Split Second

CHAPTER EIGHT

Emma

Leaving to come back to Manchester, she felt deflated. That after-the-party feeling even though the party had been crap. Arriving home, the flat was cold and she turned the heating on full. The fish were fine; she fed them and checked the temperature. She’d lost two in September to a fungal disease, and she still worried that the others might get sick. She’d nothing much in and she was starving again, so went to get a Chinese. It was good for takeaways where she was, but the Chinese was her favourite. She ate every last scrap, then she had some of the Christmas cake Mum had given her.

Mum texted her: Dad had got her cold. Good, thought Emma, and then felt horrible. She was a horrible person, that was the trouble, and sooner or later her new friends would find out and she’d be on her own again. Like she was meant to be.

She finished the cake and some mince pies, and a Yorkie bar. But it still wasn’t enough. She’d only ever told one person about it: the locum GP who she saw in the middle of A levels when she got an ear infection and needed antibiotics. Emma was exhausted by the endless revision for the exams, and by the other thing. She hadn’t planned to say anything; she’d expected to see Dr Henry, who treated all her family, but he’d been called away due to a bereavement and a young woman was covering his appointments: Dr Sulayman. The doctor was quite pretty but she had funny eyes, like a squint, and one eyelid lower than the other. Like she’d got stuck mid-wink. She spoke quietly, like Emma herself, and after she’d examined Emma’s ear and done the prescription, she turned back to her and asked, ‘And how are things with you generally?’

It was like snapping open a jack-in-the-box. Emma’s mind flooded with her miseries, and to her horror she began to cry, right there in the consulting room. Dr Sulayman was so nice. She gave her tissues and a cup of water and told her to take her time and tell her what was making her so unhappy.

Emma didn’t know how to answer her. ‘Everything’ was too vague. She shook her head.

‘Are there any problems at home?’

‘No,’ said Emma quickly. She couldn’t bear being disloyal. ‘But sometimes I can’t stop eating, even when I’m full.’ There, she had said it, and the doctor would hate her now. Greedy pig. Emma chewed her lip.

But Dr Sulayman said it was a very common problem and there were ways to deal with it, like following a healthy eating plan and trying to minimize stress. Counselling could help as well, especially in dealing with any underlying issues.

Emma could hear him jeer, his voice rattling away like a machine gun, ‘Oh, she’s psychotic now, is she? Just our luck, we really picked a winner there, eh? There was none of this in my day, people just got on with it.’

‘How long have you been binge-eating?’ The doctor said it normally, like it was a cold or flu. Something ordinary.

Emma considered. Since Year 10; she’d loved sugary things before that, and pies and chips. ‘A sweet tooth,’ her mum would say. ‘A fat pig, if she doesn’t watch it,’ her dad would add.

‘About three years,’ she said.

‘And would you say it’s getting worse?’

Emma nodded.

‘Do you ever make yourself sick?’

Emma almost denied it, but it was like the doctor already knew. She dipped her head. ‘But just this year.’

‘When you look in the mirror, you think you look overweight?’

‘I am.’

‘You’re doing A levels now?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that must be putting a lot of extra pressure on you. Have you applied to university?’

Emma shook her head.

‘Had enough of school?’

‘Yes.’ And he said she’d never get a place, not with the competition, and university was all well and good but half the graduates couldn’t get jobs, and why waste the time and money, even if you had the brains, which she was seriously lacking.

‘And my dad thinks it’s a bad idea.’ It felt like a rip, a tear in the picture of how things were supposed to be, and Emma wanted to take it back.

‘Why’s that?’

‘I’m not clever enough.’ Her stomach flipped. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you, about the eating?’

‘No, complete confidentiality. And what does your mum think?’

‘Whatever he tells her to.’ Emma’s face was on fire. She shouldn’t be thinking this, talking like this. She felt terrible, but Dr Sulayman was so kind and not shocked or anything.

‘They don’t know about your eating disorder?’

‘No.’

‘You have any brothers or sisters?’

Emma shook her head.

‘Friends you could talk to?’

‘No.’ There were a couple of girls she hung round with at school, mainly because they were the leftovers, like she was, the losers, and you had to sit next to someone at school. None of their conversations ever got too personal.

‘Your parents think university is not for you. What do you think?’

Emma shrugged.

‘Is there something else you’d like to do? Do you have a career in mind?’

Emma shrugged again. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. The trouble was, there was no one thing she was really good at.

‘It sounds like everything’s very uncertain for you at the moment, exams, not sure which direction to go in. But it also sounds like you’ve been unhappy far too long.’

Emma bit the inside of her cheek.

The doctor paused, then brought her hands together in a silent clap, fingers pointing at Emma. She had lovely nails. Emma hid her own.

‘Here’s what I suggest: I will put you on the waiting list for counselling, and before then,’ she swivelled in her chair and opened one of the desk drawers, pulled out a leaflet, ‘here we are.’ She held it out to Emma. ‘You read this.’

Eating Disorders – an introduction and guide to treatment. Emma wanted to give it back, tear it up. This had been a bad idea. She only caught fragments of the rest.

‘Resources listed… linked to low self-confidence… feel better about ourselves.’

How? Emma thought helplessly. Beginning to wish she hadn’t told Dr Sulayman any of it.

‘Do you see a dentist regularly?’

‘I don’t like the dentist,’ Emma said.

‘One of the side effects of bringing back food…’ – and she didn’t mean from the shops – ‘is the acid corroding the enamel. You’ve lovely teeth…’

Emma blushed. Lovely teeth!

‘… but this could cause irreparable damage both to them and to the lining of the oesophagus as well.’ She said it so gently, not like a lecture. ‘The dentist might be able to help you protect your teeth.’

Emma did that anyway. She always brushed her teeth straight after, and she drank loads of milk and ate cheese. She imagined losing her teeth, being gummy as well as fat. The urge to leave was massive. She stood up.

‘Lots of girls have this problem.’ The doctor got to her feet. She was tiny next to Emma. ‘And people overcome it. Support from family and friends can be a big help.’

Emma shook her head. Forget it, then.

‘Sometimes people need to create a bit of space, some independence, especially if the situation in the family reinforces poor self-esteem.’

‘I need to go,’ Emma said quickly.

Dr Sulayman handed her the prescription and smiled. ‘Take care, Emma, and good luck with your exams.’

Emma hadn’t kept the appointment with the counsellor when it finally came through. But she had eventually read the pamphlet and she had looked up some of the websites it mentioned. She didn’t like it; it made her feel grimy and guilty, and anyway she could manage, she just ate a bit too much sometimes.

She got a C and two Ds in her exams and put her name down for the new Tesco that was opening down the road.

Andrew

The depth of winter, Andrew thought. Winter had depth, summer had height. Barely seven and a half hours of daylight at this time of year. Now, close to midday, the sun had reached its zenith, a brassy ball in a cerulean sky. Light glancing off all the shiny surfaces: the metalled road, the cars, the glass in the buildings and stretches of river glimpsed from the bridge.

Andrew turned in at the garden centre. The car park was surprisingly busy. A sign at the entrance offered Christmas Trimmings and Lights at HALF PRICE!!! The thought that people were here stocking up for next December was depressing.

The trees were at the far end of the complex, corralled in pens, some with horticultural fleece round the pots. Stocks were low. Autumn or spring was the time to plant, not midwinter. He scanned the labels. Compared the pictures on them to the spindly plants on offer. There was only one rowan tree. Red berries and white flowers, ideal small tree, attractive to wildlife, he read. Grows to a height of 10 metres. It would grow, its roots in the soil drawing nourishment from Jason. Macabre. Of course, death was macabre, that was the point, and all the rituals, like scattering ashes in rose gardens or planting bulbs by graves, were variations on the theme: life in death, the circle of creation, the wheel of life. But it should have been his father or his mother he was here choosing a tree for, not his eighteen-year-old son.

Jason. They’d picked the name because they liked the sound of it, though people teased them at the time that it was after the Neighbours soap star, Jason Donovan.

Following the first miscarriage, they had learnt to be circumspect in hope. Not to tempt fate. Jason was the fourth pregnancy. Only when Val reached twenty-six weeks did she suggest they get some baby name books. Andrew favoured short, unfussy names: Jack, Tom, Joel; Anna or Rose for a girl. Val wanted something more unusual: Lewis or Jeremy, Suzanne, Bethany. Occasionally she got carried away.

‘You can’t call a child Ferdinand,’ he’d objected, laughing. ‘He’d never live it down.’ He drew the line at Lorelei, too. ‘It needs to be something people can pronounce – and spell. Jason had been the only name they’d agreed on for a boy.

‘Can I help?’ The assistant, a chubby-cheeked girl with blue hair, set down her wheelbarrow.

‘The rowan.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It’s the only one you’ve got?’

‘Yes. Doesn’t look up to much now, they never do, just sticks really, but it’ll surprise you.’

‘They’re good for birds?’

‘Yes. Or there’s the silver birch, they’re popular, we’ve a few of them, or the aspen, you know, the ones that shiver.’ She fluttered her hands. ‘The leylandii are good too.’ She gestured to a stand of them behind him. ‘A lot of birds nest in them, but they are quick-growing.’

He didn’t like the shivering idea. And he was pretty sure the leylandii weren’t on the list from the woodland cemetery. He knew they were the ones that grew like weeds and caused more neighbour disputes than anything else. It seemed fitting now that the rowan was one on its own, an only one, just like Jason had been the only one.

‘I’ll take the rowan.’

‘And keep the receipt; any problems and we offer a full refund.’

A preposterous image of digging up the tree from its woodland site and hauling it here for his money back snuck into his head.

He manoeuvred the tree into the car with the top sticking out of the open passenger window.

He still had to call at the funeral home. He should have gone there first. Jason’s clothes were in the back, in a carrier bag. Jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, underwear, his shoes. The shoes they had to bring home from the hospital. Big as coal barges. A fragment of the song came into his head: Herring boxes, without topses, sandals were for Clementine… Thou art lost and gone for ever, dreadful sorry, Clementine. Singing it with Jason in cod-Yankee accents. Jason picking out the tune in between on a harmonica.

This wasn’t happening. It didn’t make sense. It was as if he was playing a role, grieving father, but he wasn’t really committed to it. It was all pretence. Any moment the curtain would fall or the camera stop rolling and the chimera would disappear. Everything would go back to how it should be.

He had tried to talk to Val about it, the unreality, but she’d reduced it to a formula: denial – it’s a part of the process. Before he had a chance to take it any further, to ask her if she too felt this bizarre disconnect, she was moving on to something else. Her energy, close to mania, exhausted him.

He sat until the light began to fade, his buttocks growing numb in the seat. The sky changed, the ink of night stealing across from the east. East, the Orient, from orior, to rise. Many early maps didn’t include the compass points; they had their own orientation based on the purpose of the map, the culture of the particular cartographer, their understanding of space and representation. Only later did the demands of trade and travel force a cohesive format on to mapmakers: the use of scale, the four points of the compass, the lines of latitude.

He and Val were like those early mappers. Each charting their own course, not even agreeing which way was up or down.

He stretched, then turned the engine on, reversed the car and set out for the funeral parlour. Glad to be sheltered in the encroaching dark.

The coffin had arrived. Val had put it in their conservatory. ‘This time of year,’ she said, ‘and they still do same-day delivery.’

We never sleep, he thought. No two-week Christmas breaks for those in the funeral business. There’d been a strike once, he remembered, of gravediggers, headlines about the dead lying unburied, corpses rotting, families distraught.

‘I’ve told the boys to come round tomorrow teatime.’ Jason’s closest friends, the lads he’d been at the pub with that last night, heartsick and passionate with all the righteous intensity of youth, wanted to be involved in celebrating Jason’s life. Val, with her customary zeal and focus, had been researching options for humanist ceremonies, eco-friendly coffins and woodland burials. She swiftly involved them in the details and asked if they would like to decorate Jason’s cardboard coffin. Now it was here, plain, dun-coloured, grotesque. Andrew went out and got the rowan tree, carried it in and stood it beside the coffin.

The phone rang. He moved to get it, but she said, ‘Don’t answer it. It’s the newspapers. They’ve been ringing every ten minutes. Over and over. I spoke to Martine, she said to ignore them, not to say a word. They’ll give up eventually.’

‘What if Mum or Dad wants us?’ The phone rang on and on.

‘I’ve told them to use our mobiles for now.’

They paused and listened. The phone sang out for another five rings, then stopped. ‘I’ll take it off the hook,’ he said.

‘I’ve tried that – it does that horrible siren noise after a bit.’

He looked at her, then went into the hall. He unplugged the base station and the telephone jack. ‘Sorted,’ he called out. ‘I’ve disconnected it.’

She didn’t answer. His neck prickled. He walked back through to the conservatory. She was sitting down on one of the rattan chairs, head in her hands, her shoulders moving as she wept.

‘Oh, Val.’ Tears started at the back of his eyes. He moved to her, moved to hold her, her crying raw and guttural and accompanied by a rocking motion. He held her and tried to soothe her, whispering in her hair. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, love. Oh, darling, I’m so sorry.’ Knowing that he couldn’t make it right, couldn’t kiss it better. That all he could do was be there and walk beside her. Even if they were making the journey in different ways, disagreeing about the direction, they must walk on because there was no other choice.

They clung to each other like that until she quietened and his feet had gone numb and his shoulder and top were damp with her tears.

He didn’t know what to say, how to move them back to the business of living, of dealing with the dead. In the end, he resorted to the basest practicalities. ‘Tea, something to eat?’

She shivered, looked at him. Grey eyes lucid and naked, red-rimmed. ‘There’s a shepherd’s pie, it’ll microwave.’

He squeezed her shoulders and clambered upright, the burn and bite of pins and needles sizzling in his legs.

She’d rallied by the time he’d got the food on the table, though he noticed she ate little as she updated him on the progress she’d made for the other arrangements. How she’d asked Jason’s friends to choose some music, but told them it would be nice to include the Bobby McFerrin song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’. ‘Remember?’

‘Lovely,’ he said, but there was a lance in his heart.

That holiday. Driving down to Cornwall with a compilation tape that Andrew had made playing loud. All of them singing that song, rewinding it time and again for Jason, who was seven. In the wake of Val’s parents’ deaths, a horrible year, the mantra seemed tailor-made for them all. Jason had made a video on the camcorder to go with the music. Stop-motion Plasticine cat and mouse, meant to be dancing, swaying their heads to the laid-back beat, but getting the movements right had proved too difficult. The end result was hilarious, had Jason breathless and Andrew and Val in stitches.

Jason had got car-sick on the drive home. Andrew thought that navigating with the road atlas would entertain him, but before they’d reached the M5, Jason was pasty-faced and they had to stop. Val had blamed Andrew. ‘Everyone knows reading causes car sickness; what were you thinking?’ Then Jason had been sick in the car, once they were on the motorway. The reek of it was horrible and Jason was crying, and they had to wait to get to the services to try and clean him up a bit.

‘Andrew?’

‘Sorry?’ Had she said something? What had she said? He saw a flicker of displeasure.

‘The stuff for Colin’s there. I’ve emailed the text, but he wants the actual picture to scan for the cover.’

‘Right.’ Colin was doing the programme for the service. He ran a print and design company and had everything to hand. ‘I’ll take it over now.’

With nightfall and clear skies, the frost had come. Andrew scraped the ice off the car windscreen, shaving delicate white curls on to the ground.

His neighbour Robert came out of his house and paused when he saw Andrew; he half raised an arm in greeting, a muddled look on his face, then let his arm fall, nodded and strode off. Not knowing how to deal with me, Andrew realized. Embarrassed, uncomfortable.

He was almost at Colin’s when he heard his phone. He checked it once he’d parked. Missed call from LOUISE. He felt a tilt of surprise. She’d left voicemail. He pressed to retrieve the message, wondering if something had happened to Luke.

‘Hi, Andrew, it’s Louise Murray here. There was something I wanted to tell you. Ring me when you can. Bye.’

Andrew hesitated. He could ring now, but then he’d still have to go in and give Colin the file. If it was more bad news, then it might be better to call afterwards.

Colin insistedhe sit and have a coffee with him and Izzie. Their kids came through and each hugged Andrew, a simple act of fondness that threatened to unseat him.

‘How’s Val?’ Izzie asked.

Andrew shrugged and gave a rueful smile. ‘Keeping busy. I suppose after the funeral, that’s when it will really hit home.’

‘And the photofits?’ asked Colin. ‘Have they any leads?’

‘We’ve not heard. But someone must know who they are. The simple fact that there’s three of them going round together. People must know.’ But he was aware that there were cases where no one came forward. Where the wrongdoers were sheltered, protected, helped to get away with it. Could he have done that? If Jason had done something wrong, would Andrew have covered for him, told lies and hidden the truth? He couldn’t imagine it, not for something serious. Would he have seen Jason locked away?

He changed the subject, told Colin and Izzie which of the wider family were coming on the day.

Colin cleared his throat, messed with his coffee mug.

Now what? Andrew thought.

‘Mum and Dad, they’d like to do more,’ he said.

Andrew frowned.

‘They feel helpless. They’re devastated.’

‘Join the club,’ Andrew said.

Izzie blinked, taken aback.

‘Sorry,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s just… there isn’t… I can’t…’ Inarticulate, he rubbed at his head.

‘They were glad to have you there, they were worried about you leaving so soon. Mum feels like Val takes everything on herself. Perhaps too much,’ Colin said.

‘It’s just her way,’ he answered. ‘She needs to do this.’

‘But if there’s anything Mum-’ Colin persisted.

‘We’ll say, we’ll ask!’ He got up, indignant but trying not to let it show. Astonished that they were chiding Val and, by extension, him. Tired of family etiquette in the midst of their tragedy. ‘I really need to get back.’

Colin stood up too, and followed him out. Patted him on the back and made reassuring sounds. Big brother. Andrew’s annoyance melted. For a moment he wanted to be small again, to stay with Colin and be teased and bossed about and allowed a go on the Scalextric. Free of all that awaited him.

Colin watched from the doorway, so Andrew drove away and parked up a couple of hundred yards down the road to make the call. The wheelie bins were ranged along the pavement, ready for collection. The general refuse ones and the blue paper recycling bins. Cardboard boxes were piled high beside them outside the nearest house. Packaging from Christmas presents: Hot Wheels Garage and Table Top Football.

Andrew rang Louise Murray.

‘Have you heard from the police today?’ she asked him. She had a warm voice, slightly husky – that would be with the smoking. A strong local accent.

‘No.’

‘We’ve got a name – the oldest lad.’

‘What!’ He felt a shiver run through him, and his heart leap against his ribs.

‘Luke’s friend recognized him.’

He needed to see her, to hear it properly, find out more. ‘Where are you? Are you at the hospital?’

‘Just leaving to go home.’

‘Where’s that?’

She didn’t reply immediately, and he thought he’d freaked her out. ‘Sorry, if we could meet…’

‘There’s a student pub, just south of the junction of Mosley Road and Wilbraham.’

‘Yes, I’ll see you there. Won’t take me long.’

The pub had several rooms off a central bar. The floor was sticky underfoot, and garish banners for high-strength drinks caught the eye. The decor was a mix of Soviet retro-chic and Victorian gin palace.

Louise was in the second room he tried. On her own, apart from a foursome at another table. There was a coal-effect gas fire in the hearth, pub mirrors advertising drinks around the walls. She had a full glass in front of her, but he still offered to buy her a drink. She declined. He ordered a pint at the bar. Tried to remember when he last had a pint in a pub. With Jason, up in Durham, a pie and a pint when they’d moved his stuff into halls. He took a mouthful of the foam as soon as it arrived so that it would be easier to carry without spilling.

He set his drink down on a beer mat, took off his coat and sat opposite Louise. He didn’t bother with preambles. ‘This friend recognized the picture?’

‘Yes. Declan, Luke’s friend.’ She gathered her dark-brown hair in one hand, pulled it back as if to make a ponytail. Then let it loose. ‘Declan and Luke met the lad at a party. Luke and he had a barney and the boy went for him. Luke tripped him up.’ She sighed. ‘Then he filmed it.’

‘Luke did?’ Andrew leaned forward, his hand tight around his glass.

‘Yeah, on his phone, a video.’ She gave a little shake of her head, her eyes clouded. ‘And he sent it to everyone he knew.’

Andrew had heard the terms: happy slapping, cyber bullying. He tried to sort out what this meant. ‘He knew them, then?’

‘Not well, but he’d met that one. He’s called Tom Garrington.’

Tom Garrington. Andrew waited, expecting the name to signify something, to explain or illuminate or resonate. But nothing changed. Tom Garrington. Four syllables. ‘You’ve told the police?’

‘Yes, that’s why I rang. See if you’d heard.’

He looked away. Gazed at the fire. Befuddled. His cheeks warm, skin clammy. He drank some beer. ‘When did you tell them?’

‘This afternoon.’

This was important, Andrew thought, this was the start of all the answers. Who and why.

‘I asked if they were going to arrest him, but she said that it might not happen straight away; they have to follow procedures.’

‘But if they know who it is…’ He stared at her.

‘I know!’ She nodded her head, emphatic in agreement.

She talked some more about how they had a copy of the video, then she excused herself. She wanted a smoke. She pulled her bag over her shoulder. ‘You won’t disappear on me again?’ she teased him. He saw she had dimples, and her almond-shaped eyes narrowed and almost closed as she smiled.

He drank the beer, the taste hoppy and fruity. He stared at the nearest decorative mirror, Bell’s Whisky, elaborate letters, ribbons and bells. He thought about what she had told him, and began to feel ill at ease. Disturbed. Soiled, somehow. Because of the pathos? The tawdry background to the attack. A squabble, a lad on the floor, humiliated, and teenagers sniggering over the short film, showing it to their mates. The lead-up to Jason’s unthinking action had been petty and trivial. Call an ambulance. I think they’ve killed him.

It all seemed to get in the way of what mattered, the arrangements for Thursday, for saying goodbye to Jason and honouring his life, celebrating him. All this was like smearing dirt over everything.

When Louise came back in, he could smell the smoke on her and feel the cold air around her. He had finished his drink.

‘Do you want another?’ she asked him.

‘I’ll get them. What are you having?’

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘I’ll get them,’ he repeated. He assumed he was better off than she was. He knew she was a lone parent, and somewhere in all the column inches, he had read that she was a care worker. Low-paid, on the bottom rung.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘just a Coke.’

‘Nothing in it?’

She wrinkled her nose, thought about it. ‘Oh, go on then – rum. Thanks.’

The pub had been a good choice, he thought. A roomy, anonymous sort of a place. Not somewhere he might run into anyone he knew.

She was on the phone, texting, when he went back. She thanked him for her drink and finished the message. ‘My daughter, Ruby,’ she explained.

‘I remember.’ A fleeting impression, a lovely-looking girl. Willowy, beautiful eyes. ‘How old?’

‘Fourteen.’

‘When you got in touch, I thought it might be Luke.’

‘No, still under.’

He hadn’t meant that he thought Luke might have woken, but that he might have deteriorated. Why had he thought like that? Because he’d seen the state of the boy, perhaps, and couldn’t imagine him recovering? Or because his own situation was so dark it made him pessimistic?

‘It was out of character, for Jason,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t think he’d ever been in a fight in his life. Not a proper fight. He just wasn’t that sort of kid, you know?’

She nodded, did that thing with her hair again. ‘Well he wasn’t fighting,’ she said. ‘He was trying to stop it.’

‘Yes.’

‘Luke…’ She blew out a sigh, stretched her back, ‘he’s a handful. He’s had his moments, got into the odd scrap at school, but he’d never start anything. Selfdefence half the time. That and being too cocky for his own good.’ The words were harsh, but he heard the love behind them.

‘This trouble with Garrington…’ The name felt odd to say. ‘What was that about?’

‘Declan said that Garrington – they call him Gazza, actually…’

‘Oh, please,’ he moaned. The image of a pudgy footballer known for weeping and later for his chaotic personal life mushroomed in his mind, and then the thought that these nicknames, Gazza, Baz, Mozzer, were typical for young thugs.

She shrugged. ‘Well, he was having a go at some lass. Nasty – threats and that. Luke told him to pack it in.’

Andrew was surprised; he’d expected something more loutish, laddish. Not the chivalry she described. She seemed to read his thoughts, and there was an edge to her tone when she said, ‘He wasn’t looking for trouble; he was doing the right thing.’

But trouble had found him, trouble had caught up with him, dragging Jason in its wake.

The second pint was nearly gone, slipping down faster than the first. Andrew was aware of the softening in the set of his shoulders, the tension in his gut uncoiling some.

‘I keep thinking,’ she said. ‘If he hadn’t filmed it, would it have been okay? Would they have let it go? He always has to have the last word. Drives me mad.’ Her face fell suddenly, lines puckered her brow. ‘God, I’m sorry. Going on like this when you-’

‘It’s fine,’ Andrew said. ‘No one knows how to be, you know, how to talk to us. I laughed at something on the radio the other day. Laughed. I was mortified. How could I laugh? Even we don’t know how to be.’

‘I don’t think there are any rules,’ she said softly.

‘Maybe not.’

They talked a little longer, about their sons, the similarities and differences. Then he said he’d better leave. ‘Thanks for ringing.’

‘Something’s bound to happen soon,’ she said. ‘Now they know who he is.’

‘Yeah.’ He buttoned his coat and they walked out together.

He felt awkward again as they parted; the intimacies they had shared suddenly lost currency as they stood like strangers on the pavement. But once he was in the car on his own, he found himself replaying bits of the conversation, and recognized that for much of the time he had been comfortable in her company. That there had even been moments of pleasure in among all the chatter. Flashes where they were just two human beings communicating, and doing it reasonably well.

Jason’s shrine, the mementos and cards, glimmered with frost. Val had gone to bed when he got in. Andrew didn’t want to sleep yet. He took the whisky into the conservatory and sat there, opposite the cardboard coffin and the rowan tree, and drank himself numb.