years to the lyre and the fiddle and the many other instruments he had mastered, tunes he had loved and lovers he had wooed with them, to a gentle place within himself where he was totally at peace.
“Hi Lucy, how was the holiday? We had a great one, loads to tell you,” Jen was in full flow on the phone, “We all got so brown, and that hotel was just great. You should go next year.”
“Maybe I will. Ours was okay. We got half way down France and stopped in a really nice campsite with a pool. The kids were in heaven. Robbie can almost dive, Ash can swim the whole length of the pool underwater. And she tried eating a snail! It was good to be away from the clinic and the house. But I’ve a huge Visa bill now, it’ll take me till Christmas to clear it. I’m trying not to think about it, not to lose what I’ve gained.”
“Did you gain, Lucy? Was it good for you?”
“It was fine. It’s great watching the kids have fun and they encourage me. I mean, I’d never have played mini-golf except I was bullied into it and it was a laugh. Robbie won, because we gave him such a big handicap and he cheated.”
“And you and Martin?” Jen was hesitant, “how did that side of things go? Did any of the counsellor’s tips work?”
“We didn’t actually fight. But we didn’t miss having no baby-sitter, if you know what I mean. The kids are a great buffer.”
“Poor kids. Did they notice?”
“I’m not sure. They didn’t say.”
“Of course they didn’t say, Lucy. They don’t really understand what they’re seeing. But they do know things could be different. They’ve been in Marge’s house, after all.”
“Well, are you free to come over at the weekend? We’d love to show you our photos and we brought home a bottle of the most amazing hooch, you have to try it. It stops all pain.”
“I could do with that. But do you mind if I come on my own? It’s hard at the moment, Martin is inclined to tell everyone we meet about the counsellor and what an idiot she is. He nabbed some unfortunate English people on the campsite and went on and on about it to them. Funny really, it turned out the man was a clinical psychologist. I’d love to know what he actually thought of Martin’s lecture!”
“No, you come. You’re my friend, Lucy, it’s you I want to see, really. You bring whoever you want.”
“Just me.”
“This time.”
“Half seven Saturday okay? Okay, seeya.”
David was sitting on a sun-lounger in the back garden, with a beer on the stool beside him. He had spent a couple of hours dead-heading the roses, generally tidying up the messy growth and was feeling a little tired but quite happy. The sun was warm on his skin and small birds were twittering nearby, giving him the illusion of being in the countryside. The fifth summer in a row that I haven’t been away anywhere. The peace of it. I wonder how long it will take, before I want to go away again? No more beaches, ever again, if I don’t want and at the moment, I certainly don’t want. What is it with beaches, everyone else seems to be addicted to them and I can’t be bothered. And barbeques. It’s great living in a climate where you don’t have to have barbeques all the time. They never light properly, you spend ages fussing round them, burning your fingers on the matches and in the end, you’ve got a petrol flavoured burger. Crazy.
“Only because you’re still nervous of open flames. No need to have barbeques, stick with the grill. Why revisit the scenes of your deaths? Though it really is curious why you are all so fussed about how you died, when you know perfectly well when you’re on this side that being dead is not the problem. I mean, neither the wave nor the fire actually hurt you, it was so quick. I’m so glad I put you to sleep on that train. It would have been a pest if you’d been afraid to get on a train this time round, with all those trips.”
And no more train trips, coach trips, plane trips even. Nothing. Just sit here and get old.
The phone rang inside the house. David grumbled a bit, but got up and trotted inside, assuming it would be one of the twins. It was Carmel.
“Hello, David? Hope