Page 71 of Pictures of Him

There you are again, your name in the air like the fire particles from a sparkler, at least to me.

‘Yes.’

This yes, this single affirmation, is to Sam and me something much more. Yes, I slept with him; yes, I lovehim; yes, it is as bad as – perhaps worse than – everything you have ever feared. But there are things Sam doesn’t see. You probably hate me. I doubt I will ever see you again.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ Sam says, quiet, flat voice, and I watch him walk away, the squeak of bare feet on bare boards, through the open doorway that leads into our bright new show-home kitchen where the sun glows from all the surfaces, turning everything white gold.

Joe arrives in the doorway, bare-chested, one strand of sleep-spiked hair sticking straight up, last year’s navy-blue pyjama shorts, which now finish well above the knee.

‘Mum!’

He loiters at the door with a self-conscious smile.

‘Come here!’

I stand up and he runs straight into my arms, and I allow myself a few seconds of breathing him in, hair that smells of the sea, skin that smells of sleep.

‘When did you get back?’

‘Very late last night.’

‘I missed you.’

This is so unexpected, so unlike him, that I feel my chest tightening, the threat of sudden hot tears.

‘Can we have pancakes, Dad?’ Joe asks.

Pancakes are Sam’s speciality, our celebratory breakfast for birthdays, for homecomings, for cheering ourselves up at the end of a holiday. They will be the last thing he’ll feel like making.

‘Sure.’

I watch him walk over to the fridge and take out milk, eggs, butter, then flour from the larder, stooping to find my mother’s chipped beige mixing bowl from the cupboard.Sunday morning in the kitchen, children in pyjamas, husband making pancakes, hallmarks of our past. It looks the same but it feels very different. Any moment now, surely the kids will pick up on the silence, weighted and ugly with things not yet said.

‘Want to check on the stream?’ Joe asks Daisy, and I find myself smiling in spite of the unspoken gloom. The stream will be the same as it was yesterday and the day before, the same as it was when we first moved in.

‘Pancakes will be ready in ten,’ Sam says, his first words for a while, and they disappear together through the French windows, running the length of our long, sloping lawn, her curls flying, his legs skinny and brown in his too-short shorts.

Sam spins around. The look on his face.

‘Why the fuck did you let this go on so long, Catherine? You’ve always wanted him, why did it take you so long?’

‘That’s not true.’

‘You married me because you couldn’t have him. It’s so fuck-ing bor-ing.’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘Oh I do. I’ve been married to you for thirteen bloody years, I know how you’ve mooned about, wishing I was him or he was me, wishing your whole fucking life away, and never mind the fact that we’ve got two kids and I’ve spent years, literally years, trying to make you happy.’

Sam is not a swearer; it’s one of the things I’ve always liked best about him. The anger in his face frightens me.

‘It’s over, Sam.’

‘It will never be over.’

‘Sam. Please. There’s something I need to tell you. A girldied last night. A friend. I was there when it happened. I was there when she drowned.’

‘What?’

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