‘I’ve got a theory that it’s Claude who’s behind all this talk of a change,’ says Felix, throwing me a wink (a wink!). ‘She really doesn’t want to have to get into the sea.’
That gets a lot of laughs, too.
And, when Nick says he doesn’t much want me to have to get into the sea either, he’s rewarded with anahhthat makes us both smile, setting the press cameras off, which I’m sure will make Blake very happy.
‘You wouldn’t really have todoit though, would you?’ a white-haired woman in top-to-toe Sweaty Betty asks me.
‘I’ll absolutely have to do it,’ I tell her. ‘Special effects have come a long way, but not that far.’
‘You’ll make yourself ill,’ she says, aghast.
‘Par for the course on this movie,’ says Emma.
At which everyone laughs again.
It’s almost a quarter to one before the landlord of The Heaton Arms appears, jogging down the road and jovially enquiring as to whether anyone’s planning to come in for lunch, or if he should send the kitchen staff home. It turns out that a lot of thepeople out with us also have reservations (more laughter), so we head off as a group for the pub, and – against all the odds, in spite of all my worst expectations – it feels really friendly and nice.
There’s much more goodness in this world than bad, Mum said on the phone.
It’s easier to believe that here.
I haven’t forgotten everything in the news, though.
I know, without needing to ask, that neither Nick nor Emma nor Felix have either.
I’m certain that Nick and Felix must also be thinking about those photos in Sicily, and wondering how many of these people have scrolled through them over their breakfast.
I know I’m wondering which of them has read about my miscarriage.
But there’s only one woman who mentions it.
She approaches me as I’m about to follow the others into the pub.
‘Claudia?’ she says, stopping me with a tentative smile.
She’s about the same age as me, and is wearing a dark-green duffle coat that I noticed a while ago. (It’s that kind of coat.) She’s caught my eye a few times since, hovering at the back of everyone like she was trying to summon the courage to come forward.
I can hear from her voice how nervous she is now that she’s made herself do it.
Trying to put her at her ease, I tell her how much I love her coat, and she smiles again, thanking me.
We’re not alone. Nick’s just ahead of us, waiting for me in the pub doorway, and there are still a lot of people milling around in the lane behind us, not ready for the party to be over. The photographers are still with us, too, cameras poised, seemingly sensing something might be about to happen.
Go away,I wish I could tell them.
Just bloodygo.
I can’t do it, though. At least one of them would get a picture of me looking furious, and the photo would be everywhere in hours, probably accompanied by some pithy caption about me losing it.
The woman eyes the photographers uncertainly.
‘Ignore them,’ I tell her quietly. ‘It’s what I do.’
Again, that uneasy smile.
With a breath, she opens her mouth to speak, only to shut it again.
I’m curious, but not apprehensive, about whatever it is that she’s trying to get out.
