“Hear hear,” Cameron said. They were quiet after this, creating the inevitable awkwardness after someone’s said something profound, nobody wanting to be judged for bursting the bubble by following up with something trivial in comparison.
It was Peggy who broke first. “What’s for pudding then, Andrew?”
“You’ll have to wait and see,” Andrew said, hoping that the others weren’t beginning to get annoyed with all this vagueness when it came to the food.
He headed back to the kitchen and took in the scene from the doorway. Jim, Rupert and Alex were all huddled around the counter, where they were carefully adding strawberries and crushed pine nuts to bowls of something that looked genuinely delicious. Andrew stayed still for a moment, not wanting to announce his presence just yet. The three of them were hushed in their concentration, all working as a team, and Andrew felt the faint soreness of tears beginning to form behind his eyes. How kind these people were. How lucky he was to have them on his side. He cleared his throat and the others looked back, concern on their faces, smiles appearing when they saw it was him.
“Ta-dah!” Alex whispered, making up for having to lower her voice with some extravagant jazz hands.
Andrew brought the plates into the dining room and received some admiring oohs and aahs.
“Blimey, Andrew,” Cameron said through a mouthful of ice cream. “I didn’t realize you were such a whiz in the kitchen. This one of Diane’s recipes?”
“Ha, no,” Andrew said. “She’s . . .” He searched for the words. Something light. Something funny. Something normal. As he racked his brain, the memory came to him, crisp and clear, of Diane taking his hand and leading him away from the party, down the stairs, out into the snowy night. He shivered involuntarily.
“She’s not here,” he said eventually. He looked at Peggy. She was digging around with her spoon in her bowl, despite the fact it was empty, her expression betraying nothing.
Cameron was drumming his fingers on the table. He seemed to be waiting for them all to hurry up and finish, and Andrew noticed him check his watch surreptitiously. Peggy finally stopped pretending to eat and Cameron got to his feet.
“I actually have a few words I need to say to you all,” he said, ignoring the others’ exchanging nervous looks. “It’s been a challenging few months. And I think that sometimes the personal has got in the way of the professional—to some extent at least—for all of us at one point or another. On my part, I apologize for anything that I’ve done that’s not sat well with you. I know this, for example—these evenings—haven’t been to everyone’s taste, but I hope you understand it was simply an attempt to help bring us all together. Because, as you may have gathered by now, it was my feeling that top brass were much less likely to try and break up a strong, cohesive team in the event of cuts. That, I suspect, was naive on my part. And you’ll have to forgive me for that, and for not being as explicit with you as I should have been, but I was just trying to do what I thought was best. However, it turns out that the statistics—and it feels strange to say this, I promise you—are on our side. The number of public health funerals rose even more sharply this year than any of us were expecting. And I’m incredibly proud of how you have dealt with that as a team. In truth, to be completely blunt, I have no idea what’s going to happen next. A decision has been delayed on whether cuts are needed until at least the end of the year. Here’s hoping that isn’t the case. All I can promise is that, if it comes down to it, I will fight your cause to the absolute best of my abilities.” He looked at them all in turn. “Well, thank you. That’s it.”
They sat in silence as they digested the news. Clearly, Andrew thought, things were still up in the air, but it seemed they’d been given a few months’ respite at least. After a while the atmosphere returned to something approaching how it had been before, though they were understandably more subdued. Before too long it was time for everyone to leave. Andrew fetched their coats. You’re nearly there, he told himself. As he watched the others readying to go, he was expecting to feel a great wave of relief at having survived the evening, especially now that it seemed his job was safe, at least in the short term. But instead, with each good-bye he said, he felt not relief but fear, and it seemed to spread up through his body like he was edging slowly into freezing water. He pictured Carl composing his next message—demanding to know where his money was, or maybe telling Andrew that he was about to bring his world crashing down instead. And then there was Diane. Ever since he’d told Peggy everything, the memories that he’d repressed for so many years had been begging for attention, and tonight they were coming to him thick and fast. It was as if a trapdoor had opened above his head and Polaroids were cascading down on him: A lingering look across a smoky room. Kissing as the snow fell. The fierce hug on the platform, the embers of that embrace warming him until he was home. The parched grass of Brockwell Park. The paleness of her skin illuminated by lightning. Orange frames next to cracked slate.
Peggy leaned in to hug him good-bye.
“Well done,” she whispered.
“Thank you,” he said back automatically. As she let him go, it felt like all the breath had been taken from him, leaving him light-headed. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d reached out and taken Peggy’s hand. He was aware of the others looking at him, but in that moment he just didn’t care. In that moment, he realized that all he wanted was for Peggy to know how wonderful he thought she was. And even though the thought of saying those words was terrifying, the very fact he was considering doing it had to mean something. It had to mean he was ready to let go.
That was when Cameron opened the front door and a rush of cold air came down the hallway, eagerly searching out warmth to attack.
“Wait!” Andrew said. “Sorry, everyone, but would you mind just waiting for a minute?”
After a moment, the others filed reluctantly back into the dining room like schoolchildren who’d been kept back after class.
“Um, Andrew . . . ?” Peggy said.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. He could feel his heart starting to thump again as he skittered into the kitchen. Jim, Alex and Rupert all looked at the door, frozen in fear that they’d been discovered. When Andrew asked them to follow him they exchanged confused looks, but Andrew forced a reassuring smile.
“It’s fine,” he said. “This won’t take long.” He ushered them down the corridor and into the dining room, where he introduced the two equally perplexed groups.
“What’s going on, Andrew?” Cameron asked, once they’d arranged themselves in a semicircle.
“Okay,” Andrew said. “I’ve just got a few things I need to tell you all.”
— CHAPTER 34 —
Andrew listened to the phone ringing out and gulped down half a glass of tepid pinot grigio.
“Andrew, what a pleasant surprise.”
“Hello, Carl.”
“Funny you should call—I’ve just checked my bank account and I still don’t seem to have my money.”
“It’s only just come into my account,” Andrew said, trying to keep his voice even.
“Well,” Carl said, “you’ve got my bank details, so as long as you transfer it straightaway then we won’t have a problem.”
“The thing is though,” Andrew said, “I don’t think I am going to transfer it.”
“What?” Carl snapped.
“I said I don’t think I am going to transfer it.”
“You are,” Carl said. “You absolutely are, because remember what happens if you don’t. All I need to do is pick up the phone and you’re fucked.”
“This is what I mean,” Andrew said. “I appreciate that I may not exactly deserve this money—that perhaps my behavior did cause some of Sally’s unhappiness, and maybe more than that. But the thing is, we still loved each other, and I know that what I’ve been lying about might’ve been hard for her to deal with, but I think i
t would have been easier for her to understand that than the fact you’re blackmailing me.”
“Oh please. You really don’t get this, do you? I am owed that money. I wouldn’t be having to do this in the first place if you’d just done what was right. So you listen to me. It’s very simple, okay? If that money isn’t in my account within twenty-four hours, then your life as you know it is over.”
The line went dead.
Andrew let out a deep breath and felt his shoulders slacken. He leaned forward in his chair and looked at his phone, which was on the dining room table. There were seven others placed in a circle around it, all of which showed that they were still recording. There was silence in the room. Andrew looked down, his cheeks burning. There was a flash of movement, and for a second Andrew thought he was about to be attacked, but then he realized it was Peggy, a split second before she threw her arms around him.
— CHAPTER 35 —
Andrew waited until the taxi had wound its way out of the cul-de-sac, stopping to let a fox diligently trot across a zebra crossing, before he spoke.
“Am I going to get fired, then, do you think?”
Peggy handed him the bottle of wine she’d smuggled into the taxi and he took a surreptitious sip. “Honestly? I’ve no idea,” she said.
The work lot had left in another cab. Jim and Alex had decided to stay a little longer at Rupert’s, not being able to resist the opportunity to see his attic and its dedicated Rocky Mountains–themed train setup.
“I couldn’t quite tell how everyone reacted at first, when I told them everything.”
Andrew had only given the short version of events to the others, and describing his deception that way made it sound all the more stark. He’d braced himself for scathing interruptions from Keith and Meredith, but neither of them said anything. Nobody did, in fact, until he got to the part about Carl, at which point Alex launched into a furious rant about how they weren’t going to let him get away with it. She demanded that Andrew call Carl right there and then, explaining to him impatiently exactly how he’d need to play the conversation to get Carl to reveal unambiguously what he was doing. She cajoled the others into giving her their phones, lining them up on the table and setting them to record. Afterward, they listened back on each one and decided that Meredith’s recording was the clearest.
“Great, so you just need to send that to Andrew now,” Alex told her.
“Oh right, yes. How do I . . .”
Alex rolled her eyes and took the phone out of Meredith’s hand. “Andrew, what’s your number? Right, there. Done.”
Afterward, Rupert had suggested bringing out some “decent” brandy to toast the plan’s working so well, but the suggestion was met with only a halfhearted response. Cameron, in particular, seemed eager to leave.
“Well. That was obviously . . . what a funny old evening,” he said to Andrew. “I’m away for a few days, did I mention that? Training courses and whatnot. But we should talk properly when I’m back. About all this.”
“That could just mean he wants to talk to you and make sure you’re okay,” Peggy said as the cabbie casually veered across two lanes of traffic without signaling.
A thousand thoughts were clamoring for attention in Andrew’s mind, and he didn’t even notice that Peggy had slid across the seats until he felt her head on his shoulder.
“How are you feeling?” she said.
Andrew puffed out his cheeks.
“Like someone’s just removed a splinter I’ve had in my foot for a hundred years.”
Peggy rearranged her head on his shoulder.
“Good.”
The cabbie’s radio crackled into life—the control room telling him he could go home after this job.
“God, it’s no good, I’m falling asleep,” Peggy said. “Wake me up when we’re at Croydon, eh?”
“I think you’re the first person in history ever to have said that,” Andrew said. Peggy elbowed him halfheartedly.
“So, earlier, when you came into the kitchen,” Andrew said, feeling unusually uninhibited given all that had just gone on. “I couldn’t tell if you’d heard what I’d just said. About, well, me maybe being in love with you.”
For a moment he thought Peggy was choosing how to respond, but then he heard the soft sounds of her breathing. She was asleep. He rested his head gently against hers. It felt entirely natural, in a way that made his heart soar and ache at the same time.
He’d be lucky if he got a minute’s sleep that night, his brain was so wired. He had already sent the recording to Carl, but there had been no response. He wondered if there ever would be.
He found himself thinking of Sally—the moment where she’d handed him that beautiful green model train engine, winking at him and ruffling his hair. Maybe, if they had their time again, they’d have been able to fix things. But he shook the thought from his head. He was tired of fantasizing. He’d done enough of that for one lifetime. He drank the last dregs from the wine and raised the bottle in a silent toast to his sister.
— CHAPTER 36 —
Two mornings later Andrew woke with a start. He’d been dreaming about what had happened at Rupert’s house and for a horrible few seconds he couldn’t be quite sure what was real and what his subconscious had decided to twist. But when he checked his phone the message Carl had sent him the morning after the phone call was still there: “Fuck you, Andrew. Enjoy your guilt money.”
Andrew knew at some point he’d have to think about that guilt, and how he was going to deal with it—and what he was actually going to do with the money—but for now he was just hopelessly glad that everything with Carl was over.
He went to put the kettle on, feeling the unusual sensation of stiffness in his legs. The previous evening he’d been for what he’d ambitiously billed as a “run,” which in actual fact had been closer to a “stagger” around the block. It had been agony at the time, but there was a moment when he’d gotten back—post-shower, post–meal-made-with-something-green-in-it—where he felt a rush of endorphins (previously a thing he’d imagined were mythical, like unicorns or something) so strong that he finally understood why people put themselves through this. There was life in the old dog yet, it seemed.
He fried some bacon and looked directly into the tile-camera. “So you may have noticed I have accidentally burned this rasher, but given I’m about to put a Lake Windermere’s worth of brown sauce on it, it doesn’t really matter.”
He stretched his arms up behind his head and yawned. The whole weekend lay in front of him, and unusually, he had plans that didn’t involve Ella Fitzgerald and browsing the forum.
* * *
—
It was going to be a long journey, but he was well prepared. He had a book and his iPod and had dusted off his old camera so he could take some snaps if the mood took him. When it came to his packed lunch he had gone entirely rogue, making sandwiches with white bread and experimenting with new fillings, one of which, in a move so daring he was barely able to contain himself, was crisps.
To his dismay, he got onto his train at Paddington with time to spare, only to find his reservation meant he was slap-bang in the middle of a bachelor party, who were already getting stuck into the beers. It was three hours to Swansea, and that allowed for a lot more drinking time and wee quaffing, or whatever it was people did on these things. They had personalized T-shirts commemorating “Damo’s Stag” and already seemed quite tipsy. But, against all the odds, they actually turned out to be pleasant company, offering snacks to everyone else in the carriage, helping people put their suitcases on the overhead shelves with faux competitiveness, before breaking out crosswords and quizzes to pass the time. Andrew found himself so caught up in the general air of bonhomie that he ended up scoffing his packed lunch before midday, like a naughty schoolboy on a trip. The onward journey from Swansea was a more somber affair, although a lady with purple hair knit
ting a purple bobble hat offered him a purple boiled sweet from a tin, like something out of an advert from a bygone era.
* * *
—
The station was so small it barely had a platform—one of those stops where you practically walk straight out onto the street as soon as you alight. Checking the route on his phone, Andrew took a turning onto a narrow lane where the houses on opposite sides seemed to lean toward each other, and for the first time he began to truly feel the nerves that had been bubbling away under the surface ever since he’d left London.
The church was unassuming, its spire small enough to be concealed from view by two modest yews. The place had a wildness about it—the gate at its entrance covered with moss, the grass in the graveyard was overgrown—but the early autumn air felt still.
He’d prepared himself for a lengthy search. A process of elimination. He half remembered holding the phone to his ear and a voice telling him this was where the funeral was to be held, then the confusion and hurt following his mute response. The only detail he could remember was that the church was near the rugby ground where Gavin had claimed to have seen the flying saucer.
In the end, he’d barely walked past half a dozen headstones when he saw the name he was looking for.
Diane Maude Bevan.
He thrust his hands into his pockets, rocking on the balls of his feet, building up the courage to approach. Eventually he did, slowly, as if moving to the edge of a cliff. He hadn’t brought anything with him—flowers, or anything like that. That just didn’t feel right, somehow. He was in touching distance now. He dropped down to his knees and gently ran his hand across Diane’s name, tracing each letter’s contour. “Well,” he said. “I’d forgotten how much you hated your middle name. It took me a whole Sunday to get it out of you, remember?”
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