Many years later, Sissy sat on the veranda of an apartment in Sardinia looking out across the low oleander hedge to the bold brash blue of the sea, and the rude red of the flowers sent electricity sparks through her eyes to her brain. It was all too obscenely beautiful, too alive, too vivid for her to believe that she could possibly be here, after the monumental absences, the living death she had endured with Nigel in London. She leaned back against the warm cream canvas of the double deckchair, but the sun felt too hot on her face, she’d never been good in the heat; so she got up and dragged the seat into the shade. She sighed, wriggled her toes, adjusted the seams of her costume, and, finally comfortable, closed her eyes and let her mind meander back, not accusingly this time, but gently, kindly, to the scene in the hospital, the one after Nigel had thrown up yet again from more horrific drug treatments and she’d finally flipped out, stormed out of the room to find a nurse and demand that they call the consultant, now. And when Sissy wouldn’t take no for an answer, hysterical at last, they had sent for the on-call doctor, who was young and didn’t know Nigel at all, and when he turned up he’d just looked at the notes and said impassively that it wasn’t clear why her husband wasn’t responding to the treatment, it was sometimes just one of those things. But the colour of Nigel’s bile, the obscenity of its hue in the face of his impending death, had made Sissy insistent that there was more life in him yet, she was convinced of it. And then she’d broken down and cried her heart out that she couldn’t be a widow, not now, not with her baby due in just a few weeks, what was the matter with them, why couldn’t they fix him, she loved him, for God’s sake. She’d caused such a fuss that the fresh-faced doctor became anxious and paged the consultant, so eventually Mr Tatchell had arrived too and they’d all been ferried into the patient’s room, and although Nigel was no longer conscious Sissy had screamed that they must be able to bloody do something. She had never been so demanding in her life, hadn’t known she even had it in her. Up until then she hadn’t asked for anything much, not even from her parents, who lived on the Welsh Borders and had thought Sissy was coping admirably through the crisis, so although well-meaning hadn’t visited that often – and Sissy hadn’t even thought to ask them to come more. But now, finally, Sissy had had enough, and her anger was spilling out and she didn’t care who saw it, and she knew the doctors were only indulging her because they were worried that all the stress might make her waters break, and they didn’t want another death on their hands.
Sissy heard a seagull shriek above her head and, looking up, she watched it fly across the peerless sky and land, like a precious object, on a terracotta chimney, and the colours were screamingly vibrant, immeasurably lovely. Her eyes filled with tears, perhaps from the beauty of the view, or from squinting into the sun – or maybe it was something else, the memory of those next critical moments at the hospital, full of drama and passion she hadn’t known was in her, and that had changed her life irrevocably. Would everything have been different if she hadn’t broken down that day? Sissy guessed she’d never know, but it was weird how she still couldn’t let it go, now it was over, now that she had room to live and laugh again. It was almost as if the further away she moved from the moment, the more intense her feelings became. No. She had to stop going over it. It was time to move on.
Sissy shifted in her deckchair and gazed out to sea. A boat was moving across the water and from here it looked modest, small even, but she knew that up close it would be titanic, probably owned by some Russian oligarch who might have been in jail once for fraud or corruption, but now judged his position in the world by the size of his bank balance or the length of his boat, and never worried about just how he’d made his fortune. Terrible, she thought, how do people like that live with themselves? It wasn’t really her cup of tea, this kind of place, full of gorgeous, exquisitely turned-out people who made her feel dowdy in her canvas shorts and orange Birkenstocks – acutely, obviously English – but really, she was lucky she was here at all, Juliette and Stephen had been so kind to let them come, she shouldn’t criticise it. She smiled wistfully, not quite back from the past, as she watched the boat disappear behind the oleander blooms – and then she remembered that the others would be back in an hour or so, she should think about popping down to the supermarket to try to find something not too ludicrously expensive to cook for dinner. She’d go in a minute, she thought drowsily, and then she leaned back against the warmth of the chair and closed her eyes, just for a little while longer.