‘I don’t feel anguish any more,’ Joanna said.
The counsellor didn’t believe her. ‘How’s that?’
‘Have you ever read Anna Karenina?’ Joanna asked her.
‘No.’
‘The theme is this: “You can’t build happiness on someone else’s pain”. ’
The counsellor nodded for more.
‘Alexandra and Phil were married a month ago. Chloe was bridesmaid. There are photos online.’
She nodded again.
Joanna smiled. ‘They’re happy!’
The counsellor was confused. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying I can build a life on that.’
*
Joanna planted two Lilly Pilly trees a while back. The first had grown to six feet, and was in the middle of her quaint stone-walled garden in Pollokshields, Glasgow.
Well, she hadn’t really planted the second. But she bought the block of land it now rests on, and asked Ms Amery if she’d plant it for her. Ms Amery didn’t ask why, she just did it.
It’s twelve feet tall now. The Australian sun, she supposed. She knew this because Phil’s Facebook profile was public. He’d posted two shots of the wedding at Healesville animal sanctuary a month ago, and one of the back garden in Point Lonsdale last week.
Phil’s Famous Sunday BBQ! is written above the shot. Phil and Alexandra are laughing as he pours his wife some bubbly, the barbecue stacked with sausages and burgers beside them. Chloe’s lying on one of the deck chairs on the woodchip, a cute terrier snuggled on her tummy. The sky’s deep blue, and the tree Ms Amery planted is overhanging the back fence. It’s bursting with gorgeous pink berries.
Joanna had copied the image and zoomed in on the tree.
And there it was, on one of the branches: a bright red rosella with blue and yellow wings.
*
She decided to have her private mourning session from 5 a.m. till 5.30 a.m. That’d be around lunch time in Australia. It was summer in the UK, the sun would rise here around then.
She had eight mouthfuls of natural yogurt and did twenty minutes of yoga in the living room. She read seventeen pages of a book, more than she managed last time, which was good.
She checked the time: 4.53. The barbecue would be well alight now.
She placed a blanket on the earth underneath the Lilly Pilly tree. She plugged her earphones in, checked the time again.
The recording was a voicemail message from Joanna to Alistair. She wasn’t sure, but she figured the call was made a day or so before the trip. ‘Just ringing to check what time you’ll be home,’ Joanna said. ‘Gimme a call. Love you.’ But she hadn’t hung up properly, and after that there were two minutes of Noah. Crying.
As Joanna waited for the phone’s clock to reach 5:00 she recalled what one of the mothers at the breastfeeding group said: ‘He’s trying to communicate with his beautiful little voice. You just need to listen.’
She was nervous. When he was alive, it made her crazy. She thought he was so unhappy, judging her, yelling at her: You’re doing everything wrong! But she now believed the mother was right. He was just calling out to her.
She lay down on the ground and looked up at the dark green leaves.
She closed her eyes and focused: Phil and Alexandra, laughing. Chloe on a chair on the woodchip, under the shade of the Lilly Pilly tree. The rosella.
She pressed Play.
Acknowledgements
I asked for so much help writing this and I got it in bunches. Thanks to Luca Veste, Sergio Casci, Isabel FitzGerald and Liz Hopkin for reading drafts and giving me excellent feedback. Huge shout to Pete and Vicki FitzGerald, Neil White, Doug Johnstone, Allan Guthrie and Felicity Pierce for practical advice on everything from criminal law to tampons and the price of coffee in Collins Street. Thanks to my agent, Phil Patterson at Marjacq Scripts, for his notes, diligence and good humour. And to Sarah Savitt at Faber who took this on when it was just an idea and worked like mad with me on it.
Mostly, thanks to my Dad, who lived in Point Lonsdale, where this book is set. He was the greatest story-teller and the funniest man I ever knew.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen FitzGerald is one of thirteen children and grew up in Victoria, Australia. She now lives in Glasgow with her husband and two children. Helen has worked as a social worker for over ten years. She has published three previous novels with Faber: Dead Lovely (2007), My Last Confession (2009) and The Donor (2011).
Also by Helen FitzGerald
DEAD LOVELY
MY LAST CONFESSION
THE DONOR
First published in 2013
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2013
All rights reserved
© Helen FitzGerald, 2013
The right of Helen FitzGerald to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–28771–0
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