His comment enrages me. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that it’s a process? There isn’t a timetable. Not everyone can deal with Kate’s death in the same way that you have.’
‘Meaning?’
‘It’s going to take Connor a good deal longer to get over Kate’s death than it’s taken you, that’s all.’
I think of what Adrienne has told me. ‘Don’t ever think Hugh doesn’t care. It’s just his prissiness. Grief is messy, and he doesn’t like mess. Plus, don’t forget he has to deal with life and death at work. All the time. It must harden you, a little bit.’
He looks shocked. ‘I’m not over her death. Kate and I were close once. I miss her, too. What makes you say that? It’s hurtful.’
‘Are you still talking to the Foreign Office? Or are you leaving it all to me—?’
‘I talk to them all the time, Julia—’
‘You don’t think I should go online and look at the place she was killed—’
‘I just think you’re in a bad enough state as it is. You need to concentrate on Connor, on your work. On the future, not the past.’
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
He opens his mouth to speak, but then seems to think better of it. A moment later he turns and throws down the tea towel that he’d hooked over his shoulder.
‘Julia, I’m really worried about you.’
‘About me?’
‘Yes, believe it or not. I think you need to go and see somebody. You’re not coping. I’m going to Geneva on Monday and you’ll be here on your own—’
‘Oh, I’ll be fine,’ I say, but he’s still talking, he doesn’t seem to have heard me.
‘—and I just wish you’d at least consider going to see someone—’
My fury surges, doubled in strength. Something breaks. I can’t take it any more. ‘Oh, just piss off, Hugh.’ The glass I hadn’t realized I was still holding smashes on the floor. I don’t remember throwing it.
He takes a step towards me, then seems to think better of it and turns as if to leave. He’s finally angry, and so am I, and it almost feels better. It’s something other than numbness, or pain.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Out. I’m going for a walk. I need to cool off.’
He leaves. The whole house shudders, then falls silent, and I’m alone.
Chapter Eight
I sit on the edge of the bed for a while. I stroke the duvet cover. Egyptian cotton, duck-egg blue. Our bed, I think. What happened?
We bought it when we moved in here four years ago and it’s nothing particularly special. It’s a place we sleep, talk, read. Occasionally we make love, and when we do it’s still tender, slow. Enjoyable, usually, if not exciting.
Was it ever exciting? I think so, for a while, but the frenzy of a relationship’s early days is unsustainable; it has to burn out, become something else. It’s not his fault, or mine. It happens to everyone.
Maybe it happened sooner, with us. Hugh is the son of my father’s best friend; he’s known me since I was at school. Though he was older than me, we always got on, and as his father tried to look after mine, Hugh looked after me, and helped me to look after Kate. Our passion, when it eventually came, was muted. It was already accompanied by a history. Sometimes I think it’s as if we missed out a stage, as if we went from being friends straight to being companions.
I hear Hugh come back home. He goes into the living room. I stand up. I have to go downstairs, to talk to him, to sort things out. If I don’t he’ll sleep on the couch in his office and I’ll spend another night lying in bed, alone, trying to sleep while my brain fizzes with images, with thoughts that won’t subside. I’ll turn the events of the evening over and over, and always at the centre will be Kate. Walking down the alleyway, looking up to see a figure in the shadows in front of her, smiling a greeting but then, as she steps forward, he raises his hand and her smile turns to terror as she realizes that things have gone wrong, this time she’s made a mistake. The man she’s come to meet isn’t who she thought he was.
I know that if I were to close my eyes I’d see it, as clearly as if it were happening in front of me. A fist in the face, a booted foot. Why didn’t I know, somehow? That psychic connection I always thought we had; why did it let us down, when it really mattered? Was it severed when we took Connor? I’d see her blood, spilled on to the concrete. I’d see her nose, broken. I’d hear her cry out. I’d wonder if she knew, if she sensed this was it. I’d wonder how much pain there was. I’d wonder if she thought about me, and if so whether it was with love. I’d wonder if, at the end, she forgave me.
I go downstairs. ‘Hugh?’
He’s sitting in the living room with a glass of whisky. I sit down opposite him.
‘You should go to bed.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He looks at me, for the first time since I came into the room. He sighs, sips his whisky.
‘It hurts.’
‘I know.’
There’s nothing else to say. We go to bed.
In the morning I talk to Connor.
‘I don’t know what you heard last night,’ I say. ‘But your father and I love you very much.’
He’s sloshing milk into his cereal bowl and some spills on the table. I resist the urge to dab it dry. ‘I just heard you arguing.’
It feels like a slap. It’s the very opposite of what I want for my son, of what I promised Kate. Stability. Loving parents. A home free of conflict.
‘All couples argue. It’s normal.’
‘Are you going to split up?’
‘No! No, of course not.’
He goes back to his cereal. ‘What were you arguing about?’
I don’t want to tell him.
‘It’s difficult. The last few months have been tough. On all of us. With Auntie Kate, and everything.’ I know I’m stating the obvious, but it feels true, and necessary. A shadow crosses his face and for an instant I see how he’ll look when he’s much older, but then it passes, leaving a kind of sadness. I think he’s going to say something, but he doesn’t.
‘Do you miss her?’
He freezes, his spoon midway between the bowl and his mouth. He puts it back. Again he looks thoughtful, much older. For some reason he reminds me of Marcus – it’s the same expression he had when on those rare occasions he was worried or pensive – but then he speaks and becomes a teenager once again.
‘I don’t know.’ His face collapses, tears come. It’s unexpected and I’m swept to my feet in an urge to soothe and comfort.
‘It’s okay. Whatever you feel, or even if you don’t know, it’s okay.’
He hesitates. ‘I suppose I do miss her. A bit. Do you?’
‘Yes. Every day.’
‘I mean,’ he goes on, ‘we didn’t see her that often, but still…’
‘It’s different, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. When someone is alive you might not see them very much, but you know you can. If you want.’
‘Yes.’
‘And now I can’t.’
I remain silent. I want to give him the time to speak, but also I’m wondering whether he really had felt that he could see his mother. Hugh and I may have given him permission if he’d asked – to do that, to go and stay with her – but we had never really encouraged it. Maybe I was too frightened that she wouldn’t let him come back.
‘You know,’ I say eventually, ‘whatever you’re feeling, you can ask me about anything. Anything at all.’
Even though I mean it, my words sound hollow. Because the truth is, there are secrets, things I won’t tell him, even if he asks.
There’s a long pause, then he asks, ‘Do you think they’ll get them? The people who killed Kate.’