“I’m going out actually.”

“Two minutes. Where are you going?”

“Just out.” He sat on the arm of the sofa next to her. “In a bit. You OK?”

“I’m fine. Tired, that’s all. I wanted to ask you something.”

He waited. He could hear the kettle whistling.

“When we get married, I’d really like it if you would give me away, Tom.”

He knew what it meant now when it was said that someone went cold. You did. You did exactly that. You went cold.

“You don’t have to answer now. But there isn’t anyone else I’d like to do it.”

“Uncle Pete.”

“I never see him. How long is it—three years? Has to be.”

“He’d do it.”

“I expect he would but I don’t want him, I want you.”

He got up. Still cold. How could this have happened?

“I’m going out now.”

She didn’t say anything but he knew that she was watching him, looking after him, he knew what the look on her face was and how her eyes were and what she was thinking.

He went out. At first he was going to take the Yamaha but then he decided against that. At the gate he glanced back at the house. Something clicked inside him. Odd. He felt odd. He’d never felt so odd.

It was cold. He zipped up his fleece.

Odd.

Why should it matter? Being cold.

Sixty-nine

They reached the top of the Hill at last. It was steeper than she had remembered, took longer. After a while, no one had spoken. Simon got there first and put the cool bag down on the stone which had been there for thousands of years. Or since just after the last war, depending on who you believed.

It was, as always, the most amazing view.

“Three counties,” he said to Cat as she arrived. Hannah was with her, Sam, the best climber, walker, runner, swimmer, all-round athlete, trailed slowly up a long way behind.

“He’s all right,” Cat said, following her brother’s gaze. “Really. Quiet. But all right.”

“Can we have our picnic now?”

“Wait for Sam.”

“Why? I want a drink now, why do I have to wait for Sam before I can have a drink? That’s cruelty to children.”

They had left Felix at Hallam House with Richard and Judith. Simon unzipped the bag and handed Hannah a carton of apple juice.

“I wanted Ribena.”

“Hannah!”

“Please?” She sighed and sat down on the stone. Simon swapped the cartons.

The autumn sun struck warm on their faces, touched the flying angels on the four corners of the cathedral tower in the distance, and a white horse in a field.

“What have we come up here for?” Sam turned his back on them, looking down the grassy slopes.

“Because it was one of Daddy’s favourite places and I thought c we should just be here and c think about him.”

“I keep thinking about him all the time,” Hannah said, “every minute and even when I’m asleep I do.”

“You don’t think when you’re asleep, duh.”

“I do so, I think about Daddy.”

“You dream when you’re asleep.”

“I do that as well.”

“He’d like us to be up here.”

“Not without him he wouldn’t.”

“I’ll open the flask,” Simon said.

In the end, Sam and Hannah wandered off further down the slope and sat together on a tree trunk, not looking at one another, not speaking, but with their arms just touching.

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m not. Not a lot anyway. It’s good you could get a Friday afternoon for once.”

“I haven’t had a day off in weeks and then there’s tomorrow.”

“You don’t have to be at this wedding, do you?”

“Yes. If something goes wrong I don’t want my back to be turned.”

“It won’t be your fault.”

“I know, I know. The Chief’s going, every ARV in three counties will be in place, royal protection is doubled. All the same.”

“Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Oh, I know.”

“How near can the public get? There’s usually a big crowd for a society wedding.”

“Cordoned off on the other side of St Michael’s Street but they’ll get a view. The Lord Lieutenant was adamant. I left him to sort out RP.”

“Wonder what Camilla will wear?”

Simon looked blank. “Reader,” Cat said, “she married him.”

She sipped her tea. They had brought old china mugs.

“Have you decided what to do about the funeral?”

Cat sighed. Chris had always said he didn’t want any kind of service. If you were not religious, he said, then nothing was better than some made-up humanist event. But that had been long ago. During his illness he had said nothing about it at all and there was no mention in his short, straightforward will.

“I can’t bear nothing. Just c nothing. Apart from anything else, it’s a rite of passage the children need to help them through. And a lot of people have been asking.”

“I think you do what you want c because it’s for you and the children now and I bet that’s why Chris left it open.”

She turned to him in surprise, with a look of something like joy. “I hadn’t thought of it like that. Do you really believe it?”

“Absolutely. Whatever your beliefs are, your funeral is for the ones still living. What do you really want?”

“Cathedral. Of course. Not a great fuss but a proper funeral.”

“Then that’s what you should do. Talk to them. What about Chris’s side?”

“They’ll get what they’re given,” Cat said. “Sorry.”

“I know.”

“There’s something else.”

“Say.”

“Dad. And Judith.”

“They’ll have to have what they’re given too, won’t they?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

He was silent. Ahead of them, Sam and Hannah were talking quietly, heads together.

“Don’t be difficult.”

“No.”

“I think they’ll probably marry before long. They’re more or less together now. Nobody has said anything, it’s just a hunch. And I want you to be prepared so you don’t go up in flames.”

“As if.”

“I mean it. Judith’s daughter is getting married next spring. She was talking about it yesterday. And weddings sort of breed.”

“Didn’t know she had a daughter.”

“Yes, Vivien—and a son too. Judith is going to a wedding fair. Tomorrow, I think it is. At the Riverside. It feels unreal. The world goes on, people are getting married and planning half-term and bonfire night, babies are being born, the supermarkets are full and the trains are running and Chris is dead. I can’t take it in. I’ve been with dying and death all my working life and I can’t take it in.”

Simon put his arm round her. She felt light, frail. Vulnerable.

“But I did the right thing, didn’t I?”

“With Sam? Yes. You know you did.”

“He doesn’t say anything.”

“He said something to me.”

“Oh, Simon, you didn’t tell me.”

“No, because he made me promise not to. But he’s fine. Truly and absolutely. I promise you that.”

What Sam had said, when Simon had arrived that night, had moved him to tears. “I’m glad I was with Daddy when he’d just died. It made me feel I’d grown up a lot.”

“Tell me one day,” Cat said.

“No. Never.”

Hannah came back to them. “Isn’t it time to have the picnic?”

It was a good afternoon. They ate the picnic, drank the tea, packed and then ran up and down the slopes and on into the wood where the leaves were piling up and the last of the after noon sunlight slanted down through the bare tops of the trees.

Simon had not let go of himself so much or relaxed so well for weeks and, watching his sister, he saw that this was the first time she had been able to let go too, not worrying about getting home, not wondering what was about to happen. It had happened. She was dealing with it but this afternoon even her grief seemed to be suspended for this brief hour or so. Her sad eyes were brighter.

Seventy

He finished just after two. It was still sunny, still warm. He cut himself four slices of good bread and made himself sandwiches, one corned beef, one cheese and tomato. He took a banana from the dish and a couple of custard creams. He made a mug of tea and took the whole lot outside. He had an old Formica table there, up against the wall, which faced south. An aluminium chair with a red canvas seat. He took a bite of sandwich, a bite of banana, a bite of biscuit, a swig of tea and then, mouth comfortably full, he sat with his face to the sun, and as he ate, he thought everything through again. He had to get this one right. He would, of course. He always had, always would. But he knew that he must never, ever get complacent, be cocky, make assumptions, fail to plan. That way lay the brick wall and the dead end.