Trigger Warning

Then, as the name was still sinking in, Paul said, ‘Cassandra, this ridiculously attractive and talented young man is, as I am sure you know, Stuart Innes.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘Actually, we’re very old friends.’

‘Do tell,’ said Barry.

‘Well,’ said Cassandra, ‘twenty years ago, Stuart wrote my name on his maths exercise notebook.’

She looked like the girl in my drawing, yes. Or like the girl in the photographs, all grown-up. Sharp-faced. Intelligent. Assured.

I had never seen her before in my life.

‘Hello, Cassandra,’ I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

* * *

We were in the wine bar beneath my flat. They serve food there, too. It’s more than just a wine bar.

I found myself talking to her as if she was someone I had known since childhood. And, I reminded myself, she wasn’t. I had only met her that evening. She still had ink stains on her hands.

We had glanced at the menu, ordered the same thing – the vegetarian meze – and when it had arrived, both started with the dolmades, then moved on to the hummus.

‘I made you up,’ I told her.

It was not the first thing I had said: first we had talked about her community theatre, how she had become friends with Paul, his offer to her – a thousand pounds for this evening’s show – and how she had needed the money but mostly said yes to him because it sounded like a fun adventure. Anyway, she said, she couldn’t say no when she heard my name mentioned. She thought it was fate.

That was when I said it. I was scared she would think I was mad, but I said it. ‘I made you up.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You didn’t. I mean, obviously you didn’t. I’m really here.’ Then she said, ‘Would you like to touch me?’

I looked at her. At her face, and her posture, at her eyes. She was everything I had ever dreamed of in a woman. Everything I had been missing in other women. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very much.’

‘Let’s eat our dinner first,’ she said. Then she said, ‘How long has it been since you were with a woman?’

‘I’m not gay,’ I protested. ‘I have girlfriends.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘When was the last one?’

I tried to remember. Was it Brigitte? Or the stylist the ad agency had sent me to Iceland with? I was not certain. ‘Two years,’ I said. ‘Perhaps three. I just haven’t met the right person yet.’

‘You did once,’ she said. She opened her handbag then, a big floppy purple thing, pulled out a cardboard folder, opened it, removed a piece of paper, tape-browned at the corners. ‘See?’

I remembered it. How could I not? It had hung above my bed for years. She was looking around, as if talking to someone beyond the curtain. Cassandra, it said, 19th February, 1985. And it was signed, Stuart Innes. There is something at the same time both embarrassing and heartwarming about seeing your handwriting from when you were fifteen.

‘I came back from Canada in ’89,’ she said. ‘My parents’ marriage fell apart out there, and Mum wanted to come home. I wondered about you, what you were doing, so I went to your old address. The house was empty. Windows were broken. It was obvious nobody lived there any more. They’d knocked down the riding stables already – that made me so sad, I’d loved horses as a girl, obviously, but I walked through the house until I found your bedroom. It was obviously your bedroom, although all the furniture was gone. It still smelled like you. And this was still pinned to the wall. I didn’t think anyone would miss it.’

She smiled.

‘Who are you?’

‘Cassandra Carlisle. Aged thirty-four. Former actress. Failed playwright. Now running a community theatre in Norwood. Drama therapy. Hall for rent. Four plays a year, plus workshops, and a local panto. Who are you, Stuart?’

‘You know who I am.’ Then, ‘You know I’ve never met you before, don’t you?’

She nodded. She said, ‘Poor Stuart. You live just above here, don’t you?’

‘Yes. It’s a bit loud sometimes. But it’s handy for the tube. And the rent isn’t painful.’

‘Let’s pay the bill, and go upstairs.’

I reached out to touch the back of her hand. ‘Not yet,’ she said, moving her hand away before I could touch her. ‘We should talk first.’

So we went upstairs.

‘I like your flat,’ she said. ‘It looks exactly like the kind of place I imagine you being.’

‘It’s probably time to start thinking about getting something a bit bigger,’ I told her. ‘But it does me fine. There’s good light out the back for my studio – you can’t get the effect now, at night. But it’s great for painting.’

It’s strange, bringing someone home. It makes you see the place you live as if you’ve not been there before. There are two oil paintings of me in the lounge, from my short-lived career as an artists’ model (I did not have the patience to stand and pose for very long, a failing I know), blown-up advertising photos of me in the little kitchen and the loo, book covers with me on – romance covers, mostly – over the stairs.