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‘What do you think, love?’ Arthur turns to Ruth, his eyes suddenly shiny. ‘Would you like to come back home?’
Lunch seems to go on for ever. Nelson orders things almost at random but, when they arrive, they are unrecognisable, swimming in green sauce or arranged in a tower with berries on top. The girls say it’s delicious. So does Michelle although Nelson notes that she doesn’t eat much. George demands chips but the nearest thing the restaurant can provide are thin wafery things that, according to George, taste of poo. Nelson tries one and agrees with his son. He can’t be entirely sure that they’re not beetroot.
They do end up ordering Champagne. Rebecca drinks rather a lot and so, unusually, does Michelle. Laura and Nelson are driving and let the bubbles go flat in their glasses.
George is bored before the tiny puddings arrive, glistening evilly in old-fashioned teacups. Laura takes him outside to see the ducks on a nearby pond. Nelson hopes that this isn’t a way of avoiding eating. Eventually, Nelson is paying the (eye-wateringly expensive) bill. His daughters had wanted to pay but he insisted. He’s getting more like Tony Soprano by the second.
It seems that Michelle and George stayed in London last night. Laura met them at the station when she collected Rebecca, who travelled up from Brighton. But Laura’s Yaris is small, so it makes more sense for Nelson to drive his wife and son back to the house. Back home. It’s clear that this is where they’re staying.
‘I can’t wait to see Bruno,’ says Michelle. She does love the German shepherd, who once saved her life. And it’s clear that the animal hasn’t forgotten. He goes mad when he sees Michelle, running around the house trying to find her presents. George runs after him. Nelson is pleased. It covers any possible awkwardness attached to Michelle’s return. Also, he’s glad that George hasn’t become scared of the large dog.
Laura and Rebecca arrive a few minutes later, both of them in high spirits. Laura arranges the Father’s Day cards on the mantelpiece. Nelson examines them in a rare moment’s peace. Laura’s is an old-fashioned photograph of footballers. ‘Was it like this when you played for Bispham Juniors?’ she has written inside. Rebecca’s has a joke about being northern. The one supposedly from George has a cartoon elephant on the front. ‘Happy Father’s Day, Daddy,’ Michelle has written inside, ‘with love from Georgie’. Her writing hasn’t changed since Nelson first met her. George has added his own string of Gs. Nelson wonders, with a sudden lurch of his heart, whether he’ll get a card from Katie.
Laura makes tea and a sandwich for George, who says he’s hungry. ‘You’ll have to get Daddy to make you fish finger sandwiches,’ says Michelle. ‘They’re his favourites.’
‘Food of the gods,’ says Nelson, but he’s finding it hard to concentrate on the conversation. It’s just sooddto see Michelle sitting in her usual chair, with Bruno leaning against her legs. Rebecca is lying on the floor looking at an old photo album. ‘Is that me?’ George asks about every picture. ‘No,’ says Rebecca, ‘they’re all me and Laura.’ Nelson and Michelle must have taken hundreds of photos of George but they’re all on their phones, or on the laptop, not squashed between the pages of a velvet-bound album.
George is soon bored again so his sisters take him into the garden where his climbing frame is still fixed between the trees. Nelson looks across at Michelle and sees that she’s asleep. She’s obviously tired after the travelling. Or the Champagne. Or is she just avoiding talking to him? Nelson gets out his phone. Could he text Ruth? But she’ll probably be driving. He wonders what sort of day she’s had. Her father always sounds a bit of an odd stick, although he has managed to find himself a new, younger, wife. Ruth’s parents have proved full of surprises. Ruth’s mother with her secret daughter, her father with his autumn romance. Even Nelson’s mother, as fixed as the sun in his universe, once said something that shook him to the core. Not far from here, in Sandringham Woods, she tacitly gave her blessing to Nelson leaving Michelle for Ruth. But it was Michelle who made the first move towards this. Why, then, has she come back?
From the garden come the sounds of George’s shouts and Bruno’s barks. Nelson feels his head drooping.
Judy is looking through Cathbad’s papers. It’s not snooping, she tells herself, I’m investigating. There’s a small desk in their bedroom, the old-fashioned kind with a sloping lid. Judy used it as a workstation during Covid. Inside she finds the usual jumble of old Christmas cards and flyers from local restaurants but there is also a file tied together with string. A piece of lavender is threaded through the knot. This is a document that is waiting to be found.
Judy’s hands shake as she unties the knot. The children have taken Thing for a walk. She’s told them not to go far so she only has a few minutes.
The Last Will and Testament of Michael Malone, also known as Cathbad.
The words seem so strange, so theatrical, that Judy can’t quite take them in. It seems odd seeing Cathbad’s real name like that. Judy never uses it. Michael is her son’s name.
‘I leave all my worldly goods to my life partner, Judith Mary Johnson. . .’
Judy’s eyes swim. ‘Life partner’ is what Cathbad always calls her. They are not legally married although a pagan friend of Cathbad’s performed a surprisingly moving ceremony on the beach one evening. Her own legal name evokes a rush of feelings. She’s always disliked Judith and Mary seems almost obligatory for a Catholic female. She thinks of the Virgin Mary appearing to Richeldis in Walsingham. It’s a more powerful name than people think.
Cathbad makes several other bequests including his books to Ruth and his cloak to Nelson. What would the boss make of that? Judy wonders. Funnily enough, she can almost imagine him wearing it. There are no witness signatures but, at the end of the will, there is a date. 17 June 2021.
The day before he disappeared.
There are several other papers in the file. One details a ‘woodland burial’: no embalming, a wicker casket, pan pipes to play. The last few pages are written in Cathbad’s characteristic flowing hand.
My earliest memories involve my grandmother Fionnuala. They aren’t the usual sepia tinted shades of knitting and shawls, of scones baking in the oven and tea in a twice-brewed pot. No, my first image is of a woman walking up from the sea, fit and muscular in a black one-piece, flicking water from her short hair. Fionnuala swam every day and, afterwards, she sat on the pebbles and smoked a cigarette. It was the only time I ever saw her do this. The Irish Sea is cold and unforgiving, but I never remember Fionnuala shivering or even wrapping her towel round her shoulders. She is laughing, white teeth in a tanned face, little lines around the eyes, ready to face whatever life had to throw at her. . .
Judy carries on reading until she hears the children at the front door.
It’s seven o’clock by the time Ruth reaches the A148. Her head is aching and her foot is hurting from pressing down on the clutch. Maybe she should invest in an automatic. But her Renault is only eight years old, which is practically new in Ruth’s eyes. She just wants to get home and have a glass of wine with Flint.
At the South Street turning, Kate says, ‘This is near Dad’s house.’
‘So it is,’ says Ruth, edging forward in the queue.
‘I’ve made Dad a card,’ says Kate. ‘Like the one I made Granddad but better.’
Ruth tries not to imagine the card. Kate, tongue protruding, carefully writing ‘Happy Father’s Day Dad’ in bubble letters. She tries to think of Flint and the Saltmarsh in the evening, of the white wine she is sure lurks somewhere in the fridge. She feels like she has been driving all day.
‘I drew a cat on it,’ says Kate.
Ruth sighs. ‘Do you want to take it round to him?’
Kate sits up straighter. ‘Yes, please.’
