Mrs Mackerel and Grandad sit side by side, faces tilted up towards the hazy sunshine like flowers. Colin appears, holding Uncle Jim’s elbow. He settles him into a garden chair and soon returns with a box of beer, which he places on the floor. He kneels to unfasten the cardboard and Clover watches as he passes beers to everyone, even Mrs Mackerel, who disappears into the kitchen and returns with a mug.
There have been times this afternoon when Dad looked caught, surrounded. But not now. Maybe he wanted to be caught, she thinks.
‘You should get your tiny guitar out, Dazza.’
‘It’s not a tiny guitar,’ Colin says.
Uncle Jim grins. He knows.
Grandad fetches the ukulele and asks for some proper music, which means The Beatles. Dad chooses ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’, an easy song because you can do it with a straight shuffle – down, up, down, up. They all join in and Clover presses a scrunch of curtain to her mouth because Colin really can’t sing and Mrs Mackerel has one of those church choir voices that sound completely wrong when it comes to words like ‘wanna’. Uncle Jim is torn between joining in and making fun. He glances around, hoping someone will take the piss, but they’re enjoying themselves too much. Eventually, he joins in too.
This is happiness, Clover thinks, smoothing the drop of the old green curtain. The breeze in the bedroom. The singing in the garden. The periwinkle sky.
Colin waves up at her. ‘Get down here, Clo. Your dad’s going to do some Oasis next.’
Discovered, she leans out of the window to better hear them. Grandad mutters something about The Beatles, and Colin tells him that Oasis did a cover of ‘Helter Skelter’. Dad says he doesn’t know the chords and he can’t imagine why anyone would do ‘Helter Skelter’ on the ukulele. Grandad wants ‘With a Little Help from My Friends’. Uncle Jim groans – people are being far too nice to each other. Kelly leans across and whispers something to Dad, who plays the introduction to ‘Do You Want to Know a Secret?’ Uncle Jim carries on groaning and Colin, who was busy staring at Dad and Kelly, puts his beer down and wraps Uncle Jim in a gentle, jokey headlock.
‘It’s SIX OF ONE and a DOZEN of ANOTHER,’ Mrs Mackerel says as she takes it upon herself to try to separate them.
Clover reaches up to close the window and then, fingers pressed against the warm wood of the frame, she changes her mind. Earlier, she let her mother out, but perhaps, given the opportunity, she will decide to come back. Her fingers fall to her sides. She likes it here. Her mother liked it too, once. Next time Dad says, ‘Is there anything you need?’ she’ll ask if she can move into this room. Her mother’s ghost is young, almost the same age as her. They can keep each other company. Perhaps Colin can strip the flowery wallpaper and redecorate. Maybe she will be allowed to help.
She is filling up with plans. When school starts next week, she will sit with Dagmar, and they will be themselves, together. In the evenings she will read Dad’s notes. Little by little, a mouthful at a time, like spoons of Biscoff. Autumn will snatch the last of summer and brown and toast it, before dragging the sun down to the spot where it will ripen the apples and warm the bees through the last weeks of their work. The pumpkins will expand and the trees will undress. Conkers will pop from their shells and in the afternoons the air will turn hazy with woodsmoke. The harvest moon will glow orange in the sky and the soil will sleep.
Stepping away from the window and down the stairs, she is bursting, literally, with the feeling that there is so much happiness coming. It’s just a matter of time. Of patience. Of waiting. And she is used to waiting. At the beginning of every year, she and Dad wait for the soil to soften and warm; for the planted seeds to show their heads; for flowers; for fruit. Each part of the wait has its own happiness. And sometimes it’s the wait that’s the best bit, isn’t it? Knowing something’s coming and enjoying the feeling of it being about to happen – like Christmas Eve, which is always better than Christmas Day.