I followed the bright globe in the sky, across fields, pastures and sprawling housing estates, through tiny hamlets and over dual carriageway bridges. I passed a sign that read YOU ARE NOW LEAVING NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, THANK YOU FOR VISITING, and smiled. That’s just what I’d been for all my years – a visitor.
Suffused with optimism, I recognised I’d always been too self-involved to absorb the world around me, or to appreciate its entirety. I’d never taken pleasure from simple delights like picking raspberries from roadside bushes, eating apples from orchards or drinking fresh water from brooks.
But modern life wasn’t like the Mark Twain novels I’d read as a boy. Pollution had embittered the taste of the raspberries, the apples were sour and water doesn’t really taste like water unless it’s mixed with fluoride and flows from a tap.
None of that bothered me. My new life was just beginning and I was here to learn, to understand and to enjoy. By retreating I could advance. I had nowhere and everywhere to go. I would start afresh as the man I wanted to be, and not the man she had made me.
4.00 p.m.
The sun began to weigh heavy on my shoulders and my forehead was sore to the touch, so I untied my shirt from around my waist and used it to cover my head. A road sign ahead revealed I was a mile and a half from the Happy Acres holiday park we’d once driven past on our way to somewhere else to play happy family.
Ramshackle and surrounded by barbed-wire fencing, on the surface its name appeared ironic. She’d said then that it reminded her of a documentary we’d watched on Auschwitz. But the families staying in its shabby holiday homes obviously didn’t share her view.
I entered through the open gates, held together by brown, flaked paint scraps and rust. Thirty or so static caravans were positioned in a large arc. Others had been thrown around like afterthoughts into more remote locations amongst overgrown hedgerows. Children filled the air with squeals; mums and dads played cricket with them; and grandparents sat listening to crackly medium-wave stations on portable transistor radios. I envied the simplicity of their happiness.
A small café kiosk caught my eye, bordered by sun-faded plastic tables and chairs. Checking my pockets for change, I grinned when I found a crumpled twenty-pound note that must have survived the washday. Already the new Simon was proving luckier than the last. I ordered a cola from an uninterested girl behind the counter, who rolled her eyes as my change cleared out her cash register.
I remained in my plastic chair well into the evening as a spectator, studying the holidaymakers like it was my first visit to earth. I’d forgotten what family life could be like – the way we were before she disembodied me.
I stopped myself. I would not think about her and the repercussions of her actions. I was no longer a bit-part player in her pantomime.
8.35 p.m.
The smell of barbecues and scented candles wafted through the caravan park as night approached. I presumed I’d been invisible to everyone’s radar until a bare-chested, middle-aged man ambled towards my seat at the café. He explained his wife had spotted me throughout the afternoon sitting alone, and invited me to join his family for some grilled food.
I gratefully obliged and filled my stomach with charred hotdogs until my belt buckle pinched my belly. I listened more than I spoke. And when they asked questions about my origins and my length of stay, I lied. I explained I’d been inspired by a celebrity sportsman who’d recently completed a sponsored charity walk from John o’ Groats to Land’s End. Now I was doing the same, for the homeless.
I quickly learned how easy it was to be dishonest, especially to people who were willing to accept you at face value. No wonder my wife and my mother had found it so easy.
My hosts were impressed, and when they offered me a ten-pound note for my chosen charity, I neither felt guilty nor the need to explain how my charity began and ended at home.
Thanking them, I made my excuses and headed towards a cluster of caravans on the perimeter of the field. It wasn’t hard to fathom which lay empty, and after a quick flip of a metal latch on a rear window, I discreetly climbed inside one.
The air was stale, the pillow was lumpy and stained with the sweat of strangers, and the starched woollen blanket scratched my chest. But I’d found myself a bed for the night. I wiped dirt from the inside of the window, looked out at my new surroundings, and smiled at the gifts a life without complication was bringing me.
Both my body and my mind were shattered. My calf muscles and heels throbbed, my forehead was singed and my lower back ached. But I paid scant attention to temporary pain.
Instead, I slept as soundly as a newborn baby that night. I had no dreams, no plans and most importantly, no regrets.
Northampton, today
8.25 a.m.
Catherine sat in the dining room with her laptop computer resting on the mahogany table. She moved it slightly to look at the photograph of New York’s Fifth Avenue printed on the placemat underneath and smiled. She hoped they’d find the time to return there before the year was out.
According to the date on the message, James’s most recent email had been sent in the early hours of that morning. It had been a month since her eldest son had last flown home to visit, but travelling around the world was part and parcel of his life now, and she’d grown accustomed to it. Despite the demands of his career, he regularly kept her up to speed on his antics. And when he couldn’t find time to jot down a few lines, even just to say hello or that he’d write more later, she’d log on to his website or Facebook profile to read his updates. Robbie had tried to demonstrate how easy it was to Skype and FaceTime, but she’d only just mastered how to record the soaps on the TV. One thing at a time, she’d told him.
The act of picking up a fountain pen and writing a letter was something she missed. She was disappointed that most people found it too time-consuming or old-fashioned to put pen to paper instead of finger to keyboard. But it had been years since she’d last sat down and written anything herself, apart from her signature on business contracts.
Emily had only just left the house and would be back in the evening to collect her for dinner. That gave her ample time to reply to James and order those biographies she’d been meaning to buy from Amazon. But before she could begin any of that, a knock at the door interrupted her. She removed her reading glasses, closed the lid of her laptop and went to answer it.
‘Have you forgotten your purse again, darling?’ she shouted as she pushed down the handle. But when the door opened, Emily wasn’t standing there. It was an older gentleman.
She smiled. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were my daughter.’
The man smiled back, removed his fedora and slicked back some of the stray grey hairs the brim had loosened.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.