Charlotte Philby - The Most Difficult Thing

‘I’ll be working near here in the afternoon if you fancy a drink afterwards?’ Harry had looked at me and then, out of politeness, at Meg.

‘Bring your friend David too if he’s around …’

If he spotted my disappointment at the mass invite, he didn’t show it.

David was already there when I arrived at the pub, as planned, the following Friday. It was the first time I had seen him since the incident at the club and he was holding his hands under the table when I arrived. Standing up, he presented me with a large, purple, gold-embossed bag, the plush cardboard soft and soothing as it swept against my fingers.

‘I just wanted to apologise for what happened. I—’

‘David, what …’

His face fixed on mine as I tugged at the ribbon that had been pulled tight in a perfect bow, protecting whatever was inside, unable to keep the smile from lifting the corners of my mouth.

The material was a light grey wool, which hung just above my knees, with a soft shearling lining. From the label, it must have cost more than the rest of my wardrobe combined.

‘It’s – well, it’s perfect, but …’ He must have seen the flicker of uncertainty in my face as he stood, casually, wary of applying too much pressure.

‘It’s no big deal. If it’s not right the receipt’s in the bag. I just thought … Meg’s taking forever, shall we order? I’m starving.’

It was then that I looked up and noticed Harry and Meg, already seated at the bar on the other side of the pub, Meg facing away from us. At that moment, Harry looked up and our eyes met, his gaze followed a second later by Meg. I could have sworn it was disappointment I saw in her eyes, but then her face lifted into a smile and she jumped off the stool, striding towards us, her eyebrows rising as if to say, ‘Where the hell have you been?’

The air was heavy and damp that winter, the perfect backdrop to the months of boozy nights that followed in pubs across London, the four of us drinking until the small hours before falling away to our respective beds. But then, as time passed, the initial thrill of our weekly group gatherings was worn away by erratic working hours and office parties, until one night it was just Harry and me sitting across from each other at a table in the corner of the Crown and Goose, where an irate chef passed out plates of food through a minuscule hatch.

We shared one bottle of wine, and then another, our fingers resting side by side on the round wooden table, oblivious to the comings and goings of the other drinkers as they passed back and forth on their way to the bathroom, the urgent ring of the kitchen bell clattering above our heads.

By the time we rose to leave, I was surprised to find the bar swollen with people. Stepping out into the street, the twinkling fairy lights entwined along the shop fronts, Harry stopped and pushed me gently back against the wall of the pub. Holding me there for a moment, my neck in his hand, he paused before kissing me, his lips soft but persuasive.

And that was it, our fate sealed. I had waited for that confirmation of what I had felt for months, and when it came it was as if it had never not been there.

Meg had gone back to Newcastle for a couple of weeks, so the flat was ours alone, that first night together. I woke the following morning to a feeling of utter contentment, until I turned to find an empty space in the bed next to me. Running my fingers over the grooves where his body had been, I briefly wondered if I had imagined it all.

My sense of unease grew when I called his phone later that morning, and the next day, only to reach his voicemail, the recorded message playing a jeering loop against my ear. When he re-emerged, a few days later, he was apologetic but reassuring. There was a job he was doing, which had pulled him away unexpectedly. He was sorry he couldn’t be in touch.

‘You know what it’s like.’

It took everything I had to play down my disappointment, but I knew better than to let the extent of my feelings show. So instead I nodded along – even agreeing when he insisted that we could not tell anyone about us, swearing myself to secrecy.

The case against him was ongoing, he offered by way of explanation. If the defence found out he was dating a former intern – and that was how they would frame it, he said – then they would have a field day.

I was a consenting adult, it was ridiculous. But maybe something about the situation suited me too. It was not as if I was leading David on, exactly, but he had done so much for me already and the idea of him knowing I was with someone else … It would not have been fair.

What bothered me most, though, was how unjustly Harry had been vilified, how quick his colleagues had been to turn against him.

‘But you didn’t do anything,’ I raged one night as he reminded me once more of the charges he could be up against. My counter-arguments were always weak, and he looked at me like I was a child he cared for but who knew nothing of the world.

‘Oh, Anna, of course I didn’t sleep with her – but do you really think that means anything?’

He shook his head despairingly.

‘The girl who made this claim against me, or rather the girl whose parents made this claim … They don’t care that she had told me she was twenty-one. They don’t care that she was the one who duped me .’

To be honest, I could have contested him on that point if I had wanted to. He was the investigative reporter; it was he who had infiltrated the organisation, using whatever means he could to extract the information he wanted. Even if that meant earning the trust of a young woman who believed he was after her, rather than what she could do for him.

Yet how could I say any of that without sounding unsupportive? Harry did not need another person rallying against him. More importantly, I understood why he did it. What he did, it was about the story, the pursuit of truth and justice, regardless of the cost. That was simply the person he was.

The threads in my stomach pulled tighter as I stepped off the bus that morning in Bethnal Green, on my way to his flat for the very first time. My breath in the January air was a curling finger of smoke drawing me forward, as I followed the directions he had sent, past the coffee shop with the couples in beanies sipping hot drinks on a terrace makeshifted out of old wooden crates; young men with bloodshot eyes sucking on roll-up cigarettes, already weary of the winter that still had some way to go.

Hidden on the other side of a scruffy communal garden was a square of grand red-brick houses, stained black where they met the pavement by centuries of tar and a drift of pigeon feathers. Adjoining it, an elegant Victorian mansion block curved and disappeared towards the next street. Harry’s flat was on the second floor, that much I knew, and with that tiny detail I had already drawn a picture in my head, instinctively filling in the gaps.

So many times our evenings together had been curtailed by a sudden phone call that would see him downing his pint and standing to pull on his coat, leaning in to kiss me, reluctantly, his lips hovering over my mouth, telling me he wished he could stay. In those moments, I would picture him coming back to this flat, to the bedroom I imagined filled floor-to-ceiling with books, photos of his childhood stacked precariously on a mantel, shirts thrown over the back of an easy chair. But never did I question where he went in the intervening hours. Maybe I told myself it did not matter, or maybe I was scared what the answer would be.

On the doorstep, I took a moment to gather myself, a row of numbered buzzers in a panel on my left, drawing a deep breath before pressing the bell. There was a moment of silence then a crackle and Harry’s voice.