Haven't They Grown(22)
Behind me, I hear Dom’s long, slow sigh. Clearly my answer wasn’t the one he was hoping for.
‘Put that knife down, and the peppers, and come and sit here,’ he says. He sounds so reasonable and hopeful, it’s hard to resist. From his tone, I can almost believe that something brilliant will happen as soon as I sit down at the table, something that’ll solve every problem.
I compromise by bringing the chopping board and knife with me, so that I can sit and chop at the same time. Dom thinks if we’re face to face, he’ll be able to persuade me. Looking straight at him isn’t going to change what’s in my head.
‘Yes, you could find out the names of the Caters’ kids if you tried, but what good would it do? If they’re called Thomas and Emily, then yes, it’s a massive coincidence and bloody strange, I agree – but so what? And if they’re not called Thomas and Emily, then … well, you probably didn’t hear anyone call them Thomas and Emily. People can get things wrong, Beth. Even you.’
Don’t get defensive. Answer as calmly as possible.
‘That’s true. But why would that happen to me, when it never has before? It was hot yesterday, but not that hot. And … everything else I’ve seen before and since is real. The bottle, our wine glasses, these chopped red peppers … you can see them too, right?’
‘Beth …’
‘I’m not being facetious. I’m serious. I’ve had no other delusions or hallucinations. This isn’t part of a pattern. That makes me a reliable witness. I trust myself. I know who I saw yesterday. I saw Flora Braid. I heard her speak. She was my best friend for more than a decade. I’m not wrong about this.’
‘All right, let’s say you did. You saw Flora. And with her were two small children – who we know can’t be Thomas and Emily because they’re not little kids any more. So, fine. You saw Flora with two kids. She called them Thomas and Emily. Maybe she’s calling herself Jeanette Cater these days. Who cares? None of these people are anything to do with us. We can forget about them and get on with our lives. Or at least I hope we can. So far, Zan and Ben don’t seem too freaked out by all this, which is great, but if it carries on …’
‘They’re fine, Dom. Zannah’s loving it.’
‘Too much, yes. She’s got her GCSEs coming up. It’s hard enough convincing her they matter as it is. Having her mother fall apart at the exact time that—’
‘Wait. Who said anything about falling apart?’ I take the chopping board back over to the counter and start to chop an onion. ‘Wanting to find an explanation for something isn’t the same as having a nervous breakdown, Dom. Look, here I am, cooking dinner. I’m not crying, screaming, disintegrating.’
‘No, but you are obsessing. We’ve talked about nothing else since yesterday morning – which is fine, because it’s recent and it’s peculiar, I’m not denying that, but … you know.’
‘You want me to just forget all about it?’
Will he have the guts to say it?
‘Not immediately – speak to Lewis if you can – but at a certain point, yes. We’re going to need to forget this and move on. Accept that we’ll never know the answer.’
‘That’s not fair,’ I say quietly.
‘What isn’t?’
‘Pushing something you know you’ll be able to do and I won’t.’
‘Beth, it makes no sense to pursue this beyond a certain point if no answer presents itself soon. Let’s not allow it to take over our lives.’
Dom’s right: it’s not ideal for my thoughts to be full of an unsolvable mystery when Zannah’s GCSEs are coming up. Could it be some kind of stress-escape fantasy? Would that be enough to make me imagine I saw …
No. No way.
I might never know what it means, but I’ll always know what I saw.
I check my phone. There’s a new notification, from Instagram. Lewis. ‘He’s replied. “Call me!” with an exclamation mark. He’s sent a number.’
‘Good. Then let’s call him,’ says Dom.
The Olde Jug, our local village pub, has been around since the seventeenth century, but has only been called The Olde Jug since the new owners took over last March, added on a conservatory at the back, and hung hundreds of pottery jugs from the dining-room ceiling. These changes caused a rift in the village that’s still noticeable more than a year later.
The discouraging estate agent warned Dom and me about village life. ‘Personally, give me the city any day,’ he said. ‘I live two minutes’ walk from Rawndesley station, shops all around me. Don’t need to get into my car to go anywhere, apart from for work. Villages are all well and good if you like that sort of thing, but they’re not right for everyone – your neighbours popping in all the time, wanting to know your business.’
This was the one consideration that made me anxious about moving to Little Holling. Dom reassured me. ‘Think of it this way: how much fun would it be to live in a village if you couldn’t give less of a shit what the other villagers think of you?’
So we decided to eschew the film club, the book group and all other such delights, and hope for the best. Dominic often boasts that he’s avoided our neighbours so successfully that he has no idea what any of them think of him. The only exception to this is The Olde Jug’s new owners. When they first arrived and changed the pub, the opposition to their proposed new-conservatory shake-up was so loud and hysterical that it reached even Dom’s ears. At first it seemed as if the entire village might boycott the pub, so Dom decided we had to go there as often as we could. For a while, we ate there four times a week, even though it was a stretch, financially. ‘I’m not letting a perfectly nice pub go out of business because some idiots can’t cope with change,’ Dom insisted.