Jemima had been, upon Jossie's own admission and despite his age, his first lover. And that first rejection is always the worst, isn't it?
Those eyes of his behind the dark glasses, Robbie thought. The fact that he had so little to say. Hard worker, Jossie, but what did that mean? Strong focus on one thing - building his business - could just as easily turn into strong focus on something else.
Robbie thought all this as he made his way to Ringwood. He would face off with Jossie, he decided, but now wasn't the time. He wanted to see him without Jemima's replacement at his side.
Ringwood was tricky to negotiate. Robbie came at it from Hightown Hill. This forced him to drive past the abandoned Cupcake Queen, which he couldn't bear to look at. He parked the Land Rover not far from the parish church of St. Peter and Paul, overlooking the market square from a hillock where it rose among ancient graves. From the car park, Robbie could hear the constant rumble and even smell the exhaust of the lorries chugging along the Ringwood Bypass. From the market square he could see the bright flowers in the church's graveyard and the hand-washed fronts of the Georgian buildings along the high street. It was in the high street that Gerber & Hudson Graphic Design had its small suite of offices, above a shop called Food for Thought. He told Frank to stay in the doorway there, and he went up the stairs.
Robbie found Meredith Powell at her computer, in the process of creating a poster for a children's dance studio there in the town. It wasn't, he knew, the job that she wanted. But unlike Jemima, Meredith had long been a realist, and as a single parent forced to live with her own parents in order to save money, she would know that her dream of designing fabrics was not something immediately attainable for her.
When she saw Robbie, Meredith rose. He saw that she wore a caftan of bright summer hues: bold lime shot through with violet. Even he could see the colours were all wrong on her.
She was gawky and out of place, like him. The thought made him feel a sudden, awkward tenderness for her.
He said, "A word, Merry?" and Meredith seemed to read something on his face. She went to an interior office, where she popped her head in the doorway to speak briefly to someone.
Then she came across to him. He led her down the stairs and, once out on Ringwood High Street again, reckoned that the church or the churchyard was the best place to tell her.
She greeted Frank with a "Hello, doggie-Frank," and the Weimaraner wagged his tail and followed them along the street. She peered at Robbie and said, "You look ...Has something happened, Rob? Have you heard from her?" and he said that he had. For indeed he had, after a fashion. If not from her, then of her. The result was the same.
They went up the steps and into the graveyard but it was too hot there, he reckoned, with the sun beating down and not a breeze stirring. So he found Frank a shady spot under a bench on the porch and took Meredith inside the church and by then she was saying, "What is it? It's bad.
I can see that. What's happened?"
She didn't weep when he told her. Instead, she went to one of the battered pews. She didn't take a red leather cushion off its holder in order to kneel, though. Rather, she sat. She folded her hands in her lap, and when he joined her in the pew, she looked at him.
She murmured, "I'm most horribly sorry, Rob. This must be so awful for you. I know what she means to you. I know she was ...She's everything."
He shook his head because he couldn't reply. The church was cool inside, but he was still hot. He marveled when, next to him, Meredith shivered.
"Why did she leave?" Meredith's voice was anguished. He could tell, however, that she asked the question as a form of one of those universal why s: Why do terrible things happen at all? Why do people make incomprehensible decisions? Why does evil exist? "God, Rob. Why did she leave? She loved the New Forest. She wasn't a city girl. She could barely cope with college in Winchester."
"She said - "
"I know what she said. You told me what she said. So did he." She was