CHAPTER 17
The sky had clouded over by the time Pat came out of her shepherd’s hut.
Prichard was clearly taking his time in Brighton, and she hoped he was all right.
She had grown extremely fond of him over the years.
His enthusiasm for all things and all people was charming and life-affirming and kept her tendency to misanthropy in check.
She thought about how he still got on with Dorna, even if he didn’t like her building plans or what she might have done to the bats.
Sue used to joke that Pat had misjudged her career, a misanthrope in the service industry, and really should have trained for something that didn’t involve speaking to people at all.
But Pat disagreed. It wasn’t people she disliked; it was some of their behaviour, their neuroses, their passivity, their refusal to think for themselves.
The great thing about being a psychotherapist, she thought, was that helping other people grow often fed into her own personal development.
When she managed to stay open, which was not every time, she could feel herself evolving alongside her clients; not in spite of them, but because of them.
She walked down the hut’s steps and went to inspect the lettuces Caroline had planted that morning in smart, straight virulent-green rows.
Pat seemed to remember they’d chosen romaine, but as she looked at them, she wasn’t entirely sure.
They were still alive, which was good. Four hours in and still standing.
It was only a matter of time, she mused, before her involvement, and that of the thriving local rabbit community, would prove to be the death of them.
Some people were born with green fingers, some people had green fingers thrust upon them, and some people’s fingers, in the case of Pat, were resolutely the kiss of death.
She was just wondering whether she should give them more water when her mobile rang in her back pocket.
‘Dr Phillips?’
‘Yes? How can I help?’ Pat was always wary of answering an unknown number; equally she was mindful that the person on the other end could be a client, an ex-client, someone in trouble.
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ the female voice continued.
‘You’re not,’ replied Pat, sitting slowly down on the steps. ‘Go on.’
‘My name is Rebecca Clayton. Henry’s mother.’ The woman paused. ‘Henry Clayton was my son.’
‘Hello, Rebecca,’ replied Pat, breathing in deeply. ‘How can I help you? Other than to say that you had a very lovely son, and I am so sorry for your loss. I know people say that often without meaning it, but I really do mean it.’
‘Thank you. That’s very nice of you.’ Rebecca’s voice was quiet, soft; it was obvious that she was silently weeping at the other end of the line. ‘I’m sorry to call you out of the blue,’ she started.
‘It’s fine,’ said Pat. ‘Go on.’
‘And I know you can’t tell me, and I know there’s patient confidentiality and all that, but you have children?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll have an inkling then of the pain I’m in.’ She sighed so heavily that Pat could almost hear her heart breaking. ‘So I want to ask you one question, which you’re probably not allowed to answer, but from one parent to another, was my beautiful, amazing, perfect boy suicidal?’
‘He was my patient, and I was helping him with lots of things.’
‘Depression?’
Pat grimaced. What was she supposed to say? ‘No,’ she replied finally. ‘I didn’t see depression as being one of them.’
‘Really?’ Rebecca sounded desperate. She was clutching at any hopeful straw. ‘And as one parent to another, do you think he committed suicide?’
Pat’s heart was racing, her hands sweating as she strengthened her grip on the phone. She inhaled deeply. ‘I find it hard to believe that he did.’
‘No?’
‘No. I don’t think Henry committed suicide.’
‘Thank you,’ Rebecca sobbed. ‘Thank you so very, very much.’ She hung up.
Pat stared blankly at her vegetable patch, phone in hand, as if the rows of seedlings might offer an answer.
There was grief, and then there was raw pain, the kind that even stripped away language.
What she’d just heard was visceral; not just loss, but something ruptured.
She sat silently on the steps of the hut, as if her body needed time to catch up with the weight of it.
The phone rang again.
‘Hello?’ she said weakly.
‘Mum?’ came a familiar voice.
‘Sofia?’ Pat looked up. ‘Is everything OK?’ Her daughter was not a frequent caller.
‘I love the way you ask me that. There’s no drama. I’m just calling, you know, to catch up. How are you, Mum? You sound odd.’
‘No, no, I’m fine.’ Pat sniffed and rubbed her nose. ‘Just had a sad call to do with work. I’ve been, um, gardening.’
‘You! But you notoriously kill everything.’ Sofia laughed, and it made Pat smile.
‘Now you’re being rude,’ she replied.
‘You were the sort of parent who couldn’t even keep cress alive!’
‘That is true,’ agreed Pat. ‘But that’s only because I couldn’t see the point of it.’
‘Well, that’s where you’re wrong. Egg and cress is very popular in a sandwich these days; it’s having a retro comeback, as are all those seventies dishes. Prawn cocktail, vol-au-vents. Even cheese and pineapple.’
‘Oh my God. Don’t. Prichard made a gin out of that the other day. It had bits of cheese floating about in the bottom of it, like something you’d find on the floor of a teenager’s bedroom!’
‘Not my teenager bedroom.’
‘No, not yours, the average teen bedroom.’
‘Anyway, it sounds disgusting. Making me feel sick.’
‘Be thankful you weren’t forced to drink it! How is your food thing going?’
‘My Instagram feed?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I have over six hundred and fifty thousand followers.’
‘Is that a lot? It sounds a lot.’
‘It’s not bad.’
‘Good, great, and they’re all following your …’
Pat hesitated. She still didn’t really get it.
Watching someone film their dinner, narrate the making of jam or recommend the best brush for painting a chair – it was hard to see the point.
She’d watched Sofia’s account, or feed, or stream, whatever it was called, and found herself torn between mild admiration and disbelief.
There was something strangely soothing about it, yes, but also deeply curated, weirdly detached from real life.
Still, people watched. A lot of them, apparently. And they commented too, endlessly warm and affirming, about how beautiful Sofia was, or how delicious her Thai salmon curry looked.
Pat didn’t exactly disapprove. But she couldn’t help feeling that something vital was being flattened, that a kind of performance had replaced presence, and that connection now ran through filters.
‘… your great recipes and things,’ she finished finally.
‘They are, and I’m getting sponsorship offers all the time. I think once you reach a critical mass with your number of followers, you become a valued influencer.’
‘I’m sure,’ Pat agreed. Influencer of what? Salmon and feta dishes? She didn’t rightly know.
‘I was calling, actually, to ask if I might come down and stay next weekend.’
‘In Westlinke?’ Pat found it hard to suppress her surprise.
Sofia had been to stay once, along with her husband, Adam, and they had lasted just one night.
They’d found the house too uncomfortable, too chilly to walk around barefoot, and Adam had not enjoyed the company of Dave, who had bitten him when he tried to remove him from the kitchen worktop.
He was not a cat kinda guy; in fact he didn’t like animals or the country per se, and they had left early on Sunday morning, not staying for the leg of lamb Pat had prepared, leaving her and Prichard to eat it for the rest of the week.
‘Well, I thought, why not? Adam is away working – he’s got some corporate bonding weekend in Scotland – and I thought it would be lovely to come and see you.’
‘It would!’ Pat smiled. ‘It really would. I would love that.’
‘I have something I need to talk to you about, as well.’
‘That doesn’t sound good.’
‘It’s nothing to worry about.’
‘People always say that when there is something to worry about!’ Pat laughed loudly. It sounded gauche. She stopped. ‘So, um, I’ll see you next weekend, then?’
‘I can’t wait. I’ll set off first thing Saturday morning. I’ll text you my arrival time.’
Pat was astonished. She couldn’t remember when she’d last had any quality time with her daughter.
A year ago? Two years? Well, she’d been married to Adam for over four years, so it must have been before then, because since the wedding, Sofia’s life had become entirely Adam-centric.
She couldn’t see Pat because she was cooking Adam’s supper, ironing Adam’s shirts, doing something for Adam.
This was supposedly a new face of feminism, according to Sofia.
The nineties domestic goddess idea had always been laced with post-modern irony, thought Pat – knowing, naughty and overtly flirtatious – but apparently not any more.
Still, nothing was going to put a dampener on her excitement.
A whole weekend with Sofia. What could she possibly want to talk about?
She picked up her litter-picker. She still had a few hours of daylight left, and Prichard clearly hadn’t left Brighton yet, otherwise she’d have been listening to a blow-by-blow traffic report worthy of BBC Radio Sussex as he wended his way back to Westlinke.
She needed to process her call with Henry’s mother, and the fact that Sofia had asked to come and stay.