39

Arthur was fractious as he sat on Jack’s knee the following morning, grizzling because no one could find his blue dinosaur. He wanted his mother.

‘Will you bring him in later?’ Stella asked Jack as she cleared the breakfast table. She was just about to leave for the hospital, although Eve had called and said that she’d had a good night and not to panic about coming in.

‘It might help if he sees his mum. But then again, it might make things worse.’

Jack’s phone buzzed and he turned the screen towards him.

‘It’s Lisa, I’d better take it.’

Stella picked up Arthur from Jack’s knee. ‘Come on, sweetheart, let’s go outside and see if the birds have eaten any of the seeds you put out.’

Arthur considered this, then his face broke into a smile. ‘I think they’ve eated them all up, Bibi,’ he said, sliding out of her arms and running towards the open doors to the garden.

Stella followed, but couldn’t help catching the start of Jack’s conversation with his wife. Horrible though it was to admit, she felt a sudden pang of jealousy as she heard Jack call her ‘Lisi’, his voice carefully affectionate. The pang was swiftly followed by the painful awareness that Jack probably loved his wife, just as she loved Iain.

She slammed the glass doors to the garden more vigorously than she intended, so she wouldn’t be able to hear. Then she talked very loudly to Arthur about the robin and the blackbird, the fluttery sparrows that darted about the garden. And in her heart she prayed to be released from Jack Holt’s presence. She had loved the last two days with him, and she was furious with herself for enjoying them so much. He’s married. And so, to all intents and purposes, am I, she thought. But when she and Jack were together, it was as if they existed in a bubble where no one else – including Iain, including Lisa – could reach them.

When Jack finally emerged on to the terrace – the call had lasted almost ten long minutes – he gave her an embarrassed grin and waved his mobile in the air.

‘Sorry about that.’

‘How is she?’

‘Fine. Busy as usual. She sent her love.’

‘I hope you gave her mine.’

They both stared silently at Arthur, who had found a pile of gravel he’d collected a couple of days before and was joyfully mashing the stones into the grass with the toe of his Crocs.

‘He probably shouldn’t do that,’ Jack said. ‘It’ll play havoc with the mower.’

Eve barely reacted when Jack told her that Eric would be a day late. She still seemed lethargic, listless, stuck there in that stuffy hospital room. ‘I won’t be home anyway.’

‘But they think Monday?’ Stella tried to encourage her daughter. She and Jack had decided, in the end, to all go in together and see Eve, on the grounds that Arthur might cheer her up.

‘Maybe.’

‘Well, he’ll be back late Sunday.’ She stroked her hot forehead. ‘He can pick you up.’

‘Eric was so upset when he heard you were in hospital,’ Jack said, his voice as falsely upbeat as her own. ‘He’s dying to be home. He sent masses of love.’

Stella thought Jack was over-egging it. Eric wasn’t the type to say he was ‘dying’ to do anything, or send ‘masses’ of anything either, but she didn’t contradict him. She looked at him over Eve’s head and gave a small frown. He gave her a worried smile in return.

‘Come on, sweetheart,’ he said, ‘cheer up. All this will be over very soon now. You and Eric can settle down to things in that gorgeous house with your lovely family. Just hang in there. You’re going to be fine.’

Eve turned anxious eyes up to her father. ‘I’ve got a bad feeling, Dad. I don’t know … it’s all been wrong.’

‘You’re worried about Eric?’ Stella asked. ‘The RAF won’t fly if it’s dangerous, sweetheart.’

Eve gazed at her. ‘I know, Mum. It’s not Eric … I’m scared for the baby.’

They sat outside as the light faded, the early August evening warm and muggy after days of rain and miserable temperatures. Stella had put a fish pie – not one she’d made herself – in the oven earlier and shaken a bag of salad into Eve’s wooden salad bowl. Jack had opened a nice Fleurie he’d collected from his stash at the cottage. They were already over halfway through supper, the fish pie eaten, a saucer with a triangle of Brie beside two figs waiting on the iron garden table.

It had been hard seeing Eve so down and Jack appeared pensive. She wasn’t sure if he’d really heard what she was telling him about a book she’d been reading about the brain. Apart from the hospital visit, the rest of the day had passed peaceably enough. One of the bannister struts on the landing was loose and Jack had fixed it. Stella had washed his shirt and smalls. She had directed Jack and Arthur to pick the bits of gravel out of the lawn. She’d given Arthur his bath, and Jack had read him The Gruffalo while she cleared up the bathroom.

‘Could we have made it, Stella?’ Jack suddenly leaned forward, eyeing her intently. ‘I still loved you, you know, even at the end.’

Surprised by his heartfelt declaration, she gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘God, Jack. It was so long ago.’

It wasn’t what she meant to say. If she’d waited another second and thought about her reply, she might have said, ‘So did I,’ which was the absolute truth. But she spoke in a hurry and it came out wrong.

He continued to gaze at her. She had lit the remains of an ivory pillar candle – the wax collapsed on one side from the breeze – which flickered between them, sending shadows across Jack’s face so that she couldn’t quite make out his expression.

‘Stella …’ He took her hand gently in his, his eyes never leaving her face. Her heart thumped softly as Jack brought his face closer, then hesitated, his mouth twisting slightly. But a split-second later, he pulled away.

‘Sorry,’ he said, looking out across the darkening garden.

Stella, disappointed, felt a sudden spurt of anger. ‘This is stupid. We’re just being indulgent and it’s got to stop.’

Jack pushed back his chair, the iron screeching on the flagstones of the terrace in the quiet garden, and stood up. He paced for a moment as she sat in confused silence. A bat glided swiftly over her head towards the trees, its presence like a soft breath on her cheek as it shot past. The candle flickered and went out as a sudden gust of wind blew across the garden. They had not turned the kitchen lights on and they were left in semi-darkness, only a faint glow from the upstairs landing illuminating their faces. Jack stopped pacing and sat down again, letting out a long sigh.

‘OK, I’ll admit it. I’m finding it hard being around you, Stella,’ he said softly. ‘It seems so easy when we’re together now, as if the years when we argued never existed.’

Stella gave a small laugh. ‘We always argued, Jack, even before Jonny died. It wasn’t as perfect as you’re remembering.’ Although it was a good marriage, she had to admit.

‘That was normal banter, though. We both enjoyed it. There was nothing bitter about our disagreements, not till after,’ he said.

For a moment, Stella silently recalled the endless dreary rows that had preceded the end of their marriage. They were about nothing important, just increasingly spiteful domestic spats. But she knew they’d been merely a smoke screen for all that was wrong, all that was unspoken between them.

‘Did you blame me?’ she asked.

He hesitated, then nodded. ‘I blamed everybody. Including you. Including the Morrisons; Kent; that arse I was talking to when Jonny disappeared; the summer; the neighbours for having that lethal pool; the hedge; the pool cover … But mostly I blamed myself.’

‘I blamed you too.’ She fell silent. They had never said these things before. Back then it had been impossible. Even now, it felt dangerous to Stella, and she found herself trembling. ‘I think I almost hated you in those months after he died.’

She saw Jack blink. ‘I felt it.’

‘I’m sorry. It was unfair. But I literally didn’t know what to do with my anger. It was as if I had this out-of-control monster rampaging around my body. I just couldn’t believe I’d allowed that to happen to Jonny. So it was easier to blame you. And every time you came near me, tried to love me, I just wanted to kill you. I’m so sorry.’

‘Don’t …’ He reached over and took her hand. ‘I’m glad we can talk about it, though.’ He smiled. ‘Even if it’s taken nearly three decades.’

Jack let go of her and began picking at the edge of the candle, rubbing the soft wax between his fingers. There was another long pause. She was aware of the night, the cool air, the soft soughing of the wind in the trees.

‘Eric’s back tomorrow,’ Stella spoke abruptly as real life suddenly impinged. She pushed the candle out of Jack’s reach as she might with Arthur. ‘I’ll go home on Monday. Things will get back to normal.’ But she no longer knew what the word meant in the context of her life.

‘ “Normal”?’ Jack echoed her thoughts.

He got to his feet again and stretched in the darkness. ‘Maybe I should go back to the cottage tonight, Stella. You can always ring me if there’s a problem.’

But Stella didn’t want him to leave. The prospect of being alone felt incredibly bleak. She rose from the chair. ‘Please stay, Jack. It’s just for one more night.’

Jack pulled her towards him, his arms tightening around her. He dropped a kiss on her head. Stella didn’t move for fear he would let her go. His body felt warm and solid, but she shivered nonetheless.

‘I think we both know it’s too late for all this,’ she said into his chest, and the thought made her want to cry out at the unfairness, at all the wasted years they had let go.