‘Sure,’ I said. ‘It’s fine.’
‘I suppose you’ll be wanting us to leave,’ she said as she poured the lemonade. ‘I’ve been thinking about it all, and that seems the most logical thing. We should never have come here anyway.’
I’d been thinking about it as well, and it seemed to me that though I had no great desire to hang out with Heather, and though I did feel a quite compelling desire to be alone with my own thoughts, her immediate departure wasn’t perhaps ideal. Right now, for instance, neither Ben nor the girls had noticed anything was awry, and that was entirely due to the fact that they had each other to play with. If I suddenly found myself alone here with Ben, then not only would he be understandably upset about the loss of his play friends, but he’d immediately know that something was wrong. What’s more, he’d focus all of his attention on me, and right now I desperately needed some downtime.
‘Maybe once Amy comes back?’ I said. ‘If that works for you, maybe you could hang on until then.’
Heather nodded.
‘Things might be a bit electric between you two, otherwise,’ I said. ‘I mean, that’s why it’s best you don’t hang around too long once she’s back.’
‘Of course,’ she replied, sipping her drink. ‘Though if you could drive us to the airport, or wherever, when we get to that point, I’d be grateful. I’m not sure I want to spend three hours in the car with her.’
‘Shit, the car,’ I said. I’d momentarily forgotten about our lack of transport.
‘I checked the fridge,’ Heather said. ‘We’re OK for today, and maybe lunch tomorrow, if we’re creative. But I think then we need to get to the shop, at the very least. Do you think there’s maybe a taxi?’
‘Around here?’ I said, glancing around. ‘I doubt it.’
‘Those French lads have got a car. So maybe we could ask them.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, that could work. Let’s see what time Amy arrives tomorrow. See what she says . . . But yeah, if need be, we can get them to drive us, or I can rent something.’
Heather nodded. ‘I’m not much help, I’m afraid. I can’t even drive.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Luckily, I can.’
She chewed her lip for a moment and then said, ‘Look, you don’t have to answer this. You really don’t.’
‘OK,’ I said doubtfully.
‘But, what did she say? What did Amy tell you? I mean, do you think you two are going to be OK?’
‘I don’t know,’ I told her honestly. ‘It’s all a bit out of the blue. I wasn’t even aware that we had a problem, so . . .’
‘Right,’ Heather said. ‘OK.’
‘And you?’
‘What did Ant say?’
When I nodded, she surprised me with a little laugh. ‘He said things haven’t been right between us for ages.’
I nodded and sighed deeply. ‘That’s what Amy said. Her exact words, actually. It sounds like they’ve been comparing notes.’
‘It does a bit,’ Heather said. ‘But it’s true. Well, in our case it is, at any rate.’
‘That things haven’t been right?’
She nodded. ‘They’ve not been right ever, really. Ant’s, you know . . . a difficult character. And I’m a bit useless. That’s sort of our deal, if you know what I mean? Those are our roles: me being useless, him being difficult. So it’s been a strange set-up, really.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Gosh.’
‘But you really had no idea?’
‘No. Maybe I should have, but no.’
‘You think you’ll be OK, though, don’t you? You think you can get through this.’
I shook my head and sighed. ‘Shit, I don’t know, Heather,’ I said. ‘Ask me tomorrow, OK?’
Seven
Heather
Because the majority of food items left in the cupboards were vegan, I struggled a bit to make lunch. Amy had brought tofu, egg replacer and ‘seitan strips’, whatever those might be, from England. There were cartons of hemp milk and packs of lentils and chickpeas. I thought Joe would be able to help, but it transpired he wasn’t much of a cook. ‘Amy makes a quiche with it, I think,’ he said, when I asked him about the squidgy block of tofu. But he had absolutely no idea how she did this and in the absence of a recipe book and without Internet, I was pretty sure that was a mystery that would never be resolved – or not on my watch, anyway.
In the end, I made us a pasta salad and mixed in chunks of the harder tofu as a replacement for cheese. As everyone pushed these rubbery cubes to one side, that was clearly not one of my better ideas.
Joe was sullen during lunch, which was understandable but challenging, and though I did my best to put on a brave face for the kids, my turmoil must have been visible too, because afterwards Lucy and Sarah were unusually clingy, even insisting to the point of tears on sleeping in my bed at siesta time.
When I woke up just after four, it was a second or so before I could work out why I felt so strange – before I could remember what had actually happened.
I got up quietly and crept outside. Joe and Ben were still sleeping, so it was just me, the chirping cicadas and the gentle thrum of the pool pump.
I was glad. I needed this time to think. I needed time to try to feel something.
I sat beneath the olive tree and did my best to consciously reflect on it all, but it was like trying to grasp a handful of that toy slime we used to buy for the kids. The whole subject was an amorphous lump with no hard edges I could grasp it by.
I ran my conversation with Ant through my mind.
It had not been the angry screaming match I’d feared – in fact, it had been quite shockingly calm. Ant had made a series
