mind. Claire Seeber

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      FRIDAY 14TH JULY CLAUDIE

      At Natalie’s neat little house in the suburbs, Ella at least was happy to see me, demonstrating her hopping on one leg, her fair curls bouncing up and down, chunky and solid as her mother but far more cuddly.

      ‘Good hopping,’ I admired her. ‘Can you do the other side?’ But she couldn’t really, despite gallant efforts.

      ‘Please, Auntie C, can we play Banopoly?’

      ‘Banopoly?’ She meant Monopoly. ‘Of course. I’d love to.’

      ‘You can be the boot if you like,’ she said kindly, swinging on my hand. I agreed readily, because I felt like an old boot right now, and it suited me just fine to not think about real life for a moment.

      ‘Claudia’s hurt, Ella,’ Natalie said, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was so transfixed by the television, by the rolling news bulletins, that she wasn’t concentrating on either of us, so Ella and I sat in the kitchen, away from the television, and had orange squash and digestives as we set the Monopoly board up. In the end, I was the top hat and Ella was the dog, and I let her buy everything, especially the ‘water one with the tap on’ because I knew if she lost, her bottom lip would push out and she would cry. And I found if I didn’t move too suddenly or dramatically, the pain in my head was just about bearable.

      At twelve o’clock Natalie washed Ella’s hands and face and took her round to her school nursery for the afternoon session.

      ‘Will you be here when I get back, Auntie C?’ Ella asked solemnly. ‘We can watch Peter Pancake if you are.’ And I smiled as best I could and said probably. She had once informed me that my complicated name was actually a man’s, and she had long since stopped struggling with it.

      ‘Of course you’ll be here,’ Natalie snapped, ‘where else are you going to go?’ and we looked at each other in a way that meant we were both acknowledging the reason why I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

      ‘And of course, we want you here,’ Natalie managed a valiant finish, retying her fussy silk scarf under her chin.

      As the door shut behind them, I slid open the French windows and stood in the garden and tried very hard to breathe deeply like Helen had taught me. Natalie’s pink and green garden was so well regimented, just like everything else in her life, that it felt stifling. The air was heavy, rain was on its way, and a strange hush seemed to have descended. Everyone staying inside and a hush that had settled over the whole city – as if we were all waiting. I felt very small suddenly; tiny, a mere dot on the London landscape.

      I made myself tea and I put a lot of sugar in it, and then I tried and tried to ring Tessa, but she wasn’t answering; her phone wasn’t even on. No one picked up at the Academy either, so eventually I gave up, and switched on the News again.

      MASSIVE EXPLOSION IN CENTRAL LONDON scrolled across the bottom of the screen, and a reporter who looked a little like a rabbit in the headlights informed viewers nervously that Berkeley Square had been hit by some kind of explosion but at the moment no one knew if it was a bomb or a gas main that had blown up. There was no more information, but then numbers were listed for those worried about friends or family; and we were all asked to stay at home.

      ‘Do not attempt to travel in central London. As a precaution, police have shut down all public transport systems for the moment. We reiterate, it is only a precaution, but the advice is to please remain at home unless your journey is absolutely necessary,’ the dark-skinned reporter warned us gravely, before throwing questions to a sweaty terrorism expert who began to hazard guesses at the cause of the explosion.

      My phone rang again. This time I did answer it, praying it was Tessa.

      ‘Claudie. I’ve been so worried. What the hell’s going on?’ Rafe sounded furious. ‘I thought you’d be here when I got back.’

      ‘London’s gone mad,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s all exploding.’

      ‘Never mind that – what the hell happened last night? I waited for you in the restaurant, and you never came, and then there you were, on my doorstep, frozen and practically unconscious. Were you drunk?’ He was accusatory.

      ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Definitely not drunk.’

      ‘What then?’

      ‘I can’t remember, Rafe. I just – I had this terrible migraine, and then—’

      ‘What do you mean you can’t remember?’

      Now was not the time to tell him about the splitting. In fact, I was realising there was never going to be a time to tell him about it. And yet, I was terrified that I was sliding backwards, back to the place I’d gone when Ned died, when my world had caved in and the nightmare became reality.

      ‘Rafe, one thing—’

      ‘Yes?’