Rachel made her way downstairs for the family dinner with a feeling of dread in her stomach. ‘There’s another letter for you, love. I’ve popped it on the shelf in the hallway. It’s the same as before from Gee-Gee. I recognised the stamp and the writing.’
‘Cee-Cee!’ It irritated her that her mum could so easily misname this wonderful woman who had helped her get through the darkest days of her life.
‘Did you have a nice time with Vicky?’ her mum asked as she lifted the saucepan full of peas from the hob and tipped them into the slightly misshapen plastic colander over the sink, filling the space with a plume of pea-scented steam.
Rachel nodded, not quite sure if it was a nice time; she felt no inclination, however, to try to describe how her capacity for happiness had been all but destroyed; every encounter, every event now filtered through the sediment of grief that removed any potential joy from it. It had been good to see her friend and a lot of what she’d said made sense.
‘Did she have her little one with her?’ Julie asked a little sheepishly, having decided it was still too much for Rachel to have to deal with her nephews and therefore leaving them with her parents every time she came over. Rather than take comfort from their absence, Rachel actually felt it was some sort of punishment and it hurt more than she cared to admit.
‘Yes, he slept most of the time. He’s a lovely baby.’ She watched the way her brother looked down and swallowed the awkward lump in his throat.
‘Vicky said she thought I should maybe get out of Yate and go and stay with her for a bit.’ She spoke her thoughts aloud.
‘Really?’ Peter snapped.
Rachel looked at him, unsure where this tone had come from or why.
‘Yes, really. She has a spare room and she thought—’
‘Oh, well that’s nice,’ Peter interrupted. ‘After all Mum and Dad have done for you.’
‘Peter!’ her mum called with a slight tut from the sink, her tone the same one she had been using since he was a small child. Rachel felt her pulse quicken; she had forgotten how snipey he could be, how spoiled he sounded and how much she detested it.
‘No, I’m sorry, Mum.’ He looked at his wife and jutted his weak chin, and she wondered if this display was as much about showing off in front of the gormless Julie as it was about his petty, misplaced jealousy. The irony wasn’t lost on her. Yes, she had a life in a warm climate, but he had his wife by his side and his two kids to tuck up in their beds in a matter of hours. She would, of course, have swapped the house, the pool and the view of the sea for what he had in less than a heartbeat.
Peter continued, ‘I mean, I know you’ve had it rough, Rachel, but you’re doing what you always do: pitching up here and disrupting everything – it’s typical. I know you’re going through shit, but just be aware of what this means to Mum and Dad and to all of us. And now, after they have made room in their lives for you, you’re talking about upping sticks and going to stay with Vicky!’ He shook his head like a disappointed teacher.
‘I don’t have to make room in my life for her or you; you are my life!’ Her mum spoke with more than a hint of emotion.
Rachel smiled at her.
‘Well, I knew you’d defend her!’ Changing position, he kicked the supporting leg of the table and it juddered. Rachel stood, the little appetite she might have been able to summon now gone entirely.
‘You might think you know what I am going through, Peter, but you don’t.’ She pulled her sweatshirt sleeves over her hands to hide their trembling. ‘And I am glad, because I would never want another person, let alone my own brother, to feel this way, ever. But if you were to find yourself lost or sadder than sad, I really hope that I would be kind to you, because it’s a fine balance for me right now between keeping calm and managing to wake up each day, and fucking losing it!’ She shouted the latter and her breath came in short bursts; her nostrils flared and her eyes darted around the table. She was certain that had her mother put water glasses at each place, as they did at home, she would have grabbed each one and hurled them against the wall. Even imagining the act brought her some small sense of release.
‘I don’t think there is any need to talk to Peter like that.’ Julie spoke through a mealy mouth and placed her hand on her husband’s thigh.
‘Please shut the fuck up, Julie!’ she fired.
‘Don’t talk to Julie like that!’ Peter banged the table.
‘Come on, poppet, it’s our walk time.’ Her dad’s voice came from behind her. She looked over her shoulder and he was already in his jacket with her waterproof in his big hand.
‘Oh, Brian, really? I am just dishing up tea!’ her mum whined, as she spooned cooling peas on to five plates set on the countertop. The equal measuring out of the fiddly green vegetable was seemingly more important than the tornado of disquiet that hurtled around the breakfast nook.
‘It’ll keep.’ He gave a single nod in conclusion.
They walked the first mile or so in silence and Rachel felt her muscles unknot and her heartbeat settle.
‘She means well. Your mum.’
Rachel nodded, deciding not to comment on how she found it beyond infuriating the way the woman disgorged all that sat in her head, the muddled soup of emotion that flowed without filter or discrimination, seemingly oblivious of the storm brewing around her.
‘I know and I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t want to argue with Peter, I don’t have the strength. And I shouldn’t have sworn at Julie. And it’s so unfair on you and Mum. I’m sorry.’
‘Peter is . . .’ He spoke without lifting his eyes from the pavement. ‘Peter is a complex lad. I think he feels a little trapped by life, and so to see a free bird like you flying high has always been a little hard for him to swallow. Not that I am justifying his behaviour or condoning it, but I hope it might help explain it.’
‘God, Dad, we have invited him and Julie over numerous times, offered tickets, and James tries calling him every time he’s over here to see if he fancies a beer, or if he’s got tickets for the football, but he has always sniffed away our efforts to get closer.’
‘I know, and as I said, he’s a complex fellow, but not a bad one, not really. He just needs to cut his mother’s apron strings and the ones that now tether him to Julie.’
‘I get it.’ And she did.
‘And for the record, I think Vicky is right. You do need to get out of Yate. It’s no good being holed up in your old room day in and day out with only Treacle for company. You need to be with your friends.’
‘Are you asking me to leave?’ she asked with the wobble of rejection on her lower lip, the prospect almost more than she could handle.
Brian stopped walking and turned to face her; he reached out and gripped her shoulders with his hands where the working man’s ring of grime sat under his fingernails. He held her gaze. She was further distressed by the glint of tears in her dad’s eyes. ‘If I could have a wish, it would be to see your face every single day of my life over that breakfast table.’ He swallowed. ‘Or it would be to turn the clock back to when you were small and you would wait for me on the wall to come home from work, waving like crazy when you saw me come around the corner. Rachel, I want you by my side. You are my little girl! My little girl . . .’ He paused and gathered himself. ‘And because I love you so much I only want what is best for you, and right now what I think is best is being somewhere where you are not surrounded by memories that drag you down and people who don’t necessarily know what to do or say for the best. That’s what being a parent is all about: loving you no matter how far away you are.’
She took a step forward and rested her head on her dad’s heavy work coat that smelled of petrol and glue. And this was how they stood under the glow of a street lamp. She closed her eyes and thought of her one wish, and that too involved turning back time.
Rachel stamped her feet on the welcome mat and unzipped her jacket, thankful that Peter and Julie had left. She picked up the letter from the back of the shelf and took it up the stairs, carrying it like a fragile thing. The letters were something she treasured – a link between the world she had left, but where her heart remained, and here, where she was hiding out. She lay on the bed and opened it, getting lost in Cee-Cee’s tales of Clara and descriptions of another time.
. . . Yes, we were sisters in every other sense. Although sisters I now know should look out for one another, help and support each other. And there weren’t nothing sisterly about what she did to me in my time of need, my time of distress.
Nothing at all.
Rachel reread the letter, particularly the final paragraph, and she thought of Vicky, her lovely mate, best friend, her sister in every other sense, who knew exactly what was best in her time of need.
James didn’t answer his mobile, so she tried the home phone. It was Saturday; she wasn’t sure if he had resumed his old routine and was playing tennis with one of his pals. This thought left her feeling torn. It caused a ripple of misplaced anger to flare in her veins at the fact that his life could go on without her, without Oscar. And yet at the same time she felt a flicker of happiness that he was not sitting alone at home, abandoned by her.
It was Cee-Cee who answered the call. Rachel pictured her in the kitchen and felt a jolt of nostalgia for the woman and the room in which she stood. It was the first time she had felt anything close to this since leaving a couple of months ago. She smiled to be in contact with the woman who she now, through her letters, knew better than ever. The woman who had been so very excited about the dance, for which her Grandma Sally, living in the cottage that was now Cee-Cee’s home, made her and her friend Clara the most exquisite dresses.
‘Cee-Cee, it’s me, Rachel.’
‘Well, it is certainly wonderful to hear your voice.’
‘Cee-Cee, I can’t tell you how much I love your letters!’
‘Well, I am certainly glad of that.’
She picked up the note of embarrassment in the woman’s tone. ‘It takes me back to Bermuda and I know the roads you talk about, the beaches you mention, and it’s like I am there and it feels wonderful, because I am there in that time, before . . .’
‘Then I shall carry on putting pen to paper, Rachel.’
‘That would make me very happy.’ She paused. ‘You asked me in your letter if I knew that feeling when you meet someone and you feel full of promise and excitement for everything that lies ahead.’ She pictured the first time she and James kissed, the way her heart leaped, and she knew . . . ‘I do know that feeling – I did.’
‘I knew it.’
Rachel could tell she was smiling and this in itself gave her a feeling of promise, of hope.
‘I keep you in my thoughts and my prayers, child.’ Her voice was thick with emotion.
‘Thank you.’ She noted the way Cee-Cee did not ask how she was – that much-used question that seemed to be the opener for every conversation and one she was no better at answering now than she had been at the very beginning. Cee-Cee’s words all that time ago came to her now: I am sad; sadder than sad and I won’t ever stop . . . It was without doubt because the housekeeper understood this life lived bereft.
‘And how are things there, Cee-Cee?’
‘I have no news, really; nothing changes. I am keeping things just so.’
Rachel pictured Oscar’s room, dust-free and neat as a pin, and her heart flexed with gratitude.
‘I am glad you are with your parents, and I hope you are finding peace.’ Cee-Cee’s warm, rich tones were as calm and soothing as ever.
Rachel noted she didn’t use the word happy because Cee-Cee knew that happy was a stretch too far, peace was the very best she could hope for.
‘Not yet,’ she said honestly, ‘but I can see that peace might lie ahead and so I guess that is progress of sorts. When I was in Bermuda I could only see a dark abyss. It was all I could do not to fall into it; in fact, there was a time when I wanted to.’
I jumped, Cee-Cee! I jumped and I wanted to end it all! And sometimes I crave the peace I felt when I had decided to go and join my boy . . .
‘That passes. It does.’
There was a beat or two of quiet when, across the oceans, the two women were connected by all that they didn’t say. Rachel felt energy in the silence. She closed her eyes briefly and pictured her housekeeper in the vast home that had grown so small and become a prison. The grand façade on the North Shore Road that housed rooms where sadness and regret ran down the walls and pooled on the floor. She pictured Cee-Cee, busy day and night with that mop, but no amount of cleaning could wipe away the scent of despair.
Cee-Cee broke the quiet, speaking slowly. ‘Being with family and those you love. That is where you will find peace.’
Rachel thought of her mum and her dad, of Peter and Julie, of Vicky and little Francisco and she thought of James . . . her James.
‘These people who love you and whom you love, these people who share your blood and live in your heart; it is with them that you will learn how to move forward. They are the keeper of your stories and the custodian of your memories.’
Rachel nodded, feeling the all too familiar slip of tears down her throat and along her cheeks.
‘Your family, your kin, that’s all you have; it’s all we have. Those in the present and those gone before, we all share the same things and we are bound. Understand that it’s in the life-defining moments, when a scream leaps from your throat, be it in joy or fear, and your hands reach out to grasp the wisps of reassurance that float in the ether – strands from a fine gossamer cloak woven of memories and stories – yes, it is in that single moment when your eyes and those of your ancestors are aligned, that is when you are touching your history, your people, your heritage. That’s when lessons can be learned. And whether they are living or whether they have passed on, it doesn’t matter, not in time. We are and we will always be together. That is how you move forward, Rachel.’
‘Thank you. Thank you, Cee-Cee,’ she managed, quite overcome by the woman’s eloquence, wisdom and the beauty of her advice. It was one thing to have read it in her letters, but quite another to hear it whispered down the line person to person.
‘Let me go and find James. I think he is in the garage. Do you want to hold on or shall I ask him to call you back?’
‘Yes, ask him to call me back, and thank you again, Cee-Cee. Take care.’
‘May God bless you and keep you safe.’
The woman’s blessing had the unexpected effect of making her cry harder. Rachel wanted to be kept safe from the harm that threatened to take her sanity or urged her to find somewhere high up and jump. She pictured Oscar again and the way he had waved at her from beneath the water, happy. He had looked happy . . .
James called back within minutes. His tone was flat and she sensed she was disturbing his peace. It felt horrible and jarred even more in comparison to the way in which Cee-Cee had comforted her so.
‘Have you heard from Mackenzie?’ she asked with her heart in her mouth.
‘No. But I don’t expect to. He said they’d only contact us now if they had news.’
She let this permeate. And felt a small sense of relief that there was no news, that nothing had been . . . found.
‘I just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking of going to stay with Vicky for a bit in Bishopston. I think it might be better for me than being cooped up with Mum and Dad.’ She stole her dad’s phrase.
James gave a wry laugh. ‘I thought you were going to say you were thinking of coming home.’
‘Do you think I should?’ She waited, torn, reading what she could into the pause and aware of an icy dread in her stomach that he was going to ask her to go back to that house where she would constantly be within sight of that big, big sea where Oscar lived now. And similarly dreading that he would not ask her to go back, as if her absence, like injured skin, had healed over, leaving no place for her there. She cradled the Tic-Tac box in her palm.
‘Honestly? I don’t know,’ he began. ‘Part of me wishes you were here, but then I think about those months with you sitting upstairs and it was hard, Rachel, it still is hard. And then that day on the boat, when you—’ He broke away. ‘I think about that a lot. It could have ended very differently and you didn’t think what it would be like for me? And I wonder how you could have done something like that.’
‘I wasn’t myself.’ I’m still not myself . . .
‘I know it’s difficult for you, of course, but I don’t want you to come home.’ He paused, as if to let this sink in, and her gut twisted. Despite knowing it was the truth and at some level understanding why, she felt her hand slip a little further away from that of the man who used to rush home from the office at lunch, just to spend a little time with her. James continued, ‘I know how horrible that sounds. I had a knot in my gut, so afraid of doing or saying the wrong thing, and that’s gone now. It’s like I have one less thing to worry about, if that makes any sense.’
She was thankful for his frankness, no matter how much it hurt.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, choked. ‘You know I do, but I don’t know how we go forward from here. I can’t picture it.’
‘I can’t picture it either,’ she confessed.
They were quiet for a moment, letting this sink in. It was James who spoke first. ‘It’s the worst thing, not being able to see ahead when I thought I had life sussed – more than sussed. I held this image in my mind for so long of our future, working hard for that time, always thinking ahead to Oscar at ten, then Oscar as a teenager, always thinking of and planning for the things we would be able to do when he reached those milestones: playing cricket, skiing, or just him and me sitting on Elbow Beach, sharing a beer. And you and I like bookends to his life, happy bookends, all dependent on each other, and now . . .’ He let this hang for a moment. ‘Now there is a big hole in that future because he’s gone and you are not here and I know I have to paint a different picture, create a new future. But I don’t feel like I can; all I want to do is sit and wish I could go back to what I had. It’s tough.’ She heard the unmistakable sound of emotion in his voice and knew his words were a mirror to her own lamentations of loss. ‘The thought terrifies me, Rach, and makes me feel so sad, but I don’t know how else to survive. It almost feels better not to think about what I have lost, but to try and find a new, different path.’
‘You don’t mean forget him?’ she squeaked.
‘No! God, no! Not ever, ever.’ He cried openly now. ‘Of course not! But sometimes it’s less painful if I don’t think about him, don’t try to figure when he went or how. It kills me.’
She nodded down the phone and reached for Mr Bob, who she placed under her chin. This she understood because it killed her too.
Gino lifted her bag from the boot of the taxi.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind putting me up for a bit?’ She knew it was one thing to receive an invitation from her friend, but that didn’t mean her husband was on board. She hated the idea of imposing.
‘Rachel, you are welcome to stay for as long as you want, you know that.’ Gino walked up the path to the open front door. ‘But there are rules,’ he yelled over his shoulder. ‘You do not touch my Star Wars models or agree with Vick that we need to declutter the study, by which she means throw away my motorbike magazines, and you are never, ever to mention that blue football team that your dad favours while you are under my roof.’
‘Rovers?’ she asked with genuine innocence.
‘That, my friend, is strike one! We are a Bristol City house; red is the colour and I can’t have you mentioning the “R” word in front of Francisco. Kids are easily influenced.’
She nodded. ‘Got it.’
As she stepped inside the warm hallway of the Victorian terrace on Egerton Road, Vicky came hurtling down the stairs.
‘Here she is!’ She wrapped her friend in a warm hug. ‘I’ve just put him down for a nap. This means we have uninterrupted coffee time for thirty whole minutes! Sorry, I’m being bossy. Do you want to unpack or get coffee?’
Rachel smiled at her friend who had always been bossy; this awareness of it, however, was new. ‘Coffee sounds good.’
Gino parked her suitcase at the bottom of the stairs and walked over, planting a kiss on her cheek and crushing her in a hug. ‘I was so sorry to hear what happened, Rachel. I feel for you and James.’ Whether subconsciously or not he placed his fingertips over his heart.
‘Thank you.’ She had always liked the Italian’s wonderful nature, open with his emotions, affectionate and desperately loyal to his family.
Vicky and Gino’s house was lovely: homey and warm, with stripped, waxed floorboards dotted with rugs, a cast-iron fireplace in the sitting room and bookshelves in the alcoves either side of the chimney breast stuffed with books, family photographs in mismatched frames and the odd relic from their time travelling – a brass Shiva; a brightly coloured, miniature thangka painting; and a set of Japanese prayer beads carved from cherry wood and hanging from a hook. The sofas were square, deep and soft, covered in creased linen the colour of string, and peppered with boldly coloured, embroidered cushions.
The kitchen had the same relaxed air with old pine, butchers-block countertops, and a windowsill crammed full of herbs in a collection of earthenware pots. A shabby green dresser lined one wall, home to an eclectic assortment of serving dishes, plates and pottery mugs, some with handles missing, now stuffed with pens or paintbrushes. The walls were painted ochre and Gino’s beloved copper cookware hung from a cast-iron rack above the oven. A knife block sat by the hob. Gino always said that on the outside he might have been a systems engineer, working up the road at British Aerospace Engineering, but on the inside, he was a chef. The centrepiece to the spacious, glass-roofed addition was the eight-foot refectory table, crowded at one end with piles of clean laundry, a stack of magazines and a large, crowded bowl of fruit. Rachel was glad her friend hadn’t felt the need to make her home pristine; it made her feel more welcome.
She thought about the clean, cool lines of the villa in Bermuda and wondered how entering that made people feel: the acres of cold tiling, the white walls and crisp, painted edges. She wasn’t sure it was a true representation of her and couldn’t be classed as homey, but she supposed it was rather more impressive. Small wonder they were all happier on the cosy boat. And just like that she pictured jumping from the side of Liberté trying to see through the curtain of hair that fell over her eyes, as she bobbed and dived in the water, as fear set in her bones.
‘You all right, honey?’ Vicky stared at her. ‘You look pale.’
‘I’m okay,’ she managed, her voice small.
‘Why don’t you two go out for coffee?’ Gino suggested, as he unstacked the dishwasher. ‘It’s a bright, blue day!’
‘Yes! Great idea. There’s a fab café around the corner, just five minutes up the Gloucester Road.’
Vicky grabbed her coat and the two women walked up Egerton Road arm in arm along the uneven pavement. ‘I love living here.’ Her friend beamed. ‘I like being able to walk up and grab a pint of milk if I run out and I like the fact that there is life all around me and I can take Francisco out for nice walks and we are both interested in what’s going on. He seems to like the big red buses, and who can blame him?’ She laughed. ‘And there are so many great little shops and always someone to say hello to. I think I might have felt a bit isolated anywhere else, giving up work and staying at home.’
Rachel nodded. ‘When I first got to Bermuda, I was really torn. We kind of had it all – the house, beach on our doorstep, the lifestyle. But I was lonely and I couldn’t see the point of living somewhere so wonderful. I didn’t have anyone to share it with. I mean, it was nice to have Cee-Cee around but we weren’t what you would call friends, although since Oscar . . .’ She swallowed. ‘I guess it has brought down all barriers, as it does when someone sees you stripped bare with your soul and your heart exposed.’
Vicky squeezed her arm.
Rachel continued, ‘I found it hard not having Mum or you to call on. And we had made good friends when we lived in Richmond. It was a bit of a shock to the system.’
‘I bet. So how did you make friends?’
‘Through James’s work mainly. I met a lot of other ex-pat wives, British and American, and they were all friendly enough and then I started taking Oscar to kindergarten and the mums there became my friends too.’
‘But you didn’t love any of them as much as you love me,’ Vicky asserted. ‘The role of best friend was never vacant.’
‘Of course not. Never.’ She looked at her friend and spoke the truth. They shared a childhood and history, and they loved each other.
‘Have you spoken to James?’
Rachel nodded. ‘It’s so confusing. Part of me wants to speak to him, misses him, and another part wants to keep far, far away and have no contact at all. I can feel what we had slipping away.’ She held her friend’s eyeline; this was a tough confession to make.
‘Don’t say that. You guys are going through so much, I am sure that after some time apart you will be able to find a way to go forward.’
She shook her head. ‘I love him, Vick—’
‘I know you do and he loves you. That’s always been obvious,’ Vicky interrupted.
‘But something has happened to us; something other than losing Oscar, or more accurately because of losing Oscar.’ She swallowed. ‘It’s hard to explain, but it feels like someone has snipped all the threads that held us together as a couple, and I can almost tell you the moment it happened: when we were at sea, while they were still searching. I looked over at him and something had changed. I felt it in my gut. I had only ever looked at him with love, lust even.’ She paused, thinking about that morning when they woke, climbing on top of him. ‘But I stared at him and felt a flash of something that was a lot like hatred.’
‘Oh, honey.’ Vicky’s tone dripped with sadness.
‘It’s true. I haven’t said that to anyone.’ She looked at her friend, knowing she would keep her confidence, as she always had. ‘And there are two things that I can’t shake from my mind.’ She took a breath. ‘It’s what we touched on at my mum’s. I keep thinking that we were having sex while Oscar . . . while Oscar might have been struggling or afraid; he needed me! And kind of linked to that is that I know I will never have sex with James again. I don’t want to. I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand to lie next to him let alone touch him. And that is the beginning of the end, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. It can be.’ Vicky nodded. ‘But maybe that’s only how you feel right now.’
‘No, Vick. It’s how I feel and how I have felt since that moment and I have this knowledge that this is how it will be. I resent him, I blame him.’ She ran her fingers through her hair. ‘It’s hard to justify or explain. I know deep down it’s not his fault, but I can’t help it! He was the reason we had the boat. He was the reason I wasn’t out of the cabin, why I wasn’t up earlier.’ She shook her head. ‘And the craziest thing of all is that it was me who initiated sex that morning, me who delayed us and yet . . .’ She shrugged. ‘It’s like everything we had before – the whole ten years leading up to that morning – has shrunk to nothing, and every single thought and feeling I have towards James is from that morning, and I can’t move past it.’
‘What’s the other thing?’ Vicky asked. ‘You said there were two things you couldn’t shake?’
Rachel swallowed. ‘It sounds stupid, but I keep thinking about this one night, a month or so before that day; James was late home and I ate with Oscar. I cooked spaghetti and he was fidgety, playing with his supper, but not eating it. I was impatient, he was making a mess and I snapped at him and told him to eat nicely. He asked me if he could have some ice cream instead and I shouted. I was tired and I yelled, “This isn’t a restaurant, Oscar, you don’t get to reject your main course and go straight for pudding! If you don’t eat your pasta you don’t get ice cream, it’s that simple!” And he cried and I sent him upstairs and then he fell asleep.’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘I can’t stop thinking about that night, the fact that he might have gone to sleep hungry, and what would the harm have been in letting him have a bowl of bloody ice cream?’ She rubbed her hand over her face. ‘I didn’t know we were on a timer, didn’t know how little time I had left and I wish . . . I wish I hadn’t shouted at him and I wish I had taken him up a bowl of ice cream.’
Vicky nodded with a look of pure anguish.
‘You know, Rach, you said you were worried that you had been a bad mum and that has bothered me. You weren’t; I saw it first-hand. You were attentive and interested and patient, you loved him.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Christ, we all get tired, we all snap! But even now, after he’s gone, you are thinking about the tiniest detail, worrying over his bowl of ice cream and the fact that he might have been sad, hungry. Do you think those are the actions of a bad mum? Of course not! You knew him. You loved him and you were a bloody good mum.’
Rachel stared at the road ahead, quite unable to express just how much the words of this woman, whose opinion she valued, helped ease the guilt from her shoulders, scratching at the miserable surface of self-doubt and recrimination and allowing a flash of pride to peek through.
The two walked on in silence, each digesting the futility of her worry and noting how these small things could become big things simply by a twist on the dial of fate.
The café, oddly named ‘rewer’, was great. The lighting was low and the walls covered with a variety of pictures and ornate gilt mouldings with aged mirrors and numerous dark-framed, Edwardian floral images that looked like the etchings from a botanist’s catalogue. The tables were honey-coloured, gnarled and pitted wood with jam jars on them full of cutlery, next to other jam jars with sprigs of wildflowers in them, and the chairs were mismatched. A long, dark-wood bar ran down one side of the room and glass shelves were fixed to the exposed brickwork on the wall behind an elaborate, shiny coffee machine.
The two staff she saw – a man and a chic, older woman with dark-grey hair wound on top of her head in a loose bun – both wore denim, with industrial-looking aprons with leather detailing.
‘Hi there.’ The woman smiled and pointed at the rather clunky-looking, leather-topped iron stools positioned along the bar and then to a collection of smaller, empty tables at the back. ‘Where do you fancy?’
‘I think the back today.’ Vicky made her way through the café with the confidence of a regular patron. Rachel followed in her wake.
‘Apart from travelling over here, which is a blur, and walking with my dad, which I don’t think counts, this is the first time I have properly been out.’
‘You are doing great.’ Vicky reached across the tabletop and squeezed her hand.
‘No little one today?’ The man appeared by the side of the table. He had a close-cropped dark beard, and hair that was too long so he had to keep pushing it behind his ears.
The question had made Rachel’s heart leap; for a split second she had thought he was addressing her and felt the usual surge of panic at how she might respond.
‘No. He’s with his dad. We officially have half an hour of grown-up time.’
‘Quite right too.’ He smiled. ‘Right, let me guess’ – he pointed at Vicky – ‘soy latte with hazelnut shot and a slice of carrot cake?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
He turned to Rachel. ‘And for you?’
‘Erm, is there a menu?’
‘Only in my head, so what would you like first, drinks or specials?’
‘I don’t want anything to eat – drinks.’
‘Hot or cold?’ he fired.
She felt a flicker of irritation and glanced at the door, considering bolting. ‘A coffee, please, I’ll just take a coffee.’
‘Latte? Americano? Cappuccino? Regular? Large?’
‘Why don’t you just print it on a menu?’ She was curious.
The man leaned towards the table and lowered his tone. ‘Standard answer, we think it builds a relationship between customer and staff. Look at us’ – he touched his chest and then pointed at her – ‘here we are chatting! All ice broken, so it clearly works, but unofficially’ – he leaned further in – ‘we have so few items on the menu that I think it might lose us customers.’
‘Why do you have so few items?’ Vicky asked quizzically.
‘Because there is only my mum and me out here and my dad in the kitchen, and he can make four or five things really well and she can only remember four or five things really well and I am only good at ordering stock for four or five things really well.’
‘Okay, then.’ Vicky linked her fingers, resting them on the tabletop. ‘Now we know.’
‘I’ll take a black coffee, please,’ Rachel said, keen for him to leave them alone.
‘Coming right up.’ He rushed to the back of the bar.
‘I am right, you know.’ Vicky held her eyeline. ‘I don’t think there is a person on the planet who hasn’t lost someone and felt guilt or remorse over one small word, one insignificant incident or one missed opportunity. You need to not fixate on the ice-cream thing.’
Rachel wished it were as easy as letting the thought go.
Vicky continued, ‘When my nan was ill a couple of years back, I went to sit with her every day, just for an hour or so after work. She was in St Peter’s Hospice and sometimes she just slept; I don’t know if she knew I was there all of the time.’
‘Yes, I remember when she was ill. It was one of the many times I wished I was closer to you.’
‘I worked late one night and called Gino to say I was exhausted and he suggested I go straight home; he knew it was a lot – juggling work hours and sitting with Nan into the evening. So I did. I went home, had a bath and fell into bed. My mum called in the morning to say my nan had passed away that night. And I know it’s different because Ivy was old and she’d had a long life and it wasn’t a tragedy.’
Rachel felt grateful that Vicky knew the difference, validating her own terrible sense of injustice.
‘But it was still awful for me because I loved her.’
‘Of course.’ Rachel pictured the cantankerous old Bristolian lady who used to moan at them when they had their music too loud or stomped on the floorboards as they learned a dance routine in Vicky’s bedroom. She thought Ivy had always been very old.
‘My point is that I have never thought about the hours and hours I spent by her bedside, the thousands of cups of tea I made her over the years or the lovely moments we shared . . . I only think about that one night and how I let her down; one night that was my chance to say goodbye!’
Rachel looked at her friend and understood her point, but took no comfort from it.
‘It’s true, Rach, no matter where or when or who we lose, we all have those things that beat us up from the inside out.’
‘One soy latte with a hazelnut shot and one black Americano and one large slice of carrot cake with two forks, just in case you change your mind.’ The man unloaded the round tray and was gone again.
‘He’s chirpy today.’ Vicky nodded after him, as she sipped the froth from her drink.
‘What does “rewer” mean?’
‘I have no idea, ask him.’
Rachel shook her head; she wasn’t curious or bothered enough to do that.
‘What will happen, Rach, if they don’t find Oscar?’ Vicky’s words, albeit softly spoken, were still a sharp knife to Rachel’s breast. ‘Will you have a service or some kind of funeral? And would that be here or in Bermuda, do you think?’
‘P . . . peaches and cream,’ she managed. ‘Peaches and cream.’