They got back from the costume museum later that afternoon. Lily dashed into the house, but Becca stayed to give the car a quick tidy up. Lily had been eating sweets in the back by the look of it, and there were many other stray bits of paper. She remembered for a second the back of Paul's car, the detritus with the spat-out sweet. She shuddered. So sordid.
Becca went into the house with a bag full of rubbish. As she stepped over the threshold she realised someone wearing a hoodie was hovering by the garden gate.
'Hello,' she said, turning round and thinking 'mugger'. The person moved from behind the overgrown leylandii and stood where she could see him. He was tall and thin, and Becca recognised him as the boy who'd brought Lily home that night.
'Hello,' she said again, more warmly this time. 'Have you come to see Lily?' He nodded. 'I'll call her down. What's your name?'
'Sam.' The word was squeezed out.
'You're the poet,' Becca said, remembering the Valentine's Day card. Sam showed he was by going scarlet, as far as she could tell from under the mop of black Rasta dreads. 'Lily!' she called up the stairs. 'Come on down - Sam's here for you.'
Lily came clattering down the stairs, then stopped as she saw Sam. 'Hi,' she said in a teeny-weeny, un-Lily-like voice.
Sam stared at the floor. 'Hi.'
Becca shoved the bag in the rubbish bin. 'I can't say thank you enough for what you did on Saturday. We're so grateful you looked after Lily.'
Lily rolled her eyes. 'Mu-um,' she hissed.
Sam shrugged bony shoulders. 'It's OK.'
'Would you like a cup of tea? Orange juice?' Becca tried to keep the conversation going.
Sam shook his head. 'No thanks.'
'My dad's running the marathon tomorrow,' Lily said suddenly. 'You could come with me, if you liked.'
Sam cleared his throat. 'OK. See you then. Bye.' He loped back towards the front gate.
'I've got the latest Cradle of Filth CD,' Lily called after him. 'Would you like to listen to it?'
Sam turned and nodded, and came back to the house. They trailed upstairs, feet heavy on the treads as if wearing hobnail boots. A few seconds later the familiar thud thud thud emanated from Lily's room. But this time Becca just smiled.
- ooo -
The original plan was for the men's running team to go as the Magnificent Seven. Martin had quite fancied wearing a ten-gallon hat and a tin star to run in, but at the last minute it dawned on marketing that it was possibly unwise to suggest the team from IT were a bunch of cowboys. Instead they were provided with Lycra running kit, emblazoned with the company logo, in the colours of snooker balls: pink, yellow, red, green, brown, blue and black. They'd drawn lots: Martin had ended up with pink.
'It could be worse,' he said to Becca as she stood with Lily at the entrance to the recreation ground under rows and rows of red and white bunting flapping in the breeze, all carrying the logo of the main marathon sponsor. 'Ian ended up with brown, and he looks like a turd. Still, I suppose you could say I'm in touch with my feminine side.' He played with the tag of the windcheater zip. 'I ought to go and warm up.'
'You'll be fine,' Becca said, touching his arm. 'You know you can do it.'
'Mum, stand next to Dad. I want a picture of you together.' Lily was dancing around them. They stood awkwardly side by side, not sure of what to do.
'Put your arm around Mum,' Lily instructed. Martin hesitated then put his arm round Becca and squeezed her shoulder. An everyday gesture that once she would have accepted as entirely normal, but now it felt strange and slightly disturbing. 'Smile!'
They smiled.
'Now kiss Mum,' Lily commanded. Martin pecked at Becca's cheek. 'Da-ad, do it properly.' There was an edge to Lily's voice.
Martin kissed the side of Becca's mouth. It hurt that he couldn't bear to kiss her properly.
'I've got to go now,' he said briskly. 'There's a group warm-up.'
'We'll go and wait at the start,' Becca said, taking refuge in arrangements. 'I said I'd meet Crystal there - she's bringing her new man.'
'Hey, Martin! Get over here!' They turned and saw the rest of his team. Becca noted glumly how lithe they all looked, especially Una. It was one of those uncomfortable equations: those who run marathons do not have issues about their weight whereas those who don't, have to watch how much chocolate they eat.
'I must go and join them,' Martin said, half turning away from her. 'Lily, come here and give your old dad a hug.'
Lily put down the camera and hugged and kissed her father. 'You'll be brilliant,' she said. Then Martin jogged off. Halfway he turned and gave them a thumbs-up. They gave thumbs-up in return.
'Good luck,' Becca called out to him as his group of runners moved off.
'Come on,' Lily said, tugging at her arm. 'Let's go and watch the start.'
They walked along the river towards the weir. There were hundreds, if not thousands of people milling around, chattering excitedly. More were coming up from the railway station, the runners in tracksuits, family and friends carrying banners.
'We should have done a banner for Dad,' Lily said.
'Never mind, we'll just cheer very loudly.' They walked up the steps by the weir to Laura Place. Strange to be there when it was closed to traffic. Already there were spectators lining Pulteney Street, even though there was an hour before the start. Becca examined the race programme. 'Why don't we watch the beginning, then we can go across to Queen Square and cheer him on from there, and then come back here for the finish,' she suggested.
She wondered how many of Martin's teammates knew about their marital problems apart from them. It was quite possible none of them knew. She wondered, if they were told that either Becca or Martin would have had an affair, how many of them would guess it was her rather than Martin. Martin looked about ten years younger and was about twenty years fitter since taking up running. Had she felt threatened by that? Had there been deep down some worry that he would leave her for some ambitious young woman from marketing? Except that an ambitious young woman wouldn't have gone for Martin if she was aiming to sleep her way to the top. Martin had reached about as high as he was going with the company, marathon or no marathon. These should be the years they consolidated their positions, and saved for the future. They still could be - if they made up.
Her mobile rang, and it was Crystal. They arranged to meet on the steps outside one of the grand houses on Pulteney Street in ten minutes. 'Is Sam coming?' Becca asked Lily.
'He said he'd meet me by the start.' Lily checked her phone for the time, a contented smile on her face. 'But that's not for ages.'
Becca looked at her. It looked as if Sam was going to be a fixture, judging by her expression. 'Do you think you'd like to do the costumes with Angela? Even if I decided I didn't want to audition for a part in the play...' The idea of Brian directing The Killing of Sister George took some getting around. 'I'd take you along and introduce you to everyone. I expect Victoria will be there.'
'I'd like that,' Lily said. 'Angela seemed well cool.'
They walked on, dodging around the milling people. 'Can you see Crystal anywhere?' Becca craned her neck, trying to spot her. 'Sorry,' she said automatically as a woman bumped into her.
'Sorry, my fault,' the woman said equally automatically before stopping.
It was Suzy. 'How nice to see you,' Becca said on social autopilot.
'It's...?' Suzy looked vague.
'Becca,' Becca said. For an instant she wondered if Suzy would acknowledge her. 'We met at the after-show drinks before Christmas.'
'Becca...' Suzy echoed. The skin round her eyes tightened and she gave a sharp intake of breath as she obviously realised who Becca was.
'This is my daughter Lily,' Becca said.
'Hi.' Lily vaguely waved a hand, then her face brightened and she dropped down to her knees. 'Hello, gorgeous!' The dog rushed forward on its lead and enthusiastically licked her ear while Lily giggled and hugged it and told it it was a good dog again and again.
'She likes dogs,' Suzy said. Becca wondered what she really wanted to say to her. You bitch, probably.
'Adores them,' Becca replied, thinking about what she'd like to say to Suzy. I'm sorry for what happened, and I hope things work out between you and Paul. 'Do you know someone who's running?'
'My company fielded a team,' she replied, her lips tighter than a gallon of Botox.
'My husband's running for his company,' Becca said. If the conversation got more stilted it would be high enough to have the perfect view of the race, Becca thought. And yet neither of them seemed able to leave the other. Too much unsaid, too much unsayable. 'Did you bring your children to watch?'
Suzy shook her head. 'They're with Paul.' She swallowed after mentioning his name as if it had been an effort to talk naturally of him. Down at their feet, Lily was burbling endearments to the dog and getting a thorough clean.
'He's a good father,' Suzy said, looking directly at her. Forced dose together by the people pushing around them, Becca realised that her eyes were an extraordinary mix of colours, greens and browns and flecks of blue. 'Though not a perfect husband.'
'No one can be perfect,' Becca said carefully. Around them the crowd milled and pushed and talked in excited voices, and the radio station covering the event played loud music, but the air round Suzy and Becca felt still and charged with meaning. 'But we love people for their imperfections, don't we?'
'Do we?' Suzy lifted her chin, and her sharp eyes blurred as if they had lost focus. She tried a smile, but it didn't quite work and Becca realised she was close to tears. 'I suppose we have to.'
'Especially when they haven't done anything wrong,' Becca said gently, startled by this vulnerable version of Suzy, the scary dragon lady who so obviously loved Paul desperately.
'Haven't they?' Suzy said, her eyes hopeful.
Becca wanted to give her the reassurance, uncertain exactly where on the scale of marital wrongdoing came a man declaring extravagant love for another woman. But Suzy was a lawyer, and lawyers dealt in facts, and the facts were that adultery had not been committed however much it may have been intended. 'Not to my knowledge,' she said firmly.
'He gets carried away and says things he doesn't mean. I suppose it's part of being an actor,' Suzy said, her expression soft as if talking about a favourite child and Becca realised that part of Paul's attraction for the perfectionist, driven Suzy was his unpredictability, his boyish enthusiasm. Not so much a question of opposites attracting, but complementing, each giving the other what they lacked.
Lily stood up. 'I love your dog,' she told Suzy, rather unnecessarily as she'd been proclaiming undying passion for the last five minutes. Becca crossed her fingers that Lily wouldn't say anything about having met the dog before.
Suzy looked down and gave the lead a wiggle. 'He's a bit of a problem at the moment. We're moving to New York,' she flashed a look at Becca, 'and can't take him with us. So he's going to have to go to the RSPCA up by the university.'
'And then what?' Lily said, her face appalled.
'The worst case is, he'll be put down. I sure they'll find a lovely new home for him,' Suzy carried on quickly over Lily's gasp of horror. 'I'd look for one myself, but I don't have time.'
Lily tugged at Becca's arm. 'Mum, please.'
'No,' Becca said. 'Out of the question.'
'But, Mum, pleeeeeese, he'll be put down otherwise, and he's gorgeous, I'll look after him, I'll take him for walks - he can go running with Dad - and pleeeese, Mum, he's so lovely. I'll do everything for him, you won't even know he's in the house.' Lily was jumping with excitement and her face shone with enthusiasm in a way Becca hadn't seen since the summer. Becca caught the look of amusement on Suzy's face and she knew that both of them were thinking of dog hair and dog smells and the overall responsibility that went with dog ownership.
'Lily, I can't,' she said weakly. 'Not a dog.'
'Here's my number,' Suzy said, handing Lily a business card, with a sly, slightly malicious glance over to Becca. 'You can have a think over the weekend and then call me. I have to go, I'm meeting friends.' She hesitated, then held out her hand. 'It was nice meeting you again.'
'And you.' Becca nodded, suddenly thinking that it had been nice, and that, despite the frightening exterior and in different circumstances, Suzy might have become a friend. 'Good luck in New York.'
'Thanks.' Suzy smiled, and moved into the crowd before calling out, 'Ring me about the dog.'
'I will,' Lily called back. She nestled up to her mother. 'Mu- um...'
'I'm not even going to talk about having a dog,' Becca said, detaching Lily from her arm. 'And we must go too and find Crystal. She'll think we'll have vanished. I hope she's found a good place, there seem to be loads more people about now.'
The crowds were now three or four deep against the barriers, and making their way up Pulteney Street was difficult, what with all the other people with the same idea. Luckily Crystal had found a good place on the raised pavement outside one of the big houses.
'And this is Jim,' Crystal said, clinging to the arm of a pleasant-looking man with such unmemorable features he should have taken to a life of crime instead of chemistry, safe in the knowledge that no one would ever pick him out of an identity parade. But the chemistry was definitely there between him and Crystal, they couldn't stop touching each other, and having little in-jokes. Becca felt excluded.
Lily suddenly shrieked, 'Over here!' She waved both arms in the air and jumped up and down. Becca turned, and saw Sam loping towards them through the crowd. He was already taller than most of the people there, despite his tall boy's stoop.
'Hi,' he said with a vague wave to Becca. 'Hey, Lily.'
'Hey.' Lily was about a foot shorter than him, not helped by her tendency to stare at the pavement. Then she looked up at him through her fringe. Becca watched Sam's reaction. No doubt about it, he was smitten.
'When do they start?' Crystal said, twisting her head. The crowd had grown until it was filling the pavements on both sides of the wide street, and looking back down Pulteney Street towards the bridge, Becca could see the runners gathering around the start, their heads bobbing as they jogged on the spot. The tannoy system crackled constantly with comments from the local radio station, but the noise from the expectant crowd came close to drowning the speaker out.
Becca checked her watch. 'About five minutes,' she said. 'The serious runners go first, then the fun runners start ten minutes later. Martin's number 2617. He's dressed in pink Lycra, top to toe.'
'You're kidding.'
Becca shook her head. 'Sadly, no. Still, look on the bright side, at least we can't fail to see him.'
'Oh,' Lily squealed. 'They're starting.' They all craned their heads to try to see. Spectators got their banners ready, some were charity posters, others simply cheering their family runner on. Even Becca, who rarely felt inclined to shift above walking pace, regretted not having joined Martin in slipping on the trainers back in the autumn. Perhaps if we'd trained together, I wouldn't have been attracted to Paul, she thought. The family that jogs together, stays together. She glanced at Crystal, happily chatting to Jim, and Lily, up on Sam's thin shoulders so she could see better. And she was alone, while Martin ran with Una.
She felt something push against her knee and looked down. A small boy, hardly more than a toddler, was nuzzling her leg. 'Hello,' she said bending down.
He looked up, and his face puckered with the realisation that Becca wasn't his mother. She looked around and saw a young woman with a buggy standing on the far side of the steps. 'There she is, Becca said, pointing.
He abruptly let go of Becca's leg and toddled off to the woman, grasping her legs tightly. The woman absent-mindedly leaned down and stroked his hair, apparently oblivious that he'd wandered off. Safely with his mother's skirt tight in one fist, the little boy turned and stared at Becca, sucking the ears of the stuffed rabbit he held.
She smiled at him, but he stared back, unsmiling, dark eyes wide, too young to appreciate the excitement of the marathon.
A cheer from the spectators brought Becca away from the child and back to the race. She realised that she'd managed to miss the start, and that a bobbing mass of runners was heading through the gateway and up Pulteney Street, long legs stretching. After the leading runners came the fun runners, to more cheers and shouts, and cries of encouragement. The noise of the crowd rose and now Becca had people pressing at her back, in much the same way she was pressing into the people in front of her.
'They say it's going to be a fast time today, as the weather's not too hot,' a man in front of her remarked to his companion. Martin will be pleased at that, Becca thought.
'There he is,' Lily shouted from Sam's shoulders. 'Dad, Dad!' She waved frantically with one arm, the other pressed the camera to her face as Becca could distinguish flashes of pink, yellow, green and blue as the team passed and then were gone. Lily scrambled down and grabbed Sam's hand. 'Come on - if we cut across Pulteney Bridge, we'll see him go through Queen Square. See you, Mum,' and she was off in the opposite direction to the runners, dragging Sam along with her.
'Do you want to go?' Crystal said.
'I don't think we'll get through the crowds in time,' Becca said, shaking her head and watching that final flash of pink go round the corner past the Holburne. 'I hadn't realised there'd be so many people. I'm going to stay here and get a good place to see Martin when he comes round the second time, when the runners are more spread out. You go if you want to.'
Heads turned as there was a sudden surge of noise from the crowd further up, an explosion of sound bouncing between the Georgian houses, screams and shouts. All the heads of the spectators turned up towards the Holburne, and the tannoy stopped broadcasting the names of notable runners.
'Something's happened,' the man in front of Becca said to his companion. 'A collision, I expect.'
The tannoy lurched into life. 'Will runners please keep to the far right going round the corner. Will runners please keep to the far right going round the corner.'
'Sounds like an accident,' the man in front said. 'Or someone's had a heart attack or something. Too soon for cramp.'
Martin. Something buzzed in Becca's ears. She knew, just knew it was Martin. 'Martin went round the corner a moment ago,' Becca said, looking at Crystal. She could feel the tension in her voice. 'I'm going to find out what's happened.'
She began to push through the crowd not caring if she was rude. She vaguely heard Crystal calling to her that it would be fine, Martin was fine, but she didn't stop, her mouth set in a determined line. She had to get to him. So many people, so many people in her way. Why wouldn't they move? Why wouldn't they let her through? She wanted to yell at them to clear the way, but they were too busy cheering and clapping and beeping horns and waving football rattles to take any notice of her. And in the distance came the sound of an ambulance.
Becca got to the top of the street, by the Holburne. Runners were still making their way past, directed by the stewards, but she could make out a knot of people on the left side of the street, about fifty feet from where the road turned the corner. Screens were being put up, people in yellow fluorescent jackets were busy directing spectators away from the site, lifting barriers to funnel the runners past. And then there it was. A bright pink cap, lying limply on the road.