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 andthen 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 ofwoman 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 wantthat,’ 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?
