Page 76 of The Moment I Met You
Surely he would apply the same policy to this? Surely he would have told me, if he actually knew? The more I turn it over and poke it, the more I think that perhaps it is genuinely one of those memories he has lost.
Jimbo is peeking at me from the barn window, and I realise that I have been sitting here for some time now. I give him a wave and start up the car.
I need to find Harry.
I swing by our house first, but can tell he’s not home from the fact that his car isn’t there. I should’ve been a detective.
I try his phone, but it goes straight to messages, and this doesn’t seem like one of those situations you can adequately sum up on voicemail. I notice more ‘inspirational’ GIFs from Olivia. Bearing in mind she has no idea what I am causing a fuss about – I mean, it could be some out-of-date milk from the supermarket – she seems very keen on the idea.
I reply to Olivia with some perfunctory emoji winky faces, and go inside. I know Alison lives on the outskirts of a small town around twenty miles away, but I’m unsure of the exact address.
I decide to break into Harry’s office and snoop. When I say break in, I mean open the door, and when I say snoop, I mean check his desk-top Rolodex. Neither exactly requires John-le-Carré-level spycraft.
His office, unlike mine, is pristine. Not a dancing Christmas penguin in sight. There is a nice picture of the two of us framed on his desk, which is sweet. Or at least it might be sweet. I don’t know right now; everything still feels strange and sour and unsettling.
I flick through the Rolodex and am unsurprised to see that everything is neat, orderly, and perfectly filled in. Harry never used to be quite such a stickler for tidiness and perfection, but these days he’s borderlineOCD. Part of it is the fact that life is much easier for him on a logistical level if everything is in its proper place, but I suspect some of it is also about control. He can’t control some of the basic functions of his own body, so I think he’s learned to take it where he can.
Alison Burroughs is listed like all the others – surname, first name, landline and mobile, email address, full postal address. I carry on looking, and have to smile when I find myself listed in exactly the same way under ‘G’ for Godwin. Just in case he ever forgets where I live, I suppose.
The drive to Alison’s home takes longer than I expected, due to me getting lost several times. She lives on a newish estate that doesn’t appear in the memory banks of any electronic maps, and I only find it by sheer luck.
It’s nice, the estate – all the homes look slightly different, trees have been planted along the roadsides, and the signs of family life save it from that soulless quality that some new-build communities have. All of the streets seem to be named after poets, and I drive through Tennyson and Byron to arrive in Keats Road. I have a brief and strange urge to vandalise the shiny street sign, and make it Keats Ode – which would possibly be the most pretentious piece of graffiti ever.
Alison’s house is in a corner plot, a semi-detached built from dark red brick. I see Harry’s car parked outside, next to her Toyota.
I am suddenly aware that this might seem a bit odd to Alison. I know her in that casual way you know work colleagues or friends-of-friends – enough to be cheery in passing, but not close enough to have ever visited her home.
I climb out, and walk around to the front of the house. The first thing I notice is the ramp. A full wheelchair ramp, set up in a similar way to ours, leading up to the door. I pause, and feel suddenly less sure of myself.
Why does Alison have a wheelchair ramp at her home? She is not disabled, and neither are her children. As far as I know, her parents are fit and active. Yet here it is, in all its confusing glory.
I walk tentatively to the front door and use the brass knocker that shines against its red wooden background. There is no answer, and I peer through the window, using my hands to shield the glare of the sun. It is cold today, almost icy, but the sun is bright and the sky a vivid blue.
Through the window I see the usual things you might expect: sofas, a TV, bookshelves, toys. The whole place looks clean but lived in. Cosy, but not cluttered. It looks like a room that gets battered by young children, but lives to tell the tale.
I wait for a few more minutes, but nobody arrives to let me in. I am unsure as to what to do next. I am unsure why there is a ramp here, at the home of one of Harry’s work colleagues. I am unsure about everything – including whether Olivia’s insinuations about the two of them could be true. She makes so many nasty comments about Harry, and vice versa, that I immediately discount whatever criticisms she’s throwing at him.
I have always trusted him – which was, I think, knowing what I do now, possibly a mistake. But Alison … I wouldn’t have thought she was his type. Not that I have any clue what his type is, beyond the fact that he was always very appreciative of Kate Winslet inTitanic. But most men were.
Alison is perhaps a decade older than us, but why would that be an issue? I certainly wouldn’t be considering that a big age gap if it were an older man and a younger woman.
I am still standing on the doorstep, getting colder with every second. I walk around the side of the house, past the gardens that wrap around into the back. When I get to the back fence, I see them. I’m just about tall enough to peer over, and what I see there possibly hurts me even more than seeing the pair of them starkers in a hot tub.
The back of the house opens up onto the garden with big French windows. There is another ramp there, leading down from the house and onto a patio area. The garden is large, with a network of paved paths running through it, lawns and flower beds and shrubs at the side. There is a small plastic slide, and a couple of bikes with stabilisers abandoned near it.
The French windows are open, and everyone is outside, wrapped up warm and cosy. I see Alison, in a fleece jacket that I know is Harry’s, and I see the children, bundled up in bobble hats and gloves, and I see Harry himself, his padded gilet fastened up over a chunky sweater. A sweater that I bought him.
He feels the cold, because he doesn’t move around as much as most people, so it’s important he regulates his temperature when he’s outside. Even as I watch them, part of me is so used to considering his health that I take a moment to check out his feet, and make sure he has his Timberlands on and not his flimsier work shoes.
He does have his boots on. He also has one child balanced on each of his knees, and is pretending to rev his wheels like the engine of a car.
‘Vroom, vroom!’ I hear him saying, over and over, louder and louder. With each ‘vroom’, the little ones get more excited, giggling and squirming in delight. Alison stands behind them smiling, a mug of something hot in her hands, steam whipping up into the cold air.
‘Get ready!’ says Harry. ‘Hold on tight!’
With one final whoosh, one big scream from the children, he pushes off, wheeling as fast as he can down the path. He pushes furiously, building up speed, haring around curves, the kids yelling and laughing, bobble hats flapping, their little arms clinging to his neck.
He does a complete circuit of the garden and arrives back at the French windows, looking slightly out of puff.
