Nora leaves Josie’s cottage to iron out her own life; hers and Robin’s. To get back to him, put things right. Her mother is still asleep next door when she steps onto the driveway at six thirty, the curtains drawn. There was no right moment to say anything the night prior when it was all about Jon, and then Bren, so she tries to communicate with her now, via text, on the train home.
Josie told me, is all she can manage. And then,I love you, which is something they do not say. And she can see that Freya has read it due to the double ticks and must not know how to respond because there is no reply, no three waving dots, but then she sends her a single photograph, of the tomatoes in her greenhouse, red and shining.
Survived the Spotted Wilt, she tells her.I’ll make you my tomato jam.
Which is enough for now.
Because there is time, Nora decides. An entire lifetime to say what needs saying to her mother, but for now she has something to say to someone else. Something to ask. Something to finalise, once and for all, as the train pulls into the station and terminates and her life feels like a drum roll, steady and quick-paced and building towards this next part, all change, please, all change.
_
She gets home early, like she’d promised. She’d tried to reach him that morning but his phone was still off. Out of charge, maybe, rather than because he still won’t speak to her. She left him messages to explain all that had happened last night, while he’d been with Goose. And despite everything, she feels calm. Knows – hopes – that right now, the morning after, she’ll be able to resolve everything.
The front door is not double locked, which surprises her; he’s beaten her home. Inside, though, she is met with a distinct quiet. No radio, or sound of the shower. Slither of a morning moon as she hangs up her keys. Says Robin? to no reply.
But there he is, sleeping on the sofa, with his laptop shut on his stomach. She crosses the threshold and sits down beside him; puts her hand over his.
It’s me, she says, and he stirs. I thought you were with Goose.
His eyes are still closed, and he sounds half asleep, still, like he’s struggling to rouse himself. She pushes his fringe back from his forehead. Tender, and gentle.
Came home after midnight, he says. Strange dreams.
Nora nods, though he can’t see her. Her thumb, calloused from her needle, caressing his own.
I’m so sorry, Robin, she says. About everything.
And at this, he opens one eye.
I’m not pulling back, she promises. I know there has been stuff … to explain. But it’s good stuff. Not bad, secret stuff.
The silence between them is soft, like the velvet sofa beneath them. The sofa they took so long to pick out. A day in Ikea, to no avail, then the British Heart Foundation. In the end, an old furniture store closing down withReduced!posters in its windows, this one, it’s the one, how do you know, I justknow, Nora, don’t you?
Robin laces his long fingers through hers, in response. And it is this that tells her there will be no more fighting, this morning, which she was afraid there might have been. Would have faced into, if needed.
I promise, she says, when he has still not said anything.
How was, Robin asks, and fails, because there isn’t a verb for what happened; he must have read her messages, after all, listened to her voicemails.
Scattering the ashes of my long-dead neighbour who had an affair with my mother? Nora says, and Robin, bemused, says yes; he’s closed his eye again.
Revealing, she says. I’ve got a lot to tell you.
Robin makes a noise as if to say he’s listening, but she says not now. That she has something to show him, first.
She feels her mood lift as she says it. Feels the moment she’d been putting off – because she’d wanted to savour it, make it right – gradually arrive, like the sun rising after a long night. But Robin does not move. Seems close to sleep again.
Robin, she says, and he says mm? And she’s going to say what’s the matter. But she knows, already; can’t expect him to feel fine, after the last few weeks. The unexpected proposal, the planning and cancelling of a wedding, the adrenaline and the stress and the hurt on top of all the work and travel he’s always doing, shooting on location, editing back home, new clients, old ones. Devon. Easter. Their fight in Freya’s porch, after what he’d overheard. Which she can make right, if he’ll let her, this minute.
So she stands up, tugs on his hand.
Robin, she says, gently. Come on.
My head, he says.
She stares down at him, at their linked hands. His shirt is unbuttoned and she can see the snail trail of dark hair fromhis belly button, disappearing beneath the band of his jeans. You’ve still got a headache?
Really bad, he says.
