Chapter Twenty: Hampshire, July 2013

The summer was shaping up to be a good one. There were only another two weeks until the children broke up from school, and I was trying to make the most of my free time. We’d decided not to start any major work on the house until the kids went back to school in September, so we could enjoy our first summer here in North Kingsley. I had a long list of stuff to do before they broke up – planning the kitchen, deciding on its floor, units and colour scheme, lining up plumbers and electricians so we could hit the ground running in September, gardening and, of course, researching who the bones might have belonged to.

Despite all these items on my to-do list, it was a beautiful Friday and Irish Hill beckoned. I decided to take a walk up there in the morning, after dropping off Thomas at school. There’d be time enough to progress the chores or, more likely, the research, in the afternoon. It hadn’t rained for weeks so the usually muddy track across the fields was dry and rutted. There were a few sheep grazing on the parched grass, who regarded me forlornly as I walked by. Up on the hill, the gorse and hawthorn had finished flowering so there was less colour than in the spring, but the view was as magnificent as ever. A heat haze made the horizon shimmer, and fields of wheat were beginning to ripen. In another month there’d be patches of sunshine gold all across the countryside, cheering the souls of all who looked upon it.

I needed my soul cheering. Simon, again, late home night after night. Refusing to talk to me if I tried to probe into why. It wasn’t Amy. He’d arranged to meet her in London in a week’s time, and although he was nervous about the prospect, we’d talked it over many times, and he was confident he was doing the right thing, in the right way. No, there was something else going on.

I climbed to the top of the hill and sat on the east-facing bench, to feel the morning sun on my face. A red kite wheeled above me, its splayed wing feathers silhouetted against the pale blue sky. I still occasionally wondered whether Simon was having an affair. His late evenings and evasive answers pointed to something like that, but his overall demeanour didn’t. He acted like someone with a secret, but not a guilty secret. Just something he didn’t yet feel as though he could tell me.

A thought struck me, as I watched the kite swoop down and disappear into a copse. Maybe Simon was tracking down his birth parents? Maybe Amy contacting him had made him want to trace his own roots? But if so, why on earth didn’t he talk to me about it? I’d support him, he knew I would. I’d do it for him, if he asked. And then I’d trace his ancestry further back. I’d relish having another genealogy project!

The sun was too warm on my face and I felt as though I might be burning, so I stood and stretched, and moved to the west-facing bench, my back to the sun. I supposed you’d need to be careful tracing your birth parents, and be prepared for some shocks. It was a bit like genealogical research, although of course, much closer to home. You never knew quite what you might find. What if your birth mother was a prostitute, or your father a criminal? How would that make you feel?

I decided to go home. If I sat on Irish Hill all day, pleasant as it might be, I’d never get any closer to finding out who’d been buried in our garden and why. Time to try to track down those servants. Or not. I felt the familiar little buzz of excitement at the prospect of a couple of hours’ uninterrupted research, and hurried down the hill.

Simon, thankfully, was home early that evening. We decided to have a barbecue in the back garden, and he set to work lighting the charcoal while I prepared some salads and sliced open burger buns. We had sausages, burgers and chicken wings, and I wrapped some strawberries in tin foil along with a drizzle of orange juice, to tuck into the embers afterwards for dessert. The kids loved barbecued food, and happily organised themselves into a mini-Olympics involving much bouncing on the new trampoline and scoring of goals in the football net, while we cooked the food and sipped a bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio. Sometimes, everything just slotted into place and life was perfect. Except for my niggling worries about whatever Simon was hiding from me.

‘Mu-um,’ said Lauren, in one of those wheedling tones where you just know you’re going to be talked into something against your better judgement, ‘you know how it’s Friday, and there’s no school tomorrow, and it doesn’t get dark till ten, and it’s a lovely warm evening?’

‘Ye-es?’

‘So can we all stay up late tonight? Playing out here? Until the stars come out? Even Thomas?’

Little Thomas stood beside his sister, with pleading puppy-dog eyes.

I looked at Simon and raised my eyebrows. ‘Well, I don’t see why not,’ he said.

‘OK, Thomas goes in when the first star comes out, and you and Lewis go in as soon as it’s properly dark.’

‘Yes!’ The children ran off again to the end of the garden to continue their games.

‘Nice to see them playing well together,’ commented Simon. ‘And including Thomas.’

‘Yes. Though we might pay for the late night with grumpiness tomorrow.’

Simon topped up our glasses. ‘Cheers, love. We’re doing a great job with our kids, even though I say it myself.’

I clinked my glass against his and smiled. He was right about the kids.

’They’re lucky,’ he went on. ‘Having each other, I mean. And you had Jo.’

‘Jo and I didn’t always get on, as you know!’ My sister and I didn’t get on too well even now. We were too alike in some ways and complete opposites in others.

Simon looked wistful. ‘Maybe it would be different now, if I’d had a sibling. If Mum and Dad had adopted another child as well as me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think it would be easier. I mean, dealing with Mum’s dementia. There would be someone else who really understood, who remembered her the way I do, from childhood. And maybe if she had a larger family to gather round her, she’d remember more.’

‘Maybe. But there would be no guaranteeing it.’

‘At least there’d be someone to share the visiting with. It’s hard, being the only one.’

I frowned. Simon only visited Veronica once a fortnight. ‘Love, if you find it that hard to visit her, maybe just go once a month?’

He looked at me, and bit his lower lip. Then he sighed, put his elbows on his knees and stared into his glass of wine, cupped in both hands. ‘I haven’t told you, Katie. I didn’t know what you’d think.’

‘Haven’t told me what?’

He swirled the wine around in his glass. ‘I’ve been going to Mum’s much more often lately. I found that on about half the occasions I visited, she was more with it – knew who I was and all that. So I figured that if I went more often, then overall there’d be more times when we could have a proper conversation. I thought it might help her keep her memories for longer.’

‘When have you been going?’

‘Two or three times a week. After work. I’ve been staying on the train down from London, and getting off at Bournemouth. Then I take a cab to her home. Spend ten minutes or an hour with her depending on how she is, then get the train back here.’

‘That’s why you’ve been late back so many times.’

He nodded. For a moment he looked just like Thomas, when caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. I could barely believe it. All those terrible thoughts I’d had, that he was cheating on me, when the only ‘other woman’ he was seeing was his mother. The darling man! I felt both relieved and mortified. How could I ever have suspected him?

I reached out to touch his hand. ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I thought you might advise me against it. You always say I’m so tense and stressed when I come home from seeing her. You’ve told me I need to look after myself first, or I’ll be no good to her. And you’ve often said I should go less often.’

‘I wouldn’t have stopped you from going, if you’d told me why you wanted to.’ Did he really think I would? Was I that much of an ogre?

‘I know, but you might have put me off. Put doubts in my head, even if you didn’t mean to. But I knew I wanted to give it a go. It’s kind of an experiment.’

‘And is it working? Do you get more quality time with her?’

‘A bit. Maybe once a week she’s on good form. But I can’t spend long, and I’m so tired – that all works against it.’

He looked as though he was going to cry. The stress he’d been under – all that extra travelling, dealing with his mother’s illness, keeping it all quiet from me. All on top of the house move, the bones, not to mention the contact from Amy. No wonder he’d been grumpy at times lately. And I hadn’t helped at all.

‘Oh, love,’ I said, taking his hand. ‘You should have told me. It was a good idea, and would have been easier for you if I’d known what you were doing. I could have supported you more.’

‘You’ve been fab. God knows what you thought I was doing for all those late nights.’

‘Well, you said you were working late so I…’

‘Believed me? Bless you.’ He leaned over and kissed my forehead. I felt myself blush with embarrassment. God knows what he would think of me if he knew the wild ideas I’d actually had about why he’d been late back so many times.

‘So what are you going to do now? It’s too much for you to keep going there after work.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. It’s wearing me out, all this travelling.’

‘Why don’t we move her to Winchester? There are plenty of nursing homes near here. If she was just ten or fifteen minutes’ drive away, you could see her as often as you like. Every day, even.’

Simon stared at me. I wondered whether I should say any more. Would he think I was interfering? She was his mother – he needed to be the one who decided what was best for her. But I’d started now. Might as well say it all. ‘I know you always thought moving her would upset her too much. But in the long run it might be worth it – if she settled and you were able to see her without ruining your own health.’

‘She barely knows where she is now, half the time.’

‘Well then – it would make no difference to her. Does she have friends in the home?’

He grimaced. ‘They’re not really friends. Some days she’ll chat to anyone who’ll listen; on others she won’t say a word. Depends on her mood. I think she’d be just the same with a different set of people around her.’

‘So, what do you think?’

He sat in silence for a minute, staring at an overgrown Clematis which grew along the remains of the old garden wall. It needed a severe pruning. I made a mental note to do it after it had finished flowering.

‘Maybe if she was nearby I could even take the children to see her. If it turned out to be one of her better days we’d stay, if not, we would leave early.’ Simon looked carefully at me.

‘I think that would be a great idea. The twins are old enough to understand that she might not always know who they are. And Thomas is young enough to accept anything.’

‘I’ll start looking at local homes then. As soon as possible.’

I raised my glass to him and we clinked them. ‘Sounds like a good plan. But listen, Simon, keep me involved, all right?’

‘Will do.’

He still looked thoughtful. I guessed it would take a while for him to work through the implications of having his mother closer. I poured him another glass of wine, and we sat watching the kids play, and discussing his mother and Amy. It felt good to be talking openly with him, knowing he was not hiding anything more.

There was more than one star out by the time I retrieved Thomas from the den the kids were making at the bottom of the garden, and carried him yawning into the house and straight up to bed.