‘Not at all. Laura – she was always so close to Daphne. Not so much to me, I suppose. Fathers and daughters … I loved her to bits, always. But there was a sense that I got everything second-hand, through Daphne.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘The real closeness was between the two of them. She misses her mother, terribly, still, I know.’
He realized he didn’t know anything about Heather’s mother. He might have asked, then, but Heather asked first.
‘And Nick?’
He sighed. ‘And Nick always wore his heart on his sleeve.’
‘I like him so much.’
Charlie smiled. ‘I do too.’
‘He’s so sad.’ She shook her head, not meaning to sound asinine. ‘I mean, of course he is. I didn’t know him before, not really … but …’
‘He was always so happy. You know, from a baby. Smiley. Daphne always used to say she couldn’t get round the supermarket for people wanting to talk to him, even when he was really little. He used to just beam at them, and they were like moths to a flame … Some people are like that, aren’t they?’
She nodded vigorously. ‘Yes.’
‘Carrie was the same, that was the thing. The lucky, lucky thing for those two. She had that glow about her. They were – they were an amazing couple, together. Powerful. It was like two and two made seventeen. So many friends, so much energy. They really were quite wonderful.’ He could feel himself getting tearful. It was so bloody unfair. He swallowed hard on the lump in his throat, willing it away. Old men, damn it, cried so easily.
‘Poor Nick. It’ll take him a while to start to come back to life.’
Charlie looked at her sharply. ‘That’s how I see him. Not quite alive.’
‘He’s hibernating. It’s how he’ll heal. He’s alive, I promise. He just has to rest his heart. He’ll come back to you, the kids, to the world.’
It was quite a profound thing to say in a coffee shop on a sunny day to someone you didn’t know very well about someone you knew even less well. Charlie was surprised. It felt like she understood, not discordant at all. ‘You sound like you know a bit about loss, Heather.’
She looked down at her mug. ‘Not the kind Nick’s suffered. But I’ve lost. We all have, by now, though, right? I’m nothing special. We all carry scars.’
Charlie nodded.
‘If you don’t, you haven’t been doing it properly. Haven’t risked anything.’
Ah, he thought. How true that was. How true.
Heather’s voice was even gentler now. ‘You must miss Daphne even more than normal at times like this.’
She was really going there, as Ethan might have said. ‘My dear,’ he put one hand over hers, ‘you have no idea how much.’
She squeezed the hand. No words.
When they got back to the house, Scott came out, clearly having heard the car on the gravel. ‘Had a good time?’
‘Fantastic,’ Heather offered. ‘I gotta get these flowers in some water.’ She jumped out, collected her basket from the back seat, slammed the car doors and hurried inside.
Scott went to the passenger side where Charlie was easing himself out.
‘God, these seats are high – and I’m not quite as agile as once I was.’
Scott took his elbow, and Charlie let him. Once his feet met the ground, he smiled at his son. ‘She’s quite a woman, your wife.’
‘Yeah?’
Charlie looked into his son’s eyes. How strange it was. When your son was little, you crouched to get on his level. Then he grew, and you shrank, until eventually, you almost had to put your head right back to meet his gaze. ‘She’s rather wonderful, isn’t she?’
Scott broke into a wide, warm smile. ‘I think so, Dad. I think so.’
‘Your mum would definitely have approved.’
‘Really?’
‘She’d have loved her.’
Scott watched his father walk into the house. He swallowed hard, and blinked back a sudden tear.
33
The allure of the swimming-pool could be ignored no longer. The younger kids had been begging for ages. Eventually, Meredith took matters into her own hands and went upstairs with them to change. They reappeared, Arthur in a back-to-front swim nappy, armbands already inflated and yanked on, just to wrist height. He and Delilah were so excited that they were bouncing from one foot to the other.
Nick admitted defeat and went to put on his trunks. Scott said he’d swim too. Charlie demurred, despite the pester power, but promised to go upstairs and change into his shorts, then come down to the pool and dip his feet into the water. No one had seen Laura for a while, and Heather was apparently going to work on Hayley’s backhand on the tennis court. Hayley might have been less keen on this activity in the midday sun if she hadn’t caught a glimpse of Lucy’s hunky young electrician when he’d parked on the drive. Liking the look of him, she’d seized the opportunity to flip her ponytail and flaunt her brown legs in her short white tennis skirt while he fixed the floodlight. Life was a catwalk.
It was a big pool, for a private house. There was a set of shallow steps at one end, and a small diving board at the other, and halfway along one side a circular Jacuzzi protruded. Nick activated the electric pool cover from the wall while Scott pushed back the doors that opened one side of the pool to the garden. ‘I’ve forgotten my goggles,’ Meredith trilled, running towards the house. ‘I’ll just go grab them.’
Scott was examining the hinging system on the impressive doors. Fully opened, there were no piers or corners. They must have cost a fortune, but they really did achieve the inside-outside thing very well. ‘Heather is taken with these doors.’
Nick thought of Scott’s house in Haslemere. He’d only been there a couple of times. ‘You haven’t put in a pool?’
‘Not yet. She’s taken with the pool, too.’ Scott smiled ruefully.
Nick laughed.
‘We could have a pool at home, Daddy!’ Bea chimed in excitedly.
‘Where, darling?’
‘In our garden.’ She gestured at the Jacuzzi, arms echoing the shape. ‘We have room for one of these!’
Nick tilted his head to one side. ‘Not really.’
She put her hands on her hips defiantly. ‘We could move the climbing frame.’
Nick kissed the top of her head. ‘The one Daddy spent three days putting up? You love that climbing frame.’
Bea pondered the dilemma. She did love the climbing frame. ‘Then we need a new house. With a much bigger garden.’ The men laughed.
‘You can go and live with Uncle Scott and Auntie Heather, if you like. They’ve got bags of room for a pool and a climbing frame.’
‘Can I, too?’ Delilah’s eyes widened with excitement.
He ruffled his younger daughter’s head. ‘Oh, the loyalty. Charming, Lila.’
There was a sudden loud splash.
Arthur, undetected, had waddled down to the deep end, and jumped straight in.
His armbands had not been on properly, and one bobbed alarmingly to the surface, floating free.
For a second they all froze.