Later, they sat on loungers beside the pool, watching Alice and Jimmy in the water, throwing the tennis ball at each other. Alice was in the deep end, gasping for air as she resurfaced after launching herself at the ball, screaming with laughter as she threw it back and the water crashed into her brother’s face.
Hannah realised it was the first time all week that her children had spent any real time together; with Suzy gone, the dynamic between them had shifted and they were friends once more, the seven-year age gap as irrelevant as it always was at home.
Hannah was exhausted, not just physically tired from a lack of sleep and her crazy barefoot walk the previous evening, but emotionally shattered. She knew it was partly a result of the argument and the upset it had caused. But it ran deeper than that. She was now having to acknowledge that she’d been feeling like this for a long time. The last few months had thrown so much at all of them and she’d kidded herself into thinking she was handling it pretty well.
Life had carried on; she went to work, she shopped, she cleaned, she cooked, she saw friends, she went out for meals, she read stories to Jimmy, she helped Alice with her homework. She had carried on. But it had been so stressful. And while she hadn’t allowed herself to face that, she’d been living life on autopilot.
Lying here now, with the sun beating down on her skin, it felt as if someone had drilled little holes in the soles of her feet and let everything drain from her body. She felt empty, used up. But she also felt relieved – hugely, overwhelmingly relieved. The stress that had built up inside her hadn’t disappeared altogether, but it was no longer taking up all her head space.
The way she and Nick had laughed earlier, after kicking out Desmond and Noreen, had been extraordinary. They laughed until they nearly cried. As the children looked on incredulously, they’d clutched their bellies and collapsed onto the floor of the dining room, aching with laughter. Each time one of them tried to speak, it started them off again. She had no idea how long they’d stayed there, how long it took until they finally stopped laughing.
Now Nick sat up on his lounger and grabbed the bottle of wine that was sitting on the ground between them. ‘Wonder how far Marcus and Lizzie have got?’ he said. ‘It’s a long drive if they end up doing it without a break.’
‘I can understand they want to get home,’ Hannah said. ‘It must be awful not knowing what they’re going to find there.’
Nick leant across and topped up her glass. ‘It’s actually great to be here on our own, though. Isn’t it?’
She nodded, though she felt guilty admitting as much. ‘Marcus told me something last night,’ she said. ‘About Mum.’
Nick turned his head towards her.
‘Apparently, she was the one who threw Dad out. He didn’t walk out on us.’
‘Really?’
Hannah nodded. ‘He ended the affair, begged her to take him back. But it sounds like she refused to listen and virtually packed his bags for him and kicked him out.’
‘But in that case, why did she let you and Lizzie think he’d left you?’
‘No idea. I guess it suited her better that way. He was the bad guy; she could blame him for everything.’
Hannah was getting used to the idea that her past could have been different. The more she thought about what she’d learnt from Marcus, the more acceptable it became. It was also interesting that Nick wasn’t as surprised by her news as she’d expected him to be.
‘She was always so proud of how she’d brought you both up,’ he pointed out. ‘Of how well you’d all coped on your own. The only difference now is that it turns out it was her choice, it wasn’t something forced upon her.’
‘But I still don’t understand why she confided in Marcus.’
‘Hannah, it doesn’t matter. You need to let it go.’
‘I know.’
‘The person I feel sorry for is Derek,’ said Nick. ‘He lost you and Lizzie.’
‘Isn’t it strange he never told us what really happened?’ said Hannah suddenly. ‘He could have done, countless times when we were out with him. He could have put the record straight. The whole thing must have felt so unfair to him.’
‘Yes, but if he’d done that, it might have ruined your relationship with your mother,’ Nick said. ‘Which would have been awful for you. He was in the wrong to start with, don’t forget – he did have an affair. So, he had his own guilt to deal with. Maybe he just decided it was better for you both to blame him, because that meant you still had Jean.’
Hannah nodded. ‘Poor Derek. Poor Dad.’
She already felt calmer, but there was still cavernous regret and some of the anger she’d been feeling towards her father was now directed at her mother instead. Jean could have forgiven him. She could have accepted his attempts to make amends, and patched over the cracks in their relationship for the good of their children. But she hadn’t done that. She’d played the martyr, knowing there was an alternative to the years of single parenthood that lay ahead of her. She was the one who broke up the family.
‘There’s no point thinking about blame anymore,’ Nick said. ‘It’s too late for all that.’
He was right. But the sadness was overwhelming. Her mother had ripped her away from her father, breaking the heart of the nine-year-old girl who had been so desperate to have her daddy back, and ensuring she ended up hating the man who quite possibly loved her more than anything in the world.
From somewhere behind them, there came a faint ringing. ‘What’s that?’ Hannah asked.
‘Sounds like my phone,’ said Nick, swinging his legs off the lounger. ‘I must have left it in the kitchen.’
She closed her eyes, her skin prickling under the heat of the sun. She couldn’t bear the thought that tomorrow they’d be leaving all this; flying away from the soaring blue skies and now familiar smells thrown up by scorched earth, back to the grey canopy and drizzly pavements of north London. Lying here now, it was hard to imagine how that would feel; but she knew that, in just twenty-four hours, it would be even harder to remember what it had felt like to be here.
‘That was Tina,’ said Nick, sitting down again on the lounger and staring at his phone. ‘I missed the call.’
Hannah sat up. ‘Oh my God. Do you think…?’
He nodded. ‘She must have news.’ His finger was running over the dark screen of his phone, wiping it repeatedly, as if he was trying to get rid of a smear.
‘Nick,’ Hannah said, gently. ‘You need to call her back.’
He looked up at her and she could see fear in his eyes. ‘I know.’ He took a deep breath and pressed the redial button, putting the mobile to his ear.
Hannah’s heart was beating so fast, she suddenly couldn’t breathe. She reached down for her glass of wine and realised her hand was shaking.
‘Hello? Tina, it’s Nick Timpson. You just called?’
Hannah looked past him to the pool, where Alice and Jimmy were still throwing the tennis ball at each other. ‘That’s not fair!’ Jimmy yelled, as the yellow ball sailed high over his head. ‘You can throw harder than me!’
She looked back at Nick, who was staring down at the ground, nodding, his free hand playing with the corkscrew which was lying beside the bottle of wine. ‘Uh huh. Yup, I see.’
Blood was roaring through Hannah’s ears now; it sounded as if an airplane was flying overhead. She forced herself to take deep breaths, in and out. The only reason the solicitor would be calling was to tell them that a decision had been made in Nick’s case. If the appeal had been successful, he’d then have to wait for a court date. If it had been turned down… But she couldn’t let herself think about that. Whatever happened, they would get through this.
She tried to fix her face into a neutral expression; she must not cry. Even if it was bad news, she must be strong and supportive – Nick didn’t need her to be emotional. Lizzie had been right, earlier in the kitchen, when she pointed out that Nick didn’t deserve any more trauma in his life. Whatever Tina was now telling him on the phone, they would face this together and deal with it.
‘Okay, thanks, Tina. Bye.’ He moved the phone away from his ear and pressed the red button. He didn’t look up at her.
‘Nick?’ she whispered.
He started to nod, his breathing shaky, his eyes still on the dark screen. He put his fist up to his mouth. It was a couple of seconds before Hannah realised he was crying, his shoulders shaking, low jagged sobs escaping from his mouth quicker than he could stifle them.
‘Nick?’ She leant forward and put her hands on either side of his face, lifting it up so that she could finally see his expression.
‘The appeal has been turned down,’ he whispered. ‘The CPS are dropping the case. It’s over, Hannah. It’s finally over.’