“I’m tired, but I’m fine. No need to worry. I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to talk to you.”
Immediately he looked shifty. “What about?”
“About your dad’s car.”
He stood up and looked out of the window at Tom’s car on the driveway. “What about it?”
“I thought you might like to have it,” I said. “I doubt you could drive it because the insurance would be sky high, but you could sell it if you wanted. Put the money toward university or a gap year, if you fancied that.”
“Isn’t it yours, though?”
“Technically, because our money was shared.” Well, my money was shared. “But I don’t want it. It’s too big for me to drive.” It wasn’t that, though. I knew at such close quarters I’d feel Tom’s presence and suffocate with the stress. “You should have it.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “And in his will, because we weren’t divorced, I’m left the house and savings, and his life insurance is split between you and me,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s fair.” He shot around to stare at me. “I’m going to split everything between the two of us. You still won’t be able to touch your share until you’re twenty-one, but you’ll get interest off the investment. Your mum will take care of that. And tell her that she’ll carry on getting child support payments until you leave university.”
His voice was unsteady as he asked, “Are you sure?”
“Of course. You’re his son.”
He started to cry then. His back was still to me and I stood behind him and wrapped my arms around him. He felt unfamiliar in his suit; I was used to him in school uniform or jeans or a rugby kit covered in mud; despite his height he seemed like a boy wearing adult clothes.
“It’ll be okay,” I said again and again. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Eventually he calmed down. His phone beeped with a message.
“It’s Mum.” He rubbed his hands across his eyes. “I’d better go. I’ll talk to you later.” At the front door he stopped. “Oh, I nearly forgot.” He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a candy-striped paper bag.
“Here,” he said. “This is for you.”
I reached inside the bag and pulled out my scarf, my blue and pink scarf with its wild abstract patterns and its soft, tender touch. The one Harry had bought me because he loved me. The scarf Tom had taken from me in the middle of the night because I loved Harry.
I could barely speak, my mouth was so dry. “Where did you get that?”
“Dad gave it to me,” he said. “I told him I’d been to your flat and he asked me to give it to you the next time I saw you. You forgot to take it when you left home; he knew you loved it.”
I breathed out. I knew I hadn’t left it here. Tom had known that, too.
CHAPTER 77
Ruby
Oliver came out of his house as Josh was leaving. He gave the boy a hug and they stood talking for a moment. I didn’t go out there to join them; I worried that Josh would get upset again.
I went upstairs to the study and stood to the side of the window, so that I could look down at them unnoticed. Oliver said something and Josh laughed. I held my scarf to my face and breathed in. I could smell the perfume I’d worn in Paris, the weekend Harry and I decided to be together.
Oliver and Josh talked for a while, then Josh pointed toward the road. Together they walked down the drive and I guessed they were going to look at Josh’s car.
As they walked I noticed that from behind Josh looked just like Tom. He walked like him. They were the same height now, the same build, though Tom had filled out a bit over the years. But now, looking at Josh as he walked away I saw how alike they were. It was odd I hadn’t noticed it before. I wondered which was his car;