Clara watched the countryside slip past her window, the hedgerows and verges beginning to burgeon into spring, and thought about Rose. When they’d first met a few years before, Rose had been in her mid-sixties and newly retired, enjoying a ‘life of leisure’, as she’d laughingly put it. Gardening, cooking, taking holidays in Europe with Oliver, relishing her new-found freedom after such a long and distinguished career in medicine. Clara had seen pictures of her taken in her forties and fifties: a good-looking, impeccably dressed woman whose eyes had shone with intelligence and purpose and responsibility, but now, though she was still all of those things, there was a softness, an ease and comfort about her too that Clara thought made her even more attractive.
She recalled a time a year or so earlier when she’d first caught a glimpse of that other Rose, the coolly capable doctor she’d once been. It was a weekend in November and they’d all taken a walk together through the frost-covered fields. Rose and Clara, slightly ahead of the others, had come across a hare caught in a barbed-wire fence. It was bleeding, its face contorted in fear and pain. While Clara had cringed and fretted uselessly at its suffering, Rose had knelt and carefully freed it, but rather than hopping away, the animal had lain there, eyes bulging, still bleeding profusely. ‘Poor thing,’ Rose had murmured. ‘It’s dying. I think it’ll be kinder if I just … don’t look, darling, if you’d rather,’ and then she’d picked the animal up and deftly wrung its neck. And though Clara had felt a little sick, she had been filled with admiration for Rose’s unflappable efficiency, her ability to get on with what was necessary, no matter how unpleasant or bloody.
‘I wonder what Rose and Oliver were like,’ she said now, ‘before Emily left, I mean. I met them so many years afterwards, I can’t imagine how it must have changed them.’
‘They were quite a big deal by the sound of things.’ Mac replied. ‘Rose was head of paediatric surgery at the hospital, and Oliver had written his first book, which had got a lot of attention – TV appearances and so on. They were pretty well known in the area, very active in the village, fundraising and all that, then there were all the huge parties they used to throw. Luke told me their house was always full of people.’ He glanced at Clara. ‘So yeah. I’d say they had it pretty good.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It’s just so fucking tragic the way things turned out. They don’t deserve it, they really don’t.’
Tom was waiting for them in the pub when they arrived. It was a beautiful Tudor building with low black beams and wide oak floorboards, roaring fires and battered leather sofas. ‘They’ve got quite a decent menu here if you feel like eating something,’ he said, his manner markedly more relaxed now he was away from The Willows.
Mac glanced at her. ‘I am pretty hungry actually. What do you think?’
She shrugged, suddenly realizing that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten a proper meal. ‘All right,’ she nodded and forced herself to return Tom’s smile.
For the first ten minutes or so after they’d ordered, she listened to them discuss their old school and the local people they knew. She watched as Tom slowly became more at ease and talkative, the way people generally did in Mac’s company. He had a self-deprecating humility that even the chilliest of people tended to warm to, a willingness to listen and let the other person lead. It occurred to her that she and Mac were pretty similar in that sense. Was that what had drawn Luke to them both, she wondered? And was it that same lack of ego, her readiness to take a back seat and let him shine that had allowed him to cheat on her with Sadie, to treat her with so little respect? She remembered a girl she’d once lived in halls with, who’d said with a mixture of pity and scorn, ‘You’re such a people-pleaser, aren’t you, Clara? Doesn’t it get dull?’ She felt a rush of contempt for herself now and with effort pushed the thought away, forcing herself to turn her attention back to Mac and Tom.
They were talking about the area of Norwich where Tom lived, but though he was chatting quite easily there still persisted the sense that he was keeping something of himself back, only allowing them to see a fraction of his true self; the same guardedness that had always made her feel instinctively wary of him. She remembered the scene between Rose and him earlier and shook her head in silent frustration: he was impossible to work out.
‘Cash only,’ the waitress said when their bill arrived and they’d each got their cards out. ‘Machine’s broke. There was a sign at the bar,’ she added wearily.
The three of them exchanged glances. ‘Shit, I don’t have any, do you?’
‘Nope, was going to card it.’
‘There’s a cash machine at the post office down the road,’ Tom said, getting up. ‘I’ll go; it won’t take a minute.’
But Mac stopped him. ‘No, you stay, pal, I need to return a work call anyway,’ he said, waving his mobile at him.
As she watched Mac leave, Clara glanced at Tom. ‘It was good to see your mum and dad before,’ she said coolly, adding pointedly, ‘I like them very much.’
After a pause he returned her gaze and smiled, saying with no hint of rancour, ‘Yes. Everybody does.’
At that moment a different waitress arrived and began wiping down their table and they lapsed back into silence. She noticed after a while that the girl was taking an inordinately long time at her task, and realized she was distracted by Tom, staring at him with open admiration as she wiped the same spot over and over on their table. It was true, she thought without much interest, he was very good looking, but there was something supercilious about his face that prevented him from being truly attractive. She looked at him then and froze in surprise to find his eyes fastened on hers. A little flustered, she said quickly, ‘I was trying to remember something Luke told me once, about Emily.’ Immediately she wanted to kick herself for bringing up his sister so clumsily. She saw Tom’s eyes darken and silently wished she’d found a more gentle way to broach the subject.
‘Oh yes?’ he said, once the waitress had moved away.
She fiddled with a beer mat. ‘He was telling me about a game he used to play with your sister when you were all kids, but I can’t remember what it was. Do you have any idea?’
‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Right,’ she said, trying to hide her disappointment.
‘Oh, except, it wasn’t a game, as such … but there was a song they used to sing before Luke went to bed – she used to like reading to him then tucking him in at night. ‘“Five Little Monkeys” it was called – you know that rhyme? “Five little monkeys jumping on the bed, one fell off and bumped his head …” Luke used to bounce around on the bed while they sang it. It was a kind of ritual between them … is that what you meant?’
She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, that was it, thank you.’ For a moment she pictured Luke as a boy, and felt a wave of sadness. When she next looked up it was to see such wretchedness on Tom’s face that she felt a stab of guilt. ‘Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you, I—’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not your fault. It was just, when she went, it was … a bloody awful time, you know?’
‘I can’t even begin to imagine.’
‘Listen, Clara,’ Tom said, leaning forward, the intensity of his gaze returning. ‘There’s something I need to tell you.’
She looked at him in surprise. ‘What is it?’
At that moment, the door opened and Mac appeared, brandishing their cards and cash. ‘Sorry – the machine was broken,’ he said. ‘I had to go to the one at the petrol station.’ He looked from one to the other of them. ‘Everything all right, is it?’
Tom dropped his gaze from Clara’s. ‘Everything’s fine,’ he said, abruptly getting to his feet. Let’s pay at the bar, shall we?’
Amy Lowe lived in a small house down a cul de sac of 1930s semis. Clara and Mac paused in the front garden for a moment, taking in the broken swing set and stack of roof tiles piled high amongst the weeds. On the chipped front door was a peeling sticker with the words ‘BEWARE OF THE DOG’, illustrated by a toothy Doberman. From inside they could hear the sound of a TV at top volume, a girl’s voice wailing, ‘Mummy he hit me! Jakey hit me, he did! Mummeeeeee!!!’ They glanced at each other and shrugged, before Mac pressed the bell.
A boy of about six answered. He was dressed in a Superman onesie and the small round face below his buzz cut was covered in freckles. He glared at them suspiciously. ‘You selling stuff?’ he asked. ‘Mum says she don’t want any.’