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‘I miss them.’
Theo laughed. ‘I’m trying not to resent that remark.’
‘I miss you too. Of course I do. I’m not in love with you any more, Theo, but I will always love you.’
He felt sure he’d heard that line before – some movie or television drama; perhaps a song.
‘I miss my son. I miss seeing Finn.’ Harriet’s voice faltered. ‘Every day I have to convince myself that leaving him with you was the right thing if I had to go.’
‘I think …’ Theo ignored her underlying question. The last thing he needed was for her to fight him for Finn. ‘I think I just needed to know you’re sure. Because you need to be, Harriet. Once these papers go back, once I put them in the post …’
‘I’m sure. I struggle with it, but I’m sure.’
Theo reached the path, stood aside to let the figure he could see coming in his direction pass.
‘Okay, then.’ With those two words, he felt his wife slip away; he felt her slip into the arms of another man he barely knew. He felt himself loosen his grip and let go. ‘We’ll see you Friday, Harriet. Take care of yourself.’
Theo hung up the phone and stood still, the person on the pathway now only twenty feet from him.
‘I thought you’d be in here,’ Finn said.
‘And what if I hadn’t been? Did you tell Bea where you’d gone?’
They both walked towards the house.
‘Of course I did. Besides, I knew you’d be in here. This is where you always sulk.’
Theo faced his son. ‘I do not sulk.’
‘You do. A little bit. The beach is a good idea on one condition.’
Theo raised his eyebrows, not much in the mood for more conditions being placed on his life. ‘And what’s that?’ he asked anyway.
‘We ditch the ham sandwiches and have fish and chips instead.’ Finn shivered on cue. ‘It’s too cold for sandwiches.’
‘We’ll take them and have them in the car on the way down or back. We’ll have fish and chips when we’re there.’
Finn smiled. ‘I’m ready to go. Are you?’
An hour and a half later, they were both sitting on the highest dune at the furthest end of the stretch of strand at West Wittering. The light was dull, the sun trying to break through the abundant clouds above them. An Atlantic wind whipped around them but Theo didn’t care. The chips were hot, the fish was fresh and crispy, and his son was huddled next to him, munching.
‘You can just see the Isle of Wight, see the outline?’ Theo pointed and Finn nodded. ‘Do you remember the time we all camped there one summer? Your mum got drunk as a skunk!’
Finn nodded again.
‘I know you miss her. You’re bound to miss her. I … I just want you to know that I know.’
Theo noticed the chips couldn’t go into his son’s mouth quickly enough, as if Finn didn’t trust himself to reply. He pulled the blanket he had brought around Finn’s shoulders. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thanks for doing this today.’ More nodding. ‘I used to come here a lot as a boy, before my father died.’ He followed his son’s gaze, looked out to the grey surf.
‘Why do people have to die, Dad?’
It was such an unexpected remark that Theo said nothing, allowed the question to linger.
‘Anna’s dead, isn’t she?’ Finn added.
Theo thought some more before replying. ‘More than likely, but until a body is found …’
‘No one could survive seventy days buried under snow, not even if they were in a hole of some sort.’ Finn had counted the days.
‘The human instinct is to survive against all odds.’ Theo picked up a chip and placed it in his mouth. It was already cool.
‘You’re a doctor. What do you think?’
When Finn stared up at him from his huddled stance, Theo saw fear and confusion and remembered what it was like to be young and afraid. He felt bad for not recognizing that two epic events had happened within such a close space of time. Harriet is his mother. And she had left him. Anna had been his beloved babysitter for years. And she was probably dead.
He hugged his son close. ‘I think we don’t know until we know. We have to have hope.’ Theo felt Finn’s body hold back tears. He held him as tight as he could without making him want to pull away. In the distance, the Isle of Wight had disappeared into black clouds. ‘However awful things might seem, we have to have hope.’
Finn’s lower lip trembled. ‘Did you like her, Dad? Anna?’ His voice caught on her name.
‘Of course.’ Theo angled himself to try and catch his son’s expression. ‘What a strange thing to say. Now …’ He loosened his grip on his son and gathered the rubbish into the plastic bag he had brought. ‘You put this lot into that bin over there, then I’ll race you to the car.’
Finn grabbed his arm. ‘Dad?’
‘Yes?’
‘Mum … She’s not coming back, is she? Like, never.’
Theo drew the cold air through his nose slowly, and exhaled it even slower. ‘No, Finn. I don’t think she is.’
‘See, I do hope. I keep hoping that Mum will come home. I keep hoping that Anna’s alive but …’
Theo paused before speaking again. ‘I know you do.’ He took one of his hands and squeezed it hard. ‘But we’re here. Alive and kicking. And your mum may be living somewhere else now, but she loves you very much and you can see as much of her as you want, any time. Any place. We will both make sure of that.’
Theo let the statement rest with his son for a few minutes, then turned and play-punched him. ‘So, what about that race?’
As Finn walked towards the bin ten feet away, Theo sprinted down the dune. ‘But you have to give me a head start!’ he yelled back through the wind as he slowed down and backed himself slowly up the beach. When he saw Finn running towards him, his hands waving dramatically, he turned around and ran again. The wind lashed his cheeks, made his eyes water. It is good to be alive, he thought, as he filled his grateful lungs with the sea air and ran, aware of his son’s laughter just over his shoulder, gaining on him, getting ready to overtake. He slowed and watched Finn pass. His son seemed to be running in slow motion, his limbs all angled, his hair, salt sprayed and stuck to his head, his head glancing back occasionally, his arms pumping like train pistons. ‘Did you like her, Dad? Anna?’
At the car, Theo panted loudly, leaned his body forward, his hands on his waist. ‘Not easy to run with all these layers,’ he protested.
‘You’re just old,’ Finn grinned.
‘I’m forty-five!’ Theo panted the words as he opened the car.
Inside, Finn rubbed his face warm with the palms of his hands. ‘That was good, Dad,’ he said. ‘But next time let’s wait for some better weather.’
‘Nah.’ Theo reversed the car away from the café, down towards the barriers that allowed paying visitors entrance to the beach to park. ‘The crowds come with the sun. We practically had the whole place to ourselves.’
Finn unravelled his white earphones for the journey home. ‘It was good, Dad,’ he repeated. ‘Some father-son-together crap.’
Theo frowned at his son’s language, but decided against a rebuke which, wired into his phone, Finn wouldn’t have heard anyway. He eased the car through the narrow barrier as Finn drummed his fingers to the music already pulsing in his ears and ignored the question repeating in his own.
‘Did you like her, Dad? Anna?’
7. Jess (#ulink_fa530b77-3964-5443-a8f0-34a04e4a0233)
When we reach Windermere, I try not to react when I see my mother’s hair.
‘Darling,’ she says, ‘you came. I’m so glad you came. Your dad will be thrilled to see you. Oh, thank you,’ she says as she hugs me tight. I breathe in her scent, relax in her arms, close my eyes and ignore the fact that she has gone from being an ash blonde to a piccalilli yellow. She pats her head, as if she knows what I’m thinking. ‘I haven’t been able to get out, dear, found this colour in a cupboard, thought I’d better try and get rid of the greys before you arrived.’
Great. It’s my fault she’s yellow.
‘And who’s this?’ She looks down to the other end of the lead I’m holding.
‘Pug.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is Pug a boy or girl?’
‘Girl.’
Mum sighs with relief. ‘Good, they piss less. I have enough trouble dealing with your father.’
Leah laughs out loud, comes in for Mum’s second hug of the day. ‘How is he, Mum?’
‘Leah, love. Good to see you too. Go on through, he’s in the back, looking forward to seeing you all. Hi Gus. I have lunch ready. Hope you’re all starving.’
Leah’s eyes roll at me as Gus embraces my mother too. She points to my mother’s hair behind her back and mouths the words ‘What the hell?’ at me, then leads the way with Gus, who hits his head on one of her empty hanging baskets. Mum pulls me back.
‘Have you heard from Rose?’ she asks, her expression grave.
‘Just a text from Sean to say they’ve got there safely.’
‘Oh.’ She looks disappointed on my behalf, then strokes my hair. ‘How are you?’
Straight away I don’t resent the question that I normally rail against. Instead, I feel some strange primal comfort. The touch of a mother. ‘Not so good.’ I shrug. ‘Yesterday was hard.’
She squeezes my hand, caresses the edge of my little finger. I miss my mother’s touch. And I miss touching my daughter …
Dad is sitting in his usual perch, staring out over the lake from the back of the house. There’s a huge expanse of windows that they both put in in the Seventies, way before they were trendy, and the view from this part of the house is spectacular. Today there are too many sailing boats to count. Some glide across the shimmering water like a knife through butter. Others, not quite catching the wind, move more slowly. Dad’s eyes seem fixed on a small, slow one near the edge of the lake, close to the end of the back garden.
Leah and Gus are already with him. She has her hands wrapped around one of his, is chatting animatedly to him with Gus beside her, prompting stories with witty asides. Dad responds to neither of them but he keeps his eyes fixed on Leah’s face. She’s good at this, pretending that nothing is wrong; pretending that the contracted body of the man in the chair is still Dad, though both of us mourn in private. Both of us hate how the stroke has affected him; how much that tiny part of him that died in his brain, the most minuscule area of shaded capillaries on a CT scan, has really altered him. I lean in and kiss his cheek. I haven’t told him yet. Mum has asked me not to, certain that if he knew – if he had any understanding of what’s happened to Anna – it would kill him. He’d keel over and die. Anna is his only grandchild.
I focus on the shelf next to us. It’s white melamine; one of a row of three put up by Dad years ago. I remember Mum fussing when he used the drill to put the brackets in the wall, sure he’d puncture a gas pipe or electrocute himself. The shelves are still in place, perfectly stable and horizontal, while my dad sits curved in a chair. I reach out and touch a Dinky car, one of the many he has collected over the years. It’s not in a box like most of the others on display. It is from the Thunderbirds range, Lady Penelope’s pink car. Anna used to love it and it’s one of the ones he allowed her to play with when she was little.
Mum is pottering, hovering. It’s making me antsy. At seventy-two, she’s ten years younger than Dad and moves at a speed that belies her age. I have no idea how she cares for my father the way she does: her energy is boundless; her love for him so huge that nothing is too much.
‘Can I help, Mum?’ I call out after her as she heads to the kitchen to bring another foil-covered vegetable dish to the table.
‘No, love. Talk to your dad. He’s been so looking forward to seeing you.’
Leah looks at me. Neither of us asks the obvious question. Neither of us would, but how can she know what Dad is thinking when he rarely speaks nowadays?
He moves in the chair. Pug has taken up residence by his feet, lying on the green carpet that must be thirty years old and looks like AstroTurf. Dad’s blanket, a loose lilac-coloured, stitched crochet one I recognize from my childhood, slips forward. I catch it and pull it up on his knees. I notice his fringe is long enough to push to one side and he’s wearing odd socks. Mum is by my side with a bowl of roast potatoes in her hand. ‘Talk to him! Honestly! He’s not daft, you know.’
I shift in my chair. It’s easy to pretend my father is not a shadow of his former self when I don’t visit. It’s less easy to start a conversation with him right now. I take his hand. ‘How are you, Dad?’ I ask. ‘How are you really?’ I make my eyes move from the plaid shirt he wears to his eyes. Gus, always a little uncomfortable with the changes in Dad, leaves Leah and me to it and follows Mum, insisting on helping her in the kitchen.
Dad’s face angles a little towards me. Today his speech is not good. He makes sounds, struggles with the formation of words, but I know what he’s saying. ‘The girl.’
I lean in to him, rest my head on his shoulder. ‘Yes, Dad, I’m the girl.’
Leah laughs and sticks her tongue out at me. ‘Always the favourite,’ she mutters before she stands and follows Gus.
Dad repeats the sounds and I catch the question in it this time. I wonder if he’s asking about Rose. Or if he’s asking about Anna …
‘No, darling.’ Mum is on it like a hawk on a vole. ‘No, Anna’s not here today.’
My lips tremble. I catch my mother’s eye as she shakes her head at me. ‘No.’ I squeeze Dad’s hand. ‘Not today.’
My father nods and his eyes veer back to the boats. I sit back, still holding his hand, am cast back to the many times I sat here on his knee watching the same scene. It was an idyllic childhood, both Leah and I lucky enough to grow up in this beautiful place. And Anna loves it here. Right now as I look at the green space between the house and the water, I can almost hear her laughter; see her running as her granddad chases her. He taught her so much; taking her out on the water in a tiny dinghy, so small it made my heart skip a beat when they both left shore. It was my father who taught Anna to sail. It was my father who took us all on what was Anna’s first snow holiday. It was my father who taught her to ski.
I stand up, pass the table, filled with enough food to feed an army. My mother has used a white tablecloth; has place settings in her best bone-handled cutlery, linen napkins with tiny embroidered daisies. A pitcher full of home-made lemonade sits in the centre and I pray that she also has something stronger as well as I head to the loo.
In the cloakroom, an apple-scented diffuser does its job so well, I almost gag. My heartbeat is rapid and I have a sudden and overwhelming urge to leave; just open the front door and go. Anna is telling me to calm down, but I’m talking back to her telling her that I’m okay, I’ll just sneak out for a bit and take Pug for a walk.
There is a gentle knock on the door and I grip the edge of the sink. ‘Coming,’ I say.
My mother opens the door anyway, shuts it behind her. ‘Food’s ready, darling. Who were you talking to?’
‘Myself.’
She hugs me again. ‘I do that all the time.’
‘I pretend she’s here. I pretend she’s here and talk to her,’ I whisper to her lined neck, to her soft piccalilli curls.
‘I know … Don’t knock it if it helps. C’mon.’ She rubs my arms up and down with her hands. ‘Let’s eat, we’re all famished.’ She goes to leave.
‘Sometimes,’ I tell her, ‘it feels like I’m losing my mind. I just need to see her one more time. Just once – to tell her how loved she is and if she has to go, then, I …’ I shake my head. Our eyes meet and my mother’s fill. I smudge her tears away with my thumb.
‘I talk out loud to your father all the time,’ she says. ‘And I imagine him talking back to me the way he used to, not in the broken sentences he can manage now. I imagine him and me arguing during Question Time. Jess, he’s here physically, but I lost a big part of him in the first stroke. We both understand loss, you and I.’
‘God, Mum.’ I pull her back to me. ‘Am I ever going to be able to feel again?’
‘You will. Because you have to. You have Rose.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve been staying away. Everything. Anna, Dad, it’s all so hard. I feel like an exhausted ninety-year-old.’
