We Own the Sky(102)

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like saying goodbye or anything like that,” Anna says. “I don’t like even thinking that he’s here.”

“I know,” I say. “C’mon, let’s go,” and we walk, quicker this time.

We go to a pub in Hampstead, one of the places I used to come to before I took the train back to Cornwall.

“Are you okay coming here?” Anna asks.

“You mean with the drinking?”

“Yes.”

I laugh nervously. A little pulse of shame. “Yes, I am. But thanks.”

“Did you talk to anyone about it?” Anna says quietly, as we are waiting at the bar. “The drinking I mean.”

“No. I meant to, but I thought I would try to do it on my own. It’s been

difficult but, well, I’m managing so far.”

Anna smiles approvingly. “Well, I’m very proud of you. I’m sure it’s not

easy.”

“Thanks,” I say, and I realize I don’t like talking about my drinking because it makes me feel weak.

We order two roast dinners and two tonic waters and find a seat in a wood-paneled alcove.

“I see you’re doing a lot more on  Hope’s Place,” Anna says.

“Yeah,” I say. “I enjoy it, if that’s the right word. It’s so sad, though, from the minute they post, you kind of know that for many of them, for their kids, there’s probably no chance.”

“Yes,” Anna says, and then shakes her head. “Just like Jack. It was just too aggressive. He didn’t stand a chance.”

She looks away from the table. A couple with a small child comes in and sits at the table next to us. The mother fusses to get the child in a high chair, to take off his coat, to arrange his toys and sticker book in front of him. Anna smiles at the boy, and he smiles back and holds out a little plastic dog.

“To our beautiful little boy,” I say, looking at Anna and raising my glass.

“To our beautiful boy,” Anna says, and we softly clink our glasses. “To Jack.”

We sit for a moment in silence, listening to the happy chirp and chink of Sunday lunchtime. I want to reach out across the table and hold Anna’s hand, the way I used to make a small cocoon around her fist in our old, cold Clapham flat.

But I don’t. I keep my hands down by my side.

“I’m so sorry I was awful to you,” I say again. “I just don’t know how to...”

“Stop bloody saying sorry,” Anna says, laughing a little, and she can’t keep her eyes off the little boy, who is babbling and batting away the spoon his mother is holding out for him.

“Oh, there’s something I wanted to show you,” I say.

“Really? Exciting.”

I reach down into my bag and pull out my laptop. I log on to the Wi-Fi and load up  We Own the Sky.

“Ah, your website. Any new ones?”

“Yes, that’s what I wanted to show you actually. Some photos. I think you’ll recognize them.”

“Excellent. Can I see?”

I pass the laptop to Anna, and she starts to scroll through the new photos. The view from our garden in Hampstead. A blinding shot into the sun from Jack’s bedroom window. The lighthouse in Swanage, gleaming a bold and brilliant white. And then Greece, the panorama from our terrace; Jack, the human tripod.

“What, I don’t understand. Did you take these?”

“No. They’re Jack’s, from his camera. The one we bought him for his birthday.”

“Wow, they’re amazing, they really are,” Anna says, pulling the laptop closer.

“That was a lovely day wasn’t it, Swanage.” She keeps scrolling through the photos as if she is looking for something in particular and then looks at me. “I thought we had lost the camera, though. You have it then?”

“I do, yes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No, goodness, not at all. It was your thing. You boys. Going up tall buildings, taking pictures from the heath.”

“Yeah, he loved it. There’s something else I wanted to show you,” I say,

shuffling up next to her. “So, when I’m coding the pages and uploading the panoramas, I write these little messages to Jack.”

“What do you mean, messages?”

“They’re just memories, things about Jack that I remember from that

particular place where we went. They were hidden before, buried in the code, but I’ve made them all public now. Look, if you mouse over the photo, the text comes up.” I take a deep breath. “I suppose it’s all the things that I would say to him if I could, if he was here now.”

“Oh, Rob, that’s so lovely.”

“But look, this is what I wanted to show you. I made a version of the site for you. You just have to log in as you, and it means that you can also add to them, add your own memories of Jack.”

“Thank you, Rob, that’s wonderful, but you didn’t need to do that...”

“I know I didn’t need to, but I wanted to, because this has all been about me, hasn’t it? My sadness, my drinking, my grief, and I let you down in the most horrible way. I didn’t once think about you, how all this affected you, how you were dealing with things. It was just about me, and I’m so sorry for that...”