‘Want to talk about your sugar addiction?’
‘What?’
She smiled, her face lighting up again. ‘The pick n mix.’
‘Oh yes.’ I smiled back. ‘I am partial to a fizzy cola bottle.’
‘Well you’re in luck because I’ve brought the snacks today.’ She opened the bag on her lap and dug around inside, then pulled out several packets of sweets, one at a time, laying them on the bench between us. ‘Tangfastics, Fruit Pastilles, Maltesers and…’ she pulled the last one out with a flourish ‘…blackcurrant and liquorice in case you want something a bit more grown up.’
‘Blimey, you don’t do things by halves do you?’ I said, picking up the Tangfastics. ‘Can I open these?’
‘Go for it,’ she said with a wave. I opened the packet and held them out to her. ‘You choose first,’ she said. I pulled out a few then handed them to her, and we both sat quietly chewing for a few moments. It was strangely relaxing.
‘So, you said this place was a special to you,’ she said, finally.
‘It is.’
‘Want to tell me about it?’
Did I? Usually I hated talking about Dawn to anyone who’d never met her. Nothing I said ever conveyed how much she’d meant to me, how much we’d shaped each other.
‘This was the place I met Dawn,’ I said, tipping my head back and fixing my gaze on the peeling paint of the ceiling. ‘We were only sixteen, just babies, and we went to different schools. But we used to come here and hang out in the evenings, me and my mates, and one night she was here with some of her friends and – well, that was it. I couldn’t see anyone else. It was all about her.’ I stopped, remembering the moment I first saw her. The way she consumed my thoughts from the moment I laid eyes on her; the way she shone.
Could it be something about this place, some sort of supernatural force surrounding it, that meant it would always be the place where magic happened? I shook my head.Don’t be so ridiculous.
I turned to look at Emma. ‘Dawn was the love of my life and I haven’t really felt alive since she died.’Until now, I wanted to say, but it was too much too soon.
She raised her eyes to meet mine. ‘What happened?’
‘She had ovarian cancer. We thought she was pregnant. We were trying to get pregnant, had talked about nothing else for months and months. We’d even picked out names and colours for the nursery, had talked about what our future child mightbe like. Would they have my eyes or Dawn’s? Would they be tall, short, skinny, blonde, or dark? It was all we could think about and we couldn’t wait to be parents. But then… well, Dawn was unwell for quite a while, it turned out the bloating and the sickness were not, in fact, to do with forming a new life, but taking one away.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
I nodded, my words stuck in my throat.
Emma looked back out at the park again and I did the same. The dampness had turned to a light drizzle. ‘Greg died in an accident at work.’ Her voice was quieter than before, and I had to lean close to hear her properly. ‘He was a tree surgeon and fell from his harness. He… he died on impact.’
‘Oh, that’s horrendous,’ I said.
She gave a little shake of her head as if to say,I don’t want to talk about it.‘It was bad enough coming to terms with that, but in the first few weeks after his death I tortured myself with the words I’d said to him as he left that morning. “Maybe I should find someone who gives a shit about having a baby with me, then.”’
She sniffed and wiped her hand across her cheek. ‘Sorry. I don’t talk about this very often.’
‘You don’t need to apologise for anything.’
She shook her head. ‘Anyway. This house is my fresh start. I thought I wanted to stay in the house where we’d lived together, but in the end it was too hard, seeing all the places that reminded me of him.’
‘I still live in the house where Dawn died.’ I looked up at her. ‘Do you think that’s maudlin?’
‘Not in the slightest. It’s whatever works for you.’
A shout from the park distracted me and I looked away to watch a group of children on bikes passing. I waited until they’dgone before I spoke again. ‘They remind me of me when I was that age.’
‘Who does?’
I nodded towards the park. ‘Those kids.’
She looked out across the grass and a frown flitted across her forehead. ‘It’s a nice place to hang out.’
