Truly Madly Guilty(38)

‘What choice do I have?’ said Clementine.

‘Of course you have a choice, Clementine; it will be your biological child. It’s a big thing to ask. You don’t –’

‘Mum,’ said Clementine. ‘Think about it.’ For once she was the unequivocal one. Her mother hadn’t been there at the barbeque. Her mother didn’t have those ghastly images burned forever across her memory.

She watched her mother think about it, and come to the same conclusion.

‘I see what you mean,’ she said uneasily.

‘I’m going to do it,’ said Clementine fast, before her mother could speak. ‘I’m going to say yes. I have to say yes.’





chapter nineteen



‘Are you okay? You’re not still upset about our friend Harry?’ said Vid, lying next to Tiffany in their dark bedroom while the rain continued its incessant soundtrack.

Thanks to their red velvet ‘absolute blackout’ curtains Tiffany could see absolutely nothing but black. Normally the darkness felt luxurious, like a hotel room, but tonight it felt suffocating. Like death. There was too much death on her mind these days.

Although she couldn’t see Vid in their king-sized bed, she knew he would be lying flat on his back, his hands crossed behind his head like a sunbaker. He slept the entire night like that without changing position. It still made Tiffany laugh after all these years. It was such a casual, confident, aristocratic approach to sleep. You may approach, sleep. So very Vid.

‘He wasn’t our friend, was he?’ said Tiffany. ‘That’s the point. He was our neighbour but he wasn’t our friend.’

‘He didn’t want to be our friend, you know,’ Vid reminded her.

It was true that if Harry had been at all interested in friendship with them he would have got it. Vid was open to friendship with anyone he encountered in his daily life: baristas and barristers, service station attendants and cellists.

Definitely cellists.

If Harry had been a different sort of old man they would have had him over all the time and they would have noticed his absence so much sooner.

Soon enough to have saved his life? Today, the police had told Oliver and Tiffany that it seemed most likely that Harry had either fallen down the stairs, or had a stroke or heart attack and perhaps had fallen as a result. There would be a coroner’s inquest. It seemed like a formality. The police were going through a process; ticking off the boxes.

‘He probably died instantly,’ the policeman told Tiffany, but how would he know? He had no medical expertise. He was just saying it to make her feel better.

Anyway, let’s be practical, even if they had been Harry’s friends, they wouldn’t have been over there every five minutes. He’d probably still be dead; he just wouldn’t be quite as dead as he was today. He’d got deader and deader over the weeks it took before they noticed. She gagged at the sickly sweet sensory memory. A smell had never made her vomit before. Well, she’d never smelled death before.

Oliver was an accountant. He probably hadn’t smelled death either, but while she’d been sick in Harry’s sandstone pot (Harry would have been furious), white-faced Oliver had calmly made the necessary phone calls, rubbed her back and offered her a clean, precisely folded white tissue from his pocket. ‘Unused,’ he promised. Oliver was the man to have around in a crisis. A man with a tissue and a conscience. The guy was a freaking hero.

‘Oliver is a freaking hero,’ she said out loud, even though she knew Vid probably didn’t need to hear any more about Oliver’s freaking heroism.

‘He is a good man,’ said Vid patiently. He yawned. ‘We should have them over.’ He said it automatically and now he must surely be lying there thinking of the last time they’d had them over.

‘Hey, I know! Let’s have them over for a barbeque!’ said Tiffany. ‘Great idea! Wait, haven’t they got some really nice friends? Isn’t one of them a cellist?’

‘That’s not funny,’ said Vid, and he sounded profoundly sad. ‘That’s not even a little bit funny.’

‘Sorry,’ said Tiffany. ‘Sick joke.’

‘For coffee?’ said Vid sadly. ‘We can have Erika and Oliver over for coffee, can’t we?’

‘Go to sleep,’ said Tiffany.

‘Yes, boss,’ said Vid, and within seconds she heard his breathing slow. He could go to sleep in an instant, even on those nights when she knew he was upset or angry or worried about something. Nothing ever affected that man’s sleep or his appetite.

‘Wake up,’ she whispered, but if she woke him he would keep talking and he’d been up since five that morning with the aquatic centre project. One of his boys had got sick and he was worried he’d underquoted. The man needed his sleep.

She turned on her side and tried to calmly sort her way through all the things that were churning through her mind.

Number one. Finding Harry’s body today. Not a nice experience, but get over it. Harry was probably happy to be dead. He seemed like a man who was done with living. So move right along.

Number two. Dakota. Everyone – Vid, Dakota’s teacher, Tiffany’s sisters – all said that Dakota was fine. It was all in Tiffany’s head. Maybe it was. She would continue to monitor.

Number three. The Information Morning at Dakota’s new school tomorrow. Feelings of resentment (don’t you send me emails reminding me that ATTENDANCE IS COMPULSORY, how dare you talk to me in capital letters) probably related to subconscious feelings of inferiority over the snooty school and other parents. Get over yourself. It’s not about you. It’s about Dakota.