‘A craft market?’ said Imogen, surprised.
‘You’ll enjoy that.’
‘But what about our picnic and the boat?’
‘We always go to the park,’ said Henry, lightly. ‘It will be nice to do something different.’
I should tell her, he thought, but she’ll never understand. She was looking at him like he’d gone mad. Perhaps I have, thought Henry. I imagine you do go mad when you’re trying to stop your death. How could you not?
‘But the picnic,’ insisted Imogen. ‘All that food.’
‘We can have that tonight,’ he said patiently. ‘I’d really like to go to the art exhibition.’
Imogen looked at the picnic food on the table.
‘Well,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I suppose if that’s what you want.’
Henry wondered what Imogen had ever seen in Jim. What could be so appealing about a weather-beaten workman in grubby jeans? He had a full head of hair, Henry thought jealously. That probably helped. Henry supposed he was a bit of rough. Women seemed to like that. Except Rita, who would never have let a grubbily dressed workman into her bedsit. Rita had taste.
‘I’ll have some toast, I think,’ said Henry.
With the day‘s plans sorted he could now relax.
Chapter Forty-Five
Much to Henry’s disappointment the art exhibition only held ten paintings. It took them forty-five minutes to stroll around and study them. Some of the paintings were so small that Henry wondered why the artist had even bothered. Had they been short on canvas, he’d asked Imogen. Or perhaps there was some point to them, and Henry just couldn’t see it. There was a painting of a boat which unnerved him greatly. The contrasting colours and the bright blue of the sea somehow disorientated him. He just wanted the day to pass quickly while at the same time not wanting the day to move at all.
After the exhibition they lingered a while in the pie shop, but the meaty fillings had no flavour for Henry. They weren’t as good as Rita’s sample pies. Imogen seemed bored and fiddled with her complimentary glass of cider. Neither of them was a cider drinker. Henry imagined that Jim was. He seemed the pie and cider type.
‘Shall we go to the craft market?’ Imogen asked, breaking into his thoughts. After that, they would get the bus home and it would pass by the park. Surely, thought Henry, it was safe to drive past?
Fortunately, the craft fair was more interesting for Imogen. She browsed the flamboyant stalls, while Henry observed the milling throng of women as they tried on kaftans and oohed over earrings. It was too busy for Henry. He’d never liked crowds, they made him claustrophobic. It was just a huge swell of humanity and sweat invading your space and senses. Still, mused Henry, it was passing the time, passing the time of his passing. The thought made him smile. He then realised he’d never really known the time of his passing. He’d just presumed it had been in the afternoon and most likely before four, because he and Imogen never went boating later than that. He checked his watch for the umpteenth time. It seemed like time had barely moved. Why, when you want the day to go faster it doesn’t, and when you want it to go slower it simply races by? Like that strange conundrum of struggling to wake up on a work day and then, at weekends, when you could lie in, you always seem to wake early. Life is odd, thought Henry. He made the decision that after today was over, he would live every day as though it were his last. There was still time to enjoy it. He’d do all those things he was always saying he’d do. Take a photography course, visit America, and take a ride in a hot air balloon. Live life on the edge would be his motto. No one would be able to say that Henry wasted a single moment. Half an hour later Imogen joined him in the seating area.
‘I’m gasping,’ she said. ‘Everything is so overpriced here. I didn’t buy anything.’
‘Well, you can,’ said Henry generously.
‘A cuppa would be nice.’
‘We’ll have tea in that little tea shop next door, shall we?’
The tea shop, however, was overflowing with women from the craft fair, drinking mugs of tea and eating chips with greasy sausages. Henry looked distastefully at the plastic tablecloths with tomato ketchup in red plastic squeeze bottles sitting on them and turned to Imogen.
‘I don’t think there’s a free table,’ he said.
A waitress approached them in a grease-smeared apron.
‘It’s a twenty-minute wait,’ she said in a bored voice. Henry barely heard her over the screeching laughter of the excited women. He could have suggested Pansies, but it would have reminded him too much of Rita and his death. Thankfully in a few hours the day would be over, and he wouldn’t have to think about his death any more.
‘We could have tea back home,’ suggested Imogen, sensing Henry’s discomfort. ‘I bought a Battenberg cake.’
The words were like a salve to Henry’s frayed nerves. It would be rather nice to go home, he thought, back to the peace and quiet. His watch said three-thirty. They’d have to wait for the bus, and it would take a while to get back. Traffic was always horrendous on a Saturday so it would be well gone four by the time they reached home. It would be far too late to consider a visit to the park.
I’ve nearly done it, thought Henry, struggling to hold down his elation.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Let’s have tea at home.’
Chapter Forty-Six
