“I think that’s a really wise move, Sam. Did you unfriend him on Facebook as well, cover all the bases?”
“I don’t have Facebook, Mum, that’s for old people!” he says, sounding amused.
“I have Facebook…”
“Exactly!”
“What happened to not being a dick?” I ask.
“Well, it comes and goes…there’s a car park over there. Can I have some money so I can get you a Christmas present? Or to put towards the money I’ve got left so I can get you a Christmas present that isn’t a lip balm?”
I pull into the car park and find a spot, sighing with relief when I switch the engine off. There is no snow this morning, but the air is frigid and the sky is clear, and it feels like it could start again at any moment.
I pass Ollie a £20 note, telling him I’m a cheap date, and then turn to face him.
“So, what happened with Sophie and Dan?” I ask.
“Well, I don’t know all the details, but basically their dad died in a car crash four years ago. Four years ago yesterday, actually. And his sister, their auntie – that was Archie’s wife, Sandy – was in the car with him. She was pregnant with Meg and their dad was taking her to hospital because she thought she was in labour, but after the accident, only the baby survived. So the day Meg was born was the day her mum died, and Sophie and Dan’s dad as well. It’s completely shit, isn’t it?”
I stare at him, blinking rapidly as I try and process what he’s just told me, as all the sad pieces of a tragic puzzle start to come together. Lilly and Meg’s mum died on Meg’s birthday…and Connie’s husband, too. George is their grandad, and I recall the copy of theFaraway Treethat used to belong to a child called Sandy, realising that George must have lost two children in the same accident.
I can’t even begin to imagine the torment that any of them went through – Connie and Archie losing their partners; the children losing parents; George losing his own babies. And then having to celebrate Meg’s birthday every single year, on the anniversary of so much loss and pain. It is all too excruciating to contemplate – to imagine having to go to a princess and pirate party on a day when that memory is weighing so heavily upon you.
Without any warning at all, I burst into tears. Not the gentle, sad kind, but the big, desperate sobbing kind. So much makes sense now – Archie needing a few minutes alone on the beach; the way that the three of them seemed to be comforting each other last night. George’s caution about the roads. A little girl called Lilly, desperate for someone to take her to the ladies’.
Sam looks alarmed, and immediately takes off his seatbelt and tries to hug me across the gear stick. He pats my hair and mutters consoling words, and eventually pulls away once the torrent seems to pass. I am aware that I am now a soggy mess, and root around in the glove box for a tissue that doesn’t exist. I settle for swiping my face clear with the back of my hand, and taking some deep breaths.
“Sorry, love,” I say, realising that he still looks worried, “that was just…a lot. They all seem so nice, so welcoming and happy – and all of that is going on beneath the surface. How do they do that? How do you get over something like that?”
“I don’t know, Mum…I mean, I have the life experience of a garden pea really, don’t I? The saddest thing that ever happened to me was getting dumped. I don’t know what it’s like to lose a parent – unless you count one moving to Cardiff – and I definitely don’t know what it’s like to have kids. I mean, Sophie and Dan seemed to be all right, but maybe they’re just really good at faking it? I shouldn’t have said anything – I know you’re thinking about your dad a lot at the moment, and I know you were only little when he died too…”
He looks devastated, like he is now on the verge of tears himself, and that is enough – enough to pull me back from the brink of starting all over again myself. I reach out and straighten his cap, stroke his cheek and give him a little kiss.
“Babe, no, don’t think like that – better I bawl my eyes out in front of you than them, eh? Anyway, you know I’m a wuss – I even cry atGuardians of the Galaxy! It was just…a shock. And yes, I have been thinking about my own dad as well, so that might be part of it – that and Gran leaving; I think I’m like one giant exposed nerve at the moment. Anyway. This isn’t very festive, is it? Sitting in a car park crying?”
“True,” he replies, then sets his cap back to jaunty, “but how aboutnow?”
“Yeah. That’s better. Look, how about we meet up here again in a couple of hours? I’ve got a few bits to get, and wouldn’t mind a wander anyway.”
“Cool. I can explore the local fleshpots.”
“You do that, love – I’m sure Dorchester is full of them.”
I make him put his big coat on and shoo him away. I watch him disappear into unknown streets, and once I’m sure he’s gone, I let myself sink back into my seat. Now I am alone, I feel the tears starting again, and I let them come.
I cry for my lost dad, and I cry for my missing mum, and I cry for myself – but most of all, I cry for Archie, and those two little girls, and the mother who will never get to see them grow up.
ELEVEN
I bring my purchases back up to my room: Sam’s new headphones, a few other bits and bobs, some extra stuff I’d decided to buy on a whim.
Dorchester was a lovely place, but I hadn’t exactly been feeling on top of the world after Sam’s revelations. Now, I’m back here and I’m trying to pull myself together. This is not my grief, and although it has unleashed some deeply repressed sadness of my own, I have no right to impose it on anyone else. We repress this stuff for a reason.
I find myself picking that book up again, tracing my fingers over the name “Sandy”, and wondering what she was like. Poor Meg – having to grow up beneath that shadow, knowing that the day she was born was also the day her mother was lost.
I shake my head, give myself another telling off, and go to gaze out of the window. The room looks out across the village green and over the buildings to the sea. It is a beautifully clear day, with vivid blue skies, and I think I could probably stand here and stare out at this view all afternoon.
I can see that things are heating up on the green – in a freezing cold kind of way. There are maybe thirty people milling around, and a trestle table set up on the patio of the café that is filled with what I presume are snowman-building accessories. I spot scarves, mittens, bobble hats, giant plastic sunglasses and crowns, boxes of tangled jewellery, lumps of coal. Beneath the table sit the twigs that Archie was collecting last night, and at the side of the café, huge drifts of snow that seem to have gathered against it like a sand dune. Everything you could possibly need to create your own icy masterpiece.
