‘Tawrie, please—’
‘Please what?’ She turned to face him. It was hard to get the words out with her throat narrowed with emotion. ‘You keep saying that, but I only wanted to say goodbye, for us to end calmly. You look gutted but you can’t choose someone else and be devastated. That’s not fair on any of us. That’s not how it works.’ She paused, her next words were whispered and he listened, closely. ‘The news that you’re getting married landed like a dagger in my chest. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you in the street in the summer and wave politely, thinking of what might have been while you visit Corner Cottage with your wife.’ She drew breath, her words genuine and ones that crawled around her thoughts when there was a lull in her day. ‘Which, incidentally, if I stand on the little stool in the bathroom and look out of the window, I can see the roof of. Or if I look from the landing I can see the bedroom window. How do I do it, Ed?’ She hated this open admission, it wasn’t what she had intended, but she couldn’t stop. It was too much, all of it. ‘How do I switch off how I feel? I think going away is the very best thing for me for a million reasons.’ She stood to leave. There was no point in continuing this exchange.
‘Sit down. Please, Taw. Just sit down. Please.Just for a minute.’ He pointed at the bench and she sat, feeling she owed him this at least, his chance to get a neat goodbye. ‘I’ve told Petra, and I moved out the day we left here.’
She wished she didn’t feel the flicker of joy at this news. It did Petra, innocent in the whole deception, a great disservice and was confusing. This was supposed to be goodbye.
‘Is she okay?’
‘Yes, I think so. Her mother has moved in. I’ve been staying with my aunt. I want to show you something.’ He twisted on the bench to face her and she took the opportunity to stare at his lovely face.
‘What is it?’ Despite her best resolution, she was curious.
He reached into the confines of his backpack, resting against the bench, and pulled out a couple of sheets of folded paper.
‘I’m in no mood for reading a letter, and if it’s a birthday present of some kind, then I don’t really want one from you, Ed, and I mean that kindly.’ It was too painful; the thought of having a memento to pore over in his absence, inhaling the paper for the faintest whiff of his touch in her low moments. Even the thought was pitiful.
‘You’re going to want to make time to read this.’ He squished up next to her, his thigh touching hers, his arm alongside her arm, and just this physical proximity was enough to send a shiver of longing through her bones.
‘I really don’t want to, Ed.’ She knew that any words of promise would only haunt her in the quiet hours and make her question her resolve; words that might pluck the string of loneliness that provided the saddest background music to her life.
‘They’re not my words.’ He ran his fingertips over the flimsy sheets. ‘They’re my mum’s.’
‘Your mum’s?’ She turned to face him, his mouth closer now and she felt her gut bunch with a visceral longing to kiss him.
‘Yes, from her diary, when she and Dad moved down and my sister and I were sent to stay with my aunty for a bit. That summer I told you about.’
That summer. . .
‘It was such a weird time for Dilly and me, unsettling, odd. We were told it was our forever home.’ He swallowed. ‘I remember they’d tried to recreate the bedrooms we’d left and I was just happy to be back with my mum and dad, and over the moon to be by the seaside. Until it all went pear-shaped.’
‘What happened?’ It was still an odd thought, that had his family stayed, he would have been a boy on her doorstep, like Needle, always there.
‘What happened is all in her diary. I’ve read it – we read it together, and I wrote some paragraphs out. You have to see them.’
‘I’m not looking at words from your mother’s diary! That’s like ... no! It’s such a personal thing. I’d hate the thought of anyone looking at something I’d written in confidence.’
‘Do you write a diary?’ He stared at her.
‘No, but that’s not the point.’
‘The thing is, Tawrie Gunn, it’s not only her story of that summer, it’s mine, and it’s yours too in places.’
‘What d’you mean? How is it mine?’
‘I want to read you something.’
He was making little sense. ‘Ed, I haven’t got time, I need to ...’ Her mind couldn’t think quickly enough of a place or chore on which to hang her lie.
‘What you need to do is listen. Trust me.’ He fixed her with a stare before unfolding the paper and coughing gently to clear his throat.
With the sheets balanced in his right palm, he took his time, reading slowly, as each word painted a picture that took her right back, the description enough to help her remember, and her face broke into a smile.
‘“Met the lovely Annalee Gunn today, my neighbour. A woman infatuated and desperately in love with her husband, Dan. I cried like an idiot. She was very sweet to me. I like her. She brought her daughter, Tawrie, who according to Bear was the worst playmate – her inability to play on the Nintendo 64 and her lack of interest in football consigning them to never be friends! At least he and Dills will know someone when they start school, even if it’s just to nod at in the corridor or to stand next to in the lunch queue ...”’
There was so much to mentally unravel; she put her hand over her mouth, laughing while tears gathered.
‘She met my mum! She said she was lovely!’ It was a surprise to hear and strangely comforting too. ‘And that bit about my dad, read it again!’
