I want today to be over, but I have a feeling it’s only just beginning.
Chapter Fifty-Six
EMMA
We drive across north London in silence. Drizzle swirls in the peach glare of streetlamps, kebab shops bleed neon and cheerful music. In Willesden I watch a man fly-tipping an old fridge by a wheelie bin, looking round furtively for onlookers. Leo, who would normally have something to say about this, says nothing at all.
I watch him, from time to time. I’ve always really fancied Leo when he’s driving. Not because he’s flashy behind the wheel: the opposite, really. He’s just so steady. I want to crawl into the warmth of his lap, feel his worn jeans under my legs, wrap my arms around his stripy top and fall asleep in his armpit.
‘Leo,’ I try, as we turn up Fitzjohn’s Avenue.
‘Please don’t,’ he says. And then, after a pause: ‘I can’t.’
I turn to stare out of the window again, at vast red-brick townhouses shuttered for the night, plane trees lining the street like old men, dripping and drooping.
Now I watch his clenched jaw as we turn off Frognal Rise into our road, and I know I’m going to lose him, this love of mine, just like I lost Charlie, and I’ll have only myself to blame.
*
‘I’ll sleep on the sofa,’ I say, when Olly and Tink have carried their boys into the car.
‘No . . . I don’t want Ruby to think there’s anything wrong. I’ll sleep in the shed. If she sees me come in, she’ll think I’ve just taken John out for a pee.’
I stand in the hallway, trying not to cry.
Leo goes upstairs and comes back with his sleeping bag and a pillow. ‘Let me get you a pillowcase,’ I say, desperately, but he says no, he doesn’t need one, and heads off towards the back door.
‘Leo,’ I whisper. I can’t bear it. Here, in this house, is all that is good. All that has healed me, that gave me a reason to live.
He turns around. John, who was following him, turns around too. He sits down by Leo’s feet, watching me.
‘Leo . . .’ Where would I even begin?
‘I can’t bear what you’ve been through,’ Leo says, into the silence. ‘I feel sick with grief for you, losing Charlie in such awful circumstances. For all you went through before and after. But, Emma, you didn’t try to trust me with it. You didn’t even try.’
He runs a hand through his hair. His lovely hair.
‘I didn’t even know your name,’ he says, and he, too, is on the brink of tears. ‘I have held you every night for ten years and I didn’t even know your name.’
He turns round and heads for the garden door, just as there’s a quiet knock at the front door.
Quick as a flash, Leo sinks to the floor and hugs John Keats, to stop him barking. ‘It’s probably Olly,’ he says. ‘He’ll have forgotten something.’
He stays holding the dog while I go to the front door.
But, instead of my brother-in-law, I find myself face to face with my son.
I stare at him.
‘Hi . . .’ he says.
‘Hello? Hi. Hi!’
Behind Charlie, at the bottom of our overgrown path, is Jeremy, in a parka and baseball hat combination he could only have borrowed from Charlie. The wind has picked up and the trees dance furiously, releasing an earlier rainfall on Jeremy’s hat. Jeremy half-raises a hand in greeting.
‘I’m sorry,’ Charlie says. ‘But I had to – there was something else I needed to talk to you about. Important. Should have brought it up earlier, but I . . . Well, something’s come up this afternoon. Since I saw you.’