Funny how someone can look so exactly like the child they were, despite being six feet tall and broad. His ruddy, well-scrubbed cheeks added to the good nature that radiated from his round face. Although a little overweight, he looked strong. As he grasped his pint, I noticed his hands: the big, capable kind inherited by so many in an area whose ancestry was generations of farmworkers.
He took a slurp of his drink. ‘Yeah, I’ve rented a place in Wapentake. Moved in the other week. Couldn’t get anything here in the village, but hope to soon.’
‘Well, it’s only nine miles down the road, not the end of the world. But what brings you back after all these years?’
‘Took redundancy a while back, spent some money travelling. Now it’s time to get back to the real world and… Well, I could have settled anywhere, really, but all that travelling made me yearn for home.’
‘And home is here? After all these years?’ I tried to think back to the last time I had seen Glenn. Must have been just before I had you, Beth. ‘You moved away when you were about, what, nineteen, or something?’
He nodded cautiously, busy with his beer. ‘Never looked back. But now Fenmere is calling me. I miss it – no place like it, is there?’
True. Once you were used to Fenmere’s open landscape, everything else felt hemmed in or cluttered with buildings and trees.
‘I’ve applied for a job at the furniture company.’ Glenn didn’t need to say the name; Woodturners is the biggest employer in the immediate area, not counting farming. It’s where your dad is a foreman.
‘You married?’
‘Was. Divorced. Twice. Heading for a third. Can’t seem to make ’em stick with me.’ His eyes flicked to one side, as though the thought had sparked a memory. Then they were right back on mine again. ‘Look, I’m not going to lie… When I came over to chat, it was only because I recognised you from school. It was nice to see a familiar face again. But, well, I’ve just realised you’re Melanie Oak now, not Ludlow, and…’
‘And you’ve remembered the headlines.’
A single nod.
Taking a big slug of my wine made my eyes water. As soon as my vocal chords realised they weren’t burned away, I spoke. ‘Right. Nice chatting. Got to go.’ Each word a bullet of sarcasm.
Wiggins stood, sensing we were leaving.
‘I’m sorry for upsetting you, but I didn’t want to lie.’ Glenn still looked me in the eye. He still spoke to me as if I were human, not something fragile that might break. ‘Stay. Have another drink.’
Oh, screw it, I thought. Why not?
*
Had I had three drinks, or four? Four. Or was it five? A warm glow wrapped me up, the thermals of which were pushing ajar the door in my mind that I tried to keep shut. The door that held my anger and resentment at bay.
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ I’d said it a couple of times, but it didn’t seem to stop the words from leaking out. Why? Because it wasn’t true. I did want to talk about you, Beth – but no one wanted to listen to me. At that moment there was a captive audience, though.
‘No one outside family asks me about how Beth is doing now, you know? Because they know what the answer will be. They never ask about how I am; they avoid the subject. Avoid talking to me even.’
‘Okay.’ Glenn nodded. ‘Well, if you do want to talk about it, I’m all ears.’
I cocked my head at him. He spoke softly, so I had to lean close to catch it. It gave even that most innocent of conversations an intimate feel.
‘I’m a good listener. We used to be friends once,’ he added.
That wasn’t quite how I remembered it. As kids at primary school we had sometimes hung around together, and he’d always chosen me for his football team. When we moved up to secondary school in Wapentake we’d had nothing to do with each other, though, not even on the school bus. He had his friends, I had mine. Well, actually, he’d hung around a lot on his own or with his dad. But there had been sidelong glances from Glenn that had made me think he was working up to asking me out. He’d never got the courage, though. And, aged sixteen, I’d started dating your dad.
Whatever we had meant to each other then, I could definitely do with a friend now. Jacob had always been my best friend; I’d never needed anyone else. But now I didn’t dare tell him some of the dark thoughts that were growing in my mind. My fears. The fact that I couldn’t stand the thought of going to that hospital one more time and looking at you, Beth, knowing there was nothing I could do, no way of helping you…
‘Another drink!’ I shouted. Slapped my hand on the wooden bar a couple of times, even though Dale was out of his seat and grabbing a glass.
‘Mel, keep it calm, eh?’ he said.
‘Keep your hair on. This place is like a graveyard. Ha, like Beth’s hospital room. Ha.’
No one found that funny. Not even me.
I got the sudden urge to run away. Glenn seemed to sense it and patted my shoulder with his paw of a hand. Silence stretched between us as big as the sky outside, but Glenn didn’t look away. My lids felt heavy as I blinked.
‘It’s such a tough time for you, Mel. It must be awful. But you and Jacob are getting through it together, right? You don’t mind me asking… ?’
Jacob had been so strong, so amazing. It was hard for me to keep up with him. I felt weak in comparison. Negative.
My bottom lip wobbled pathetically as I shook my head.
‘He doesn’t want to hear that I imagine myself in Beth’s place. That I feel as if, if I think hard enough, make the scene real enough, time will spool back and somehow I will be able to swap places. Better me dead than my daughter.’
I waited for Glenn to correct me. Say my daughter wasn’t dead. But in my booze-filled haze, it suddenly seemed so clear that you were. The only thing that was keeping you alive was a machine.
I needed something to distract me.
‘Another round, please.’ The stool slid to one side beneath me, almost bucking me off, but I managed to recover before anyone noticed.
‘You’ve not finished that one yet,’ Glenn pointed out.
Oh. Yeah. ’Course.
‘Cheers.’ He downed the rest of his pint in one.
I did the same with my wine, and smiled a warm, slow smile that had nothing to do with humour.
‘Thing is, Glenn,’ I said in a deliberate stage whisper, ‘I live in a village where nothing ever happens. Where everyone knows everything about each other. And yet no one knows anything about Beth. No one saw a single thing. Don’t you think that’s a bit suspicious?’
I held up a finger which seemed to waver in front of me like a candle flame. Might need to slow down with the drinking, I thought. Then turned and pointed at a poor unfortunate who happened to be standing closest.
‘Ben Miller! I know that you sneak your rubbish into your neighbours’ bins, and deny it to their faces.’
I pointed at someone else, who jumped back from my loaded finger. ‘Colin Winston, when the village has charity collections or stages fundraisers, you always explain that the reason you don’t donate is because you have standing orders for all the charities you wish to support. But your wife, Susan, admitted to me two years ago that that’s a lie. You’re just a tightwad!’
Glenn laughed and grabbed my weapon, forcing my hand down by my side, still grinning. ‘Yep, I get the point.’