by Clare Boyd
Thoughts of Francesca consumed him all the way to his parents’ house.
‘I think I’m going to tell Fran about Aspect first. On her own.’
‘What’s the point in that?’ Dilys reached into her bag for her phone.
‘It’ll give her time to process it before Mum gets hysterical.’
‘Fair enough,’ Dilys replied, swiping up on Instagram.
‘She deserves that,’ John murmured, more to himself than to Dilys.
‘Oh my god. You should see Polly’s post. Oh my god!’ Dilys cried, trying to show John a photograph he couldn’t make out while he was driving, and couldn’t have cared less about. ‘She’s such a bloody narcissist,’ Dilys snorted, but she ‘liked’ the photograph.
‘Did you just “Like” it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why?’
‘Polly’s a friend.’
John sighed. He didn’t understand his wife sometimes. He didn’t understand social media. He didn’t understand the world. He felt completely alone. When he felt like this, he thought of Robert, and how much he missed him, and he thought of the suppers they would have at No. 2 Cheverton Road. Robert and Francesca had been his escape from Dilys and Instagram and anxiety. Where he could air his thoughts, and be heard. Where he had come out of his own head. Where they ate good food, and argued – as they had on that final night – endlessly, about scripts and films and books. Where he had enjoyed Francesca’s smile, unadulterated by sadness. How he yearned for those naive days back. How he wished he could be free of the constant gnawing guilt that was eating away at him now.
John pulled up outside Byworth End, where he had grown up. A mix of nostalgia and apprehension washed over him.
‘Here goes,’ he said, looking to Dilys for strength.
‘Don’t be wet about it, will you?’ she said, placing a hand on his sleeve.
‘It’s not wet to worry about people’s feelings.’
‘Francesca will be totally fine,’ Dilys said. ‘Your parents have a great plan for her, anyway.’
‘What plan?’ John asked, immediately panicked.
Dilys slid out of the car, saying, ‘They’ll tell you later. I’m sworn to secrecy.’ Before he had a chance to ask her more, she was gone; the dogs jumped and the children squealed and John was taken over by his mother’s embrace.
Chapter Three
Francesca
From this angle, he could have been Robert. He was crouching down, holding back the dogs from racing and jumping at the car as we drove in.
His head was covered by a cap, which hid his face and his hair, and his nape revealed the Tennant family olive skin. His broad shoulders, like Robert’s, strained as he held the collars of both Labradors.
‘Uncle John!’ Alice yelped, opening the car door before I had pulled up the handbrake. She raced out of the car and yanked John’s cap off, exposing twisted chunks of blond hair. He swept it back. I had forgotten how his beauty could make me feel. There was something about the weight of his blond eyebrows over his light grey eyes, and the worry-crease in between, that gave my heart a jump-start. This reaction to him was instinctive, and shameful. That night beat at my mind, the guilt tormenting me.
He let go of the dogs and swung Alice around as though she were as light as a feather.
My throat constricted. I imagined Robert twirling her in his arms like that. Kissing her, owning her love. Grief formed a lump in my throat. I had to get through the day without crying. The Tennant family worried about me enough. If I cried, they’d probably call an ambulance. I pressed my fingers into my eye sockets, hard, until they hurt, which felt satisfying, and then I was ready to get out of the car.
The oversized oak door swung open and Camilla opened her matriarchal arms to us.
‘Francesca, Alice! Happy Easter, darlings! How was your journey?’
Her effusive shrieks of welcome echoed through the cavernous hallway. The dogs scuffled around on the large black and white tiles, circling them, kicking about the petals that had fallen from a magnificent display of peonies. Alice collapsed onto her knees to let them lick her face.
Enveloped in Camilla’s hug, for a moment I luxuriated in the floral tang that hung off her permanently suntanned skin. Squeezing me tighter, she whispered in my ear, ‘It’s so good to see you.’
I hung our coats underneath the deer-head, dumped my keys and handbag onto the side table, and tried to feel at home. At least I no longer had sole responsibility for my life and Alice’s. There were others to take care of us today. There were others whose grief was as bad as mine – or worse, if we were being competitive about it.
‘How did you grow so tall since I saw you last?’ Camilla gushed, kissing Alice over and over.
‘The weekends get so busy,’ I explained, trying to justify my absence.
We came down as often as we could. Every three or four weeks, in fact. Fewer weekends than John and Dilys and the children, of course, who lived fifteen minutes away on the other side of Letworth. My journey was a two-and-half-hour trek from North London to West Sussex. If we lived closer, I would visit more often. That was my excuse, anyway.
‘Of course, darling. If you’re both happy, I’m happy,’ Camilla replied, standing up straighter, but still clinging to Alice, who was squashed into her middle.
John’s lips twitched with a smile, but then he dropped his hands low into the pockets of his hip jogging bottoms, and hunched slightly, perhaps also braced for one of his mother’s veiled admonishments. And perhaps also cross with me for not coming down often enough. I could never tell what John was thinking. He was a closed book. The worry seemed permanently etched.
John offered his hand to Alice. ‘Come with me. Bea and Olive are in the pool already. Harry’s playing tennis with Dilys.’
‘Here, take her costume,’ I said.
As we exchanged it, my hand touched his for a second, and our eyes met. I wanted to say ‘sorry’, for touching him, as though it had been a wrong thing to do.
It was the ‘sorry’ that would have been wrong.
Family gatherings, like today, when we were forced together, had become a robust buffer, where we could exist as distant relatives. I avoided being alone with him, never knowing what to say, self-conscious about what came out of my mouth, terrified of what one of us, in a bold moment, might bring up. It had been months since I had seen him last, and before that, months before that. When he had dropped by a few weeks after Robert’s funeral, without Dilys, it had been uncomfortable. The bond that tied us – that ghastly, life-altering night – was loaded with thoughts and feelings that could never be aired.
John took the swimming costume from me and off they trotted through the house, hand in hand; Alice’s face turned up to John, his turned down to her, ducking the occasional beam and low doorframe, smiling, chatting. Camilla and I walked silently behind them across the spongy cream carpets and Persian rugs, past the mix of bold modern art and old masters; passing small doorways and false panels, concealing sixteenth-century hidden passageways and stairways and tunnels. Many secrets were built into the fabric of this old Tudor house. Walking through it, I felt the eyes of the dead gossiping and beckoning, feeding on the drama of our unknown futures, on our fate.
Shuddering once, violently, as though a ghost had blown through me, I hurried after them, out through the boot room and into the sunshine and birdsong.
On the terrace, Camilla pulled my arm back.
‘Let them go. Patrick’s down there to help. I wanted to run a plan past you.’
I stopped, instantly nervous. Steeling myself, I watched John and Alice weave through the dangling poppies and daisies on the worn brick pathways of Camilla’s garden. Alice’s little legs were carrying her faster than they ever did in London, brushing past the balls of hydrangeas that reminded me of plastic flowery swimming caps worn by old ladies in the sea. As we watched, as I waited for Camilla to continue, John scooped Alice up under her armpits and stuck her on his shoulders. I clenc
hed my jaw, preventing that untwisting behind my eyes; squeezing them shut, listening to the noises, promising myself I would get through this with my mascara intact.
‘There’s a house for sale in the village,’ Camilla said. ‘Number seventeen, on the green.’
I snapped my eyes open at her, to see if she was serious. ‘And?’
Her strong tanned arms were crossed around her widened middle. She shook out her blonde bob. The elegant, heavy-handed black kohl that she scored under each eye every day, permanent like tattoo art, acted like an underline, grounding the inattentive mood in those deep-set blue eyes.
‘It needs a bit of work, but I thought it might be a good time to make a change. The project might be good for you.’
The honeysuckle air had turned sour. Did she know I could barely leave my flat for the day, let alone live in another house all together? My heart tugged, almost out of my chest, towards London, to our flat, Robert’s flat, her son’s flat. I could hardly breathe.
‘We could contribute a little something towards the renovations,’ she continued, as though talking about sharing the cost of a birthday present.
‘I’d better check on Alice, she’s not such a strong swimmer…’ I pointed towards the pool, and jogged off along the ancient brick paths.
‘I’ll see what Valentina’s doing to the lamb!’ Camilla called after me.
Wiping a layer of sweat from under my fringe, I followed the trail of Alice’s discarded leggings and T-shirt to the poolhouse, where I found John helping her climb into her polka-dot swimming costume.
Normally, I would have taken over, but my head was spinning with Camilla’s proposition. I understood why Camilla wanted us to move near her. Through me and Alice, a part of Robert lived on. Through us, she could continue to care for him. I sympathised, I really did, but I couldn’t be that for her.
She didn’t know me in the way she thought she did. If I lived here, I would be closer to her grief, and to Patrick’s, and to John’s, to their love for her dead son and brother. Village life involved community spirit: dropping in for cups of tea and gossiping in the village shop and reluctant chats in the supermarket aisles. The Tennants would be everywhere. In North London, I could spend my days amongst strangers, who would not remind me of that godforsaken night.
Checking my watch, I worked out how long I would have to stay, if at all. I could feign a headache and escape before lunch. After Alice’s swim, I would leave. Could I survive until then?
‘Is Dad actually watching them?’ John frowned as he snapped the straps onto Alice’s shoulders.
I followed his scowl to the other end of the pool, where Patrick lay on one of the sun-loungers with his eyes closed. He would be watching his young granddaughters like a hawk, while pretending not to.
‘Daddy!’ Beatrice shrieked. Beatrice, John’s youngest, was four years old, like Alice. They were four months apart and as thick as thieves.
‘Do a dive!’ Olivia ordered, always more commanding than her ten years.
John pulled off his T-shirt and bent to yank off his tracksuit bottoms. His bony broad shoulders tapered to two muscular dimples in his back. I looked away. And then back again. He sliced into the water with a perfect racing dive.
Following his tracks, Alice’s feet slapped along the diving board and she belly-flopped in. Her tufted black head of hair and pale, city-life complexion bobbed about with her two blonde, olive-skinned cousins, as they said hello shyly to one another. Alice swam like a drowning puppy, her face barely above the surface, while Olivia and Beatrice showed off their flips and dives and underwater feats.
Patrick opened an eye, levered himself up from the low chair and walked over to me. In spite of being seventy-two, he was groomed like a young man: gelled-back silver hair, clipped designer stubble, black-rimmed spectacles and a white towel flicked around his tanned shoulders.
‘I haven’t really managed to take her swimming much lately,’ I explained, a little embarrassed for her.
‘London pools are rather grotty, I imagine.’
‘There’s a nice one near her school but I’ve never been much of a swimmer.’
‘Robert was like a fish. We’d have to bribe him out of here with Jaffa Cakes and hot Ribena. Less so, John. He didn’t have the same energy. Robert swam for the county.’
I cut Patrick a worried, sideways glance and noticed his Adam’s apple push his grief down and the goosebumps ripple across his damp skin, and I squeezed his hand briefly. ‘He was so lucky to have had all this,’ I said, as an echo of what I had told him at Robert’s wake.
Clearing his throat, Patrick said, ‘There’s a house for sale in the village, you know.’
I dropped his hand. My sympathies shrivelled away abruptly.
‘I’ve just got a job as a secretary at Aspect,’ I replied, tightening my jaw to prevent anything more offensive coming out.
‘Yes, John mentioned that.’
‘I can see Robert’s awards’ cabinet from my desk.’
‘Robert would be very proud of you.’
‘I love it,’ I lied.
I was terrible at the job, with little previous experience of routine and administration. But Robert’s ex-employees were forgiving of my mistakes. They knew I needed the money, and I was grateful for the distraction, and always felt closer to Robert when I was there, to where he sat, to what he believed in. He was there inside those walls still, smiling down on me, and laughing at my incompetence.
‘Alice could be swimming here every afternoon if you bought that house. We know the chap who’s selling it.’
Patrick’s hands were behind his back again, which might have suggested thoughtfulness, but after ten years of knowing Patrick, I knew that it was a contrivance, a way to pretend to think with an air of pomposity.
I began to waffle, to drown out the house-for-sale-in-the-village issue: ‘Waheed’s been amazing. He’s doing such a great job running the place. Robert would be so pleased…’
Patrick lowered his eyes to the flagstones, brushing a leaf away with his toe. ‘I did a little research, and your flat would go for a fair bit now.’
Self-consciously, I picked at a mark on my shirt, feeling hot and pasty, and out of place amongst the groomed, tanned Tennants.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I mumbled, picking up my bag. ‘I’ve got a bit of a headache. Any chance I could find myself some Nurofen or something?’
‘In the cabinet in our bathroom, there should be something. I’ll help you find…’
‘No, no, I’ll find it,’ I said, slipping away from him. I could see the open French windows beyond the table on the terrace, where Camilla would be ordering Valentina, their housekeeper, around. To avoid them, I slipped in through the front door.
It was a relief to be silently moving through the upstairs of their house, away from their prying eyes. Past Robert’s and John’s old rooms, where their Colefax and Fowler wallpaper had been updated every few years of their childhood and their wooden toys were still displayed on the window seats. I was struck – not for the first time – by the tragic turn Robert’s life had taken, by how this perfect childhood could lead to such a violent end.
Camilla and Patrick’s bathroom was as large as a bedroom, with white tongue and groove panelling around the walls and an upholstered flowery chair by the window, and views across the lawn. Looking out, I imagined what it must have been like to take for granted the elegance of these grounds, and the bucolic splendour of this rambling old house. The tasteful ticker-striped roman blinds inside the diamond-lead windows acted like sleepy eyelids over the perfect scene. For Robert and John, it had simply been home. They had probably barely noticed the historic beauty of the steeply pitched gable roofs, the multiple chimney pots, and exposed wooden framework, or how lucky they were to be nestled on the edges of a bluebell wood, where they had built dens, and where Alice and her cousins now did the same.
The medicine cabinet was hidden behind the mirror above one of the two basins.
Ins
ide, there were neat stacks of every kind of over-the-counter medicine you could possibly imagine. There were dozens of different brands of paracetamol or ibuprofen and aspirin; bottles of cough mixture and pain-relief tinctures and sachets for flu or colds or headaches… who needed a pharmacy?
I reached for the silver packet of fast-action Nurofen, wondering if I really needed to take them. The headache had been an excuse to get away from Patrick, yet I wanted to take something to help with the indistinct pain that throbbed somewhere deep inside me.
Knocking back two pills, I shoved the box back in, which unsettled the stack next to it. A box of indigestion pills fell from the shelf into the basin, followed by one small, brown pill bottle. I left the indigestion pills and picked up the brown bottle, turning it in my hand. Instantly, I recognised it. Around the edge was a dog-eared, grubby but familiar pharmacy label, with Robert’s name on it, the type fading. Our GP’s name, Dr T. Rose, was barely legible, and the suggested dosage rubbed out completely. What were his pills doing here?
Before I had a chance to shove everything back, I was aware of a presence behind me.
‘Can I help you with something, Francesca?’
My heart lurched and I swung around, dropping the bottle on the marble floor. Camilla sucked in some air and held her breath, staring unblinkingly at the bottle that rolled back and forth at my feet.
‘Sorry, I had a headache.’
Camilla came to, colour filling her cheeks again, and she darted down to pick it up.
‘Robert must have left it here,’ she explained, before I had a chance to ask. She zipped it away into a red washbag.
I wanted to speak. The words jumbled into a mass of disjointed, incoherent questions in my head. When I looked into her eyes, they were saying, Don’t you dare, don’t you dare ask. I felt cowed by her, spooked by her strange reaction to the bottle.
