After the End(85)

“You’d be doing me a great favour. Left to my own devices I’ll have three courses and cheese, and I won’t be able to fit in the cockpit tomorrow.” He pats a stomach taut enough to bounce peas off.

Lars’s table is by the open doors onto the terrace, and he switches places to give me the view across the manicured lawns. A peacock struts by the side of a rectangular pool, its tail feathers sending up a thin cloud of dust in its wake. As I sit down, my phone vibrates in my hand, an insistent trill signalling yet another text from Max. I switch it to silent and turn it facedown on the table.

“Please do answer that, if you need to.”

“It’s OK. It’s just my husband.”

Love you so much and feel so lucky to have you. That isn’t a message sent to a one-night stand, or to a casual pickup seen when in town on business. He loves her. He feels lucky to have her. Lucky! Because she’s better than me, more attractive, more intelligent? Because she doesn’t have stretch marks, yet nothing to show for them? Doesn’t stare at nothing for hours at a time because she’s so broken inside and—

“Pip?” Lars is looking at me, curiously.

“Sorry?”

“I was saying it’s hard on relationships, being away such a lot.”

“Oh. Yes, sorry, I was somewhere else for a moment.” I look towards the open door, which perfectly frames a vast sky filled with orange and red. “Yes, it’s tough, but you get used to it.” By sleeping with someone else, in my husband’s case, I add silently. I accept a small glass of wine, and wish I could numb my senses with alcohol. Jada and the rest of the crew will be at Club Fluid by now. I feel a brief flash of envy for their uncomplicated lives.

“Are you married?” I ask.

“Widowed.” He gives a smile I know. A smile that doesn’t reach the eyes, that’s designed to make the questioner feel better, less awkward. A smile I recognise from the rare occasions I give a truthful answer to the question Do you have children? I had a son, I’ll say. He died when he was almost three years old. And I smile and move so swiftly on to some other topic that the other person would be forgiven for thinking that I was over it.

Only you don’t get over it, you simply get better at dealing with it. Better at hiding it. I hold Lars’s gaze, and I ask the question I always want to hear yet never do. I hear I’m so sorry, and How awful and That must have been terrible, but never something that gives Dylan life . . .

“What was her name?”

This time the smile reaches his eyes. “Maaike. She died when she was thirty-one. She fought cancer so many times, but the last time was too much.”

“I’m so sorry.” Emotion, never far from the surface, wells inside me. Thirty-one. Younger than I am now. It terrifies me to think how fragile life is, how easily our loved ones slip out of our lives. My fingertips find their way to my stomach. “Did you have children?”

Lars shakes his head. “We wanted to, but by the time we were ready, Maaike was already ill. She was a teacher, though, and she loved her children, so I think that helped a lot.” He scans my face. “But how have you been?”

And because he has spoken so easily about loss, without looking around to see who is listening, it feels natural for me to do the same.

“Up and down. I went to see my son’s doctor.”

It was Lars who suggested I speak to Dr. Khalili.

“It might give you some closure,” he said. Lars was a problem-solver, like Max. The comparison made me sad—I should have been talking to Max about the regret and guilt that plagues me, not a near stranger.

“Did it help?”

I think for a moment. “It was hard. I cried—we both did, actually. She said she doubted herself, too.” I see concern on Lars’s face. “I know, it sounds like that would make it worse, but it helped seeing her as . . .” I grapple for the perfect word. “Fallible.”

Lars is listening intently. “Will you keep talking to her?”

“No, I don’t think so.” I hesitate. “There’s no way of knowing what Dylan’s life would have been like, if we’d taken him to America. Even if there were, it’s too late. I need to look forward, not back.” With perfect timing, there’s a bubble of movement inside me.

“We all need reminding of that, from time to time,” Lars says.

The menu is Italian, and I order Caprese salad and mushroom risotto, promising a taste to Lars—who declares himself torn between the risotto and the grilled sole.

“It’s the best thing about the job, don’t you think? Dinner?” he says, as we tuck into our starters. I laugh, partly because there’s a twinkle in his eye which suggests he’s joking, but also because I’ve never seen someone so enthusiastic about food. He eyes up plates on other people’s tables, declaring that we chose wisely, and insisting I try a piece of his calamari starter that is seasoned to perfection.

“Do you like cooking?”

“Eating. I’m ashamed to say Maaike did all the cooking—I can’t make anything more complicated than a boiled egg.”

“Maybe you should learn. Do a course?”

“I’d like to. Time—isn’t that always the way? Maybe one day.”

“One day might never come.” Too late, I realise how morbid my words sound, but Lars looks at me seriously.