Yeah I’m on it
You’re absolutely sure you want to do this?
FFS you got a better idea?
Just saying. Coz if this goes wrong …
It won’t. Not if you do what I said
OK OK I get it
I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to
People like F – they think they can get away with anything. They don’t give a shit about other people
Time someone turned the tables
I thought you agreed?
I do but this is way more than a dose of their own medicine
WAY more
It’s the only way to stop it happening again
You get that, right?
Yeah I get it
You’ll get your revenge
I told you before. It’s not revenge
It’s justice
Adam Fawley
7 July 2018
13.15
‘More fizz, anyone? Dad – how about you? You’re not even driving, so no excuses.’
Stephen Sheldon smiles up at his daughter, hovering behind him with the bottle in her hand. ‘Oh, go on then. Only good thing about being as old as the hills is not caring about bloody government drinking guidelines.’
His wife shoots him a dry but benevolent look; they both know he has to be careful about his health but it’s his birthday and she’s going to cut him some slack.
Nell Heneghan leans across and fills his glass. ‘Seventy isn’t old, Dad. Not these days.’
‘Tell that to my joints,’ he says with a quick laugh, as Nell moves on round the table topping people up.
I reach for Alex’s hand under the table and I can feel the thin fabric of her dress slipping against her damp thigh. God only knows what it must be like to be thirty-five weeks pregnant in these temperatures. There are dots of perspiration along her upper lip and a thin little frown line between her brows the others probably can’t see. I was right: this has been too much for her. I did say we didn’t have to do it – that no one would expect her to, especially in this weather, and Nell had offered to step in – but Alex insisted. She said it was our turn, that it wasn’t fair on her sister to ask her to do it two years running. But that wasn’t the real reason. She knows it; I know it. As her pregnancy advances, Alex’s world contracts; she’s barely leaving the house now, and as for a twelve-mile drive to Abingdon, forget it. I told Nell it’s because she’s anxious about the baby, and she’d nodded and said she’d felt like that herself at this stage, and it was only natural for Alex to be apprehensive. And she’s right. Or at least she would be, if that’s all it was.
Outside in the garden, Nell’s kids are playing football with their dog, taking it in turns doing penalty kicks. They’re eleven and nine, the kids. Jake would be twelve now. No longer a little boy, but not quite yet anything else. Sometimes, before Alex got pregnant again, I’d catch myself fantasizing about how they’d have been together, him and his cousins. Jake was never much interested in sport, but would he be out there anyway, if he was here now? Part of me hopes he’d have done it to be kind, or to please his mother, or because he liked dogs, but there’s another part that would want him as surly and uncooperative as any other twelve-year-old. I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s only too easy to start beatifying a child who’s no longer there.
Audrey Sheldon catches my eye now and we exchange a look; kind on her part, slightly self-conscious on mine. Alex’s parents understand better than anyone what we went through when we lost Jake, but Audrey’s sympathy is like her lemon cheesecake – nice, but there’s only so much of it I can take. I get to my feet and start collecting plates. Nell’s husband, Gerry, makes a half-hearted attempt to help me but I clap him chummily on the shoulder and push him firmly back down in his seat.
‘You brought all the food. My turn now.’
Alex gives me a grateful smile as I collect her dessert plate. Her father’s been badgering her gently to ‘eat up’ for the last ten minutes. Some things about parenthood never die. My mother does the same to me. In twenty years’ time I’ll be doing it myself. God willing.
Out in the kitchen, Nell is stacking the dishwasher, and though she’s doing it all wrong I resist the impulse to intervene as I know it’ll just piss her off; Alex says dishwashers are like barbecues – men just can’t stop themselves muscling in. Nell smiles when she sees me. I like her, I always have. As bright as her sister, and just as forthright. They have a good life, she and Gerry. House (detached), skiing (Val d’Isère), dog (cockerpoo allegedly, but judging by the size of those paws there’s at least a quarter polar bear in there). He’s an actuary (Gerry, not the dog) and if I’m honest I find Dino a good deal more interesting, but the only person I’ve ever said that to is myself.
Nell is looking at me now, and I know exactly what that particular look means. She wants to Have A Word. And being Nell, she pitches straight in. Just like her sister.
‘I’m a bit worried about her, Adam. She doesn’t look well.’
I take a deep breath. ‘I know what you mean, and this bloody heat isn’t helping, but she’s getting regular check-ups. Far more than most women in her position do.’
But most women in her position haven’t been hospitalized for high blood pressure and ordered to take complete bed rest.
Nell leans back against the worktop and reaches for a tea towel, wiping her hands. ‘She hardly ate a thing.’
‘I’m trying, really –’
‘And she looks completely exhausted.’
She’s frowning at me. Because whatever this is, it has to be my fault, right? Out in
