Epilogue #2
They eat a leisurely breakfast of croissants and pains au chocolat, and then call the kids one after the other on WhatsApp. It’s mid-afternoon in Bali and their call finds Todd and Amanda on a beach.
‘It’s like, you know, all those photos of tropical paradises,’ Todd tells them excitedly, before switching to the front-facing camera and performing a nauseatingly rapid 360 spin. ‘Look!’
‘Wow,’ they say, in unison, even though the image is little more than a blur of sand and sky.
‘I bet it doesn’t feel like a proper Christmas, though,’ Harry says.
‘Oh, it does,’ Todd says. ‘It feels like the best bloody Christmas ever.’
The call to Fiona is more subdued. WhatsApp catches her in pyjamas in a scruffy lounge with a Lana Del Rey poster on the wall behind her. ‘Everyone’s still sleeping,’ she whispers. ‘Happy Christmas from Brighton. We’re going to the pier in a bit.’
By the time they’ve made sandwiches, pulled on their trainers and left the cabin, it’s eleven o’clock. As they start to walk, Wendy says, ‘You know the main Christmas meal in France was last night? It’s actually on Christmas Eve.’
‘Yeah, I remember that from French lessons,’ Harry says. ‘There was a lot of stuff about Jean-Michel opening the oysters.’
‘Your memory always astounds me,’ Wendy says. ‘I can’t even remember the stuff I learned last time I was here.’
‘I can still remember the word for oysters, too,’ Harry says.
‘Which is?’
‘Hu?tres.’
‘Weeters?’ Wendy says, trying to parrot him.
‘No, it’s he-wee-treus,’ Harry says slowly. ‘Hu?tres. With a silent “H” at the beginning.’
‘Huh,’ Wendy says. ‘Unpronounceable. It’s a good job I don’t like them.’
They walk along the roadside in silence for a moment until Harry asks, ‘Do you think she’s OK?’
‘Fiona?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Oh, I think so. Why? Don’t you?’
‘Dunno,’ Harry says. ‘Just a feeling. What was she like when she was here?’
‘Fine, really. It was much nicer than I expected.’
‘You weren’t expecting it to be nice?’
‘Oh, no, I wouldn’t say that,’ Wendy says. ‘But I was a bit nervous. She’d been distant and spiky with me for a while. So it was quite a nice surprise. Until she told me about Todd’s wedding, that is. That came as a bit of a shock.’
‘So you don’t find her distant?’
‘Not really, why?’
‘I just think there might be something she’s not telling us. Like an elephant in the room that makes conversation about anything else a bit clunky,’ Harry says.
Wendy laughs.
‘What?’
‘Oh, it’s just that I know exactly what you’re gagging to say.’
‘You do?’
‘I do,’ Wendy says.
‘Go on, then.’
‘No, you first.’
‘This friend of hers, in Brighton…’ Harry says.
‘You’re thinking she might be more of a friend-friend,’ Wendy says, smiling at the memory of the terrible marriage guidance counsellor.
‘Yes!’ Harry says. ‘Exactly.’
‘When did it first cross your mind?’
‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Maybe at Todd’s wedding. You know, when he said—’
‘… that swapping clothes might give her game away?’ Wendy says, finishing his phrase for him.
‘Yes. Exactly then!’ Harry says. ‘I mean, that could have just been banter. But…’
‘You think Todd knows something we don’t?’
‘Well, it would appear that we kind of do know,’ Harry says.
‘I’d thought about it before, actually,’ Wendy says. ‘Ages ago. It’s more like a slow dawning, really. But I did pick up on that, too – when he said that. I wasn’t at all sure it was just a joke.’
‘You think she might be seeing this Ada girl?’
‘Maybe,’ Wendy says. ‘I haven’t really thought about it a great deal, because I suppose it doesn’t worry me much either way.’
‘No,’ Harry says. ‘But it worries me if she thinks she can’t tell us.’
‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ Wendy says. ‘But she knows that I’m friends with Manon. And we’ve never said anything that would, you know… I mean, I’m sure she knows we’re not rabid homophobes.’
‘Yeah, I’m sure she knows we’d be cool.’
‘But, you know, I think they’re a lot more flexible about these things, these days. I remember Todd saying a couple of his friends were flexi.’
‘You mean they do yoga?’
‘No, I mean—’
‘Joke, Wendy. Joke.’
‘Right! So this is where we turn,’ she says, pointing. ‘The track up starts over there.’
‘Gosh, sporty girl!’ Harry says. ‘Get you.’
‘Yep,’ Wendy says. ‘Who knew?’
When they reach the final plateau, Harry bends over and rests his hands on his knees to catch his breath.
‘You OK there, hon?’ Wendy asks, doing her best not to sound out of breath herself. The walk up became vaguely competitive, probably because Harry is so used to being ‘the fit one’.
‘Yeah, it’s just further than I thought,’ he says. ‘And bigger.’
‘Bigger?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, straightening and looking up at the radar sphere towering above them. ‘I imagined it as sort of small-car-sized, but it’s massive.’
‘And the view,’ Wendy says, turning to face the coast. ‘Look.’
‘Yeah, amazing,’ Harry says, ‘… reminds me of Greece.’
‘Yes!’ Wendy says. ‘That island we were on with the mini mountain in the middle?’
‘Exactly,’ Harry says.
‘You don’t remember the name, either, then? That makes me feel a bit better about my failing memory.’
‘I know it ended in “os”,’ Harry says. ‘Paros or Kos or Ios or something.’
‘That’s the airport, over there,’ Wendy says, leaning her head against Harry’s shoulder and pointing to the runway where it juts out into the sea.
‘And there?’
‘That’s Antibes.’
‘Where you went walking with Fiona? She said it was amazing.’
‘Yes. It’s really nice.’
‘If I’m good will you take me there, too?’
‘Yes, if you’re good, I might,’ Wendy says.
Then, ‘This, over here, is my rock.’ She moves, almost skips in fact, to ‘her’ rock, and then stands on top of it to take the panoramic photo.
‘I took a photo of this view every time I came up here. I thought it would look cool if I got them all printed up on a single poster, but I never got around to it. Let me take one with you in it.’
‘And then I’ll take one with you,’ Harry says. ‘It’s a shame there’s nowhere to lean the camera. We could have—’ He’s interrupted by the arrival of other hikers.
So Harry asks the couple, in surprisingly passable French, if they mind taking the photo, and once that’s done – once the image of Wendy and her husband side by side with the magnificent backdrop of blue sky and sea has been recorded to Wendy’s specifications – the newcomers smile and wave and start to head back down.
Wendy leads Harry a little further up the ridge where they sit in a hollow to eat their sandwiches.
‘… very low-maintenance Christmas dinner,’ Harry says, speaking through crumbs. ‘You’re slipping.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Wendy says. ‘I’ve a surprise in store for tonight.’
‘You have?’ Harry asks.
‘Uh-huh,’ Wendy says mysteriously.
‘Only, we did the shopping together,’ Harry says. ‘So maybe not so surprising. Unless you ordered pizzas?’
Wendy laughs at this. ‘Almost,’ she says.
‘You booked a restaurant?’
‘Nope,’ Wendy says. ‘Now stop before you spoil the surprise.’
The girls arrive at 7 p.m., and Harry is so surprised when Manon raps on the window that he jumps and spills his drink.
‘Jaysus!’ he says, as Wendy crosses to open the door. ‘Now I get why you kept putting off the cooking!’
Manon is the first to step into the cabin, her arms laden with foil-covered trays, closely followed by Celine with a bottle of Champomy and a ribboned box from the bakery.
Once introductions have been made and the table set, once the pre-roasted veggies have been heated up and the salmon roulé sliced, they sit down to eat.
‘So how is lovely Mittens?’ Wendy asks. To Harry she says, ‘He’s—’
‘… the cat you adopted, I know.’ To the girls, he adds with a wink, ‘She thinks I don’t listen, but I do.’
‘Mittens is fine,’ Manon says. ‘But now we call him Pattex. It’s more French. It’s because he is very… erh… sticky?’
‘Sticky?’ Wendy says. ‘Oh, you mean, clingy?’
‘Pattex never goes out,’ Celine explains. ‘Ever.’
‘Really?’
The girls nod. ‘We think he sees too much cold before. Now he sleep and sleep and sleep.’
‘Sur le radiateur,’ Celine adds.
‘On the radiator,’ Harry says.
‘Yes, thanks, Harry,’ Wendy says, laughing. ‘I think I got that one.’
‘I wasn’t translating,’ Harry says. ‘Well, I was but not for… Oh, never mind.’
‘And your brother?’ Wendy asks, wincing at the realisation that this might not be the best question to have asked.
‘Oh, he’s OK,’ Manon says brightly. ‘So good… Oh, I don’t remember how this one goes. Pour le moment, he’s OK.’
‘So far, so good?’ Wendy volunteers.
‘Yes!’ Manon says. ‘So far, so good.’
‘And your father? He’s OK too?’
‘Yes, he’s great. Now Bruno is OK, Papa is OK, too, you know?’
‘Yes, I know exactly what you mean. We depend so much on our children for our own wellbeing, don’t we, Haz?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ Manon says.
‘When our children are OK, we are OK,’ Wendy paraphrases. She takes a sip of her fizzy apple juice while Harry tops up Celine’s glass with prosecco.
‘And you?’ Manon asks, indicating Wendy’s glass with a nod of her chin. ‘I think you are so good so far, yes?’
‘Yes,’ Wendy says. ‘Thanks to you.’
‘Moi ?’ Manon says, looking genuinely surprised.
‘Yes, you really helped me, you know?’
‘I don’t do so much.’
‘No, you did! By telling me to stop, for one,’ Wendy says. ‘And then telling me about your mother. You gave me quite a shake-up.’
‘Oh!’ Manon says, jumping up. ‘You make me think!’ She crosses to the sofa where she retrieves a photo from her coat pocket. ‘Look,’ she says, once she has returned to crouch down between Harry and Wendy. ‘This is a photo of Maman. I want to show you.’
‘Oh, crikey!’ Harry exclaims.
‘Gosh,’ Wendy concurs.
‘Yes, I know,’ Manon says. ‘C’est fou, n’est pas ?’
The photo, of Manon’s mother in her thirties, could totally be a photo of Wendy at the same age. In fact, had Wendy stumbled upon the photo out of context, she would have started trying to remember when it had been taken.