Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
FIVE MONTHS LATER
The first time I’d heard the knock on the door, it had sounded so strange I’d jumped out of my skin, before walking slowly and tentatively into the hallway and opening the door just a crack, peering out as if I was expecting an intruder before relaxing and allowing myself to step back in welcome.
Now, it was entirely familiar – the rhythm as distinctive as a signature. Tap-tap, tappity-tap-tap-tap. The sound brought a smile to my face and the children dashed down the stairs, their feet beating out a different rhythm.
‘Have you got your school bag, Toby? Meredith, go back and brush your hair. Quickly, or you’ll make us all late.’
‘But you’re not going to work today, Mummy. You’ve got the day off,’ my daughter said.
‘Can’t we have the day off, too?’ wheedled Toby.
‘No, you may not. Bag – now. Daddy’s here.’
I hurried to the door and opened it. Patch smiled at me, the special smile I’d noticed him giving me when we saw each other briefly like this. It was warm but distant, friendly but somehow sad. A smile, but also a shield.
‘Groundhog day?’ he asked.
‘You’ve got it.’
I smiled back, appreciative that, at last, he did get it. Having the kids four nights one week and three the next had made him familiar with the morning carnage, the afternoon panic-dash from work to school, the evening spent trying to get two knackered twins fed, bathed, read to and asleep before they got so overtired there was zero chance of any of those things happening.
‘Can you show me again how to do that braid thing in Meredith’s hair? I tried copying a YouTube video but she kept wriggling and it was a mess.’
‘Maybe when you drop them off on Saturday? There isn’t really time now. You’ll be all cack-handed and it’ll take ages.’
‘Daddy, Mummy’s going to sail toy boats and we aren’t allowed,’ Toby pushed past me, thrusting his hand into his father’s.
‘We’ll go and play boats on the pond at the weekend, okay?’ Patch promised. ‘And your fingers are all sticky. Did you have jam for breakfast?’
‘Mummy made me a poached egg,’ Meredith said. ‘They’re my new favourite.’
Patch looked at me, that smile on his face again. ‘Damn. You’re going to have to show me?—’
‘How to poach an egg? It’s trial and error, I’m afraid. At least you’ll get your protein macros in eating all the ones she won’t touch because they’re too hard or too snotty.’
‘YouTube to the rescue again, then.’ He rolled his eyes conspiratorially.
‘You’ll get there. Just like I did with the origami boats.’
‘Should’ve asked me. I make a mean boat.’
‘And you’ll take your mum to St Mungo’s church on Saturday?’
‘Sure thing.’ He grinned. ‘I might even stay for the canasta. There’s cake, you know. Right, you two – let’s get going.’
Automatically, I pulled the sagging bobble out of Meredith’s hair, smoothed it back from her face and retied it more securely. ‘Sure you don’t want to come? You could drop the kids and meet me after?’
He shook his head. ‘Got a meeting. Anyway, this is your thing. I hope it goes well.’
‘Me too. Especially since I’ve got a meeting too, at half eleven. So we’re going to have to make it quick.’
‘Gotcha.’
With one child holding each of his hands, he paused. Like the smile, I’d grown used to this – the moment of hesitation on the doorstep of my flat, as if he wanted to stay but also didn’t. My own hesitation was familiar, too – the moment when I longed to beg him to take care of the children, bring them back to me safe, not allow them to forget about me while they were in his care.
I never did, though. I didn’t need to; he was their father.
I was saved by the cat darting between my legs, making a bid for freedom through the open door as the often did.
‘Come on, you, inside.’ I scooped her up, pressing my face against the silken seal-coloured softness of her head. ‘Have a good day. See you on Saturday evening. Love you.’
‘Love you, Mummy,’ the children chorused. ‘Love you, Bisou.’
The door closed and I turned back into the flat, the silence roaring in my ears as it always did in the few moments after Patch collected the kids and I was left alone, until I got used to it again only to be shocked by how noisy it was when they returned. It was at times like this that I was extra grateful for the company of Bisou, who I’d almost stopped thinking of as Zara’s.
Gabrielle had called Rowan first, because it had been her number that was uppermost on the scrap of paper Rowan had given her. And it was just as well, because I’d never have been able to understand the story, told in French, of how Zara hadn’t returned to collect her, one of Gabrielle’s children had developed an allergy, and Gabrielle couldn’t bring herself to abandon her at an animal shelter.
‘I can’t take her, either,’ Rowan had fretted. ‘You know what Balthazar’s like. He’d eat her for breakfast.’
So I’d made the trip to Paris on the Eurostar, this time alone, and returned with a companion. To my surprise, Bisou had fitted into my life as if she’d always been there, greeting me at the door when I got home from work, curling up on my lap while I worked on my law conversion course assignments at the kitchen table in the evenings, sleeping on the kids’ pillows at night.
She was just one of the many things in my life that had changed. At first bewildered by the idea that Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t be living together any more, Toby and Meredith had settled relatively quickly into their new routine, and Patch and I had – well, we were adjusting, too.
Just the previous week, on my way to work, I’d gone past the school gates and seen Patch dropping off the children. I’d stopped, keeping well away, not wanting to interfere or potentially upset the twins at the start of their day – even though a big part of me had wanted to dash over, squeeze them tightly in my arms and tell them that Mummy would always love them.
There they were, so grown-up in their uniforms but so small, too, one of them holding on to each of Patch’s hands. He was walking slowly, his head lowered, apparently deep in conversation with them. What were they saying? I longed to know, but also I was enjoying being a spectator – a spy almost – in this little slice of my ex-husband’s life with the children we’d always share.
I watched as he squatted down on the pavement and kissed them both, the teaching assistant looking on in approval. With a pang that was part remorse and part relief, I remembered that for the next two days, if one of them felt ill and needed to be taken home and put to bed, it would be Patch they called, not me.
Then I noticed another familiar figure hurrying along, a charcoal wool coat swinging from her shoulders, a leather laptop bag in one hand, her daughter clutching the other. Princess Lulu – Imogen.
She, too, stopped at the gate and relinquished her child with a kiss. But she didn’t turn and hurry away – instead, she fell into step next to Patch, the two of them walking together in the direction of the Tube station, chatting easily like they were old friends. Then I saw Imogen laugh at something Patch had said, the morning sunlight catching her glowing skin and shiny hair, and I thought, Hold on a minute .
When they were safely out of sight, I resumed my own journey to work, my mind whirling. Were they seeing each other? And did I mind if they did?
To my surprise, I realised I didn’t. Patch was a good man, a good father. I hadn’t been able to get past his infidelity with Zara – and I could see now that it was also my own behaviour I’d been unable to move beyond, to truly put behind me – but I bore him no ill will. Our children were an unbreakable link between us, one that had been forged with love. Whatever I did, and however I responded to what Patch did in his own life, had to be in their best interests.
Somehow, between us, we needed to make this work amicably, and if that meant giving him my blessing for a new relationship, I’d do that willingly.
And as for me – well. At Kate’s fortieth birthday party a month or so back, she’d introduced me to her friend Claude. Handsome Claude, who I’d met up with for coffee and a walk, the most tentative first date ever, and discovered made me laugh and feel instantly at ease. Who’d surprised me by messaging the next day to say how much he’d enjoyed it, and ask me out again. Who I was meeting for drinks and dinner on Friday night.
But now wasn’t the time to think about Claude, or even about Patch. This morning was about another man.
I pulled on my coat, tucked my laptop into my bag and then carefully placed the little paper boat on top of it. It would probably get a bit squashed on the journey, but I’d done enough practice runs that I knew I’d be able to reshape it easily once I reached my destination. Then I locked the flat behind me and hurried out into the street.
It was a glorious, golden November day, the sun low in the blue sky, slanting through the last crimson and amber leaves that clung to the plane trees. The wind that had scattered leaves over the pavement last night had dropped now and the air was still and clean-smelling. Around me, the faces of people hurrying towards the Tube station as I was looked far more cheerful than they would have on any other autumn Tuesday.
‘Happy birthday, Andy,’ I whispered, stepping down the stairs into the station.
There’d been no way for us to arrange to scatter our friend’s ashes. They’d have been delivered to his mother by the undertaker, to do with as she thought best. Perhaps she’d deposited them in the water of a Scottish loch, or into the Mediterranean on one of her cruises. Perhaps she’d buried them under a rose bush in her garden. Perhaps they were still sitting in an urn on her mantelpiece, a grim reminder of the son she must once have loved.
We’d never know. And so we’d decided to hold our own ceremony, not on the anniversary of Andy’s death but on that of his birth.
‘We could do a balloon release,’ Kate had suggested.
‘We could not,’ Rowan countered. ‘Clara would never let me hear the end of it – they’re so environmentally unfriendly.’
‘Andy would have loved it, though,’ Abbie argued.
‘Andy might not have cared about choking some poor otter to death, but I do,’ said Rowan.
‘Doves, maybe?’ I’d suggested.
‘Hell to the no,’ Kate said. ‘Horribly cruel, and besides they’d shit everywhere.’
‘We could plant a tree.’
‘Where, though? None of us has a decent-sized garden.’
‘We could do a memorial plaque on a park bench.’
‘God, imagine what Andy would have said about that? “Like I’m some ninety-year-old dear called Phyllis?”’
‘We could blow bubbles?’
‘We’re not four.’
And so, eventually, we’d settled on launching paper boats into the Thames off Westminster Bridge. Clara had been tasked with researching biodegradable paper and I’d got Patch to find an idiot-proof boat-folding tutorial for us to follow. Abbie had researched the tides and informed us that on the morning of Andy’s birthday, the river would be high and there’d be a good chance of our vessels being carried all the way out to sea.
The previous night, I’d neglected my law studies to write a letter to Andy and eventually copied my fourth attempt carefully on to the knobbly surface of the paper.
And now the time had come to say our final goodbye.
I emerged from the station into the bright morning and threaded my way through crowds of commuters and tourists on to the bridge. The water was the brightest blue, reflecting the sunlight so brilliantly it hurt to look at it. The paving stones still gleamed with last night’s rain. The air was full of the scent of candied nuts coming from a street vendor’s cart, whose smell I’d recognise anywhere but which I’d never tasted.
Rowan, Abbie and Kate were already waiting on the bridge, in the middle as we’d agreed, facing east. Abbie had a rainbow- hued golf umbrella furled by her side. Kate was wearing the purple coat she’d bought for Andy’s funeral. Rowan was holding a bright pink insulated coffee mug.
‘There you are, Nome.’
‘Sorry I’m late.’
I walked into the circle of their arms and our four bodies pressed together for a moment, warm against the autumn chill.
‘I tell you what, this thing was a right fucker to make.’ Kate took her boat out of her pocket and carefully eased its corners back into shape. I could see that both sides were covered with her tidy royal-blue handwriting.
‘Clara did mine in the end,’ Rowan said. ‘I told her if she didn’t help we’d go for balloons, and sod the otters.’
‘I couldn’t decide what to write,’ fretted Abbie. ‘I tried and tried, but in the end I left it blank. I hope that’s okay.’
‘Andy wouldn’t have minded,’ I assured her. ‘He knows how you feel.’
‘That’s good, because I’m not even sure I know how I feel.’
‘I’ll never stop being sad.’ Kate sighed. ‘But you get used to it, don’t you?’
‘It’s kind of like background noise, now,’ agreed Rowan.
‘And we’re all here,’ I told them firmly. ‘That’s the main thing. If we weren’t – or if one of us wasn’t – that would have been the worst.’
‘The very worst,’ agreed Abbie, wiping her nose on her sleeve. ‘I’d rather Andy was still here but since he isn’t – well, at least we are.’
‘Come on then, let’s do this,’ urged Rowan.
We turned and leaned over the water: Kate, then Rowan, then Abbie, then me. Linking arms, we reached out over the balustrade, our fragile crafts in our hands.
‘I love you guys,’ I said.
‘Love you,’ the others echoed. ‘Love you, Andy. Happy birthday.’
‘Three, two, one,’ Kate counted, and together we released the little paper crafts. Gusts of wind caught them, whirling them upside down and then back upright as they neared the water. Somehow, all four landed and floated, the current bearing them rapidly away.
We watched until we couldn’t see them any longer, and then turned back.
On the other side of the bridge, I saw her. Or at least, I thought I did. Watching us from behind oversized black sunglasses, a cream trench coat fluttering around her legs in the breeze, her hair shining in the sun as if it had been polished.
Zara.
I lifted my hand and waved, but then a stream of red double-decker buses passed between us, hiding her from view.
And when they’d gone, so had she.
*
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