‘Maybe someone told you about it?’
‘Maybe.’ Juliet frowned, thinking. Strange that she remembered so many of the details from back then, yet others were completely gone. Bea was right: it was most likely that someone – the friend of a friend – had given them the suggestion, possibly even the name of the pub itself. That’s how things tended to happen in the theatre. A conversation in the dressing room, or at a backstage script rehearsal, or, perhaps most likely, over an after-show pint at Berardo’s.
Whatever the case, they’d reserved the little room at The Swan by telephone and travelled down from London on the afternoon following their wedding lunch. Juliet had lost her favourite pen somewhere between Reading and Swindon – and this is what she meant by some memories sticking like films, for she remembered the train ride vividly. The last thing in her journal had been a hastily sketched note about a West Highland terrier she’d been watching on the floor across the aisle. Alan, who’d always loved dogs, had been chatting with the owner, a man wearing a green cravat, who’d talked at length about poor Mr Percival’s diabetes and the insulin shots required to keep him well. Juliet had been making notes, as was her habit, because the man was interesting to her and belonged, she was certain, in a play she was planning to write. But then she’d been overcome with a wave of nausea, and there’d been a dash to the loo, and Alan’s surprised concern to deal with, and the arrival into Swindon – and in all the bluster her pen had been forgotten.
Juliet kicked at a small rounded stone and watched as it skittered along the grass and disappeared into the water. They were almost at the jetty. By the clear light of day, she could see how decrepit it had become in the intervening twelve years. She and Alan had sat together on its end, their toes trailing in the water; Juliet wasn’t sure she’d trust it to hold even her weight any more.
‘Is this the one?’
‘And only.’
‘Tell me again what he said.’
‘He was delighted. He said that at long last he was going to have the little girl he’d always wished for.’
‘He did not.’
‘He did.’
‘You’re making it up.’
‘I’m not.’
‘What was the weather like?’
‘Sunny.’
‘What were you eating?’
‘Scones.’
‘How did he know I was going to be a girl?’
‘Ah …’ Juliet smiled. ‘You’ve become cleverer since the last time I told you the story.’
Beatrice lowered her chin to hide her pleasure, and Juliet fought the urge to embrace her prickly little child-woman while she still could. The gesture, she knew, would not be appreciated.
They walked on and Beatrice picked a dandelion, blowing gently to send spores of fluff startling in all directions. The effect was so elemental and dreamlike that Juliet had an urge to do the same herself. She spotted a full head and plucked it by the stem.
Beatrice said, ‘What did Daddy say when you told him we were moving here?’
Juliet considered the question; she had always promised herself that she would be truthful with her children. ‘I haven’t told him yet.’
‘What do you think he’ll say?’
That she’d clearly gone mad? That they were city kids, just like their dad? That she’d always been a romantic … ? A familiar, half-forgotten trill rang out above and Juliet stopped sharply, reaching out to alert Bea too. ‘Listen!’
‘What is it?’
‘Shhh … a skylark.’
They stood silently for a few seconds, Beatrice squinting at the blue sky, scanning for the distant, hovering bird, Juliet watching her daughter’s face. Bea’s features took on a particularly Alan cast when she concentrated: the slight furrow above her aquiline nose, the heavy knitted brow.
‘There!’ Bea pointed, eyes widening. The skylark had appeared, shooting towards the ground like one of Herr Hitler’s incendiaries. ‘Hey, Red, Tippy, look.’
The boys spun around, attention following their sister’s finger towards the diving bird.
Hard to imagine that this leggy eleven-and-a-half-year-old was the new life that had caused such commotion in this very spot all those years ago.
After the episode on the train, Juliet had managed to mollify Alan. She’d pleaded too much rich food at lunch, the motion of the carriage, that she’d been focusing on her notebook instead of looking out of the window, but Juliet had known that she was going to have to tell him the truth soon.
Mrs Hammett at The Swan had torpedoed that time with her well-meaning query on their first morning. ‘And when are you due?’ she’d said with a beaming smile, as she arranged the milk jug on the breakfast table. Juliet’s expression must have painted a clear enough picture, for the publican’s wife had tapped her nose and given a wink and promised that the secret was safe with her.
They’d found the jetty later that day, when Mrs Hammett sent them off with a picnic basket – ‘part of the honeymoon package’ – and Juliet had broken the news over a thermos of tea and a rather good scone.
‘A baby?’ Alan’s confused glance had dropped from her eyes to her waist. ‘In there, you mean? Now?’
‘Presumably.’
‘Goodness.’
‘Quite.’
It had to be said, he’d taken it well. Even Juliet had found herself beginning to relax a little, his easy acceptance bringing solidity to the flimsy picture of this new future she’d been trying to imagine since the nurse confirmed her fears. But then:
‘I’ll get work somewhere.’
‘What?’
‘There are things I can do, you know.’
‘I do know. You’re the best Macbeth this side of Edinburgh.’
‘Real work, Jules. In the day, I mean, like a normal person. Work that pays.’
‘Pays?’
‘So you can stay at home, raise the baby, be a mother. I can … sell shoes.’
She wasn’t precisely sure what she’d said next, only that the thermos had fallen over and the tea had scalded her thigh, and then she was somehow on her feet at the end of the jetty, gesticulating wildly and explaining that she had no intention of staying home, that he couldn’t make her, that she’d take the child out with her if she must, that it would learn to be happy that way, that they’d manage. Needless to say, this wasn’t the version of the story they told Beatrice.
Juliet had heard herself as if from outside – she’d felt articulate and certain – and then Alan had reached for her, and said, ‘For goodness’ sake, Juliet, sit down!’, and she’d considered it, moving a step closer, before he added the fatal, ‘You have to be careful in your condition.’ And then she’d felt his words like a stranglehold, and her breaths had shortened, and she’d known that she simply had to get away, from here, from him, to find clear air.
She’d stormed along the river in the opposite direction from which they’d arrived, ignoring his calls to come back, and heading instead towards a copse of trees on the horizon.