of a sudden it was restrictive, for she was not sure that her tongue would be wholly biddable after more than a bottle of wine and a long stretch of silence. She therefore thought the words, rather than speaking them aloud.
You’d better bloody well tell them you’ll need to discuss it with me first, Miles.
VII
Tessa Wall had not meant to stay long at Mary’s — she was never comfortable about leaving her husband and Fats alone in the house together — but somehow her visit had stretched to a couple of hours. The Fairbrothers’ house was overflowing with camp beds and sleeping bags; their extended family had closed in around the gaping vacuum left by death, but no amount of noise and activity could mask the chasm into which Barry had vanished.
Alone with her thoughts for the first time since their friend had died, Tessa retraced her steps down Church Row in the darkness, her feet aching, her cardigan inadequate protection against the cold. The only noise was the clicking of the wooden beads around her neck, and the dim sounds of television sets in the houses she was passing.
Quite suddenly, Tessa thought: I wonder whether Barry knew.
It had never occurred to her before that her husband might have told Barry the great secret of her life, the rotten thing that lay buried at the heart of her marriage. She and Colin never even discussed it (though a whiff of it tainted many a conversation, particularly lately… ).
Tonight, though, Tessa had thought she caught half a glance from Mary, at the mention of Fats…
You’re exhausted, and you’re imagining things, Tessa told herself firmly. Colin’s habits of secrecy were so strong, so deeply entrenched, that he would never have told; not even Barry, whom he idolized. Tessa hated to think that Barry might have known… that his kindness towards Colin had been actuated by pity for what she, Tessa, had done…
When she entered the sitting room, she found her husband sitting in front of the television, wearing his glasses, the news on in the background. He had a sheaf of printed papers in his lap and a pen in his hand. To Tessa’s relief, there was no sign of Fats.
‘How is she?’ Colin asked.
‘Well, you know… not great,’ said Tessa. She sank into one of the old armchairs with a little moan of relief, and pulled off her worn-down shoes. ‘But Barry’s brother’s being marvellous.’
‘In what way?’
‘Well… you know… helping.’
She closed her eyes and massaged the bridge of her nose and her eyelids with her thumb and forefinger.
‘I always thought he seemed a bit unreliable,’ said Colin’s voice.
‘Really?’ said Tessa, from the depths of her voluntary darkness.
‘Yes. Remember when he said he’d come and referee for that game against Paxton High? And he cancelled with about half an hour’s notice and Bateman had to do it instead?’
Tessa fought down an impulse to snap. Colin had a habit of making sweeping judgements based on first impressions, on single actions. He never seemed to grasp the immense mutability of human nature, nor to appreciate that behind every nondescript face lay a wild and unique hinterland like his own.
‘Well, he’s being lovely with the kids,’ said Tessa carefully. ‘I’ve got to go to bed.’
She did not move, but sat concentrating on the separate aches in different parts of her body: in her feet, her lower back, her shoulders.
‘Tess, I’ve been thinking.’
‘Hmm?’
Glasses shrank Colin’s eyes to mole-like proportions, so that the high, balding knobbly forehead seemed even more pronounced.
‘Everything Barry was trying to do on the Parish Council. Everything he was fighting for. The Fields. The addiction clinic. I’ve been thinking about it all day.’ He drew a deep inward breath. ‘I’ve pretty much decided that I’m going to take over for him.’
Misgivings crashed over Tessa, pinning her to her chair, rendering her momentarily speechless. She struggled to keep her expression professionally neutral.
‘I’m sure it’s what Barry would have wanted,’ said Colin. His strange excitement was tinged with defensiveness.
Never, said Tessa’s most honest self, never for a second would Barry have wanted you to do this. He would have known you are the very last person who ought to do it.
‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘Well. I know Barry was very… but it would be a huge commitment, Colin. And it’s not as though Parminder’s gone. She’s still there, and she’ll still be trying to do everything Barry wanted.’
I should have phoned Parminder, thought Tessa as she said it, with a guilty bump in her stomach. Oh,