‘Right.’ Tim exhales. ‘Good. That’s done then.’
Spent, he rests his head back against his chair and, as his laboured breathing fills the room, I feel regret course through me – not because we haven’t yet spoken of the lone item onmyagenda, but because he’s so frail, and has seen, and lost, and suffered so much, and really can’t have much longer left, but has put himself through all this anyway. He’s done it because he’s afraid of us doing his lost friends a disservice by romanticising their history – that’s clear – and although I hope that we won’t, it suddenly feels like an unforgivable imposition that we’re shooting this movie at all.
I try to say that to him.
But he cuts me off, insisting that he’s glad we’re doing this, he doesn’t want any of them to be forgotten, and this way they never will be.
‘She wanted me to share their story,’ he says.
‘Imogen?’ I say, assuming that’s who he means.
‘What’s that?’
‘You were just telling us Imogen wanted you to share their story,’ says Roger.
‘Oh yes.’ Tim nods. ‘Such a lovely lady. Such an … imagination.’
I could probably ask him about her ending now.
It feels a good opportunity to bring it up.
But I don’t.
Neither Nick nor Felix jump in to do it either.
Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to weave into conversation, said Felix earlier in the pub.Hey, Tim, have you been lying about how your friends all died?
I was never going to actually phrase it like that, obviously. But I think we’ve all realised that none of us can phrase it any way, certainly not without upsetting Tim more.
If anyone’s going to mentionMabel’s Fury’s final flight, it has to be him.
I don’t expect him to do it, though.
I absolutely don’t.
It astounds me when, first letting go a long rasping sigh, hedoes.
‘I’m afraid she got confused about some of the things I told her,’ he says. ‘She mixed up where they happened.’ He pauses, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Iris and Robbie’s reunion, and all the different venues he gave Imogen for it.Honestly, I had Iris and Robbie bumping into one another everywhere.But then he talks on, more to himself, I feel, than any of us, saying, ‘We weren’t over the North Sea when Rob radioed Iris. We’d never have been able to get through from there. Rob had us back over land already.’
I stare.
Dimly, I’m aware of Nick and Felix doing the same.
And how still the three of us have turned.
I’m not sure we breathe.
Felix is the first one to break the silence.
‘Did you tell Imogen that?’ he asks.
‘What’s that?’ says Tim.
‘Did you tell Imogen?’ Felix repeats.
‘Tell her what?’
‘That you were already over land when you radioed Iris,’ Nick says, rediscovering his voice too.
