‘Well, at least he’s got you two. I’m sure he appreciates the company, even if it might seem otherwise.’
‘He behaves as if he’s been kidnapped by terrorists,’ Mum sighed. ‘He actually said this morning, when I gave him his pills, “I can’t believe you dragged me down to this godforsaken place.” I was very close to putting an end to his suffering.’
Dad laughed. ‘You’re an angel with him,’ he said, and gave her a tender kiss. I looked away, mildly disgusted, very touched and, actually, a little bit jealous. They were still so happy together, my parents. Dad had taken Mum out every day until she’d agreed to marry him; he’d telephoned her, written to her, sent her gifts. He’d taken her to concerts and let her sit at the sound desk with him. He had never left her hanging. He had never not called.
I asked if I should go up and say hello before we left for lunch at the pub.
‘Luckily for you, he’s asleep,’ Mum said. ‘But he’ll definitely want to see you.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘In as much as he ever wants to see anyone.’
We sat outside the Crown, even though it wasn’t really warm enough. Gusts of wind riled my mother’s hair into red flames, and Dad looked stunted, or perhaps drunk, because his side of the table was sloping down the hill. In the field rising steeply above the lane, a sheep had sunk down onto its knees to graze amid the pungent nettles. I laughed and then stopped laughing. I wondered if I would ever find sheep funny again.
‘Tell me about this cello business,’ I prompted Dad. On the way up, Mum had reported that he’d been taking lessons.
‘Aha! Well, I was having a few jars with Paul Wise last autumn, and he was saying he’d just read in the newspaper about how you can keep your brain sharp in old age by playing an instrument—’
‘So he just drove to Bristol and bought a cello,’ Mum interrupted. ‘He was awful at first, Sarah. Terrible. Paul came and listened to him—’
‘And the bastard just stood there and laughed,’ Dad finished off. ‘So I practised like mad, and then found a teacher in Bisley, and I’m soon to take Grade Two. Paul will eat his words.’
I raised my glass to propose a toast to Dad, just as a woodpecker drummed its rocky beak into the side of a tree. My hand sank back down to the table. The sound reminded me so strongly of Eddie, of our time together, that I found myself unable to speak.
The oily rolling returned to my stomach.
My parents talked about Granddad while I watched another family, sitting by a blaze of delphiniums further down the garden. The parents looked like mine: just beginning their transition into old age; greyer, more crumpled, but still firmly in their lives, not looking back on them. Their daughters were how I imagined Hannah and I would look if we could sit here today. The younger daughter seemed to be holding forth with some vehemence on some topic or other and I was mesmerized, imagining my own little sister as an adult. Adult Hannah would be full of opinions, I thought. She’d love a good polemic, never shy away from fights – the sort of woman who leads committees and is secretly feared by the other parents at school.
‘Sarah?’ Mum was looking at me. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said.
Then: ‘That family over there.’
Mum and Dad looked. ‘Oh, I think the husband is one of our neighbour’s friends,’ he said. ‘Patrick? Peter? Something with a “P”.’
Mum didn’t say anything. She knew what I was thinking.
‘I just want that ,’ I said quietly. ‘To be able to sit at this table with you two and Hannah. I would give everything I had if it meant we could all sit here. Talking, eating.’
Mum’s head dipped, and I sensed Dad had gone very still, as he always did when I talked about Hannah. ‘Well, we’d like that, too,’ my mother said. ‘More than we can say. But I think we’ve learned the hard way that it’s better to focus on what we do have rather than what we don’t.’
A plate of cloud rolled over the sun and I shivered. It was typical of me to do this. To make my parents feel uncomfortable, remind them of how things could have been.
By six o’clock my heart was pounding and my thoughts had scattered like filaments from a dandelion clock. I told my parents, who were politely dismayed, that I was going for a run.
‘New exercise regime,’ I smiled, hoping they would allow me this fiction.
Sickened by myself, I went upstairs to change. I couldn’t decide what was worse: that this adrenalized state had become so familiar or that I couldn’t find a solution beyond wearing myself out and lying to those who cared about me.
Remind me when you’re back off to LA? Tommy texted just before I left .
Leaving for Heathrow 6.15 a.m. on Tuesday. I’ll be quiet as a mouse.
OK. So you’re staying with us on Monday night, right?
If that’s OK. I’ve got a conference in Richmond on the Monday; I should get to yours by about 7.30 p.m. But if not convenient, I can easily stay on Jo’s sofa? I imagine you and Zoe have had it with me!
No, it’s fine. Zoe’s in Manchester again. So you’re not here Sunday night?
Negative. Why? Are you entertaining another woman?
Er, no.
Jolly good. See you Monday night, then, Tommy. Everything OK?
Everything’s fine. So, Monday morning: will you go straight to the conference, or will you come here first?
I frowned. Tommy and Zoe had been remarkably generous with their spare room on this and every visit, giving me a key and telling me to use the flat as if it were my own. And apart from the odd time we’d made dinner for each other, I didn’t think Tommy had ever asked about my comings and goings.
I was going to come to your flat first, but can go straight to Richmond if you’d prefer? I wrote.
No , Tommy replied. It’s fine. See you then. And don’t you dare go hunting for Eddie while you’re down there, OK? Don’t look him up, don’t go running past his front door, don’t go and sit in that pub. Do you understand?
I understand. Have a nice weekend entertaining your secret lady. xx
Watch it , he wrote. Then: I mean it, Harrington. Don’t even look the man up, do you hear?
For a moment I wondered if Tommy was messaging me because he was meeting Eddie. I considered this possibility for a good few minutes before I realized how ridiculous it was.
Would I run as far as Sapperton, in the hope of seeing Eddie? The idea had been brewing for days. Although who knew if he was down here in Gloucestershire or up in London? Or in bloody outer space. And what would I do if I actually saw him?
But I knew that I would run to Sapperton, and I knew it would make me feel even worse, and I either couldn’t or wouldn’t stop myself.
The run was how I imagined a breakdown might feel. Eddie was everywhere I looked: watching me from tree branches, sitting on the old sluice, walking in the meadow that lay between the wandering branches of the river. And before long he was joined by Hannah, wearing the same clothes she’d worn that day, that awful day.
As I approached the tiny footbridge, I saw a woman walking towards me from the direction of Sapperton. She, at least, seemed real: a raincoat, hair tied back, walking shoes. Until she stopped suddenly and stared at me.
For reasons I couldn’t quite understand, I stopped jogging and stared at her, too. Something about her was familiar, only I knew I’d never seen her before. She was too far away for me to be sure about her age, but from here she looked a good deal older than me.
Eddie’s mother? Was that possible? I peered at her, but saw no obvious resemblance. Eddie was broad, round-faced, tall, whereas this woman was extremely thin and short, with a sharp chin. (And even if it was Eddie’s mother, why would she stand in the middle of a footpath, staring at me? Eddie had said she was depressed, not mad.) Besides, she didn’t know I even existed .
After another few seconds she turned round and started walking back in the direction she’d come. She walked fast, but her movements had the jerky irregularity of someone to whom movement does not come easily. I’d seen it enough times in children recovering from injury.
I stood there for a long time after she’d disappeared out of sight.