I change the subject.
‘Adam is going to France,’ I say, my voice treading carefully. ‘I think it’s the right call.’
Loll nods. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, and the moment between us has been covered in cement. ‘I should have offered … it’s just, the kids …’
‘Loll, shush,’ I say, and despite whatever just passed between us then, I reach for her hand. ‘No one would expect that. You’re a single parent.’
She pulls her hand away. ‘And work too,’ I say.
‘You have so many responsibilities. Let Adam go. He wants to do this. He can sling a few T-shirts in a bag, jump on a flight and not even think about it. All he has to do is square it with the office and he can work anywhere with a laptop.’
God, work.
I realise I forgot to check in with Linds.
I still haven’t been in touch since I told her Romilly had had the baby and we signed off for my two-week paternity leave, my replacement managing the music shop sorted.
The baby, the police, the house … There is just too much to keep track of.
‘I’m sure they have Wi-Fi in the South of France,’ I carry on. ‘I’m quite sure that he can design websites in other countries too. A lot easier than you trying to relocate your job.’
Or is it, truthfully, the fact that I trust Adam more than Loll? To be fully in my camp? To not be point scoring with me over who knows Romilly better?
To not tell me a lie?
I squeeze Loll’s palm again.
But I think of that bag packed, the shoes on.
‘I have so much guilt …’ she mutters to herself. She looks stricken.
‘Guilt?’ I move my hand away. It’s clammy.
‘Do you not feel the same?’ she asks quietly. ‘The guilt?’
I clasp my hands together. ‘Should I?’ I say. The words snap from my mouth, brittle. Always the husband: is that what this is?
Wrong tone.
I sigh.
‘There’s nothing you could have done and nothing I could have done,’ I say, and I try to take a deep breath to remove the snippy edge from my voice; to ignore something that sounded similar in hers. ‘Adam is going. He’ll bring her back. This will all be a grim memory. Fleur will have her mum.’
I grin at her, upbeat. A little wired, suddenly.
Why am I comforting you though, I think. This is the wrong way round.
When Loll looks up then, her face is changed and things are back to normal; she is Old Loll. Practical. Focused.
‘So what’s the plan then?’ she says. ‘When Adam goes out there.’
I pick my coffee up from the table to buy a few seconds.
There is no plan.
Romilly – by nature of what she has done – doesn’t want to be found. She doesn’t reply to anybody’s messages; hasn’t posted on social media.
The place Adam will head to in France is a loose steer, based on a vague notion of Steffie’s and an airport from which you could travel for miles. I called the woman who emailed in the end but she knew nothing else. Had lost sight of Romilly once they got off the plane; thought no more about it until she got to her Airbnb and checked her email, saw the local news round-up. She had no more of an idea where my wife had gone than we did.
Loll looks at me expectantly.
And then … what?
My cheeks burn. Not only can I not keep my wife by my side at what should be the most special moment of our lives, but I am behaving like the kid that everyone accuses me of being even when it comes to getting her back. I stare at the wall. Fight the urge to punch a hole in it.
I look back at her.
Loll would have a plan, I think. She wouldn’t bring this to the table so partially formed.
Her eyes are on me but mine stay resolute on the deep mud of my coffee.
And then Fleur cries, and I’m saved. For now.
I rock my little girl to sleep alone in the other room for some quiet.
Her body relaxes into me. Her breathing makes my own slow to its pace. I stare at every millimetre of her face. I hold on to her earlobes. I kiss her eyebrows. I marvel and marvel and marvel at her.
And then I tell her: ‘I’m sorry, Fleur. I am so sorry.’