‘So how’s London?’ Seth asked as they sat in canvas chairs with mugs of green tea on the small deck of his boat. The sun had come out and it was one of those warm, perfectly still August afternoons, when the world seems to be happening somewhere else.
‘Noisy.’ She smiled. ‘You forget when you don’t live there for a while.’
‘I never have. I came here when I was a student and I’ve never left. Bit sad.’
‘I used to like it.’
‘But not any more?’
She shrugged. ‘Freddy has to live there for his work.’
Seth didn’t answer, just gazed at some ducks having a scuffle on the water, over by the far bank.
‘It’s good to be here,’ she said, feeling almost sleepy in the peaceful afternoon sun. They didn’t speak for a while.
‘And Freddy?’ Seth seemed about to say more, but didn’t.
‘He’s not gambling, if that’s what you mean.’ Lily heard the defensive tone in her voice. But it had been hard telling everyone that she was back with Freddy. At the miserable tea with her children the previous day, Dillon had got up, not even finishing his chocolate cake, given her a cold kiss and walked out. He’d hardly spoken a word, except to say he wanted nothing to do with Freddy. Sara, who’d stayed behind after Dillon had gone, had been more measured, but no keener to make Freddy part of her life again. It pained Lily to think of the damage to her relationships – with her son in particular – that her love for Freddy had wrought.
Prem had obviously seen it coming, and had done a lot of resigned sighing and shaking of her head as she delivered muttered warnings – like David – about separate bank accounts and keeping her job. Lily could deal with that. But Dillon . . .
‘He’ll settle down,’ Freddy had said. But Lily wasn’t so sure, and neither, she could see, was her husband.
‘That’s good,’ the doctor was saying. ‘He’s got help, then.’
‘He goes to Gamblers Anonymous . . .’ Then she added, ‘I’m enjoying it, being with him again.’ She realized her tone was equivocal, guarded, that she didn’t go into detail about the last couple of weeks, as if Seth might mind that she had gone back to Freddy. Which she knew to be ridiculous. But it had been magic. And also manic: there was this constant pressure to show Freddy how happy she was. Today, just sitting quietly in the sunshine with Seth Kramer felt like a blessed relief.
‘I’m pleased for you, Lily. It’s never easy, coming back from a problem like that in a relationship.’
Lily looked at him, ‘But you can, can’t you?’
‘Do you mean yourself or Freddy?’
‘Me. I can move past what he did, can’t I? People do . . .’
Seth considered her question. ‘If you can both be honest about how you feel, free to speak your resentments when they pop up. It’s pretending things are perfect that’s the killer.’
Which is exactly what I’m doing, Lily thought, resolving to stop the forced honeymoon in its tracks and impress upon her husband that she loved him without things needing to be endlessly sublime.
‘I said we had to draw a line. If I keep narking at him about what he did, it’ll never work.’
Seth raised an eyebrow. ‘Very generous.’
She caught a look of real affection in his eyes, concern, too. The ‘but’ she had sensed was to follow never materialized, however, and Lily changed the conversation back to work. She knew it was pointless trying to make people see what a good man Freddy was, pointless explaining that her love for her husband was not misplaced. The proof would be in the pudding.
*
Helen opened the door slowly to Lily’s knock. Her face was expectant, almost eager, but when she saw her sister her expression fell. Lily had texted that she was coming up to Oxford and would drop by to fetch some of her stuff, but had got no reply, so she’d walked over to the house after seeing Seth.
Helen didn’t say a word in greeting, just stood back for Lily to enter, then closed the door and led the way into the kitchen, where she crossed the room to put the kettle on, still without a word. She was dressed in baggy black tracksuit bottoms and a long-sleeved maroon T-shirt, her short auburn-grey hair untidy and in need of a wash.
‘What’s happened?’ Lily addressed her sister’s back, the silence leaden.
Helen turned and gave her a puzzled frown, as if she were surprised Lily was still there. A small burst of apprehension made Lily shiver. ‘Helen?’
‘He’s gone.’ Her sister abandoned the attempt to make tea, which had got no further than picking the kettle off the stand and placing it on the work surface. She leaned forward on the kitchen table, propping herself on her hands as she stood, head bowed.
‘Gone?’ Lily’s heart contracted. ‘Kit?’
Helen looked up, her expression sardonic. ‘Of course Kit.’
Lily frowned. ‘He left?’ she asked, hoping that it wasn’t worse news.
Straightening up, Helen gave a long sigh. ‘Yup. Disappeared in the night. Two days. He was only here two days.’
Lily saw the tears and Helen’s desire to hide them by turning her attention to the kettle once more. Lily went to her and pulled her into an embrace. ‘Fuck. I’m so sorry. He’ll come back, surely he will.’ Even to Lily’s ears, her suggestion sounded naive.
Helen didn’t reply, just buried her head on Lily’s shoulder, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, her fierce, self-contained sister was racked with sobs, clinging to Lily as if her heart would break. Lily felt tears in her own eyes. The cruelty of hope, she thought, as she held Helen in her arms.
When Helen finally pushed her away, her tear-stained face was set in angry lines. Wiping her wet cheeks with her fingers, she glared at Lily. ‘Why did you bother to save him, Lillian? What was the fucking point? If you’d just left him to die we’d all have avoided a whole heap of heartache. Including Kit. He doesn’t want to live. He’s been trying to kill himself for nearly a decade now.’ She let out a small snort. ‘Strange, he used to be so good at everything. But dying seems beyond him.’
‘Don’t, Helen.’
‘Don’t what?’ She pulled a tissue from her sleeve and gave her nose a vigorous blow. ‘Mention the D-word? You’d rather I pretend everything is hunky-dory, would you? That one fine day my son will walk through that door, looking like he used to, all cherub curls and big grey eyes, and tell me he’s cured?’ Her voice broke, eyes filling with tears again. ‘I watched him lying in that bed, Lily, and I prayed and prayed with all my heart that he would live. I put every ounce of energy I had into that prayer, all day, all night.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Be careful what you wish for, eh? The universe delivers.’
‘You wouldn’t want him dead,’ Lily said softly.
Turning the full force of her fury on Lily, Helen, her face twisted in pain, almost yelled at her. ‘Really? You think anything – anything – could be worse than the way I feel right now? Do you? He lay in that bed and promised me over and over, “I’ll never touch a grain of smack again as long as I live, Mum.” I promise, promise, promise,’ she mimicked, in a grating, girly voice.
Lily searched for something optimistic to say, found nothing.
‘And you know what?’ her sister said with a sick grin. ‘I was so damn stupid. Even after everything he’s put us through, I actually believed him again.’
Silence fell as Helen filled the kettle and slammed the lid shut.
‘Where’s David?’
‘Where do you think?’ Helen snapped, as she splashed milk into the two mugs. ‘Out looking for him, of course. Keen as mustard to get the boy back, is our David, so we can go through the same old hideous charade all over again.’
Helen’s bile was making Lily feel ill, as if actual poison were being released into the kitchen air. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, having no idea how to comfort her tortured sister.
*
When Lily got back to the flat that night, it was after ten. She had stayed with Helen till David came home, then felt it would be better to leave them to their grief. Freddy was waiting for her, the room softly lit, a spread laid out on the glass coffee-table: bowls with various dips, seeded crispbread, almonds and olives, baby tomatoes, strawberries – it was one of their favourite meals of old – with two sparkling new wine glasses next to the plates, knives and napkins.
He welcomed her as if she’d been away for a year, holding her close, kissing every inch of her face and neck. ‘God, I’ve missed you.’
She pushed him away, laughing at the tragic look on his face as she sank down on the sofa, kicked off her sandals and let out a sigh of relief.
‘You’re very late,’ he said, his look almost uncomfortably intense as he poured her some wine. ‘Good doctor keeping you busy? I texted you.’
She explained about Kit and that her phone had run out of juice.
‘It was always possible he’d do that,’ Freddy said, throwing himself beside her and laying his head on her shoulder for a moment.
‘How was your day?’ she asked, not wanting to talk about her nephew any more. There was literally nothing to say.
‘Great. Yeah, really good. Things progressing on the launch front. Had lunch with a friend from Malta, generally bonded with half the Wolseley.’
‘Nothing new there. Which friend?’
‘An American called Shirley. She and I used to hang out a bit, do the tourist trail.’ He pulled a face, ‘It was bloody lonely without you, Lil.’
‘Bloody lonely without you, too, Fred.’
His phone rang and, still chuckling, he answered it.
She heard the faint sound of a woman’s voice and watched as her husband’s face went very still. All he said was ‘Thank you . . . Yes, thank you . . . No, it’s fine . . . I’ll be in touch.’
‘Who was that?’
Freddy turned to her, his expression unfathomable. ‘That was the nursing home. My father’s dead.’