The glass shuddered in the windows. Jack worried about the trees in the garden; branches snapping, trunks unearthed. The storm was growing in momentum: bright lightning, distant thunder, a sudden artillery of hail.

  He thought of his daughters, Annie and Kirsty, and how full the house had seemed when they were with him. He remembered Kirsty as a child holding up her right hand. She had drawn a spider inside in black felt-tip pen. She clenched her fist. She had written THIS on her fingers.

  ‘This – is – a – spider,’ she spelled out, opening and closing her fingers.

  ‘This spider is’ – and she clapped her hands together – ‘squished.’

  Annie called to apologise. It had been a shock, she was saying. No one had warned her. She knew she had overreacted but if her father had only told her the full story then she would have been more sympathetic.

  ‘It’s a complicated story to tell.’

  ‘I had to get it out of Grandma. I started ranting about it and she stopped me and explained everything. No one tells me anything in this family. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Jesus, Dad, you lot know how to complicate your lives…’

  ‘It is complicated. I can’t explain it. I was only trying to be kind; to do what was right. That was all that I was trying to do.’

  ‘She must be in such a state.’

  ‘She is. But perhaps it doesn’t really matter any more.’

  ‘Why? Has she gone?’

  ‘Don’t sound so relieved.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Did he have to go into all of this now?

  ‘Did you end it or did she?’

  ‘It’s not an ending. At least, I don’t know if it’s an ending or not. I don’t really want to discuss it.’

  ‘That means she did.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘What was it like then?’

  ‘I’m not sure you’re the best person to talk to about it, Annie.’

  ‘Well, don’t see her again, that’s all the advice I’m going to give you. Make a clean break and be grateful you’ve escaped so lightly.’

  Jack put down the phone and tried to think what to do next. He knew he would not be able to work.

  He remembered how he used to bounce Annie up and down on his lap in the garden when she was a baby. She smiled and laughed in her pink dungarees. She was clutching a little wooden rattle, the one with the bell inside.

  Then it fell to the ground.

  Her face changed, and Jack stopped the bouncing. Annie looked down on to the grass but could not see the rattle at all.

  ‘Gone!’ she said.

  It was the first word she had uttered aloud. She had seen something disappear and could not understand how it had happened; suddenly and unexpectedly. It was her first experience of loss.

  ‘Gone!’

  Jack stood in the kitchen and listened to the sounds of night. He thought how hard it was to love people in the way they wanted to be loved.

  Thirteen

  Angus was determined to sustain his momentum. He discovered a smallholding on the Internet, a two-hundred-year-old hilltop farmhouse between Asti and Alba in Piedmont. The place was falling apart but it had three acres of land.

  He handed Tessa his laptop.

  ‘A lot of work,’ she said as she clicked through the images.

  ‘We have time.’

  ‘Are you going to do it all then?’

  ‘What else am I going to do?’

  ‘We don’t know anyone there.’

  ‘We don’t have to live there all year. And people can come and stay.’

  He showed her the outhouses, the hayloft, the slope for the vines. There was even a flattened area where they could have a swimming pool.

  ‘You’re sure we’re not too old for all this?’

  ‘I’m sure we’re too young to do nothing.’

  Angus printed out the pages and took them to his parents. It was Tuscany without the tourists, he said. He showed them pictures of the property from a distance, pointing out the seclusion and the proximity to the Alps. He talked about the local farmer who tended the vines, showed them the plot with its south-facing courtyard, and drew their attention to the kitchen with its own pizza oven and the outhouses where they could stay.

  ‘You mean we’re not invited into the house itself?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘No, I don’t mean that. Of course you can come into the house. But this would give you privacy.’

  ‘How much time are you going to spend there?’

  ‘As much as we can.’

  ‘What about your work?’

  ‘I won’t be working for ever.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s wonderful,’ said Ian. ‘I only wish I was well enough to muck in. Have you actually bought it?’

  ‘Not yet. I wanted to talk to you about it first.’

  ‘And can you afford it?’

  Angus had not told them about the redundancy.

  ‘The firm has given me some money. We’re all right.’

  ‘And why have they done that?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘It’s a kind of bonus. You know; in time for Christmas.’

  ‘I don’t remember them being so generous in the past.’

  Angus shied away from the truth.

  ‘Well, Mother, times change. We’ve been very busy.’

  After lunch Ian asked his son if he wanted to go for a walk. They wouldn’t go far. It would just be a breath of air with the dogs.

  It was early September. Ian put on his coat, his scarf and his peaked hat. In the afternoon sunlight Angus noticed that the flesh around his father’s cheeks had sagged. His eyes were pink-rimmed. He walked with a stick.

  Angus worried that his father was going to try to dissuade him from Italy.

  ‘So. This is news,’ he said.

  ‘I hope you approve, Father.’

  ‘I wanted to say that I could help out with some inheritance money if you need it: if I don’t die in time.’

  ‘There’s no need to joke about it.’

  ‘I’m not joking. There is an inevitability to all this. We are all cut flowers.’

  ‘How have you been feeling?’

  ‘Not too bad. People keep phoning me up and asking how I am. I have to stop myself from telling them I’m still dying.’

  ‘I suppose they prefer a bit of optimism…’

  ‘How is Tessa about the move? Are you sure she’s all right? Will she give up her job as well?’

  ‘Not at first. She’ll take a leave of absence. It’s a bit like maternity leave. They’re being a lot more accommodating than my firm.’

  ‘I take it the decision to leave wasn’t entirely yours.’

  ‘No, not entirely.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t tell your mother.’

  ‘I’m sure she will have guessed.’

  ‘She likes to think the best of you all. Your brothers have provided her with enough to worry about. I don’t think we need to tell her a little thing like this.’

  ‘Is that why you asked me for a walk?’

  ‘That, the money, and the pleasure of your company…’

  The sky was beginning to darken and Angus could smell the first woodsmoke of autumn. It made him think of childhood: the return to school and the first few games of rugby when the ground was still soft. The low sun behind the goalposts would sometimes shine right into his eyes making the kicks far harder.

  They walked down the lane to the stream by the kirk. His father knew the curve of every path and the slope of each hill. In the distance they could hear the sound of a shooting party; beaters and flankers with whistles in the woods; a flurry of pheasant; shouts of ‘Mine’ before the firing.

  Ian was almost amused by his son.

  ‘I rather like this new side of you.’

  ‘What new side?’

  ‘The unrealistic part of your character. It suits you.’

  ‘It’s good of you to say that.’

  ‘I only wish I’d had your courage. Your mother’s lived in the same house all her life.’

  ‘It doesn’t appear to have done her any harm.’

  ‘It might have been nice to try a few alternatives. You will look after her, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  They had walked for less than a mile and Ian was already out of breath.

  ‘I don’t like to think of her on her own.’

  ‘She won’t be on her own.’

  ‘Friends disappear rather fast, I’ve noticed. It’s all right for the first year and then the invitations stop. You will make sure she survives?’

  ‘Of course I’ll make sure.’

  ‘Your brothers seem rather distracted so it’ll be up to you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘She can come and live with us, if she likes.’

  ‘I don’t think that will be necessary. I can’t see her leaving here. But it would be good to make the offer. I’d like her to have everything she needs.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Ian was more agitated than Angus had ever seen.

  ‘I’ve never quite told her what a good wife she’s been.’

  ‘I’m sure you have.’

  ‘No, I’m not so sure…’

  ‘And there’s still time.’

  ‘Sometimes I wish I’d loved her more.’

  Angus had never thought that his father could talk like this.

  ‘You did love her.’

  ‘I know. But did I love her enough? That’s what worries me.’

  They stopped to see where the dogs had gone. They were running towards a field of sheep.

  Ian whistled and then shouted out, ‘Cadbury, Hoover, come on.’ The drugs had made his voice higher and frailer.

  They rounded the corner of the lane. Elizabeth had already turned on the outside light and drawn the curtains. Angus was sure she would have lit the fire.

  Ian stopped and leant on his stick.

  ‘It’s a handsome house, isn’t it? You’ll stay to tea?’

  Elizabeth had laid out a tray and made a Victoria sponge.

  ‘After all that lunch?’ Angus asked.

  ‘I want to make sure you miss me,’ his mother said.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere yet.’

  ‘But I can’t be too careful, can I?’

  ‘Nothing’s certain.’

  Before he left Angus asked his father if he could have a look in the library. He knew his father’s appetite for history and travel. There had to be some books about Italy in there somewhere.

  ‘Take whatever you like,’ said Ian. ‘I’m hardly going to be reading any of them again.’

  ‘Now, now…’

  ‘I don’t mean to be bleak.’

  ‘You are being bleak,’ said Elizabeth.

  She had been brought up to believe that illness was a sign of weakness, a failure even of character. Her mother had once boasted of how there had been no cancer in the family but that was before Ian’s diagnosis; before the realisation that the Henderson family were no more immortal than their peers.

  ‘I’m not afraid of what’s going to happen, you know,’ her husband was saying. ‘The great adventure…’

  Angus walked into the library. The wall by the desk was filled with legal textbooks and court reports. Boxes of old papers stacked above the top shelves. All of this would have to be cleared, he thought. All this work and all this life.

  He found Berenson’s Northern Painters of the Italian Renaissance, a biography of Garibaldi, and a guide to the Italian lakes. He wondered how long it would take him to acquire a similar library, and if the house in Italy would accommodate such a thing.

  When he returned he found his father alone in the sitting room. He had taken off his jacket and had his arms folded against his stomach. He was rocking himself back and forth, shuddering as he did so, trying to hold back the pain.

  He saw Angus watching him.

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Have you been taking your pills?’ Angus asked.

  ‘I don’t want to sleep all the time. I don’t want to lose control. I want to beat this bloody thing.’

  ‘Father…’

  ‘I suppose it’s good for you to see pain.’

  ‘I don’t know what I can do.’

  ‘Leave me. It will pass…’

  Angus went to find his mother.

  ‘How long has he been like this?’

  ‘It happens every night,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I don’t think I can stand it any more.’

  Angus opened his arms and his mother started to cry. It had come to this, he thought. He tried to avoid thinking of how much worse it could get or how he was ever going to be able to leave.

  A few days later he phoned the local surgery to talk about palliative care.

  ‘You must be well,’ Dr Hunter said. ‘I haven’t seen you for years. Firm keeping you busy?’

  ‘I’m managing to survive.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your father. How is he?’

  ‘The pain’s worse.’

  ‘I’ll pop in and see him. Your mother is determined to keep him at home.’

  ‘You mean he should be in hospital?’

  ‘Or a hospice. Then we could monitor him more consistently. But he’s more cheerful at home, and it lets your mother feel that it’s not as serious as it is…’

  ‘And it is serious…’

  ‘I’m afraid you reach a stage when there’s not much more you can do.’

  ‘And we’ve reached that stage?’

  Dr Hunter was not going to commit to any kind of resignation.

  ‘Hope is always important…’

  ‘I see.’

  Angus remembered him jogging through the country lanes with his wife. Thirty years ago they had been so full of vitality. Now he was treating the children of the patients he had seen as babies.

  ‘Try to keep him comfortable, and I’ll see what I can do about the pain,’ Dr Hunter said. ‘There may be more time than we think. There’s no point giving up just yet.’

  Angus remembered his father singing Harry Lauder songs on long car journeys.

  Keep right on to the end of the road.

  Fourteen

  Douglas wished he could find a way of seeing Julia more regularly. He tried to find an excuse to meet her in London and sent her coded text messages that received guarded replies. She did not want him to come. London was impossible. The risk of being seen together was too great. They would have to wait until she was going to some other European city.

  He knew that he should forget all about her; that if he left it for long enough the memory would fade and he could return to whatever normality he had left. But in the gaps between work and home, in the moments when he did not have to concentrate, every empty thought filled with her. He stopped when he saw people in the street who looked like her or who wore similar clothes. He read the books she had mentioned and looked up the exhibitions she had organised on the Internet. He found her perfume in a department store, opened the bottle and drank in the smell of her: Josephine by François Rancé.

  He thought he was going mad. His only consolation was to drink enough red wine to sleep his way through the anxiety.

  Even then he dreamed of Julia. They were together in foreign cities and hotel rooms, walking through streets, sitting in outdoor cafés, waking in soft beds with nothing else to do but be with each other. He could see her leaving at airports and then coming forward to greet him. He tried to recall every part of her body, the softness of her upper thigh, the magnified pores of her skin, the fall of her hair as she slept.

  One morning, as he tried to sleep off his hangover, he was half woken by Emma moving in and out of the room. He was used to the sound of her getting up before him, holding her tights to the light to see if they were navy or black, dressing quietly so as not to disturb him but then coming back into the room ten minutes later and changing into something different because the first outfit she had chosen was ‘hopeless’.

  On most days she dressed quietly and let him sleep but now she was emptying the laundry basket. It had become something of a Saturday-morning routine. She created separate piles on the floor, dividing whites from colours, putting other clothes aside for dry-cleaning. Douglas remembered that they were due at a party in Edinburgh that night and so she was probably thinking about what she was going to wear. After fourteen years of marriage Douglas could predict her movements in and out of the room and had learned not to ask any questions or say anything about the noise. He was lucky she took charge of all the laundry, he thought. In fact, he was lucky about most things in his marriage. He really had nothing to complain about and no excuse for indiscretion. He would just let his wife get on with the laundry, doze a little longer and then work his way through a couple of cafetiéres of coffee.

  He listened to the lid of the laundry basket opening and closing. He could hear the shirts being unbuttoned and shaken out, and the fall of jackets and trousers as they were thrown on to the chair by the window. Emma was unusually aggressive, working at speed, getting the job done as quickly as possible. Douglas did not know what the hurry was for. He could hear her going through pockets, pulling out handkerchiefs, bus tickets, receipts and loose change and then Christ…

  ‘What is this?’

  Even then, he knew. He should have thrown it away as Julia had told him but he had wanted to hold on to it.

  ‘Douglas…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look at me.’

  His wife was holding Julia’s letter. Douglas almost knew it by heart. He certainly remembered the end:

  Lonely, obsessed, confused, intoxicated, sensual, paranoid Julia

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s nothing. Bits of a script.’ He turned away.

  ‘It’s not your handwriting.’

  He could picture the weird dance steps and the German text.

  ‘No, it’s just some research.’

  ‘Research? It doesn’t read like research. Look at me, Douglas.’

 

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