The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(24)

They shuffle round to clear a seat for me beside Jonah, all of them trying not to stare but anxious to make me feel welcome. Tea is poured for me by the woman opposite; Camilla, she tells me as she places the cup down. She is thankfully unfussy, a tight smile and a nod of comradeship.

‘This is Lydia,’ Jonah says, looking grim.

They all nod.

‘I’m Maud,’ an older woman on Jonah’s other side leans forward and half shouts, fiddling with her hearing aid. If I were to guess her age, I’d have said at least ninety. ‘My husband, Peter, fell off the roof trying to adjust the TV aerial twenty-two years ago.’

‘Oh,’ I say, taken aback. ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

Judging by the braced faces of the others around the table, I’d say this isn’t the first they’ve heard about Peter’s misfortune.

‘Don’t be, I wasn’t. He’d been having how’s-your-father with the woman who worked in the butcher’s for a good ten years.’

Wow. This isn’t what I was expecting at all.

‘Cake?’

I turn to the lady on my other side, grateful for the intervention.

‘It’s apple and date. I made it this morning.’ She holds the plate out. ‘I’m Nell.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, reaching for a paper plate. I’m not sure if I’m thanking her for the cake or for saving me from the pressure of finding a suitable reply. I’m soothed by her quiet presence. She reminds me a little of my mum both in age and stature, and her wedding ring tells me she’s married. Or else, she was.

‘Sorry about Maud,’ she says under her breath as she slides cake on to my plate. ‘You can imagine how much help she was during the mindfulness session earlier.’

She catches my eye and I’m relaxed by her humour.

‘There’re some books,’ Camilla says. Her cheeks stain dull red, as if the effort of speaking up costs her. ‘I found this one especially useful.’ She touches the cover of one of several grief-related books scattered around the table. ‘In the early days, anyway.’

‘I haven’t found reading easy lately,’ I say. ‘I’ve always loved a book, fiction mostly, but my mind just doesn’t seem to be able to retain a story any more.’ I’m not sure where the urge to share came from, but there you go.

‘It’ll come back,’ she says. ‘For a while this stuff was all I could read, but it gets easier.’ She runs her fingers over a string of pearls around her neck. ‘It does.’

I reach for the book she recommended, grateful.

‘How about you, Jonah?’ Nell asks. ‘Do you read?’

‘I do,’ he says. ‘I’m an English teacher, so it kind of comes with the territory.’ He swallows. ‘I’m struggling with music, mostly.’

This is news to me. Music is Jonah’s thing: playing it, listening to it, writing it.

‘I couldn’t watch TV after Peter died,’ Maud shouts. ‘Silly sod snapped the aerial.’

I’m torn between laughing and wanting to throttle her.

‘It’s understandable,’ Camilla says, looking at Jonah. ‘You probably still connect it to the accident.’

I can’t make the link in my head. I’m not sure how much the others round the table have heard about Freddie from Jonah before I arrived, so I break off a piece of cake and let the conversation wash around me.

‘Yeah.’ Jonah scrubs his hands over his face. ‘I can’t listen to the radio any more.’

‘Give it time.’ Nell must have noticed his hands were shaking too because she pushes a slice of cake towards him.

‘Why do you connect music to the accident?’ I ask, my eyes trained on Jonah.

‘His pal was changing the radio station in his car,’ Maud butts in, too loud. ‘Not looking where he was going.’

I struggle to find words in my throat to ask Jonah if it’s true.

‘But at the inquest …’ I tail off, because it dawns on me that there’s more going on here than I realize.

An uncomfortable silence falls around the table, and Jonah raises his face to study the peeling paint on the ceiling. ‘I didn’t think you were coming,’ he says. ‘You were late, I didn’t think you were coming.’ And then he turns and looks me in the eye, his voice low and only for me. ‘He was just messing around trying to find something to sing to, Lyds. You know what he was like.’

I frown, even though I know full well what he means. Freddie approached driving in the same way he approached everything else in life: full tilt. His car was a sporty model with a throaty exhaust and he liked his music cranked up loud, singing with more enthusiasm than his voice warranted.

‘But at the inquest you said he didn’t do anything wrong. I sat there and I heard you say he didn’t do anything wrong.’ I hear my voice ratchet through the scales towards high-pitched.

‘I didn’t want …’ he says, so quiet it’s a strain to hear him. ‘I didn’t want them to say he died because of careless driving.’

‘Not as careless as falling off the roof,’ Maud sniffs, reaching for her tea.

I shoot her a look, ready to snap, but I don’t. She’s not the real reason my heart is thumping. Jonah and I stare at each other. I wonder what else he hasn’t told me.