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Henry nodded, grimaced. “Ghastly things.”
“Oh, I know,” she answered with feeling.
He gave her a look of sympathetic understanding. “You too, then?”
“Yes. Mum has never had one. So the first time I experienced one she didn’t know what to do. She thought I had some strange neurological problem. She took me to all sorts of people to try and cure me. The problem was so many things terrified me, even the idea of things. Witches that might peer in through the bedroom curtains if I left a crack open. Goblins under the bed.”
Henry laughed. “Dust mote demons.”
Alice blinked across at him. “Sorry?”
“Invisible creatures that lived in dust motes. Some were good, some evil but I never knew which were which because when the sun shone there were so many of them waiting to pounce if you put a foot wrong. I think it was my own variation of A.A. Milne’s poem:And the little bears growl to each other, ‘He’s mine, as soon as he’s silly and steps on a line.’”
Without even thinking, Alice finished, “—and some of the bigger bears try to pretend that they came round the corner to look for a friend.”
Henry grinned with pleasure. “I was five at the time, so I could be forgiven for thinking there were evil creatures hiding in the barn of an old house we lived in. My mother, a frightfully unimaginative woman, was unable to reassure me. Luckily, I had a very good nanny with a great many variations on killing dust mote demons by stealth.”
Now they were both laughing. Shared neuroses, it seemed, were a wonderful ice-breaker.
After that their conversation flowed easily about all manner of things, fromWinnie the Pooh, and how Alice was Eeyore according to Polly, and Polly was Tigger. And her favourite subject, the Brontës, of course. Henry insisted Alice come to his keynote address to find out his take on Oscar’s life. Finally, the waiter told them their table was ready in the restaurant.
As they sat down their phones dinged simultaneously with a message. Their eyes met.
“Rowena.”
“Mum.”
“She’s awfully cut-up not to be here,” Henry said with real affection in his voice.
Alice’s lips quirked. “I know. It must be unbearable for her. She has the worst FOMO in the world at the best of times, let alone…”
Henry inclined his head, shook out his napkin and laid it neatly on his lap. “And you and I—what’s the term I heard the other day—?” His face lit up. “That’s right, JOMO. Joy of missing out.”
“Oh yes.” Alice rolled her eyes. Great big missing pieces were being slotted into place. “Was Mum like that when you met her?”
“Exuberant, you mean?”
“I guess,” Alice answered. Overbearing would probably sound too mean-spirited.
“She was the absolute life and soul of every party.” Henry’s features softened as if recalling happy times. “She’d breeze into a crowd of us earnest young students discussing Sartre in hushed voices and shout, ‘Forget Sartre, what about Simone de Beauvoir?’ and suddenly everything would get lively and interesting. She was the one who suggested the three Ps Club.”
“What was that?”
“Poetry, Philosophy and Pimm’s. Best summer of my life. Reading and talking along the banks of the River Cam, Pimm’s in hand. The world was our oyster back then.”
Henry looked at her, suddenly serious. “You need to know I loved your mother. Very dearly. I still do. But I wasn’t made to love her the way she wanted me to.”
Alice fussed with her own napkin. “Obviously she’s told me a bit.”
“Of course,” Henry said without any sign of embarrassment. “I hope you will forgive her for not telling you the truth.”
Alice was silent. She would. In time. But there was a hefty accumulated debt here. “I will, Henry, it’s just all very new. How about you, have you forgiven her?”
“I could never be angry with your mother. She helped me through the worst period of my life. She told you about that, I presume?”
“The way your parents…” Alice trailed off, not wanting to get her facts wrong.
“Disowned me?” It was a question that held its own answer.
