when it comes to smashing through your carefully constructed boundaries.
The Olde Jug is quiet and smells temptingly of roast beef. Soon it will start to fill up with all those who have booked in for dinner. There are no tables in the bar area, and the restaurant part of the pub is relatively small – only one room, now with a conservatory extension which has enabled a few more tables to be added – and needs to be booked several weeks in advance. Little Holling folk complain furiously if they’ve found themselves eating near people who look as if they’re from Somewhere Else, even though there’s no rule stating that priority should be given to those who live closest.
Robin and Ruth live in a two-bedroom flat above the pub. They’re happy for me to use it to make my call, as I knew they would be. ‘Don’t even ask,’ Dominic says over his shoulder to Robin as we head upstairs.
‘He didn’t ask,’ I mutter.
‘Lounge or kitchen?’ Dom asks.
‘Kitchen.’
‘Shall we make a cup of tea?’
‘No. I’m ringing him now.’ I want to get it over with, whatever it turns out to be.
A few seconds later, I hear a voice I haven’t heard for twelve years. ‘Beth Leeson!’
‘How did you know it was me?’
‘International call. Actually, you’re right – as a hotshot CEO, I get loads of international calls.’ Lewis has always done this: mocking his own boastfulness at the same time as indulging it to the full. ‘But I’ve been waiting for you to call since I sent you my number. How are things? How’s Dom and the kids?’
‘Fine. We’re all fine. How … how are things with you?’ There’s a lag after each of us speaks.
‘Amazing, thanks. The kids are so American now, you’d barely recognise them.’
I close my eyes. When I open them, Dominic is gesturing for me to put my phone on speaker so that he can hear Lewis’s side of the conversation. I shake my head. The look I get in response tells me I’m being silly, but I don’t care. I’m not risking pressing a button that might cut Lewis off.
‘Flora’s doing great. Loves the climate here. Keeps saying she can’t believe she put up with the grey, gloomy English weather for so long. When are you guys gonna get your lazy asses out here to visit us?’
Another classic Lewis Braid move: making you feel guilty for not accepting an invitation you never received.
‘Do you ever come back to the UK?’
‘Yeah, when we can. We were back for Christmas, stayed with Flora’s parents. They’re still in their little place in Wokingham. Bit of a squeeze with seven of us!’
Seven. Lewis, Flora, Thomas, Emily, Flora’s parents … and Georgina. She has to be the seventh person. Still, no harm in checking …
‘How old is Georgina now?’
‘She’s twelve. Terrifying how quick time passes, isn’t it? Did you and Dominic ever have any more?’
‘More time?’ I’m confused.
‘No, more children. Though, come to think of it …’ Lewis laughs. ‘God, what I wouldn’t give for more time. Bet you’re the same. Remember before we had kids, how we used to spend whole days lying around by the river, or watching movies?’
‘Yes.’
‘Anyway, enough about the past! As my favourite life coach always says: memories of the past are not the past. They’re thoughts you have in the present, about the past.’
I shiver. Dominic mouths ‘What?’ I turn away from him so that I’m not distracted. Lewis talking about the present and the past makes me feel …
What? That he’s more likely to have frozen his children in time to prevent them from ageing? Ridiculous.
‘Your favourite life coach?’ I say, forcing out a laugh. ‘How many do you have?’
‘I don’t see them, I just listen to their podcasts. But enough about my perfect life in sunny Florida – tell me what you’ve been up to. Are you working again, or still a slacker?’
I’d forgotten this: that Lewis described it as ‘slacking’ when Flora and I gave up our jobs to look after our babies. He loved that joke; it became one of his regulars. I never minded it. It was like his boasting: so outrageous, we all assumed he didn’t mean it.
Except Flora.
I didn’t think of it at the time, but now I wonder: was that why she always looked worried and said, ‘Lew-is,’ while Dom and I were busy saying, ‘It’s fine – we don’t take him seriously’? Was Flora scared he was revealing too much of his true character?