Chapter 12

They started in the cellar. The stairs down to it were steep and Jack went first so Mary would have had a soft landing if she fell, so he said. A rare joke. She had the feeling there would be more jokes and lightness inside him if only he would release the catch and let himself go.

The lighting was excellent in the cool cavernous cellar, where there were barrels of beer, stocks of wine and spirits, mixers, boxes of chips. They could hear the others conversing above them in muted tones, Robin and Charlie having another of their pretend spats, ensuing laughter.

“I’ll go left and you go right,” directed Mary.

“Righty-ho.”

Jack hunted behind the barrels, pulled out a box, but it only had rusted metal connectors and beer taps in it. He straightened up, said something that was in his mind and growing too big to keep in any longer.

“I’m so sorry about all this, Mary. Especially as you may not get home to your family for Christmas Day.”

Mary loved his voice and here, with the acoustics of the cellar, it sounded extra rich and deep. Private school posh and cultured. She imagined that if he sang in a choir, they wouldn’t know whether to put him in the bass or the baritone section.

“Oh, it’s fine,” she replied. “I wasn’t doing much anyway this year.”

“I know family is important to you.”

“Yes, it is,” she agreed. “But us lot don’t need the excuse of Christmas to get together.”

“Very true,” said Jack. “But they will be worrying about you.”

They would, and she wished she could let them know she was all right. She didn’t want her mum nattering about her and spoiling her vacation in the Canaries with her “friend.” She said she and David were simply pals who had adjoining garden plots, but they were both widowed and missed doing things with someone else, and David was gentlemanly and good-natured so Mary hoped love would blossom between them. Her dad wouldn’t have wanted her lovely mum to wear widow’s weeds for the rest of her life.

“What were your plans, incidentally?” asked Jack.

“I was going to spend Christmas by myself this year.”

“Honestly?”

“You sound shocked.”

“I hadn’t got you down as a ‘by yourself’ sort of person,” said Jack.

“I like my own company sometimes.” Mary didn’t say that this Christmas she’d planned to be alone for a reason. It wasn’t only Bridge and Luke who wanted to treat the New Year as a fresh start.

“What about you, Jack? What events, parties will you end up missing?”

“Just some drinks with friends,” he said. Married friends, some with babies. Die-hard bachelors who had embraced their new roles as husbands and fathers because they’d met “their type.” Although thinking about it now, they hadn’t really. Fran was far away from Zak’s Jennifer Lopez ideal, and Roman, who always had a penchant for ice queens, was expecting child number three with a chatty raven-haired Irish girl carving out a career as a stand-up comedian. Roman and Georgie had invited him for Christmas dinner and he’d politely declined. He wanted what they had too much to enjoy it in a spectator capacity.

“Ah, that’s a shame.”

“I’ll live,” said Jack. The gap between his world and that of his friends was widening with every baby that came along. He knew this—the common ground dissipating, conversation drying up.

“Well, there’s no point in worrying about something we can’t control,” said Mary, pulling the legs of a stepladder apart so she could stand on it to reach some high shelving.

Jack opened the double doors of a cupboard. Result. “How’s this?” He held up a box, the picture on the lid foxed and faded.

“Buckaroo,” said Mary with delight. “I haven’t played that for years. Yes, definitely take that upstairs.”

“It’s ancient. May not work.”

“Or it might,” Mary said.

“You’re so much more optimistic than I am,” said Jack with a small strained smile.

“ ‘Optimism is a muscle that gets stronger with use.’ That’s what my dad used to say,” said Mary. Here’s another gem from the Roy Padgett book of wisdom that you that need to know, Mary, and she’d roll her eyes or groan. How many times had she heard him say that and what she wouldn’t give to hear him say it again.

“He sounds like a very wise man,” said Jack.

“He was,” said Mary. Was. Such a little word to have the power it did. At first, when her dad had died, thinking of him as “was” rather than “is” broke her. She hadn’t been able to process that he was no longer around, that she couldn’t ring him to tell him this or that as she always had. She loved her mum dearly, but she had always been a daddy’s girl. He was the first port of call to tell when she got her A-level results, passed her driving test, got the job working for Butterly’s. Still now, two years later, sometimes she thought I must tell my dad… On those times, optimism didn’t work so well.

“My dad used to say that optimism had a magic. Take that Buckaroo, for instance. Neither of us knows if it’ll work or not, so maybe if we presume it will, it will. And if we presume it won’t, it won’t,” said Mary, shifting some cobwebby demijohns to poke behind them.

“Okay, then I’ll revise what I said and say… I can’t wait to see us all playing Buckaroo.” Jack smiled again, properly this time, a smile that stretched his lips to their full extent, and Mary thought how altered he looked when he did that, like a totally different person. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen him smile in the office; his expression was usually one that implied there was a lot going on in the brain behind it and it was all serious scone business.

“That’s better.” Mary smiled back at him, and once again he thought how her eyes seemed to brighten when she did, as if a light had been switched on inside her. He also thought that Mary’s dad might have not been pleased about the way she was treated by Butterly’s when he died. Something that he should have been aware of and broached with her long before this.

“Ah, bingo. Literally,” said Mary, reaching up to drag over a box with a bingo set in it. There was also a cheap-looking chess and checkers set and a pack of Donkey cards, as well as some monster dead spiders, their skeletal bodies looking like the spikes of miniature broken umbrellas. She’d never been one to be scared of creepy crawlies, though. She’d been brought up in the countryside, where big spiders weren’t uncommon. Plus, one of her favorite childhood books was Charlotte’s Web, and that had colored her young view of spiders somewhat.

“I think this lot might suffice,” said Mary, brushing some dirt from her pale blue shirt. “They—”

“Mary,” said Jack, interrupting her flow. “I have an apology to make to you.”

“Honestly, it’s fine,” said Mary. “No one knew this weather was going to—”

Jack stopped her again; she’d gotten the wrong end of the stick. “No, I don’t mean about that.” He paused, shamed by what he was about to say. “When your father died, we sent you some flowers, didn’t we? From the company, as we always do in such circumstances.”

“Yes.” Mary nodded, slightly befuddled.

“It wasn’t enough,” said Jack. “They were just flowers. A standard company token. I never realized what you must have been feeling, not until… last year, when it happened to me… my father passed…”

“It’s fine,” said Mary, rescuing him.

“No, it isn’t fine one bit. I had no idea what it would be like. I wasn’t prepared for how low I’d get.”

“Ah.” Mary understood him now. “It’s a club no one wants to join, Jack. I don’t think anyone can know until they walk through its doors.”

He remembered asking Kimberley, Mary’s temporary replacement, to email and inquire how she was doing and if she had an idea when she’d be coming back to work, even though there was no rush. He shouldn’t have asked at all. Or at the very least he should have sent the email himself.

Mary remembered how hurt she’d been to get the curt email from Kimberley. Jack wants to know when you’ll be back. No inquiry as to how she was. Not a word of concern. That hurt had segued into anger enough for her to reply: I’ll be off as long as I have to be. She went back three weeks after the funeral and Kimberley was shunted off to finance again, despite hoping she’d made a big enough impression to stay in the position.

“I wondered if we’d pressured you to return to work too soon,” said Jack.

“You didn’t,” said Mary. “I came back when I felt ready. I wasn’t going to rush my grief for anyone.” Not even you.

“Quite right, too.”

Jack held out his hands to take the games from Mary. His gallantry jarred with the memory of that email now refreshed in her mind and words bubbled out of her mouth before she had time to stop them.

“Actually, I was proper annoyed, to tell you the truth, Jack,” she said.

“I absolutely—”

“If you’d told me my job was on the line because I was taking too long to grieve, I’d have told you to stuff it… where… the sun doesn’t shine.”

Jack opened his mouth opened to reply, but she didn’t leave a breathing space for him to butt in.

“Not even asking how I was, just Jack wants to know when you’ll be back… Yes, if I’m honest… it flipping stung.”

So Kimberley hadn’t done as he’d asked. Not that it mattered, because he shouldn’t have delegated the task to a PA who couldn’t hold a candle to Mary.

“Mary, I’m so dreadfully sorry. I asked Kimberley to stress there was no rush at all, but it was insensitive of me to even ask the question in the circum—”

“Did you?”

“Of course.”

Mary’s top lip curled in anger. That Kimberley really was a nasty piece of work.

“I see,” said Mary. It made things slightly better, but yes, Jack should have sent the email himself. She would have done it, had the situation been reversed, and not relied on a snake in lipstick who had her own agenda.

“You should have told me to stick my job. I would have deserved it,” said Jack contritely. Another small embarrassed smile. “It’s long overdue, but I’m sorry if that’s how Kimberley’s email came across, I really am. I have obviously no idea of how much you do for me in the office, but I know it’s a lot, because I notice you when you’re not there.” As soon as the words were out, Jack wished he could have pulled them back into his mouth, rearranged them better. “I mean I—”

“I know what you mean,” said Mary, rescuing him once again because smoothing over stuff was instinctive, her forte, but his words rang like bells in her skull. Notice you when you’re not there. That said it all, didn’t it.