“How did the operation go?”

“They took quite a lot of the tumour out, but of course they can never get it all—too dangerous. They did the biopsy. It’s a grade-three astrocytoma. They’ll give him a course of radiotherapy.”

“Which will help?”

Cat looked at him as he handed her the tea. “For a while.”

He sat next to her. There wasn’t anything to say. He couldn’t produce platitudes.

“You’re staying off work?”

“Oh yes, I have to. He’ll be home in a week and then he’ll need me all the time. There isn’t much of that. You know, when patients used to tell me they couldn’t take in what I’d just told them, I didn’t really know what they meant. But I sat there this afternoon listening to the neurosurgeon explaining everything and he was talking Greek. I couldn’t understand it. It didn’t go in. When I came out of the room I stood in the corridor and repeated what he’d said to me. “Your husband has a grade-three astrocytoma, I have removed what I could. That will relieve the pressure for a time and we’ll give him ten days of radiotherapy. It will buy him time. But this is only palliative, you understand.” I actually said all that to myself aloud. A couple of people went by me and c”

Cat set her cup down carefully on the table and started to cry.

Cat. Crying. Simon remembered when she had cried after falling off a horse and breaking her arm, and at the funerals—their mother’s, Martha’s. But they had not been tears like this, not tears fetched up from somewhere he could not reach, tears of despair and pain and desolation. He sat, his hand on her back as she leaned forward sobbing into her cupped hands.

Chris would die. Cat would stay here, bring up the children, resume her job eventually. The world would go on turning. Nothing would change.

Everything would change. Chris. He loved his brother-in-law, had always got on easily with him, had taken his presence for granted over thirteen years. Chris was not a complex man. He liked his life, loved his family, did his job, could be contrary. An ordinary man. And now, an ordinary man with something eating into his brain. Lying in hospital tonight after his head had been sawn open.

The ground seemed to shelve away in front of Simon, exposing a crater.

Thirty-eight

She’d sounded odd. Not herself. But he hadn’t been able to put a finger on it.

“Can we go another night?” she had said.

“What’s wrong? You not well?”

“No. Yes. I mean, I’m not ill, just a bit—I’d rather go another night. Or just have a drink.”

“But I’ve booked.”

She had sighed. There had been a silence.

“Come on, do you good, you’ll feel better for it.”

“Where is it anyway?”

“Somewhere you’ll like.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

“You’ll like this one.”

Silence. A long silence. He hadn’t been able to make it out.

“Alison?”

“Yes, yes, right. I’m sorry. Fine, it’s fine, of course, we’ll go.”

“You sure?”

“I just said.”

“I want you to like it. I want you to enjoy yourself, it’s special.”

“I will. Sorry. What time do you want to go?”

“Pick you up at seven.”

“As early as that?”

“There’s things to look at, then we can have a drink and then we’ll eat.”

“Is it far, this place, wherever it is?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Oh. Right.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Right. Fine. See you then.”

“Love you.”

But she had already gone.

He sat, now, over his tea, Scotch egg and green beans, plums and cream, hearing the way her voice had been. In his head. He’d known but he hadn’t known. Of course he hadn’t. They were engaged, they were getting married in six months. She’d got a cold coming or the curse.

He’d known.

He stared at the egg on his plate. Neatly halved, the pale crumbly yolk, the rubbery grey-tinged white, the sausage meat, the orange crumbs.

He’d known.

When he’d got there she hadn’t been ready and her sister, Georgina, had been there, looking at him and then looking away. Afterwards, he realised that Georgina had been embarrassed. Because Alison had said something.

But he’d ignored it. Of course he had. Nothing was wrong. How could there be? They were engaged. They were going to be married. There was no one like Alison who had ever been born. That was how he felt, the extent of it. No one who had ever been born.

She’d come into the room and the sun had come out. It’s what happened, what she did. She wore a blue frock and a white jacket and her hair was down, floating round her head somehow, gauzy hair. The light showed through it as she came into the room.

Alison.

Georgina had looked at her. Alison hadn’t wanted to catch her eye.

There was something.

But when he pulled away from the kerb, he could have laughed with happiness.

“The Compton Ford Hotel,” she had read aloud as they drove through the gates and up the drive. The gravel crunched under the wheels. “I’ve heard about this place.”

“You’ll like it. I came and sussed it out.”

“What for?”

“Us. You wait.”

He handed her out and she had looked round slowly, taking everything in, the inch-thick gravel and the lawns, the stone urns full of white flowers, the terrace and avenue between the trees.

“Come on.”

“It’s very smart here. It’s got to be expensive.”

“So what?”

The staircase curved round and there was a marble floor in the entrance, a glass-roofed dining room, with doors open onto the lawn. White tablecloths. Waiters in long white aprons. Flowers.

“Look at the flowers,” Alison had said, her voice a whisper.

“You wait—they’ll be yours. Ours.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our wedding.”

“We can’t get married here!”

“Why not?”

But she had turned away. She had gone to the Ladies while he went to order their drinks and find a table on the terrace in the evening sun. He sat, imagining it, picturing her. The garden full of their guests, Alison in the centre of it all.

She came back after what seemed a long time.

“I asked for a brochure,” he said, “when I came before. The sort of things they do. You can have anything you want. You ask, you can have it.”

She had looked at him and looked away quickly. She had picked up her glass of wine and taken a small sip and put it down.

“What do you think?”

He could still see the way the sun had been shining on her face and on the table and her glass and his glass, and feel the warmth from it. A few other people had come in. Behind them there was the soft sound of someone putting cutlery down on linen.

“I’ve got something to say.”

That was all. Odd. That was all he’d needed. “I’ve got something to say.” And his world had fallen apart. He’d watched the pieces of it floating away slowly like leaves down and down and out of sight and all there had been was a dark hollow space and a cold wind blowing.

Just that one thing she had said and the way she had looked, but not at him, the expression on her face. I’ve got something to say.

The pale gold lager and the paler wine had soured and curdled in the glass and his fingers had turned to ice.

He had heard her out and said nothing. Nothing at all. Just got up and paid the bill, cancelled the table. “Not feeling too good.”

“Say something, please say something. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, I don’t know how it happened, I didn’t mean it to, only it did, I’m really sorry.”

On and on. She was sorry. Didn’t know how. But it had happened. He had said nothing.

It wasn’t that he had not heard her or taken it in. He had. She was not going to marry him because she wanted to be with Stuart Reed. His friend Stuart Reed. Now her lover Stuart Reed.

“I’m sorry.”

He had not driven too fast or carelessly. He had gone straight to her house, walked round, opened the car door for her. She’d stood on the pavement outside the house, her eyes big, mouth working.