Coming Home. Fern Britton

two gin and tonics. ‘I dreamt about Sennen today. On the beach. She was being so good with Henry … so good.’

      Bill clinked two cubes of ice into each glass and handed her one. ‘But she couldn’t keep it up.’

      ‘She tried so hard, we expected too much of her.’

      Bill sat in his favourite armchair and sipped his drink. ‘Are you hungry?’

      Adela swallowed the threatening tears no. ‘No.’

      ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he said impatiently.

      A tear slipped down Adela’s cheek. She raised her hand to wipe it away.

      Bill shifted in his chair and after a while said, ‘Cheese and biscuits? I’ve got some nice Yarg.’

      ‘Okay.’

      ‘I’ll bring it in on a tray.’

      ‘Thank you.’

      He left for the kitchen.

      Adela looked out onto the small courtyard beyond. On the washing line hung their swimsuits and trunks and beach towels. They’d be dry by morning if it didn’t rain tonight, and another day would take her further away from her daughter.

      Where was Sennen?

      What was she doing?

      Was she well?

      Was she thinking of them?

      Did she miss her children?

      Adela put her hand in one of the deep pockets of her cotton, sun-bleached trousers and pulled out a handkerchief. She rubbed away the drying, salty track of her tear and wiped her nose.

      It was more than five years since Sennen had gone, leaving Henry and Ella in her and Bill’s care. Her heart had begun to grow a thicker tissue around the damage that had been caused, but now and again the pain caught her unawares.

      Bill suffered too, although he couldn’t admit it. Or perhaps, she wondered, he didn’t have the words. There were no words big enough.

      Friends had tried to empathise, well-meaning and kind.

      Some of them had said harsh things about Sennen. Selfish. Cruel. Better off gone.

      But the gravitational pull of the hole that was left drew Adela and Bill deeper until their fingers were clinging by the tips.

      Bill arrived with two plates.

      ‘Here you are.’ He handed her one. Cheese, two digestive biscuits, a few slices of apple and celery. ‘Enough?’

      She nodded.

      ‘So,’ he said, easing himself back into his chair, ‘what’s the plan for tomorrow?’

      ‘I thought I’d paint the courtyard walls with Ella. She wants a mermaid. She wants to glue some shells to it.’

      ‘Good.’ Bill carefully cut into his cheese and balanced it on his biscuit. ‘Henry and I are going to work in the studio. He’s getting very good on the wheel. We might try a jug tomorrow. Good practice.’

      At bedtime that night, as Adela waited for the milk to boil for their Horlicks, she saw a spattering of rain on the window. She called out to Bill who was at the top of the stairs. ‘I’m just going to bring Sennen’s bathing costume in. It’s started to rain. I’ll bring the Horlicks up in a minute.’

      Bill hesitated a moment on the stairs. Should he correct her? Remind her that the costume was Ella’s not Sennen’s? He closed his eyes and shook his head. No. He would say nothing. Remembering one of his mother’s old sayings, he murmured to himself, ‘Least said soonest mended, Bill. Least said.’ And walked slowly to the bathroom.