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I pick up my knife and fork, but I don’t start eating. Not yet. “So…” I begin, pausing to breathe, to summon courage. “Friends?”
Guilt pierces my stomach as I witness Laurence physically swallow the disappointment before attempting to disguise it with a smile. He picks up his glass from earlier, the contents likely lukewarm and flat by now, and raises it in the air. “Friends.”
I put down my fork to clink his toast with my own glass. “And dinner.”
“Dinner,” he repeats.
Friends.
Dinner.
I just need some time. We can do this. We are doing this, and it’s going well. Until I bring the glass to my lips and taste him all over again…
Suffolk has blessed us with glorious weather. Becca ends the route on the Satnav as we enter the long dirt road that leads to the farm in the distance, and I start reading the email on my phone that should direct us to our cottage.
“We’re in Willow Barn,” I tell her. She’s driving in a car we hired so that we could take turns. “Apparently, we need to keep going past the farm until we pass a windmill, and then it’s up on the left. The key is in a small deposit box at the side of the door. We just need to enter this code to get it.”
Becca nods, which makes her sunglasses slip. She pushes them back along her nose, head forward, concentrating on the road ahead. “Yep. I saved that code to my notes app when you forwarded me the email this morning.” That’s a very Becca thing to do.
Craning my neck, I turn my attention to Ben in the back. “Are you sure college don’t mind you taking a few days out?”
“I’ve already told you. I’m having a Zoom meeting with my tutor on Wednesday, and as long as I finish my assignment while I’m here, he’s fine with it.”
“And work, Lucy?”
My daughter rolls her eyes. “I get holiday entitlement like the rest of the country, Dad.”
I look to my wife. “And your mum knows to come and feed Poppy twi—”
“Relax, Will,” Becca interrupts, laughing. “Anyone would think you didn’t want to come.”
“Don’t be daft.” I laugh too, although mine is fake. Like this life I’m living. “Think that’s it.” I point at the cottage coming into view, grateful for its existence, the interruption it brings.
“Oh, it’s beautiful. Kids, isn’t it gorgeous?” Becca removes her sunglasses to get a better look as we drive closer.
I don’t know why I’m surprised by the splendour of it given it’s attached to Laurence, albeit indirectly. I idly consider whether he had any input, monetary or otherwise. We park outside a large, picturesque cottage made from a combination of exposed brick and wooden cladding. There’s a stream to my left that winds as far around the property as I can see from here. The rippling water is sheltered by trees and wild bushes.
“I haven’t seen any cows,” Lucy says. “What kind of farm doesn’t have cows?”
“Or sheep,” Ben joins in.
“The kind of farm that grows crops,” I tell them.
“Like what, carrots and stuff?” Ben asks.
“No, like wheat, barley, linseed, that kinda stuff. Did you not see those bright yellow fields?”
“Thought that was just pretty grass,” Lucy says.
I make eye contact with Becca as we click off our seatbelts. “We failed, didn’t we?”
“I got six GCSEs, thank you very much!” Lucy claps back.
While Ben scoffs before saying, “Imagine only getting six GCSEs.”
Ben got seven.
“Enough, you two. We’re on holiday! Come on now,” Becca says, opening her door. “I can’t wait to see inside.”
The kids, unsurprisingly, walk straight up to the cottage, bickering forgotten, faces buried in their phones, leaving me behind to grab our suitcases. It’s not their fault, really. Becca and I have spoiled them. I take what I can manage from the boot while Becca fawns over the shrubs and flowers lining the decking by the entrance. “William, look,” she calls, “There’s a chiminea. We can sit out later. Listen to the stream. Watch the stars.”
It sounds perfect, and I see my wife react to my smile.
I turn away, pretend I forgot something from the car.
“Fuck,” I whisper, cry, plead into the empty boot. The smoking chiminea, the trickle of the stream, the stars…it does sound perfect. Dreamlike. Romantic. It did make me smile…when I wondered if Laurence had ever sat on that very decking experiencing those things. When I imagined his face, the corner of his mouth pinching upwards.
“I’ve found the key! Are you coming?”
Get it together. You’re with your family now. “Yep! On my way!”
We spend the next couple of hours settling in. Becca unpacks, transferring our clothes into the wardrobes. She questions me about my missing jacket, which Laurence still has, and I tell her I must’ve left it behind at my hotel. Becca tuts, unimpressed, mumbles something about wasted money. Lucy loses no time changing into one of her swimming costumes so she can make use of the hot tub out the back, and Ben manages to scoff almost the entire complimentary baguette and pot of homemade jam that had been left for us in the oak kitchen.
