One Year Later Page 9

  ‘You always bloody exaggerate.’

  ‘Oi,’ shouts Matt at me. ‘No swearing in front of minors.’

  ‘We’re here,’ says Joe, and we all pile out. ‘You won’t need your bucket and spade.’

  I take a deep breath, half-expecting my lungs to burn with a rush of cold air, the smell of salt and vinegar and deep-fried chips, but the wind is warm, with a seaweed tang. In front of us, flat rocks stretch straight out into the water and, perhaps because there’s no sand, the place is practically deserted.

  ‘This isn’t a beach,’ says Lotte.

  ‘It’s better,’ says Bethany, scooping her arm around her shoulder. ‘There’s rockpools.’

  ‘I don’t like it.’ Lotte flaps a jelly-shoe at us, to get rid of pieces of grit trapped between her toes, and her face contorts.

  ‘I’ll buy an ice cream for the first person to find something exciting in a rockpool,’ I say.

  ‘That’ll be me!’ Bethany says, sticking both hands in the air. She pretends to push in front of Lotte and leaps across the rocks to the water’s edge. I’m not sure how much of a pretence it is, but my uber-competitive sister’s antics stem our niece’s tears.

  Amy covers the hot, jagged stones with towels, so that we can sit without burning our bums, and dips one toe gingerly into the water. She leans forward and, within minutes, she and the children are entranced. I have a flashback to seeing my sister crouching on a rocky outcrop, cautiously lifting flaps of bladderwrack, her pale skin bluish from the cold, strands of blonde hair whipping in the stiff coastal breeze. And then Bethany running over to join her, small, dark, skinny legs like a boy’s, boldly pushing apart the strands of seaweed, hoicking out crabs and chasing them into a bucket for Amy.

  On this beach the lines of rock stretching into the sea have created warm, shallow pools that are protected from the sea’s waves; perfect for the children to wade through. In the dazzlingly clear water there are shoals of small, translucent fish and pale-pink and green anemones. Chloe stretches out on her beach towel, firmly away from the shrieking kids, and puts her headphones on. I don’t blame her: there’s only so many fish I can look at. Plus I’m too hot with my T-shirt on.

  Matt and I wander back up the road to a shack we’d spotted on the way here, and buy espressos that we neck then and there, bracing ourselves against the bitterness and caffeine kick. We get cold beers, cans of San Pellegrino and fat sandwiches, the bread oozing oil, bursting with tomatoes and cheese.

  ‘Blimey, not like a ham-and-cheese Warburtons,’ Matt says with relish, watching the barman wrap them in greaseproof paper. ‘Hey, mate, one of those.’ He taps the side of a jar of pickled giardiniera. ‘I’ll give them to Joe for his lunch,’ he adds, with a guffaw.

  ‘Yeah, not much here for Mr I-Love-My-Abs,’ I laugh, but then feel a bit bad. Can’t be easy living on spinach and an almond. I buy Joe some rotisserie chicken and, with much miming and head-shaking, manage to persuade the barman not to give us extra focaccia.

  ‘Got any plans for the big 3-0?’ Matt asks as we head back towards the beach with our greasy paper bags.

  I shake my head and make a face.

  ‘In denial?’ he says, but I don’t have to say anything about my looming birthday because he’s off on one, telling me how he wishes he was thirty again, whole life ahead of him, the choices he’d make… ‘Don’t give up your freedom,’ he says. I’m not the only one in denial.

  ‘Thanks, mate, you’re the man!’ Joe says, clapping me enthusiastically on the back when we return. He doesn’t say anything about the Tupperware container that I now see sticking out of his bag, full of what looks like chopped kale.

  ‘You’re a rock star,’ Bethany says, taking one of the hot, greasy packets. Through a mouthful of bread and cheese she says, ‘Do you remember that time we went to Uphill beach?’ A tenner she only eats half of it.

  ‘What time? We went, like, every weekend in summer…’

  ‘Autumn, winter, spring,’ Amy joins in.

  Lotte and Theo have lined up all their buckets and are arguing over who’s caught the most fish.

  ‘That beach in Weston-super-Mare?’ asks Matt.

  Bethany starts talking at fifty miles an hour about how incredible Uphill is – how perfect that stretch of sand was; the time we tried to dam the river; the day Amy fell in with all her clothes on.

  I nod and say to Matt, ‘Far end of Weston. Uphill’s a village – you know, past the golf course?’ The Flowers, when they get going, have a tendency to leave other people out. Amy joins in.

  ‘Do you remember that time you “borrowed” a dinghy? You just untied it and rowed out to sea!’

  ‘Dad didn’t notice, he was so busy marking student papers, sitting on a bench by the car park.’

  They’re right: it was pretty amazing – the River Axe running down one side, the quaint little village behind, the long, rabbitbitten length of hyper-green grass of the golf course flanking it, and those great, empty skies Somerset is so famous for. It had felt safe. It had been safe. In my memory, every time we went there the sun had shone, and we’d spent hours playing with balls and Frisbees, building sandcastles, stealing people’s boats and screaming at how cold the water was. The three of us kids together. Usually it was only Dad looking after us, because Mum was at home painting, but it still felt like we were on a family outing because, back then, we knew where she was, and if her painting had gone well, she’d be pleased to see us. Dad would buy us a Chelsea bun from Banwell Bakery, and chips to eat in the car on the way home.

  Yeah, I think, we were happy then.

  18

  NICK

  We exhaust the possibilities of the rocky beach, and as the sun becomes searingly hot, we return to the villa. Dad is waiting for us in the sitting room. I feel my skin prickle with guilt: I wonder if he’s going to accuse us of abandoning him. Or maybe, just maybe, he’s going to admit he was responsible for Ruby-May’s accident and we can all move on. He clears his throat and I find myself leaning towards him, desperately hoping it’s going to be okay.

  ‘Has anyone seen my picture of your mother?’

  Bethany and Amy exchange a glance. Matt goes outside with the bags and starts shaking the sand out of the towels, banging the buckets and spades over-loudly against the stone steps, his back to us. He’s one of those men who likes to lead – coach football squads, manage men at work, be the head of a family – but this particular team derailed in August last year and now he’s lost. I’m the sort of guy who’d be looking for the hot-dog stand next to the football pitch, so I’m no stranger to the feeling.

  ‘What picture?’ Bethany asks.

  ‘It’s in a little silver frame.’

  ‘Why would you have a photo of Eleanor here?’ Bethany shakes her head. ‘You must be mixed up. It’s probably back in Somerset. You do know we’re in Italy, don’t you?’

  ‘I’m aware of that, Bethany. It’s a small, silver heart-shaped frame. I have it on my bedside table at home, but I bring it with me when I travel.’

  I look at him in astonishment. ‘I gave you that.’

  ‘You did. It was a Father’s Day present.’

  ‘That was years ago. I was, what, ten?’

  I’m vaguely aware of Luca and the children heading out the back door, clutching coloured chalks like an amulet against our swimming pool.

  ‘And it’s gone missing?’ Amy asks him.

  Chloe arches her perfectly manicured eyebrows. It looks as if she’s mimicking Bethany. Maybe she overheard that we found Dad’s journal, after he’d claimed it had been stolen by a stranger standing in his bedroom.

  ‘Who would have thought you’d be so sentimental?’ Bethany says under her breath.

  ‘Someone’s taken it,’ Dad says, sounding plaintive. ‘It was by my bedside table. I remember unpacking it last night before I went to sleep.’

  ‘Want me to take a look?’ I ask.

  ‘If you would,’ he says. He sounds distressed, which is not like my father.<
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  I check the open-plan living room and kitchen first, then go into his room. He follows me, getting in the way. It’s definitely not here, nor is it in any of his drawers or the wardrobe. He hasn’t left it in his suitcase, and it’s not in the passport holder he used when he was travelling. I check his wallet and his wash bag and pat the pockets of his jackets.

  ‘Amy says you were drinking,’ I say, looking under the bed. ‘Cider brandy.’

  He sits down heavily, as if all the fight has left him. I give his hand a squeeze. I was going to ask him whether he’s sure he brought it, but then I wonder if that’s simply cruel. It seems as if Bethany is right, and he is slowly losing his mind. I keep looking under the bed, to hide how upset I feel. It’s one thing having a dad I remember to be angry with, now and again; it’s quite another to have a father who is slowly losing the person he once was.

  I cough. ‘I’ll go and check in the other rooms.’

  From my window I can see Lotte and Theo scribbling a crazy green-and-purple galaxy across the stone flags by the pool, and I bang on the window and wave at them and pull a face. They grimace grotesquely back. I look in the bathroom, and in Matt and Amy’s bedroom, and I’m just about to go into the kids’ rooms when I hear Matt’s voice. I hover outside the door. Yup, he’s talking to Sara again. He’s even laughing. Christ! I should tell Amy. I would, if I wasn’t such a wimp.

  I join Luca and the children. Luca has got out a pile of textbooks, but he’s flicking through a book called The Divine Comedy, although it doesn’t look remotely funny.

  ‘Tell us a story,’ says Lotte, as she draws googly-eyes on a lopsided dog.

  ‘Who? Me?’ I say.

  I glance over at Luca, feeling self-conscious. I mean, he’s a child psychologist, a man who’s been part of these kids’ lives, literally for years; a guy who’s studying for a master’s at one of the top universities in the country in his second language, whilst I haven’t even managed to go to college.

  ‘Once upon a time,’ I begin. Fuck knows what comes next. I look at the amorphous collection of space-ponies and alien anthropoids they’ve scrawled over the terrace next to the perfect blue of the pool, but find no inspiration there. I consider telling them the plot of Blade Runner, but that might be a step too far; Luca could dob me in, for unsuitable tale-telling.

  ‘I’m going to make the coffee,’ says Luca, stretching.

  I make a thumbs-up sign to him. Either he really is a caffeine junkie or he can read my insecurities like a book.

  ‘Well, when I was twenty-five-and-three-quarters, your little sister, Ruby-May, was born…’ I say, once Luca’s in the kitchen.

  ‘So she was zero?’ asks Lotte.

  ‘Literally zero. She’d just come out of your mum’s tum.’

  ‘Mum’s tum. Hey, that rhymes,’ Theo says.

  I can’t think of what to say next, and Lotte admonishes me: ‘Uncle Nick, you’re not very good at telling stories.’

  ‘I’ve got a better one,’ says Theo, putting down the lurid green chalk he’s been using to colour in the aliens. ‘One day we all had a bath together – me, Lotte and Ruby-May. And I got out, because I didn’t want to be in the bath with two girls, and then Ruby-May did a poo. In the bath!’ He collapses with laughter. ‘And it floated!’

  Lotte starts giggling too. ‘It floated right past me. Daddy said it was like a tugboat.’

  ‘A poo!’ says Theo and clutches his stomach, doubling over.

  Abruptly they both stop.

  ‘She’s dead now,’ says Lotte.

  ‘Er, yeah,’ I say, taken aback at how matter-of-fact she is.

  ‘Will she come back?’ asks Lotte.

  I cough. I’m not sure what Amy has told them. I brace myself for questions about God and heaven. Where’s the bloody child psychologist when you need him?

  ‘No.’

  ‘She must be far away,’ says Lotte.

  Christ! Luca is walking towards us, carrying a tray with two mugs and drinks, and snacks for the kids.

  ‘I’m going to make a parcel of things for Ruby-May,’ Lotte says. ‘She’ll need stuff, if she can’t come home. And you can post it to her, Uncle Nick.’

  Right. That’ll be an interesting address.

  She gets up and runs inside, and Theo races after her.

  ‘You must have told them a good story,’ Luca says, raising his thick eyebrows at me and passing me a cup of coffee. He waits until the children have gone and then he says, ‘Can I ask something to you?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ I say, surprised at his politeness, but I guess it’s something to do with being foreign and not knowing how to speak English, even if he can write a dissertation.

  He folds himself into the sun-lounger, pulling the back upright, and crosses his legs. He takes a sip of his espresso.

  ‘It is the difficult thing to say.’

  I fidget with the hem of my shorts. I’m not good at emotional disclosures and I’m starting to worry what he’s going to reveal. Maddison was pretty frustrated by my inability to tell her how I felt, or to somehow guess what she was thinking. Like I was some kind of futuristic mind-reading droid.

  ‘So. Is about your father. I do not want to cause offence, but I find it hard to be here with him. Why do you bring him back?’

  I sigh. ‘He’s our dad. I couldn’t let him try and get home on his own. He should be here, with us.’

  ‘Why?’ He takes another sip of his coffee, which is thick and oily, it’s so strong. ‘I love Ruby-May. I love that little child. I feel like I lose a part of my heart when she die.’ He bangs his chest with one fist.

  Bloody hell. I haven’t even talked like this with my family.

  ‘I know Dad was meant to be looking after her—’

  ‘He should keep her safe! She is the tiny child, no?’

  ‘Yes, but the thing is, he’s having problems with his memory. We didn’t know at the time. We thought he was being a bit forgetful – you know, getting older, nothing to worry about. But afterwards, after what happened, we took him for some tests and it looked like he was starting to suffer from dementia.’ It all sounds so straightforward when I say it like that. I don’t even mention the wine, or the cider brandy, or whatever it was he was drinking. Or not drinking. ‘So it’s our fault, you know? We ought to have realized and done something about it sooner. He shouldn’t have been left to look after Ruby-May on his own.’

  ‘You were not there,’ he says.

  I glance over at him, and Luca pushes his hair out of his eyes. I can’t work out if he’s absolving me or accusing me. If I hadn’t been so fucking late.

  ‘It was such a short amount of time… And the gate to the pond was locked… No one could have known… It was an accident. An accident,’ I say more firmly, and I feel my guts twist. I’m disgusted with myself for blaming my father. But I still do. I can’t help it. I stand up. I should have been there.

  ‘I have made you sad. I am sorry.’ He holds out one hand to me.

  I take it and we shake. I want to laugh, it’s so formal.

  ‘So, he has the dementia. Maybe.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he says again. ‘Must be difficult, no?’

  ‘Oh, it’s tough all right,’ I say. Nothing about being with my dad has ever been easy.

  I wake suddenly, jumping back into my body as if I’ve been somewhere else. There’s a trail of drool down my cheek and my shoulders are stiff. I’d lain down on one of the sun-loungers and I must have fallen asleep. I wipe my mouth surreptitiously, hoping no one saw. I think I’m on my own – all I can hear is the drowsy hum of cicadas – and then I start. Lotte and Theo are a few feet away from me. They have their backs to me and they’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, rigid and silent. I can almost imagine Ruby-May is in this line-up, her head level with Lotte’s collarbone, her long blonde hair in a knotted straggle that reaches to her bottom. There’s no one else here. The children are staring at something inside.

  ‘H
ey, kids,’ I say, trying to sound cheerful and not as if I’m perturbed by their unnatural behaviour.

  ‘Good afternoon, Uncle Nick,’ says Theo formally.

  Neither of them looks at me as I lumber over. I crouch down next to Lotte and feel a shiver, as if I’ve trodden in Ruby-May’s damp footsteps, the wet spots her pudgy toes and chubby heels would have made. Pearl is dangling from one of Lotte’s hands; the doll’s foot scrapes on the tiles. Inside, Amy is dipping a teabag in her cup and I’m just about to ask them what’s so fascinating about their mother when I realize, and something grips my heart as if a child has clenched it in their cold little fist.

  Amy continues to dunk her teabag, in and out, in and out, staring at a spot a foot or so in front of her. She’s still, apart from the small, mechanical movement of her wrist. The two pale children, fixated on their whey-faced mother, with her hacked-off blonde hair and her dead eyes, standing motionless in the dark kitchen, are like a scene from The Others.

  ‘Death of a loved one can lead people to do the strangest things.’

  ‘Yeah, she often does that,’ says Theo. ‘You know, like that robot beetle I built at school? And it got stuck in this feedback loop, and it kept going two steps forward and then two backwards? Over and over, and over and over. She’s like that.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. She’s thinking about Ruby-May. I hope I didn’t say that out loud too.

  ‘Look,’ says Lotte, ‘there’s that man again.’

  What man? And then I see him – a dark shape at the back of the sitting room, too short and muscular to be Luca, Joe or my dad. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle and my heart speeds up. Amy is in danger and she’s not even aware of it. What should I do? Go in? Call the police? Hide the kids?

  ‘You know, the blond one?’ says Theo. ‘We’ve seen him before.’

  ‘Carlo?’ I say, with relief. ‘Course you have. His family owns the house.’

  Carlo must have come to check everything is okay, and the children would have met him when they arrived. But why didn’t he knock first? He shouldn’t just walk in! Then again, he might have done, and Amy wouldn’t have responded. I get to my feet, shaking out the stiffness in my legs, and that’s when I realize that Carlo was coming into the sitting room not as if he’d entered through the front door, but as if he’d just walked down the stairs. He steps into the light and says something and Amy screams and whirls round, and I flinch; there’s a crack as her mug hits the kitchen floor and shatters. What the hell is he doing?