The Minute I Saw You

by Paige Toon

  ‘Aren’t you cold?’ I ask, shivering slightly as the sight of his baggy T-shirt and shorts.

  ‘You must be exhausted.’ Mum glances over her shoulder at me from the captain’s chair. We’re moving forward again, still at snail-speed, but very smoothly.

  ‘I’m absolutely knackered,’ I admit.

  ‘Cuppa or do you want to rest?’ Dad asks.

  ‘What sort of tea is it?’ I query dubiously, remembering my parents’ home brews of years past, bits of ginger bobbing around on the surface and whatnot.

  ‘I bought some builders brew, just for you,’ Mum chips in.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  Something she’s never quite forgiven Charles and June for: getting me addicted to Yorkshire Tea.

  The top deck has changed since I was last here. There are several small trees in terracotta pots that have shot up a couple of feet: the lemon, orange and grapefruit trees are laden with fruit. And there are dozens of pots and troughs containing a myriad of plants. I spy carrot tops and potato plants, and above ground are artichokes, asparagus, broad beans, broccoli, spring onions, lettuce, cabbage and peas. Strawberries are coming into season, I see, as are kumquats, and there are herbs galore, from fragrant leafy basil, mint and sage to rosemary, thyme and oregano.

  All this leaves little standing space, but there are three chairs up on deck: two deckchairs and the captain’s chair, which Dad takes over while Mum goes downstairs.

  She returns with a tray and familiar brightly coloured material slung over her shoulder. Putting the tray down on an empty plant pot, she tosses me the hand-crocheted blanket that once belonged to Anna and me as babies.

  ‘Keep you warm,’ she says, and if she’s aware of the twanging of my heartstrings, she doesn’t show it.

  I drape the blanket over my knees. It’s as soft as I remember and smells of wood smoke. I spy a cast-iron fire pit nearby that contains charcoaled logs from its last few uses.

  I’m too tired to get onto the subject of Sonny so instead we talk about Charles. He sent them the occasional letter from the cruise ship, but they’re keen for more details so I regale them with second-hand stories until my cup is empty and my eyes are drooping.

  ‘Don’t let me sleep for too long,’ I beg Mum as she sees me to my bedroom.

  There are two rooms at the back of the boat, both with small en-suites, but mine is also the study and, from the looks of it, the dumping ground. I’m pretty sure my parents will have tidied up so I dread to think what it looked like before. There are boxes and containers piled up on top of cupboards and chests of drawers, and two bookshelves crammed full of books, three deep in some places. There’s barely enough room to fit a sofa in the remaining space, let alone one that’s been extended into a bed. It’s impossible to walk round to the side so I climb on from the end, the springs boinging beneath me as I clamber into place, making me think of Sonny and his bouncy sofabed back in Cambridge. No wonder he’s spent so much time in my bed of late.

  Or maybe that’s not the only reason.

  ‘How long would you like?’ Mum asks from the doorway. She looks so pleased to have me here that I feel momentarily guilty for depriving her of my presence.

  ‘Two hours max, thanks, or I won’t sleep tonight.’

  ‘Done.’

  She smiles and slides the wobbly concertina door across. I waste no time falling into a deep dreamless sleep, the crocheted blanket clutched to my chest.

  *

  I am a ship on an ocean in a storm when my mother carefully crawls across the bed, cooing my name.

  I groan.

  ‘You’ve had two hours. Time to get up or you won’t sleep tonight.’ She has cunningly used my own words against me.

  ‘So tired,’ I grumble.

  ‘Do you want me to tickle you awake?’

  God, she hasn’t done that in years . . .

  Before I can answer, she’s beneath the covers and tucking me under her arm.

  It doesn’t take me long to relax as she soothingly strokes my back and hair. This is a version of my mum that rarely makes an appearance and I wasn’t expecting to see her so soon.

  I’m not complaining; I’m just a little taken aback, that’s all.

  Dad appears at the doorway, smiling at the sight of us.

  I lift my head blearily to look at him. ‘Who’s manning the boat?’

  ‘Oh, we’re all moored up for the night. Want to come upstairs and check out the sunset?’

  Logs are crackling in the pit on the deck, but the sky is the most spectacular fire of the night, the clouds dark smoke against a backdrop of flame red, blazing orange and twilight blue.

  Dad passes me a glass of red wine. They don’t drink much so I’m figuring this is considered a special occasion.

  We raise our glasses in a toast.

  ‘To you,’ my mum says. ‘Here’s to a great holiday.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that.’ I lean forward and chink their glasses.

  I realise, as I take a sip, that I feel completely at ease in their company. Last time I visited, it took a few days for us all to warm up, but the mood this time has been better from the start.

  ‘So what else is new in your life?’ Dad asks.

  ‘I’ve met someone,’ I admit, feeling compelled to open up.

  ‘Ooh!’ Mum cries. ‘Boy or girl?’

  ‘Boy,’ I reply, and she claps with excitement, a reaction that I don’t doubt would have been the same whatever answer I’d given.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Dad asks.

  ‘Sonny,’ I reply. ‘Sonny Denton. His real name is James, but he was nicknamed Jimmy as a little boy, then his grandfather called him Sonny Jim and Sonny ended up sticking. It suits him.’

  Mum and Dad share a delighted look.

  They want to know everything. I indulge them with the details of some things, telling them about his latest project and how it came about. They have no idea who Joe or Alice Strike are – they might as well live on Mars, my parents – but they’re very impressed with the charitable aspect.

  ‘What’s that light over there?’ I ask.

  It looks like giant yellow torchlight being shone through the silhouetted trunks of the eucalyptus trees on the bank.

  ‘The moon,’ Dad replies casually.

  ‘You are kidding me.’ I get to my feet.

  It’s absolutely enormous, the biggest I’ve ever seen.

  ‘I wish Sonny was here with his camera,’ I say out loud.

  Once again, Mum and Dad share that same look of delight.

  ‘Do I sound like I’m in love?’ I ask them with a bashful smile. ‘Because I am.’

  Mum squeezes my knee. ‘We’re so happy for you. I hope next time you’ll bring him.’

  He could probably cope with a short stint of being in close quarters with my parents, but the way that sofabed squeaks when you so much as kneel on it . . .

  A shiver goes through me at the reminder that he’s calling time on his abstinence when I return from Australia.

  The anticipation is killing me.

  *

  I wake up to the sound of sulphur-crested cockatoos, which is the real name for the parrots I saw in the gum trees in Mannum, I’ve remembered. They are the noisiest birds I’ve ever heard, but as alarm clocks go, there are worse ways to wake up.

  Wait a sec . . . That smell! Maybe that was my alarm clock.

  Mum is in the kitchen, taking a loaf of crusty bread out of the oven.

  ‘Yum!’ I exclaim at the sight of this home-baked piece of heaven.

  ‘Breakfast,’ she replies with a smile. ‘With apricot jam.’ She places a jar on the counter in front of me. ‘One of our neighbours at our Mannum mooring has a daughter with apricot trees. They always have millions going spare.’

  Although they don’t pay much attention to the outside world, to say that they are removed from society is no longer the right way to describe my parents. Over the last few years, they’ve become part of a friendly group of river dwellers. Th
ey spend most of the year moored up at Mannum, socialising – and goods-swapping, from the sounds of it. This trip up the Murray is more for my benefit, a houseboat holiday with a moving landscape.

  Speaking of the landscape, I can finally see where my parents stopped last night. On the other side of the river, tall ochre-coloured cliffs, brightly lit in the early morning sunshine, jut out of the water’s edge and soar high into a cornflower-blue sky. Tiny holes carved into the rock host gazillions of cockatoos, probably nesting.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Oh, he’s upstairs, birdwatching.’

  As if to illustrate her point, a black swan glides by outside the window, its legs no doubt kicking ten to the dozen under the surface of the brown water, and nearby, three white pelicans are perched on a dead tree trunk protruding from the cool still water.

  ‘Do you want to go and call him down for breakfast?’ Mum asks.

  *

  Over the next few days, my suspicions are confirmed. My parents are definitely more relaxed and content than the last time I saw them.

  Or maybe I’m the one who’s changed. A couple of years ago, I was intent on travelling aimlessly, turning my nose up at the idea of staying in one place or committing to anyone or anything for any length of time. I was unhappy, unsettled in more ways than one, and still trying to come to terms with the wreckage of my past. I can’t have been easy to be around.

  Most likely, we have all changed. They definitely seem happier and more at peace. I know I am.

  ‘Sonny has children,’ I tell them one morning when we’re setting off on a walk, making the most of our limited chances to stretch our legs.

  It’s a beautiful morning, the sun low in the sky and blindingly bright as it reflects off the water. The light glimmers against blades of grass swaying in the breeze and filters down through the leaves of the gum trees overhead.

  ‘Does he?’ Mum asks.

  I guess she’s wondering why I’ve waited so long to mention it.

  ‘Two daughters.’ I swallow, kicking the soft sand out of my flip-flops as we wander along the track. ‘Twins,’ I add. ‘Identical.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mum says.

  Dad looks troubled. ‘How old?’ he asks.

  ‘Nine. Imogen and Natalie.’

  No one says anything for a while. I concentrate on trying not to step on black ants the length of my big toenail.

  We come to a lake. The shore is patchy with unusual-looking grasses and animal droppings. Kangaroos? Rabbits? Wombats, maybe, from the circumference size of the nearby burrows. The ground is coated with white – salt, I think. It looks like hoar frost and is crunchy under our feet. I say as much, but my parents do not seem to be in the mood to discuss the landscape.

  ‘Hannah,’ Mum says gently, coming to a stop so she can look at me.

  I blink back tears.

  Dad makes a noise of sympathy, rubbing my back. ‘It must’ve been difficult for you to be around them at first,’ he says gruffly.

  ‘It still is a bit,’ I reply, fidgeting with the bracelet on my left wrist.

  ‘Does Sonny know about Anna?’ Mum asks, gently taking my left hand. She and Dad are the guardians of Anna’s bracelet.

  I nod. ‘I’ve told him everything. Spending time with Natalie and Imogen has actually helped in some ways,’ I confide, glancing at her. Then I look away because her pain only makes this harder to talk about. She’s aware of how closely I’ve guarded our secret since I left. ‘It hurts to see their same smiles and hear their identical giggles. Sometimes they finish each other’s sentences. Natalie sounds like Anna did when she sneezes, but Imogen doesn’t, which is weird.’

  My parents stand on either side of me, facing the lake, caught up in what I’m saying and lost in thoughts of their own. We’ve stopped walking.

  ‘There was one occasion recently, at Sonny’s birthday lunch with his entire family, when Imogen was playing on the PlayStation in a nearby room with her cousin, Benji.’ Harriet’s youngest. ‘And Natalie was sitting on the floor of the living room doing a jigsaw puzzle with Sonny’s sister Jackie’s two girls. I could hear Imogen chattering away to Benji in the next room, cracking up in a fit of giggles as she did something cheeky that won her the game. Meanwhile, Natalie was sitting right in front of me on the carpet, content as could be.’

  Mum hugs her arms to her chest and my dad hangs his head low.

  ‘I know that’s what you wanted for Anna and me, a chance to be able to live our lives and do as we pleased without constantly having to compromise.’

  ‘Our biggest regret,’ Dad begins huskily. ‘Our biggest regret, the thing that we’ve always struggled to get past, is that we didn’t allow the doctors to separate you as babies when the operation would have been simpler.’ He swallows rapidly.

  ‘But Anna still could have contracted an infection,’ I point out. ‘Or I could have. We might’ve grown up not knowing each other at all. No one was to blame for what happened. It was a tragedy, nothing less.’ I take a moment to gather myself together. ‘If you’d separated us as babies, we never would have experienced the wonder of what we were, what we were born to be. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on that. Nor would Anna. Those memories are so precious to me. I’m glad you didn’t deny us.’

  They move at the same time, uncannily in sync with each other as they step closer to my side and slip their arms around my waist.

  ‘We love you, Hannah,’ Mum murmurs.

  ‘I love you guys too.’ I incline my head and rest it first on her shoulder, and then on Dad’s, before raising my chin to the sky.

  Chapter 45

  Our conversation by the lake isn’t the only heart-to-heart I have with my parents while I’m in Australia: We talk about their agreement to let me go to live with Charles and June, and their decision to wave goodbye to the UK.

  Sonny was right. In the first instance, they thought they were doing what was best for me, even though it caused them immeasurable pain, and in the second, they chose to do what was right for themselves.

  They hadn’t intended to move to Australia permanently, but once they were away from our little cottage in the Fens, their relief felt colossal. The thought of going back suddenly seemed impossible. They had a chance to start again, and after all they had been through, who could blame them for wanting to take it?

  We also talk about Anna. Until now, it has always felt too painful to speak about her, but in avoiding the bad times, we’ve neglected the good.

  We laugh and cry and share countless memories. At one point, Dad has us in stitches with tears streaming down our cheeks as he recalls my efforts to persuade Anna to create a snail garden. She was incredibly reluctant, but ended up getting so into it that she convinced me to sneak the snails inside one evening in a mixing bowl. Naturally they escaped.

  My parents nearly fall off their deckchairs in hysterics as they remember the look on the face of a visiting doctor at the sight of a snail crawling across his perfectly polished shoe.

  Those snails left behind countless silvery trails that my parents could never bring themselves to scrub off.

  At the end of my two weeks, I feel closer to my parents than I have in years, possibly ever. This trip has been incredibly therapeutic – for all of us, I hope.

  ‘How about we come and see you in Cambridge next spring?’ Mum asks when I promise not to leave it as long between visits.

  ‘I would love that,’ I reply, hugging her and Dad goodbye, and trying to gear myself up for my return journey.

  I’m almost at the end of that journey now, full of nervous excitement and anticipation at seeing Sonny again. I’ve told Charles I’ll catch up with him tomorrow. Tonight I’m staying with my boyfriend . . .

  *

  Sonny is there waiting as I come out of Arrivals, standing behind the barrier, motionless, with his hands in his pockets and wearing an oddly pensive expression. Then he sees me and his face lights up.

  It feels incredible to be back in his arms. I clutch him
to me, my hands fisting in his T-shirt in my attempts to bring him closer.

  ‘I’ve missed you so much,’ he growls in my ear.

  But on the car drive back to his place, it becomes clear that the expression I caught on his face when I came through the doors into the Arrival hall was not a one-off. When we fall silent, which is fairly regularly because I’m shattered, he seems peculiarly contemplative and brooding.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask at last.

  ‘Yes! Of course! I’m fine!’ he responds suspiciously readily.

  By the time we reach Cambridge’s outskirts, I’m feeling deeply disconcerted.

  ‘Do you want to take me to Charles’s?’ I ask warily.

  He casts me a perturbed look. ‘No. Do you want to go to Charles’s?’

  ‘I didn’t, but you’re acting a bit oddly. I’m not sure you want me at yours.’

  He reaches across and grasps my hand tightly. ‘Hannah, of course I want you at mine. I’ve been desperate to see you. I’ve missed the fuck out of you. Don’t say you want to go to Charles’s.’

  A wave of relief surges through me. ‘So why are you being so off?’ I ask, turning to look at his side profile in time to see his Adam’s apple bob up and down.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are,’ I maintain.

  He releases my hand to flick on his indicator and then places it on the wheel. We’re almost at his place so I decide to give it a rest until we’re inside.

  He seems tense as he shuts the door behind us. I’m tense myself. I thought our reunion would be better than this. I’d built it up in my head and it’s falling well short.

  ‘Has something happened while I’ve been away?’ I ask, unable to keep the anxiety out of my voice as he puts his keys down on the island, his shoulders taut under his shirt.

  He spins around to look at me. ‘No!’

  ‘I’d rather you were honest with me.’

  He sucks in a sharp breath and then exhales heavily, dragging his hand over his face. ‘I feel like a twat,’ he mutters.

  ‘What? Why?’

  I take a step closer to him and he slowly reaches out and gently pulls me flush to his body. He sighs, burying his face in my hair.