THE LOVE WE LEFT BEHIND

PROLOGUE

Oxford, 1996

The sky was slick with rain, the promise of more to come hanging in gunmetal clouds. Thousands of droplets fell, striking the alabaster stone of Queen’s College clock tower under which a girl, just shy of twenty-one, stood waiting.

Her hair was tied at the nape of her neck, a handful of strands escaping from underneath the hood of her rain jacket. At her feet was a large backpack, military in style with the straps drawn tight, and she bent down to tuck something into the front pocket.

Every so often she drew back her sleeve and turned her wrist to check the time on her watch, absently running her finger around the silver face and fiddling with the dial, as if she didn’t quite trust what the two thin hands were telling her.

On the other side of the road, a couple of students were hurrying against the rain, one with a book held over his head, laughing as they went. The girl followed them with her eyes and saw them duck inside the doorway of a café that was due to close when the clock struck six.

Tilting her head back, the girl stared up at the ancient bell that hung directly above and wondered what would happen if it were to fall. If there was no chime of the approaching hour would that somehow suspend time and give her a few more minutes to decide?

A soft boom on the horizon pulled her line of sight down and across, towards the river.

Brontide, she thought to herself. A sound like distant thunder. It was a word she first read whilst hidden away in the corner of her local library, a place she used in order to shelter from her real life. She never forgot its meaning, simply filed it away with all the others that were tucked neatly inside her brilliant mind.

But even a mind as brilliant as hers couldn’t control another’s will. It was a mistake to put all her trust, her faith, into one person. Because everyone gave up on her eventually, and she was stupid to think he might have been any different.

As she glanced once more at her watch, the bell began to call out how late the day had become. She shook her head, rubbing at the corner of her eye as she shouldered her rucksack and stepped towards the curb, holding out her arm and waiting for the approaching coach to stop. She didn’t look back as she climbed on board and paid her fare. Nor did she allow herself to cry as she sat down at a window seat and watched the familiar streets pass by in a blur.

If anyone had been able to search inside that mind, they might have heard it whispering a million words to her all at once: of sorrow, of regret, of the knowledge that she wasn’t enough. But not a single one of those words was powerful enough to describe how it felt when her heart fractured into a thousand shards of pain; shards that she would carry within her soul every day and every night to come.

NIAMH

Mizpah (n.) – a deep, emotional bond between people

Oxford, 1995

It was an inconsequential type of day. At least, that’s how it appeared to be at first sight. There was nothing unusual about the low-hung cloud that was suffocating the autumn sunshine, nor was it strange to see so many students whizzing along on their bikes.

Term had begun just shy of a week ago. Freshers’ week had been and gone, a new collection of undergraduates arriving at their respective colleges with trunks and suitcases and pockets full of nerves. Introductions had been made, procedures and rules explained, ceremonies involving swearing in Latin about never bringing a naked flame into the Bodleian Library completed, and now it was Friday afternoon at the end of the first week.

In the middle of the city, on the south side of the High Street, stood the oldest college of them all. Founded in 1249, it was built with golden stone and thick oak doors, and currently home to several hundred students and professors. In a room up high, with slanted ceilings and leaded windows guarded from the outside by gargoyles, two girls sat cross-legged on the floor. One was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, blowing out thin lines of smoke through the open window to the world below. The other was leaning forward to paint her friend’s face with rouge and kohl, tilting her head to one side as she worked.

In the far corner sat an ancient wingback chair strewn with books, scarves and a burgundy fedora. Next to it was a bookcase filled with legends and tales of old, along with silver photo frames, stacks of CDs and all manner of knick-knacks collected over the years.

On every other conceivable surface, from the desk to the windowsill and even by the door, there were vases and jugs and a couple of empty bottles, each and every one filled with blood-red roses.

‘Prosit,’ the taller of the two girls said as her friend sneezed twice in a row. ‘I didn’t know you were allergic?’

‘I’m not,’ Niamh replied, rubbing the tip of her nose and looking around the room at the dozens and dozens of flowers. ‘But there’re so many of them.’

‘There’s more in Duncan’s room,’ Erika said as she rummaged through her make-up bag. ‘Peter sent them this morning.’

‘I thought you told him to stop.’ Niamh took a last drag of her cigarette then stubbed it out on the window ledge.

‘I want to make him think he might earn my forgiveness for just a little bit longer,’ Erika said with a grin as she unscrewed a tube of lip gloss and held it out to Niamh.

‘No thanks,’ Niamh replied as she stood and went over to the mirror to appraise Erika’s handiwork. ‘It always sticks to my hair.’

‘You could wear it up?’ Erika came up behind Niamh and twisted all those curls into a knot at the back of her head, then let them go and wrapped her arms around her friend’s waist. ‘I am sorry about Peter.’

‘Why? I’m not the one he cheated on.’

‘But you are the one who I abandoned because I was stupid enough to fall in love with a total kuk.’

‘He wasn’t that bad.’ Niamh looked around at the roses, a stream of non-verbal apologies that didn’t really mean anything at all. Peter was the sort of person who was used to getting what he wanted, including Erika. What he hadn’t bargained for was her strict moral compass; she was highly unlikely to ever forgive him, no matter how much money and sentiment was thrown her way.

‘You tried to warn me and I refused to listen to all that wisdom inside your beautiful skull.’ Erika rested her chin on Niamh’s shoulder, her bottom lip sticking out in its own version of an apology.

‘You can’t help who you fall in love with,’ Niamh said, looking at their reflection. If someone had told her a year ago that the two of them would end up being so close, she would have laughed or snorted, or done something to convey how completely ridiculous such an idea was. Not only was Erika gorgeous and popular and annoyingly confident, she was also disgustingly rich and privileged in a way Niamh couldn’t begin to imagine. Girls like Erika simply didn’t make friends with girls like her and, for what must have been the millionth time since they’d met, Niamh wondered if it was all too good to be true.

‘I disagree.’ Erika stepped away, going over to her wardrobe and proceeding to empty most of its contents on to the bed.

Niamh watched her in the mirror, noticing as she wiped at the corner of one eye, the pink of which she hadn’t been able to disguise with concealer.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, perching on the end of the chair and rolling another cigarette.

‘I’m fine,’ Erika replied with an exaggerated smile, which only made Niamh think she was the complete opposite.

Erika pulled off her sweatshirt and tossed it on to the floor, then picked up a leopard-print dress and turned to her.

‘Too obvious?’ she asked.

‘Not for you,’ Niamh said with a shake of her head. ‘You could wear a bin liner and still look like a supermodel. Explain why you disagree about falling in love.’

‘Do you remember that party?’ Erika asked as she picked up another dress, bright pink and short enough to make anyone’s mother blanch.

‘You’re going to have to be more specific.’

‘The one in that converted church when Duncan spent most of the night arguing with the barman?’

‘And then ended up snogging him in the loos. Yes, I remember.’

‘Peter insisted on coming with me to meet you and Duncan. But I didn’t want him to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I knew I was falling for him, which meant I was afraid you would tell me he wasn’t good enough.’

He wasn’t. Niamh could still remember the very moment she first laid eyes on him. All tanned skin and sun-kissed hair with a smile that was more predatory than genuine. But when Erika had introduced them, she’d looked at her so expectantly that Niamh knew she had to be supportive of her friend’s choice, no matter what.

Perhaps if she understood a little better what love actually felt like, she could have helped Erika see sooner that Peter was never going to be her knight in shining armour. Niamh’s own love life had never amounted to more than a few stolen kisses or disappointing fumbles after too many drinks. Nobody had ever made her feel special or loved, despite how hard she’d wished for it.

Which was why it had hurt so very deeply when Erika had poured all of that vibrancy and attention on to someone Niamh knew wasn’t deserving of it.

‘Who are you dressing up for?’ Niamh asked as Erika slipped her legs into a pair of micro leather shorts, then stood on tiptoe and turned around to peer at her backside in the mirror.

‘You, my älskling,’ she replied with a wink. ‘Always you. Now, what are you planning to put on?’

‘Who said I’m even going?’

‘But you must.’ Erika tugged on a pair of thigh-length boots and glared at Niamh in the mirror. ‘Duncan is on one of his missions and I refuse to leave you behind with nothing but a pile of books for company.’

Spending an evening alone wasn’t anything new for Niamh. She was more than accustomed to her own company, but ever since she had come to Oxford and become friends with an over-enthusiastic Swedish goddess, her social skills had slowly improved to being something close to normal. Besides, the inherent shyness she had battled with for years had absolutely no sway with someone who seemed to possess neither fear nor shame.

‘I have no desire to watch you and Duncan stalk out some new prey.’

‘Then join in,’ Erika said as she began to apply gloss to her own lips. ‘Let the three of us make a night that we will still talk about when we are too old to dance, let alone anything else.’

Niamh considered her options, knowing all too well that if she said no, Erika would only wait for Duncan to get back and then there would be no point at all in trying to resist.

‘Fine. But I’m not staying all night.’

‘Of course not. Wouldn’t want you turning into a pumpkin. Here,’ she said, reaching across to take something off a shelf and holding it out to Niamh. ‘Take him with you.’

‘What for?’ Niamh asked as she looked down at the tiny plastic troll with mad spikey hair and a lopsided smile.

‘For lycka.’ Erika bent down to give Niamh a kiss on the cheek. ‘I brought him back from Stockholm because he reminds me of . . .’ She glanced at the photo frame on her bedside table, inside of which two girls were hanging upside down from the branch of a tree. Their smiles were wide, their knees scuffed with dirt and they were holding tight to one another’s hands. Erika gave a small shake of her head, then turned back to Niamh with a smile. ‘He reminds me of you, my beautiful, crazy little troll.’

Niamh looked across at the bookcase, at all the weird and wonderful things Erika kept as reminders of moments in her life she didn’t want to forget. The sentimentality of it had surprised her at first, given how pragmatic Erika could be. When she had got to know her a little better, witnessed the tears shed whilst watching romantic comedies, and once having to stop her from punching someone who dared call Duncan a fag, the keepsakes didn’t seem quite so strange. But it wasn’t until last December that Niamh discovered why the collection existed at all.

She had gone into Erika’s room and found her slumped in the corner clutching a photograph, a near-empty bottle of vodka at her feet. Through drunken tears Erika explained how it was supposed to be the birthday of her best friend, Astrid, but she had died two summers before from a brain aneurism. A here one minute, gone the next freak accident that leaves behind all kinds of damage. Not least because Erika and Astrid had argued the day before she’d died. A stupid, nonsensical argument about borrowing a dress for a party. But it was an argument that Erika could neither forgive herself for, nor forget.

It was the first time Niamh had met someone who understood the true meaning of loss. It was also the first time she ever told anyone the whole truth about her own childhood, not just the filtered-down version. Erika had hugged her tight, said they were bound together through grief, and Niamh finally began to experience the intoxicating pull of friendship.

‘You think I look like a troll?’ She took the strange plastic creature from Erika and twisted its hair into a peak. Glancing over at the photograph, Niamh noticed, as always, how similar she and Astrid looked; they could even have passed for sisters. It should have been weird, given how quickly she and Erika became first close, then inseparable. But the joy of having a best friend was in such stark contrast to all the years before they’d met that Niamh refused to let herself worry about the ghost of someone she would never know.

‘If you’re going to be ungrateful,’ Erika said, ‘I shall simply pilchard him back.’

‘Pilfer,’ Niamh said with a smile as she tucked the little troll into her pocket and went out on to the landing, turning left in the direction of her room. ‘Pilchard is a type of fish,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Bit like herring, only smaller.’

‘Pilfer,’ Erika repeated to herself, following Niamh along the corridor and watching from the doorway as Niamh opened her own wardrobe and tried to figure out what to wear. ‘Pilfer, pilfer, pilfer. It sounds silly when you say it over and over.’

‘Then write it down.’ Niamh tossed Erika a notebook bound in navy fabric and embroidered with tiny flowers. ‘Write it all down so you never forget.’

‘Tell me another one. One of your funny little words.’ Erika went across and sat down on a small green sofa by the window and eased apart the pages, then brought the notebook to her face and inhaled deeply. It was a peculiar habit the two friends shared, one of several that had bound them ever tighter over the past year. A bond that occurred through happenstance – two souls in the same place at the same time for whatever reason, but who had stayed together out of love. Because they did love one another, though in a completely different way to how Erika had once told Niamh she felt whenever she kissed Peter.

‘Mizpah,’ Niamh said as she ran her fingers through her mane of hair, deciding that there wasn’t much point in trying to tame it. ‘It means a deep, emotional bond between two people.’

‘Miz-pah,’ Erika repeated, writing down the word and its meaning in looping script. ‘I think I shall call you this from now on. Especially in public.’

‘Please, don’t,’ Niamh said as she came out of the bedroom and gave a little twirl. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think’ – Erika put down the notebook and came over to Niamh, unbuttoning the velvet waistcoat she had chosen and tossing it aside – ‘that you should wear this instead.’ Reaching into the wardrobe, she handed Niamh a thin black cape interwoven with stars, then walked over to a record player sitting on a table. ‘And before you open that little mouth of yours to object, try it on. You will see that I am right. Now we should dance. And drink vodka. And find us each a handsome boy to kiss. But before that,’ she said, whirling around as the first notes of a song closed the space between them, ‘we should make a promise.’

‘A promise?’ Niamh asked as Erika took hold of her hands and they began to spin.

‘Yes. That we will never again let anyone, especially a boy, come between us. Hoes before bros and all that.’