I take a walk through the graveyard behind the church. It’s peaceful here, filled with silence save for the whispering of the breeze through the trees and the distant chirrup of the birdsong. I like this place. It’s sobering, a space for reflection and serious thought. A space where I can be me.

I kneel on the ground, the soil wet beneath my flesh, and turn to the graveside. I empty the vase of stagnant, foul-smelling water, flecks of dirt spreading next to my feet, and refill it at the tap next to the fence, then pluck out the withered flowers and rearrange the ones that still look half decent and haven’t succumbed to age and decay, their stems still straight and not withered and wilting. It is as I am patting down the gravel that I hear his voice above me. It causes me to stop and suck in my breath. My skin prickles as I turn to see him standing next to me, looking down with a wry smile on his face. His eyes are dark and impenetrable, fathoms deep.

‘I see you take good care of these people. This is a well-tended grave.’

I sigh and suppress a smile as I stare up at him, scrambling to rise from my haunches and wiping my hands down the side of my trousers. It’s Peter. He’s here, speaking to me, watching me. Actually acknowledging my presence. At long last. I’ve put a lot of work into this moment and now here he is. Finally.

‘Thank you.’ My voice is a low murmur. I want to look away but am afraid of missing something. This moment has been a long time coming. I want to see everything. Every single movement, every blink and twitch, every breath that exits his body. I need to see it all. I’ve earned this. I can’t afford to make any mistakes, to lose this moment.

‘We’ve met before?’ He is smiling now, his eyes twinkling, his hand outstretched towards me.

I nod, trying to mask my enthusiasm, returning his smile. ‘Yes, we have.’ Surprised at how strong his grasp is, how cool and steady it is, I shake his hand. ‘At the counselling sessions in church.’ He’s taller than I remember, a good six feet, perhaps more.

‘I thought so. I knew you looked familiar.’

I want to tell him that I’ve been watching him for weeks and weeks and how has he not noticed me before now but remain silent, nodding instead and removing my clammy palm from his parchment-dry skin.

‘I’m not sure how much they’re helping, those sessions, but you never know with these things, do you?’ My voice is croaky in comparison to his mellifluous timbre and my is vision blurred. I blink away the film covering my eyes and clear my throat. He must think me an idiot, this man. An idiot who is standing awkwardly, gazing up at him like a forlorn schoolgirl in the presence of her latest crush. I pull back my shoulders and try to inject some authority into my stance, flexing my fingers and jutting out my chin. I’ve waited a long time for this moment. Too long.

‘I suppose you don’t,’ he says, looking away, his shoulders sagging slightly.

I stand, wondering what it is I’ve said. We were close to making a connection and now he has lost his initial impetus, his voice suddenly reedy and reserved. I need to get it back, that connection. I won’t lose it. I can’t. Letting it slip away isn’t an option.

‘I was wondering if you fancy a coffee? I mean,’ he says, his eyes darting about the row of gravestones, ‘only if you’re not too busy. Or we can do it another time…’ His voice trails off, his words swallowed by the fluttering of wings in a nearby tree. Two pigeons flap about on a branch, sending leaves falling to the floor. A grey feather floats through the air before landing at my feet. I bend down and pick it up, staring at it closely.

‘Isn’t that supposed to mean somebody who has passed away is thinking of you or is close by?’ He lowers his eyes, his gazed fixed on the feather clutched between my fingers.

‘An angel, apparently. From what I’ve heard, anyway. It means a guardian angel is watching over you.’ Even as I say it, it sounds frivolous and foolish. I close my fingers over the small, silky object and throw it onto the ground, a small amount of embarrassment taking hold in me, my face flushing hot. ‘An old wives’ tale. Simple, silly nonsense,’ I murmur as the crumpled feather blows away and is carried down the path and out of view by the warm, spring breeze.

‘So,’ I say, catching his eye again, ‘how about that coffee?’

He works as a chief sales engineer for a national company, has a daughter called Lauren and is missing his wife terribly. He tells me this as we sit by the window in a small café on Roland Street and nibble at our complimentary biscuits. But of course, I already know all of these things; it’s just that he doesn’t know that I know.

I remain silent, my lips sealed, giving nothing away. I wonder if he sees the real me? There is no sign that he has noticed. That’s good. It’s exactly how I want it: to be elusive. Alluring. Secretive. I am the consummate liar. The woman he thinks he knows. Not the woman I really am.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, placing his cup down with a thud. ‘I’ve not given you a chance to tell me about yourself. I’ve prattled on and on like a selfish arse.’

‘It’s fine, honestly,’ I say softly. ‘I don’t lead such an interesting life anyway. Very little to report. No parents, no children, no partner. Just little old me.’ I shift my gaze to the window, staring outside to the azure, cloudless sky. It’s warm for springtime. Maybe we are in for a hot summer.

He sighs and folds his arms over his chest. ‘There must be something you can tell me about yourself.’ He pulls his chair closer and cocks his head to one side, grinning at me. ‘Come on, I’m listening now. I promise not to interrupt.’

He looks insistent. Determined. So I relent and speak. I tell him how much I’m enjoying the sessions at church. I don’t tell him that he’s the reason I find them so appealing. I don’t tell him he is the reason I attend. Instead, I tell him that I rarely venture out and that I enjoy reading, finding solace and comfort in my books, and that I like listening to music. I’m lying. I find books monotonous and music irritating, no more than white noise in the background, but felt the need to say something in return, something that will tell him nothing about me, about who I actually am.

‘What was your partner’s name?’ He shifts in his seat, moving closer to me. I can feel the heat from his body, am able to smell the strong, slightly stale nicotine odour of coffee on his breath.

‘Stuart,’ I reply, swallowing down a swig of my latte.

He nods, smiles. A genuine, compassionate expression, not a thin-lipped grimace. I like that. No barriers. No concealed emotions. Makes it easier for me to get close to him. To get my own way.

‘I think I recall you talking about him at the sessions,’ he says casually. ‘How did he die?’ Peter shakes his head and lets out a long stream of air from between his pursed lips. ‘Bit crass of me to say that. Sorry. I guess being so close to death has made me a tad insensitive.’

I suppress my sigh, keeping it trapped within my chest. He doesn’t look or sound particularly sorry. ‘Car crash,’ I whisper, my hands clasped together on my lap. ‘Stuart died in a car crash last year.’

He nods, turning away from me, scrutinising the clock on the wall. ‘Sophia was murdered,’ he says, his tone now dark, menacing even. The air around us thickens. I swallow and think of something to say. Anything to shatter the murkiness that has settled on us. I want to keep things light – need to if I am to succeed with this pursuit of Peter. I suppress a smile at my alliterative phrase. It has a nice ring to it.

‘You must have loved her very much.’ I resist reaching over and placing my hand over his. Too familiar. Too soon. It’s all about timing.

‘She was on her way home from an evening out with colleagues.’ He lets out a small laugh, his voice bitter and cutting. ‘A jogger found her body the following morning. I woke up to find her missing.’

His eyes are glassy, filled with unshed tears. I’ll bet Peter isn’t one for crying, bottling it all up instead, all those festering emotions bubbling within his gut. He stops, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he clears his throat and wearily runs his fingers through his hair.

‘I’m really sorry to hear that.’

We sit in silence for a few seconds until he speaks again, his eyes once more full of their usual sparkle, his body straightening and springing back to life. ‘Anyway, sorry for being morose and dragging you down. It’s all in the past, isn’t it?’

‘We have a lot in common, you and I, it would appear.’ I try to laugh, to inject some levity into the situation. ‘Not what you’d call the easiest of topics, is it – death? Especially if it’s the very thing that draws us together but we both know how it feels to lose somebody, don’t we? To have that void in our lives that needs filling.’

Peter nods and gives me a bright smile. I feel easy in his company, as if we have known each other for the longest time. This is good. This is exactly how I want it to be – lacking in any kind of tension or awkwardness.

‘Thanks for the coffee,’ I murmur, my heart starting up as I wait for his response to my words, hoping this isn’t it. I’ve waited a long time for this man to notice me. Please don’t let this be the end of us before we have even begun.

3LAUREN

The days are long without her. I do kind of miss her. I know Dad does too. We wander around this house, rattling around in it like a couple of strangers, barely noticing one another. I don’t know how it’s meant to be after somebody dies, but I didn’t expect it to feel like this. There are self-help books for people who’ve just had a baby, or people who need some sort of stimulus to exist, the sort of people who need help to get their life in order by using those silly motivational phrases and relaxation techniques, but I’ve yet to see any guide books on how to get through the day after a family member dies. So we just get up every morning and go about our daily business, heads down, tongues too tied to speak to one another.

It’s sad, really. We used to be so close, Dad and me, but now things feel so difficult. I want to open up to him, hear him talk freely about Mum, about anything really, but no matter how hard we try, the words just won’t come. He’s afraid of speaking to me, that’s what it is. Afraid of what might come spilling out of his mouth, and I can’t talk to him because I don’t know what it is he wants to hear, what he wants me to say that will make everything better for us.

I don’t cry about Mum dying. I can’t. I won’t. Dad does on occasion. I hear him sometimes when he thinks I’m asleep. It’s a soft sobbing, not a howl or a self-pitying wail. Just a gentle sound that tells me he’s still grieving.

Sometimes, Grandma calls over, but truthfully, she causes more problems than she solves. Her remit seems to be cleaning things that don’t need cleaning and moving things around so we can’t find them the following day. Last week, she called over while we were both out and cleaned and moved all the crockery around into different cupboards.

‘Easier for you to find it,’ she had said later, on the phone. ‘You had all your plates mixed up with your cups and saucers. I’ve separated them all into colours and sizes. And by the way,’ she added as an aside, ‘pyjamas and dressing gowns need washing as well, you know. Not just left hanging on the backs of doors for weeks and months at a time.’

She’s actually really lovely and we know that this is her way of trying to help us out but sometimes, it drives me insane. I shouldn’t complain. Dad isn’t the tidiest of people and it saves me having to continually pick up after him. I like cleanliness and order, strange I know for a seventeen-year-old, but that’s just how I am, a hygiene freak, whereas Dad can wreck a room just by looking at it. Still, we’ve always rubbed along together nicely without any real arguments worth speaking of. Maybe opposites do attract after all.

Dad going to church is a new thing and I’m not sure how I feel about it. He always claimed he was an atheist so this U-turn in his thinking is a bit a shock and not something I could ever have predicted. It’s a massive shock, actually. Many men in his position would turn to drink, spending their days propping up the bar in the local pub, or go out running, or smash a ball around a squash court to vent their anger and grief, but Dad appears to have turned to God instead. It makes me uneasy and I’ve tried asking him about it but he just waves me away with a half-hearted smile.

‘It’s just somewhere to go where nobody bothers me,’ he said the last time I tried to probe him.

He’s busy at work, I get that. He works for a cut-throat company in their sales department selling engineering parts and from what I can gather, they are an organisation who show no interest in grieving employees and their difficult personal home lives. It’s a hectic occupation and during the day, he has hardly any time or energy to think about our circumstances so I imagine some downtime and solace is much needed and perhaps the church provides him with just that. I’m not denying him it; I’m just concerned that somebody will attach themselves to him, some overzealous religious person who wants to indoctrinate him, twist his mind round to their way of thinking. If I’m being truthful, I’m afraid he’ll become so besotted by the church that he’ll forget all about me. Does that sound selfish? It probably does but Dad and I only have each other. We can’t afford to drift apart.

Mum was a Catholic but a lapsed one. She came from an Italian family so it was a given that she would carry on the faith, but she didn’t. Her parents still live in Italy and have weird little religious artefacts all over their house. Mum would laugh when they sent photographs, saying that they’d added to their collection again and that they had more crucifixes than the Vatican.

It must be tricky for them though, being so far away, but Dad has said that their faith has helped them through. He’s probably right. Maybe that’s what drew him to the church. Or maybe it was something else that he doesn’t want to talk about. Something that he wants to keep secret. Maybe one day, he’ll talk to me about it, or maybe he won’t. Maybe we’ll continue wandering around this house in a fog of secrecy and confusion, the subject of Mum’s murder a massive, unscalable wall between us. It’s probably better that way because for all everyone thinks their marriage was a terrific one, solid and impenetrable, there were things that people didn’t see, acts of injustice that set them apart. I love my dad, I really do, but a part of me thinks that this church attendance for the grief counselling is just a ruse, a way of concealing what he really thought before Mum was murdered.

I’m no mind reader or fortune teller, I’m just a young girl for God’s sake, but I’m not thick and I do know this – had Mum not died, my parents would probably now be living apart, their marriage too fragmented to ever be put back together. I once read that it’s easier to move on with your life after a death than it is after a divorce. Perhaps Mum dying has been easier for us to handle than having her live apart from us. Apart and with somebody else who isn’t my dad.