Excerpt from The Sea Gate by Jane Johnson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

My throat feels hard and swollen, as if bulky words are trying to choke me. I watch her peel off the gloves finger by finger, snapping them back into shape with brisk efficiency as if performing a medical procedure. Her nail varnish is a shade of dark plum, like old blood.

'Poor Becky.' She knows I don't like her calling me that: it's too intimate. 'It's so awful to lose your mother after all you've been through.' She pauses. 'Such a shame Eddie couldn't be here to support you.'

Is there any real concern here, or is she just point-scoring?

'I mean, it's a bit much, not coming to your mother's funeral. And with you so fragile.'

I hate that she knows so much about the sinkholes in my life. But the worst part is she's completely right. Tears sting the back of my eyes, but I cannot cry in front of Evie. I thrust myself to my feet. 'Need a cigarette,' I mutter, and flee.

I don't smoke, actually – never have. Out on the concrete steps I sit and fiddle with my phone, selecting my home number with trembling fingers. I need to hear Eddie's voice: it will calm me down.

When I told him tearfully about the awful readings James had chosen, and the soulless venue for the funeral, he had held me close and let me weep into his chest. But as soon as I mentioned getting his suit dry-cleaned, he'd gazed at me as if I'd mortally wounded him.

'Becks, you know I don't do suits and funerals – I'm an artist.' He ran a hand through his wild, dark hair, exasperated by my failure to understand something so fundamental to his being. 'Look, you know how fond I was of your mum. I'd love to help you give her a proper send-off. But I just can't afford to lose the time, not now, for God's sake, Rebecca, my exhibition! I can't lose an hour, let alone days! Besides, what does it matter? Jenny's gone, and anyway she'd hate all the ritual and empty show. She'd say, "Eddie, for goodness' sake, you've got to make your exhibition a success. It's so important."?'

My mother would have said exactly this. At once I had felt mean and unworthy. But that was before yesterday's world-altering phone call, which has ricocheted around my skull all through the night, nicking little edges of sentient matter here and there, leaving me thick and dull after barely two hours of sleep. I want to share the content of that call with Eddie. But I can't: that really would be selfish. He's already been through so much with me. I'll tell him after the exhibition, but for now all I want is to hear his voice, to receive a virtual hug from the man I've lived with for ten years.

We never actually got married, because Eddie said marriage was a bourgeois social construct designed to control people's individuality. 'All that parading around in fancy clothes, while a load of people you don't really like, who've bought you gifts you don't really want, stuff their faces with food and booze you've paid for with money you don't have!' I had sort of agreed with him: we didn't need a piece of paper to prove how much we loved one another, and neither of us was religious. Besides, we were broke.

But if we had been married and if he had come with me to Mum's funeral, I would have felt more armoured against the world, including Evie's sniping, which in the bigger picture is such a small thing.

The bigger picture looms at me again, and I push it to the back of my mind, and tap our home number in the Contacts list. The ringback tone goes on and on. I can imagine the phone sounding out in the lounge of our London maisonette, echoing off the walls, the mismatched furniture, the blank TV screen, the half-drawn curtains. I let it ring on in case Eddie's in another room, but I know he's not there. I cut the call and try his mobile and for a moment my heart rises as I hear his hello, then falls as I realize it's just his voicemail message. He must be in the studio, cracking on with the last pieces for the exhibition. It's an exciting opportunity for him, and he really deserves a break, that crucial bit of luck all artists need.

Excerpted from The Sea Gate by Steven Johnson. Copyright © 2021 by Steven Johnson. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.