Of course, the female barista’s smile means nothing, but it’s nice to believe it does on a day like today. I move from the counter to a set of chairs, sit down, sip my tea. Kevin sits across from me. We’re both relieved to have gone from the company of many to the company of one.

Today they buried my friend Tom. I had known him since our college days two decades ago. We were close – less close after college, as it goes, but still close. I hadn’t seen him in six months. My overriding memory of that last lunch, shortly before Easter, was his reaction to a story I told of my daughter. How, left unattended for thirty seconds mid-nappy change, she had stood up, walked in her shit, and left fecal footprints all over the bed. We shared a good laugh over that one. His beaming smile, his scrunched-up face redder than remembered. The weight he had added to an already-squat build.

Then I got the call a few days ago that he’d hanged himself.

But I’ve spent the entire day thinking and talking about Tom and what could have led to it, and I’d rather not prolong that. That’s why Kevin and I left the afters reception – not without giving our condolences, of course. It was just so stifling. And all the whispered speculation was ridiculous. It’s clear he didn’t speak to anyone about how he felt, so the fact is that no one knows. Knows why he did it, what went through his head. And now it’s forever unknowable. Yet still they indulge in their quiet hypotheses. We had to get out for a breather.

There’s nothing like the funeral of someone who killed themselves, really. It’s like we’re all now choking on the very thing that killed him.

So, the breather. I begin: ‘Arsenal are having a bit of a tough start to the season, aren’t they?’

‘They seriously are. . . Yeah. They’ll bounce back though and come good I’d say.’

‘You think?’ I lean back, raise my fingers to my chin. I feel something like comfort for the first time today, examining Kevin’s bony frame, his hair, thick and brown.

‘Yeah. Ah they have to like.’

‘Mmm.’ I look around the cafe. The brunette barista has vanished.

Suddenly my mind goes empty, just as words are needed. I find myself striving to dredge up any old banal comment about the football. But I can’t, nothing comes, the weight of the day too much.

Instead I sigh, lengthily. Whatever comfort I had has been flattened. I think of my wife in work, my daughter at her auntie’s. The company getting on fine for the day without me.

‘Ah, Kevin,’ I say. ‘What a fuckin day.’

‘Mmm,’ he reciprocates, distant. Having so desperately craved freedom from the crowd, I now find myself fearing the loneliness of thought. I will his sad gaze back to me, will him to respond. His eyes dart to my own abruptly, displaying a note of alarm, perhaps at my close scrutiny. I cough, look away.

‘It’s a tragedy. . . But look, he had a good life,’ Kevin says.

My eyebrows lower minutely.

‘Yeah,’ I find myself saying, before I catch up on myself. My jaw tenses. ‘Do you think so, yeah?’

‘Ah yeah, definitely. Sure he was always content enough back in the day. I’d say that like. . . Overall, in spite of how it ended, he had his fair share of happiness.’

‘And that’s what we should celebrate. . .’ I mutter softly.

Somehow he hears. ‘Exactly.’

A sting of irritation grips me at Kevin’s words, my indulgence of them. You say he had a good life because you need that to be true, I hear myself tell myself, then stop myself, shift my position in the seat.

Wanting away from myself, I blurt, unthinking: ‘Do you wanna get a drink?’

‘Cheers Kevin.’

‘Cheers.’

With sizeable draughts, we begin our fourth round of beers. It didn’t take much to convince him. Speech and thought have flowed a lot easier here, the first pub we encountered after leaving the cafe. Nearly empty when we arrived, the place is now almost full. The light is low, the laughter loud, the pub not by any stretch the cleanest. But there’s nothing like a pint to ease the burden of sadness.

‘What did you make of the funeral itself?’ I ask Kevin.

‘Ehm. . . I thought the priest did quite a good job actually.’

‘Mmm. Yeah no he did, spoke well.’

‘Struck the right tone.’

I see again the priest’s red face, his sullen, almost sleepy eyes, hear his dulcet voice.

‘Actually yeah,’ I say, ‘he even used the word “suicide” which was surprising, and brave I think. Lotta priests probably pussyfoot around using it.’

‘Yeah, exactly. . . Did well as well not go too holy moly on it, just talkin about “faith” and like, being there for each other in a time like this, instead of religious specifics. . . You know?’

‘True, yeah,’ I say. ‘Knew his crowd.’ Feeling oddly enlivened, I ask him: ‘Have you ever considered it yourself?’

‘Considered what?’

‘Pullin the plug.’

It takes him a moment. ‘Eh. . .’ The pub’s weak light glimmers in his eyes as he contemplates. ‘Just in passing. . . Like never seriously, you know?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You?’

‘Yeah well, back when I was bad in my twenties, yeah I would have thought about it a lot.’

Kevin nods, with what seems like caution. He fingers gently his pint. ‘Must have been very hard.’

An unaccountable anger bristles in me in response to these words. It passes. ‘Yeah it was.’

‘And how are you now?’

‘All right, yeah, except my friend just killed himself.’

He sniggers. I snigger. It feels wrong and right at the same time.

‘Ah, it’s better, you know,’ I continue after a drink. ‘Having a wife and a kid obviously. . . Gives you such purpose. And I’ve just found a bit of a rhythm to this. . . Thing we call life.’

‘Mmm.’

His fingers caress quietly the dark, pine surface of the table between us.

A question comes to me. ‘You seeing anyone yourself?’

He shakes his head, drawls out a ‘No.’

‘Do you want to be?’

He shrugs, exhales, sits back. ‘Only if the right person comes along, you know.’

‘Yeah. That’s definitely the right attitude to have I think.’

Relaxing into the cushioned seat, my mind wanders with semi-drunk buoyancy. I think of when Kevin broke it to me on the phone. He had only just found out himself. Though his voice was thin and ragged, he seemed to move so well with the flow of grief, its platitudes and pauses. Whereas I blundered out whatever I could, the old familiar anxiety, panic even, swirling like a vortex behind my shrill words. I hurried off the phone.

Sighing, I clutch my pint, tight.

Kevin continues: ‘I’m pretty happy though at the moment, overall. The job in the university is rewarding, you know, and I’m just generally having a good time. So doesn’t feel like I’m missing anything, even though I’m single.’

‘Mm. That’s really good man.’

He drinks. I drink, remembering the night of the phone call. How I didn’t sleep, apart from an hour at dawn. Then that dream. An underground chamber, white wallpaper peeling, full of desks and pages. A phone ringing, ringing on and on, a phone I couldn’t find. My breath sharp, my hands, clammy and quivering, turning page after page. I dropped to my knees, searched the floor. Crawled under chairs, crying.

I look at Kevin. He wears a glazed expression, lost in thought as well. The laughter around us is coarse, seems to claw at our silence.

But nothing is silent here, really, it’s all noise. Silence awaits, later on, when all we can think of is him.

It’s half nine or so when finally he arrives home. I happen to be thinking of Tom, lying on my front in the bedroom’s dark. Readjusting the position of my breasts beneath me, recalling the dozen or so times I met him. A work event we’d been planning for months meant I couldn’t attend the funeral today. Still feel slightly guilty about that. Wonder if he passed on my condolences. Bet he fucking didn’t.

I raise myself. Take a long gulp from the glass of water by the bed. Tom was nice. Quiet, kind, though a bit emotionless at times, a bit drab. Still, he had a great sense of humour, when expressed, and a brilliant, powerful laugh. The two of them always shared a good one. Though how many laughs would he have had in his last few years, living by himself as he was.

Awful thinking what he must have gone through.

He never cried over it. A bit surprising, considering he cried after a bad day at work last week. He doesn’t seem too badly affected by it at all really, now that I think about it. And why the fuck is he back so late, without a text or a call to let me know?

Slow footsteps on the stairs. I turn onto my back.

Light pours into the room as he ushers the door open. Blinded, I can’t see him at first, but speak anyway: ‘Hey hun. . . Where were you?’

Squinting, I see the rough outline of his face, which I know is faintly stubbled.

‘Hey babe. Had a few pints with Kevin.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

He sighs. Stands idle by the bed. Like he doesn’t know what to do.

Giggling a bit, I ask if he’s OK.

‘Yeah, yeah, just. . . Tired. I dunno. Still have my shoes on, shit.’ He chuckles too.

I lift myself up onto my knees to rustle his hair. Remember.

‘So. . . How was the funeral?’

‘Sad.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Grim, yeah. . . Shit. Hence me and Kevin stealing off for coffee that became pints.’

‘That became no text home to explain.’

He sighs again, slower this time. ‘Sorry yeah, shoulda texted.’

‘Mmm.’

Languidly, he leans down for a kiss. The whiff of beer hits me. He starts to undress there and then. ‘How’s Maya?’

‘Maya’s good. Very well behaved tonight, actually.’

‘Great. . . I’ll go in to her soon.’

‘Don’t wake her.’

‘I won’t, I just. . . Just need to. . .’

I squeeze his arm to let him know I understand. He reclines half-dressed onto the bed beside me, lays his lips on the crown of my head.

After a silent minute, he stands up. I study him in the darkness, his slowly moving form, know what expression he wears as he steps towards the dresser. Can sense it. Soft solemnity. A sudden rush of love grips me.

‘Just headin outside for a bit.’

‘Love you,’ I murmur, laying my cheek on the pillow.

‘Love you too.’

He grabs his jelly beans, as I knew he would. Heads out onto our small balcony.

Jelly beans. Still cracks me up.

For God knows what reason I think of her. Her. The one he slept with three and a half years ago that almost brought us down. A decade together, three years married, and he drunkenly sleeps with a colleague eleven years his junior. Bawls his confession to me six months later. Six fucking months. He had tried his best to keep his terrible secret, but in the end he couldn’t. So why did he admit it, for my sake or his own? The fact he took so long nearly hurt as much as the act itself. I left when he told me about it. Left this very house.

But the truth is – and I hate myself for this – the truth is I knew in my heart of hearts that I’d never really leave him. I loved him. And when I was gone I couldn’t stop, can you believe it, I couldn’t stop feeling sorry for him. Yep. I kept seeing him out on the balcony, eating those fucking jelly beans. It was summer, like it is now. Munching away between tears. I just couldn’t. I was bound to him. My trajectory took me away from him and straight back like a boomerang. Three weeks and I was back, him full of promises of course. Promises that hopefully meant something, mean something, will always mean. And then, spontaneously, we decided to have a child. Having failed to see the attraction up to that point, the prospect suddenly excited us, and just before it was in danger of becoming too late. Like a setting sun escaping a bundle of clouds at the last, it entranced us.

Maya, our two-year-old beauty, what a joy. Such innocent joy, such ease. Such freedom, in its purest form, bound only to the whims of her impulse. Everything is new for her; everything is new with her. I see her sometimes as the obverse of the woman he slept with. Because she was the opposite of this freedom, this freedom of newness, a dark-haired angel bearing steel fucking shackles that felt like the pain I’d always known. Was it weird that she even looked like me? Saw my youth in her. Ugh. Anyway, the loathsome bitch reminded me, and him too I think, how bound we were to each other. How unfree we had become in our love for one another, how incorrigible our bond. And I didn’t want to be free, not in the slightest, till he did that to me. And by that time, I couldn’t be. The greatest happinesses bind.

But Maya. All roads lead to Maya. A happy child, bar the occasional strop. Her small blue eyes like precious marbles; her dark hair unimaginably soft. She’s freed me in a way, allowed me to love someone else like I love him, so if something ever did happen between us I’d nonetheless still have her. Maybe having a child is the only solution to a love that overwhelms. Bottle half of it, contain it in someone new. Two stakes instead of one.

So – loving Maya takes the pressure off loving him.

Complete silence outside. I always strain to hear him munch. Always fail. I feel myself finally begin to grow tired.

It reminds me, that balcony, and the way we stand on it together, of back right at the start of our relationship, when he lived in that apartment near the canal. An attic apartment. How we used to stand at the open window at night, our breaths still sharp from sex, looking out at the dark, the vague stars, the pearly moon. Our young, naked bodies. Love’s hot beginnings. And his demons. The occasional depression that became days of depression that became weeks, that became panic attacks that became a black typhoon almost robbing us of him, robbing us all, as Tom has been robbed.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s really gone. They say it never fully leaves you. Surely that’s not true. And even if it is, it’s hardly something you should emphasise publicly, putting out there for those who are still suffering to hear.

I used to wonder whether it was me who saved him, who had brought him back from the brink. But with time I’ve realised he was saved by the only person who possibly could: himself. And, if it never truly leaves, he’s still doing the saving. Still doing it, out there right now.

Ah, jelly beans. Their sweetness tempers my hunger, a hunger unsated by the burger I picked up on the long walk home. Extra-long for the purpose of sobering up. And now here I am, finally beginning to sober, my hunger finally abating, looking out on the quiet lamp-lit street.

Poor Tom. I stop myself imagining his distress, before wondering if this is right. A small token of respect surely, to feel just a bit of it. To know it. But it’s impossible. Whatever pain I beckon is my own; I can’t know his.

What the hell happened Tom?

Am I in pain? Hard to tell under this blanket of pints. But it’s going, the buzz, going, drifting off to somewhere else in the night.

The nearest pub is far down the end of the street, closer to the city centre. I try to see if I can hear voices from it, but I can’t. I wish I were still drinking, still far from this inevitable contemplation.

I see his feet, dangling mid-air, quivering.

Stop. Go in to your child. Twat. Don’t know your luck. Where was I when he did that to himself? Yesterday, I checked the last messages exchanged between us. The day after our last meeting, saying it was great to see each other, and we should do it again soon. The latter from me, to which he replied:

Definitely 😊

And now never.

The street is oddly still. Not a person. Not a breath. I swallow the fruity clump in my mouth. Now. Never. Stupid fucking words that fail the magnitude of what’s happened. This present moment, now, will ever be full of a never, an absence that is my friend.

You practically loved him, love him, even still, despite not having seen him much. And where were you for him? He probably felt awkward ever asking to see you because you’ve a family, and he assumed–

What? What did he assume? You don’t know. Can’t.

And if you had arranged to meet him in the meantime? Stop. Stop that. Now.

A dog barks somewhere. All his students there today, his history students from that well-to-do secondary school where he taught. He gave them learning, and now he’s put a dent in their budding minds. A small dent, maybe, but a dent nevertheless. Small traumas. They better get used to them. He’s a history, now, in their lives. As gone as the figures in their books.

What are you doing? Go to bed, to sleep.

I can’t. I’m stuck. There are things I need to do.

I turn from the still night, somnambulant in my step. Close the door softly, quietly approach my wife. Kiss her on her warm cheek. She sleeps. I leave the room.

The lit hall strains my eyes. I enter my daughter’s bedroom. Leave the door open wide enough to permit a small entry of light. I cross over to her, slowly, a pilgrim attending their shrine.

She’s in her green onesie, lying on her back. As still as everything else right now – apart from me, apparently. Her hands rest loosely by her head. Mat of dark brown hair, chubby limbs, an expression of vacancy on her smooth face. Her eyelids are still, which means it’s a dreamless sleep, which means she’s safe.

I can’t stand it when she has nightmares. What the hell is chasing her through the mazes of her mind? Your absence? Her mother’s, more like. I smile, faintly, caress her little hand.

Repent, pig.

‘I’m sorry for hurting your mommy. . . Back when you weren’t around.’ She draws a deep breath, as though in unconscious acknowledgement. Somewhat startled, I continue. ‘I’ll never do it again.’

I think of what awaits her. Life. Happiness, pain. Some love, hopefully. And words, words that won’t do justice to anything. Inarticulable waves of unavoidable feeling. A mad mess of failed phrases. Or phrases not even fucking attempted. Like you never telling Tom. Telling Tom that you appreciated him. That you loved him as a friend. That you were there. That it’d end. It’d go away, and he didn’t have to go with it.

Bending, to Maya, to Tom, to new life and a life said and done, I kiss her cheek, tell her that I love her, love them both.

I return to the darkness and my wife. Make a mental note to see Kevin soon. She shifts in the bed as I near. Someone shouts on the street. Life hasn’t gone mute, it seems. This comforts me. I undress, shuffle into bed. Think some more. Sleep.

An hour later, Maya cries. I go to her.