in lungfuls of cleaner air and concentrating on moving my body forward, grief eases. Exercise helps.
‘Right, my phone says there’s a small inn or lodgings house in that direction.’ Ed points into the distance. ‘If the Lord spares us, we should make it by nightfall.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ Hester says.
‘Yeah, more like twenty minutes if we get a yomp on.’
‘Thank fuck for that.’
It occurs to me I’ve not heard one friendly word between Ed and Hester since we arrived, and I don’t know why. They should be in pre-wedding euphoria.
As Ed promised, we find a pit stop at a village pub where we eat spongy white rolls stuffed with grated cheese – as does Leonard, covertly – iceberg salad with green peppers and a breakwater of fat, deep-fryer 1970s chips, and drink pints of brown ale that taste of biscuits and socks. In hunger, weariness and the toll of the low-level panic before we found it, it’s a majestic feast.
After getting soaked to the skin on the way back, Leonard zipped into the front of Justin’s coat, head sticking out, we finally reach the cottage. Ed builds a fire and Justin gets more fizz out of the fridge.
‘By the way, I know this isn’t a light topic, but we need to decide what to do with Susie’s ashes,’ Ed says, dusting his hands. Justin sets four flutes down on the seaman’s chest that doubles as coffee table in the sitting room.
‘It’s harder to find a place with a not outdoorsy person, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘We can’t exactly spread Susie at Searcys Bar at St Pancras. We should ask Finlay what he wants, too.’
‘He’d not care,’ Ed says.
‘I think he would. Either way, he deserves a say.’
‘If he didn’t go to the crematorium to claim the urn, how arsed can he be?’
‘He lives in the States. What opportunities did he have if you’d already claimed it?’
Ed double-takes.
‘What exactly went on in Edinburgh to turn you from “the psycho brother’s trying to embezzle a fortune” to “he would care, he’s a sensitive model – slashie – quack who looks great in patent meggings”?’ Ed says, in a squeaky impression of my voice. ‘Or have I answered my own question?’
‘Okay, I’ve had enough of this, fuck this,’ Hester says, voice like a scalpel through the air, making everyone’s hairs stand on end.
‘Enough of what?’ Ed says, warily.
‘You obsessing over her,’ Hester says, pointing at me but not looking at me.
A grisly hush descends.
38
‘You’re having, or have had, an affair, am I right?’ she says, arms crossed.
She’s vibrating in that way that someone does when on the incredible high of unleashing something destructive they’ve been holding back.
Ed, the colour of a beef tomato, says: ‘No!’
‘Definitely no,’ I say, clearing my throat.
It feels as if the whole world has hit mute on background noise while this moment plays out in cinematic Dolby surround sound.
‘Oh, like I’d believe a word you say,’ Hester says to me, looking at me now: ‘With your big sad eyes and your oh-so-witty asides, trying to position yourself as the sad perma-single cat lady, a Pound Shop Velma. You’re a fucking menace in polka dots, sister.’
Justin, halfway through unwrapping champagne bottle foil, has bulging eyes like the time he took too many psychotropics at Glastonbury. We’re collectively experiencing a sensation like we’re plunging down a lift shaft.
‘Woah, don’t talk to Eve like that!’ Justin says: ‘Have your barney with Ed, but don’t drag us into it.’
‘You missed the part where she dragged her-fucking-self into it!’ Hester screams at Justin, and we shrink back.
‘What were you arguing about, at the wake?’ she continues, looking from me to Ed. ‘I walked up to you, something intense was going on. Ed was looking defensive. When I reached you, you both stopped and pretended nothing was up. Then Eve was so wound up she tore a strip off me, for no reason.’
I take half a second to admire how she’s making sure that’s not forgotten.
‘It had been a long day. We were both exhausted. I can’t even remember, I think it was some admin thing …’ Ed blusters.
‘Admin thing. That couldn’t be shared with me? Do I seem as if I’m going to be palmed off that easily, Ed? Do you think I’m stupid? It was a wake for one of your best friends. You’d done a reading, that she wrote,’ she looks at me, as if that in itself is suspicious. ‘I can’t see a reason for you to have had words, at