‘Yes. That’s a good idea.’ What else could she say?
Liv swivelled round in her seat so that she was facing Megan. ‘What would you choose, Megan?’
Their conversation in the bathroom must have stirred a little sympathy in Liv’s soul. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.’ There was a disappointed pause. Megan knew she’d come up short on the Coulter family participation measure, yet again.
Patience expired, Liv switched her attention to Noah. ‘What about you, No?’
He upended the last of the bottle into his glass. He didn’t seem to need long to think about his choice. ‘Well, if no one else wants it, his laptop would be really useful. Mine’s on its last legs.’
‘I think Liv meant something more personal?’ Chloe prompted him.
Noah looked away for a second. ‘I’ll take the chess set, if that’s all right with everybody else.’ There was a ripple of nods.
‘Chloe, what about you?’ Liv asked.
‘I know you’re going to think I’m weird, but I’d love to have his old Barbour. Being able to wear something that I associate so strongly with Dad would be nice.’ She made an odd gulping noise, which they all respected with silence, except Noah, who used the hiatus to open another bottle of wine. The squeak of the cork was loud. Having composed herself sufficiently, Chloe asked, ‘What would you pick, Liv?’
Liv scratched her eyebrow, considering. ‘Angus and I love the picture in the lounge.’ Megan felt her nails cut through the thin skin on the top of her hand. She and Jonathan had bought the painting on their first weekend away. Madrid, bright sunlit days spent sightseeing, and dark nights cloistered in a gloomy little hotel buried deep in Los Austrias. The picture had hung in her house in Darlington for months, a cherished reminder of their secret relationship. Giving it pride of place on the chimney breast in The View had been a symbolic affirmation of their legitimacy as a couple. Did Liv know that? It certainly wasn’t a picture that had been in the house for years – not part of the fabric of her childhood memories. Perhaps she was just picking what she liked, what would fit into her lifestyle and her lovely big house in Cheadle. Megan was about to object, but stopped herself. If she said ‘No’, they would want to know why she was obstructing Liv’s choice, and that would mean explaining, in front of Eloise, about the picture’s significance.
They had obviously taken her silence as consent, because the conversation had moved on to who should have Jonathan’s watch. ‘Don’t you want it, Mum?’ Liv asked. The watch was inscribed with a message from Eloise – a twentieth wedding anniversary present – given at a time when it had been possible to inscribe love into metal with confidence.
‘No.’ Eloise was as economical with her words as she was with her emotions.
‘Are you sure?’ Chloe seemed hurt by the lack of sentimentality being shown by her mother.
‘Quite sure.’
It was only then that Megan realised Liv was holding the watch in her hands. Where had she got it from? From Jonathan’s bedside table? Their erosion of her tenure was ceaseless. ‘It’s a lovely watch. I’m sure all it needs is a new battery. Why don’t you take it, Noah? I think Dad would’ve liked it to go to you.’ Liv passed it across the table to him.
Noah picked it up, turned it over in his hands, put it down on the table and stared at it. Then he said very quietly, in a voice that seemed gutted of his usual energy and confidence, ‘No, thanks.’
‘Whyever not?’ Liv asked.
‘I…’ For once he seemed lost for words. ‘I don’t wear a watch.’
Liv frowned. ‘Well, you don’t have to wear it. You could just keep it as a memento.’
Eloise chipped in with, ‘Actually, Liv, you do have to. It’s one of those mechanisms that only keeps working if you wear it.’
But Noah was having none of it. He pushed it away from him across the tablecloth. ‘Well, in that case it should go to someone who will wear it.’
‘Noah!’
He cut Liv off. ‘For God’s sake, Liv. I said, “I don’t want it.” Angus can have it. Or keep it for the boys. Or you wear it! Do what you want with it.’ There was pain as well as anger in his voice.
To Megan, it seemed as good a juncture as any to go and fetch dessert.
Chapter 34
SHE WAS like a bloody dog with a bone. He didn’t want the watch. Why did Liv have to keep banging on about it? Noah took another slug of wine. The thought of slipping the chunky gold-link bracelet onto his own wrist and snapping shut the clasp actually made him feel sick.
Why?
Because Noah wasn’t without imagination. He knew how many lonely hours his father had spent sitting by the window, staring at the sea and the sky; how little he’d slept; how the pain he’d had to endure day in, day out had warped time, making it drag and creak; how long the last few months must have been at the end. He knew how often his father must have sat looking at the second hand crawl around the face of the watch as it measured out the last dregs of his life.
The watch had marked out every agonising, slow minute of his father’s illness and death.
So, no. On reflection. Noah did not want his father’s watch.
He felt, rather than heard, his phone buzz as Megan brought in the cheesecake.
Josie. A WhatsApp.
Making sure his screen was angled away from his mother, Noah clicked on it. It was a photo of Lily, in her ballet tutu, grinning. The message read: She did fab. Loved every minute of it. Even tolerated me trying to get her hair tied back. If you
