‘Except he wasn’t exactly a huge presence in their lives, was he?’ she said quietly. ‘Wasn’t around a lot.’

‘No,’ I admitted with a shaky sob, a corner of my mind rather shocked. ‘But he did love them, Jennie. There’ll still be a vacuum.’

‘Oh, sure, he loved them. He loved Leila too.’

Leila was Jennie’s dog. A crazy Irish terrier who liked nothing more than to accompany Phil on his bike rides, lolloping along for miles beside him.

‘Yes, he loved Leila,’ I conceded, wiping my eyes on the duvet.

‘Spent a lot of time with her.’

I knew where this was going. ‘More than he did with the children?’

She made a non-committal not-for-me-to-say face: cheeks sucked, eyebrows raised.

‘Not everyone embraces fatherhood,’ I reminded her. ‘Particularly when the children are little.’

She looked me in the eye. ‘No, but he almost resented it. Remember when you used to bundle Clemmie in the back of the car in the middle of the night and head for the M25 to stop her crying? So Phil could get some sleep?’

‘He worked so hard. Needed his sleep.’

‘True. But at the weekends, did he ever change a nappy? Push a pram?’

‘Once or twice,’ I said, wishing I could remember him doing any of those things. But Phil was dedicated to his work, his bike and his body in three equal parts; he didn’t like other distractions. We didn’t really see him. It was just me and the children. Which was how it was going to be now. No change. I shut my eyes. Prayed for courage. Wondered if I could tell her. Eventually I opened them and took a deep breath.

‘The thing is, Jennie,’ I said in a low voice, ‘I’d fantasized about it.’

‘About what?’

‘About Phil dying.’

‘Yes.’

‘What d’you mean, yes?’

‘Quite normal.’

‘Is it?’ I was shocked.

‘Oh, yes. How did you do it?’

‘I didn’t!’ I gasped.

‘No, but in your dreams.’

‘Oh. Well. I – I had him being hit by falling masonry, at building sites.’

‘Ah, the old scaffolding ruse. A rogue hammer?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘And I had him bitten by a mosquito in Spain.’

‘Nice,’ she said admiringly. ‘I’ve only ever got to dodgy prawns on holiday.’

‘And then I had him poisoned by bleach when I was getting stains off teacups.’

‘I’ve left the bleach in the teacups. Poured it out later, naturally.’

‘Really?’ I peered anxiously at her in the gloom. ‘You’ve thought about it too?’

‘Of course! Life would be so much simpler without Toad.’ This, her husband of many years, whom I adored and thought the funniest man alive – fall-off-your-bar-stool funny – but of whom she despaired.

‘But, Jennie, I’m lying here thinking: perhaps I thought it so much, I made it happen. You know? Maybe … maybe whatever it is that causes bad luck – a glitch in the solar system, tectonic plates shifting, an elephant stepping on an ant in the Delta – everything that makes stuff happen, did so because I willed it to. Maybe I actually killed him? I mean, how bizarre was his death? It was like one of my very own fantasies – could have been my next one!’

‘Don’t be silly, you haven’t got the imagination. Of course it wasn’t you. Did you beetle off to the airport and strap a lump of piss to a 747?’

‘No, but –’

‘Well, then.’ She paused. ‘Did you pray?’

‘Pray?’

‘Yes, did you get down on your knees and pray to God? Plead for his demise?’

‘Of course not.’ I was startled. I felt my eyes widen in the darkness. ‘Why, have you?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Jennie sniffed. She sat up straight and shook back her dark curls defiantly. ‘At the foot of the bed like Christopher Robin. Eyes tightly shut. Doesn’t mean I’d do it, Poppy. But that time he wrote off two cars in one week, let the bath overflow through the ceiling into the new kitchen, came back pissed from the office party and told Brian Cunningham on the train that his wife was having it off with our builder, then used Jamie’s tracing paper from his geography project, on which he’d laboriously traced the Great Lakes, to wipe his bum, that night I got down on my knees and asked God for deliverance. I did have a nervous moment when he crashed the quad bike a few weeks later, remembering my crash-and-burn plea, but we’re only human, Poppy. We can’t make these things happen. Did you imagine the funeral?’

I stared at her, horrified. ‘Yes,’ I whispered finally.

‘I do that too.’ She drew her knees up chummily. Hugged them to her chest. ‘What did you think you’d wear?’

‘That Whistles skirt with the kick pleat and my good wool jacket from Hobbs.’

‘Over your grey silk shirt?’

‘I thought a cami.’

She made a face. ‘Bit louche.’

‘With the jacket done up?’

‘Oh, OK.’ She nodded; looked thoughtful. ‘I’m going to wear my Country Casuals dog-tooth number to Toad’s. Elegant, yet restrained. Did you flirt?’

‘What, at Phil’s fantasy funeral? No! Did you?’

‘A bit. Only on the way out. Just a few vulnerable glances through tear-stained lashes, and only with Passion-fuelled Pete.’ This, the local farrier, who shod Angie’s horses and was tall, blond and gorgeous. He caused quite a stir whenever his mobile forge rumbled through the village.

‘Why would Passion-fuelled Pete come to Toad’s funeral?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t worked out the logistics, Poppy.’ She passed a weary hand through her hair, looking tired. ‘Perhaps he had a horse-drawn hearse?’

‘What, like they do in the East End? Like the Kray brothers?’

‘It’s only a fantasy, for heaven’s sake.’

We sat companionably in silent contemplation for a moment, the only light shining through from the hall, where she’d belted up the stairs.

‘You’ll have it in the village church, I presume,’ she said at length. ‘I mean, the real one?’

‘I suppose so. Yes. Definitely.’

‘Everyone will come,’ she warned. ‘You know what they’re like round here. Any excuse.’

‘I know.’

‘Sunglasses?’

‘I think so.’

To hide the dry eyes, we both thought.

‘And actually,’ she said slowly, ‘it will be quite ghastly. You will need those glasses. Trust me, you’ll sob.’

‘Really?’ I looked at her anxiously, hoping for grief.

‘Really.’ She regarded me steadily. ‘A human life has been taken here, Poppy. A young man cut down in his prime. And that’s very sad. You’ll cry. But don’t you go feeling guilty about not feeling or weeping enough. You never wanted to marry that man, you just slid into it. You made a decent fist of your marriage because he was the father of your children, but let’s not get carried away here. A few years down the line, you wouldn’t have been with him.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘I know so. You’d have flown, Poppy. This way, you’ll just fly a little sooner.’

As she said it, I felt some faint metaphorical itch between my shoulder blades where, one day, I might sprout wings. It was instantly followed by a lorry load of guilt tumbling on them like rubble, which had me cringing on the bed. We sat there side by side, Jennie hunched in her old camel coat and hugging her knees, me in my baggy Gap T-shirt, crouched under the duvet. Through the wall, we could hear Toad, or Dan as I preferred to call him, gently snoring. Not so gently, in fact; he was gaining momentum. She turned to me, appalled.

‘I didn’t know you could hear him!’

‘Only occasionally.’

‘I’ll put a pillow over his head!’

‘Do not. I don’t mind. Quite like it, actually. Sounds … masculine.’ And automatically I thought how Phil had been quite feminine. Fastidious. Clean. Two showers a day. Nail brushes. And slept like a mouse.

‘Well, at least there’s no danger of you hearing anything else,’ she remarked darkly.

I didn’t reply. Jennie’s increasing lack of interest in the physical side of her marriage could wait for another night. And anyway, this wasn’t entirely true. On the odd occasion I had employed ear plugs.

‘Go, Jennie,’ I said quietly, at length.

‘Sure?’

‘Sure.’

‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’

I nodded; gave her a weak smile. Then she hugged me and slipped away. I listened to her footsteps going down the stairs, the door closing behind her. I knew she would be back, first thing. Knew I was blessed with friends like this; knew that moving to this village was the best thing I’d ever done. That it had been a huge compensation for my marriage, and would now stand me in very good stead. And although my heart was heavy as I went to the loo and then crawled back to bed – I dreaded my next hurdle, which was telling Clemmie in the morning – as I lay down and shut my eyes, a part of me was already thinking about how I’d clear the medals from the mantle above the fire, take down the Tour de France pictures in the loo, sell the rowing machine on e-Bay. Not have to wake up to him doing press-ups by the bed in the morning. Not have to go downstairs and find a note in the kitchen headed ‘Poppy – Things to Do’. And part of me was also thinking: no longer, Poppy Shilling. No longer can you say nothing ever happens to you. Finally, something has gone on in your life.




2

He hadn’t always been like that, of course. Phil. Boring, meticulous, health-conscious, dedicated to his own physical well-being – the supreme vanity, in my book. Hadn’t always wanted a blood-pressure kit for Christmas or a treadmill for his birthday, hadn’t always been so inward-looking. Once upon a time he’d been quite – I was going to say fun, but I’ll qualify that with normal. He’d always been around, part of the crowd I’d hung out with in London when I lived in Clapham, but on the edges, the periphery. Somebody’s brother had known him at university, not Jennie’s because her brother went around with quite a fast lot, but it could have been Tess’s brother at Durham. Anyway, there he was, at parties, in pubs with us, probably not on the raucous beery table I was on, but next door with others I vaguely knew but not well. A nice guy. Nice Phil, if you asked. Oh, yeah, Ben would say, Phil’s a nice guy. Don’t know him that well.