“That hole in your head is called a hangover, my boy. I offered intravenous fluids, you said no, my next best offer is a walk on the beach. You can get two hours’ quality sleep in the car. Righty ho, then,” he added, in an execrable British accent. Nathan closed his eyes.
A day in Sussex seemed an ambitious plan, but James was insistent. It was the weekend, Saskia was with them, the weather was beautiful, and now was the time to begin a slow piecing back together. He was taking them all to Camber Sands. “This family needs airing,” he’d told Julia early that morning, and with that, at least, she was inclined to agree. But she was fairly sure that Gwen and Nathan had not yet spoken to each other, and Gwen’s reproachful glances over breakfast had been painful to witness. A London day trip might have been more sensible.
From the passenger seat, Julia turned to smile encouragingly at the children but received no response. Nathan and Gwen, sullen and uncooperative, were looking anywhere but at each other. Saskia shifted and laid her head on Gwen’s shoulder.
“Sleepy,” she mumbled. “Ro and I sat up talking for ages when we came home.” She leaned across Gwen to address her brother. “What time was it you got in?”
“Dunno. Three, maybe?”
“Right, but then he made us sit up with him and make him scrambled eggs and listen to his drunken rambling. You were going on and on about the Egg McMuffin being your personal madeleine.”
Between them Gwen scowled, and then leaned forward between the seats and turned up the volume of the radio. Finally James climbed into the driver’s seat and announced that they were ready.
For the first hour they drove in silence. The road glinted in the sunshine and Nathan grudgingly yielded his sunglasses to his father so he could see to drive, and then threw his head back and covered his eyes in the crook of his arm. Saskia hummed intermittently to the radio, and Julia watched her own daughter’s face in the rearview mirror and worried, and worried. She should have told James to take his own kids to the beach, and she and Gwen should have spent the day alone. This was too much for her, with Nathan in a temper and vacant, saccharine Saskia, whom they had not seen for months and who had once again become a semistranger.
At Maidstone, James swung the car into a service station. “McDonalds. Sas gave me the idea, I absolutely insist. Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to compile the most unhealthy combination of items you can think of. Someone get me the fish thing with fries, nuggets, and a chocolate milk shake.” He turned and winked at Nathan. “Next best thing to intravenous fluids.” Julia wondered why he seemed to find his son’s excessive drinking to be amusing rather than reprehensible. Nathan slipped wordlessly from the car.
But McDonald’s turned out to be an excellent idea. Back on the road with steaming paper bags, the children revived. Gwen spoke, voluntarily, to say that her cheeseburger was “the best.” Nathan, finishing his second Big Mac, observed that fat and salt combined had magical restorative properties, and began to call out musical suggestions to his father. Saskia dipped a chicken nugget in Gwen’s ketchup and nudged her gently with an elbow.
After a while Gwen said, “I so should have got a milk shake,” and Julia was surprised to see Nathan take his from between his knees and offer it to her. James, who had been lifting his own from the cup holder to hand over his shoulder, glanced briefly at Julia and smiled; Julia gave a tiny shrug and sipped her black coffee in silence. They drove on through Kent and south, to East Sussex.
They were not the only people drawn to the water. The line for the car park stretched back more than a mile and so Julia, keen to preserve the fragile good tempers, did not object when James said they should go ahead. They took what they could carry and began to make their way along the road toward the shore, Gwen and Nathan lagging behind. Julia found herself walking with Saskia. She did not have the energy for someone else’s daughter. She had been dreading Saskia’s arrival in the house—another personality, more needs, emotional, practical, dietary. Last night, seeing Saskia and Rowan together, she had been riven with envy at their carelessness, their intimacy. Lucky, lighthearted, untraumatized. Katy had been to visit only once, carrying a small white orchid in Marks & Spencer cellophane and looking utterly petrified. Gwen did not seem to answer her phone anymore, except Nathan’s calls.
Julia’s mind was upon the reconciliation taking place behind them; it took effort to turn her attention to the girl and think of a conversation she might begin. She settled on their location, the weather, the white-streaked purple bells of sea bindweed flourishing along the path. All this, so close to London—they should remember it year-round and come more often—and all the while thinking, Has that little shit apologized? Has he let her speak, will he give her a chance to tell him everything she suffered, and what it means to her? As they mounted the dunes she paused for a moment, craning backward, and spotted Gwen’s red hair, still a way off.
Saskia began to screw her toe into the fine sand. “It’s been weird to be so far away with all this stuff happening to my family. I’ve been worried about my brother and Gwen and everyone and, I dunno, it’s just easier to be here. Now I know that like, even though this supersad thing happened, it’s all going to be okay.”
Julia was startled; a moment ago they had been discussing the dune grass, and whether or not the beach would have a changing room. She and Saskia had never before had a conversation with any content.
“Is that your sense now? It’s going to be okay?”
Saskia nodded. “Definitely. I just can’t even imagine what she went through, you know? And on top of everything there must have been this guilt that she’d let you guys down by getting pregnant in the first place, and she was agonizing and agonizing and then out of nowhere comes this massive stark reminder that we don’t actually get to decide a lot of the time. Like, we’re not in control at all. You don’t think of someone having a miscarriage at sixteen. My mom says it’s actually no less common than any other time, and it’s just one of those things. But that doesn’t make it any easier when it’s actually happening to you and not to all those other people. I just feel better being here with you guys so I can see them. And yeah, so I think they’ll be okay. A sad thing happened that was no one’s fault, and they love each other. And that’s it.”
This was the longest speech Julia had ever heard Saskia make and she was struck by the girl’s compassion. Now, something eased within her, remembering she liked James’s daughter. Saskia would be kind to Gwen.