Her expression told me that she didn’t believe a word of that. I couldn’t complain; neither did I.
Wee Jonathan slept with his sister that night. It was Tom’s idea; maybe he was considerate, or maybe he didn’t want to have to listen to the wee man crying.
We were all up at sparrowfart next morning; quarter to seven, to be exact. Tom and I had to be on the road by eight to reach Barcelona Airport comfortably for our eleven thirty flight to Heathrow, and Conrad wanted to get the kids back to Monaco for midday, which meant that he had to leave around the same time. As I got myself ready, I reflected that Liam had been right to go back to the hotel. First morning with a new man, one, I would not have wanted to rush off and leave him, and two, I’d have preferred less company. There was a third factor too, that I hadn’t taken into account the evening before, not until Susie’s example had been laid out for us all. It was a potentially life-changing step for Tom, and I needed to prepare him for it in a way she certainly hadn’t done with her two.
I almost rang Liam to tell him we were off, but I didn’t reckon the Riomar was geared for early morning calls, so instead I sent a text to the mobile number he’d given me. All it said was, ‘Hasta Sabado. Pxxx’; he could work that out for himself. I confess that I was anxious when I said goodbye to the kids and Conrad, worried about what awaited them and also, naggingly, how he might react to Janet’s story of Culshaw’s sneak peek at her undressing, once he was face to face with the guy.
I would have liked to go with them, and I believe they’d have preferred that too, but the promise I’d made to Susie had made that impossible, and so I could do nothing but trust that she and the Kents would make the situation as easy as possible for them.
We took our other car down to the airport. The jeep is a few years old now, and much as I love it, Tom reached the age a while ago at which his head started to be turned by rather flashier motors. There was gentle nagging, about a BMW, or maybe one of those cute little Mercedes sports cars with the folding roof, or maybe an Audi. I resisted them all, but then the Mini Coupé was launched, and I was as hooked as he was. We bought a nice blue one, the Cooper S model, with all the toys they had on offer thrown in by way of a discount, and that’s become our treat car. The jeep still does most of the mileage, but when we’re going somewhere special it’s in that flash little bugger.
It goes like that off a shovel, but I rarely allow it to express itself. Still, we made good time down the autopista. Tom didn’t say a word until we were south of Girona, but eventually he came out with the question I’d been expecting, the one he could only ask when we were alone.
‘Do you like Liam, Mum?’
‘I rather think I do,’ I admitted. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
‘No, I like him too. I want to train with him. He told me he’s a sixth dan black belt in karate. That’s serious, Mum. Our instructor’s only third dan himself. I can learn a lot from him; so could wee Jonathan.’
That surprised me. ‘You think?’
‘Yes. Wee Jonathan needs somebody to teach him things. He’s frightened of everything. I try my best to make him not scared, but I’m not with him all the time.’
‘We’re a long way from Monaco,’ I pointed out. ‘And besides, Liam’s only visiting; he’s on holiday, like most of the people who come here.’
‘He’ll still be here when we get back, won’t he?’ he asked, anxiously.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘unless he gets bored and goes back to Toronto. That’s where he lives.’
‘He wouldn’t do that, would he?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m sure he won’t. I hope he doesn’t.’ All of a sudden, I was less sure of myself. He wouldn’t. Would he?
As if in answer to my question, my phone rang, loud in the car through the speakers. ‘Yes,’ I said, to accept the call.
‘Hi.’ I was getting to like the sound of his voice, well-travelled Irish. ‘I got your text; received and understood. Did you get on the road okay?’
‘We did, thanks.’ I stressed the plural, hoping he would realise that he wasn’t speaking to me alone. ‘We are, in fact; about halfway there. We were just talking about you. Now I’m gone, Tom reckons you’ll bugger off with the first blonde you see.’
‘I do not,’ he protested, loudly. ‘I never said that, Liam. It’s Mum kidding. Do you really live in Toronto?’
‘I do. I have a nice big duplex down on Harbourfront, with a view over Lake Ontario, right across to America, if you could see that far. When you come back, I’ll show you some of my photographs.’
‘We will hold you to that,’ I told him. ‘I’ll call you when we get to our hotel in Glasgow.’
‘Which one? Some of those can be dodgy.’
‘The Malmaison; it’s fairly new, very chic, from what I saw on its website. Bye for now.’
I hit the button on the steering wheel that cancels the call and drove on. ‘I’d like to go to Toronto, Mum,’ Tom said, dreamily.
We had reached the airport, five minutes before our target arrival time of ten o’clock, and I was reversing into a parking space in the multi-storey when the phone rang again. I switched off the engine, killing the Bluetooth, and took it from my pocket. I checked the number, imagining it would be Liam, calling again to wish us a safe flight. I was wrong: ‘Audrey mobile’ showed on screen. I thumbed the icon to accept her call.
‘Hi,’ I began. ‘Where are you calling from? You should be almost home by now. Conrad and the kids will be well into France by now.’
‘I’m at the airport, Nice Airport,’ she replied. I knew from her voice … it was shaky and she sounded scared … that something was wrong, very wrong, and felt a sudden surge of relief that I wasn’t on hands free and that Tom couldn’t hear her. He was engaged in taking out bags from the boot; I left him to it and took a few steps away.
‘What’s happened?’ I asked.
‘It’s Susie. Primavera, she’s died.’
Looking back, I shouldn’t have been as shocked as I was. I knew how ill Susie was; I knew that her chances of long-term survival were practically nil. I knew the complications of the chemotherapy regime she’d been on. I knew why they’d pumped platelets into her bloodstream, and what the implications of that were. And yet, when Audrey told me, I was as stunned as she was; even with all that knowledge, there is still an inbuilt refusal to accept that someone close to you is approaching the point of death.
I was speechless for a few seconds. A sound came from behind me: Tom closing the boot lid. Then another, a loud click as he locked the car. Then a third, the wheels of our cases as he pushed them in my direction.
‘Tell me,’ I murmured, back in command of my voice.
‘She died during the flight from Charles de Gaulle to Nice. Looking back, she was a bit hazy in the lounge before we boarded, but she said she was just tired from the transatlantic flight. We got on board, Duncan grabbed the window seat, I took the middle and Susie was on the outside. She didn’t mind that; she said it would make it easier for her if she had to go to the toilet.’
She paused; I imagined she was finding it difficult to hold herself together.
‘As it happened, nobody did. It’s a relatively short flight. We took off on time, and we were still climbing when Susie said to me that she was going to try and sleep all the way, so she’d be bright when she met the kids. And she did, she nodded right off.’
‘Did she waken at all?’ By that time Tom had reached me with the cases; he was standing beside me frowning. I took one case from him, and gestured towards the lift; he headed in that direction.
‘I don’t think so,’ Audrey replied. ‘They brought the bar trolley, but I don’t think she was aware of it, not even when the steward reached over us to give Duncan the two bottles of white wine that he’d asked for.’ She sobbed; I said nothing, but let her get it out.
‘We touched down in Nice at nine twenty. It was quite a hard landing; everyone else on the plane was shaken up, but Susie didn’t stir, not at all. At first I thought it was just because she’d been so tired. I didn’t try to waken her until we’d taxied in and were on stand, and then I couldn’t. I tried, very gently at first, then I shook her a little bit harder. It was only when I took my seat belt off and turned round to take a good look at her, I saw … the way her mouth was hanging open … Primavera …’