He waved a copy of a thick book titledSmash It! Six Significant Steps to Change your Lifewith a half-hearted smirk.
In the event there was only one person ahead of them in the queue – the man with the armpits. He, however, had as much chat for Son Masters as a whole queue full of people.
‘What you were saying – it could have beenwrittenfor me … I just can’t get over it – it was bob on! I kept saying, “Col, this man’s got a direct line to your life!”’
Son Masters grinned amiably, seemingly oblivious to Pat and Tiffany queuing behind. At this rate, Pat thought, they’d still be here when the library shut. If Tiffany was getting impatient, she wasn’t showing it in her face, she was alternating between scrolling on her phone and listening to Col’s excited chatter with an expression of keen attention. Could it be, Pat wondered, she was actually finding all this guff interesting?
To take her mind off her irritation Pat picked up a copy ofSmash It! Six Significant Steps to Change Your Life. Self-published, she noted. Inside the glossy volume there seemed to be a lot of complicated-looking flow charts more suited to a boiler manual than a self-help book. Plus, a lot of lurid green captions –Remember: no is yes! Look at what IS, not at what ISN’T!’ All in all, £17.99 seemed a lot to fork out for a book about life mastery written by a man who couldn’t even stem a flow of enthusiastic burble from an admirer. Thumbing through to the front something on the title page hit her, two simple words that grabbed her attention more effectively than any one of the flow charts or captions.
To Davey.
‘I mean work at the moment is just so horrendous.’ Col’s plaintive tones made her look up. ‘A real culture of toxicity.’
The amiable smile froze. Without changing, Son’s face changed. Suddenly there was a sadness, as palpable as the air-conditioning. ‘Society,’ said Son in even tones, ‘can be so – you know –judgy, so …’ He shook his head and his words tailed off. Pat found herself wondering: could this amiable man be capable of bringing about a man’s death in some way, shape or form?
‘Hi, guys!’ Col was, at long last, retreating (carrying no less than three copies ofSmash It! Six significant steps to change your life) and Son was looking at them, face once more relaxed and amiable. Pat felt a stab of shock that she had absolutely no idea what to say to him.
On this point, however, she needn’t have worried.
‘Son! Hi! That wasamazing!’ Tiffany took a step forward, bright, confident, young – all the things that Pat wasn’t. ‘OMG!’
‘Thanks,’ said Son placidly.
‘I havegotto have a copy!’ Tiffany whipped out a credit card and Pat found herself wondering fleetingly what the balance on it was. ‘Can you sign it to Justin? He’s my partner – he’s the one who recommended I come. He’s worked with some people you know.’ She said two names that sounded like Fig Dicky and Oink Fee. Pat watched this performance in an awed silence. That must have been what all the scrolling on her phone was about.
Son was equally transfixed, eyes wide and bright under this torrent of affirmation.
‘And can I just say …’ Tiff’s face suddenly looked troubled, she dropped her hand lightly onto Son’s upper arm in a butterfly touch. ‘Ihopeyou don’t mind me saying – we both wanted to say, Pat and myself – how very sorry we were to hear about Davey.’
Once again, the face changed without physically changing. Now there was a lost quality to the smile, an emptiness behind the eyes. Whatever wonders six significant steps could bring to someone’s life it seemed none of them involved dealing with grief.
‘Thanks,’ said Son quietly.
Pat was flushed by a sudden impulse to take the lead in a comforting hug and she noticed Tiffany’s butterfly touch grow firmer.
‘I wonder,’ said Tiffany, ‘have you time for us to take you for a coffee?’
The absolutely heartbreaking thing was that Son Masters didn’t actually seem aware of how sad and lonely he was. Even now, some six months on, he didn’t seem to have done much beyond actually cremating his husband. Sitting with Tiffany and Pat in Jemima’s Pantry (the kettle’s always on, folks!), he spoke about moving forward and moving on, of the need to bag up Davey’s clothes, to box up his possessions, but he spoke as though as these were vaguely desirable life goals – not the bleak necessities that occur in the aftermath of death. Even Davey’s ashes were still in his utility room waiting for ‘the right head space’ for Son to go to Hisehope Reservoir. Pat felt more than a little awkward at this intrusion into someone’s obvious grief and could think of little she felt comfortable saying; Tiffany-Jane, however, had no such scruples.
‘It’s just so awful,’ she said. ‘Such a horrible,horriblething to happen. Going off the road like that …’
Son took a sip of rather pale coffee. ‘He wasn’t in a good place,’ he said softly.
Tiffany nodded. ‘Justin was saying he’d had a bad time at work.’ She spoke gently and her expression was soft and shining with sympathy. ‘I thought that was so awful—’
Son nodded. ‘He worked in a school and they’d had this inspection, and it hadn’t gone to plan,’ he said mildly. Pat mentally shook her head – talk about understating things! Was Son Masters always this laid-back?
‘I used to teach,’ she said. ‘Inspections can be awful things—’
Son shrugged. ‘I told Davey he shouldn’t let external judgements touch his inner validity.’
‘Very true,’ said Tiffany.
‘This adviser friend we know said the school should appeal, but his boss – Annie – she was very ill. She said to leave it. That was what bothered Davey. He felt he’d let her down.’ He shook his head.
‘I heard one of the inspectors was really awful,’ said Pat.
Son shrugged. ‘He was doing his job,’ he said. ‘He said what he had to say, I guess. I said to Davey, “Look, this is where the universeis.”’
