‘Oh hello, hi,’ he says. ‘Jimmy called me. Emergency, is it?’ he asks, seeing Mossie in Solomon’s arms. ‘Come in, come in.’
Solomon sits outside the surgery while Laura goes inside. He leans his elbows on his thighs and rests his head in his hands. His head is spinning, the ground is moving from the jet lag.
When the surgery door opens, Laura appears with tears rolling down her cheeks. She sits beside Solomon, without a word.
‘Come here,’ he whispers, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him. Another loss in her week. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but he would happily remain that way if the vet wasn’t standing at the open door patiently waiting for them to gather themselves and leave so he can to return to his family after a long day.
‘Sorry.’ Solomon removes his arm from around Laura’s shoulders. ‘Let’s go.’
Outside in the now dark night, music drifts from the local pub.
‘I could really do with a pint,’ he says. ‘Want to join me?’
A fire-escape door opens at the side of the bar and a bottle goes flying outside and lands in a recycling skip, smashing against the others inside.
Laura mimics the smashing sound.
He laughs. ‘I’ll take that as a yes.’
They sit outside the pub, at one of the wooden picnic tables, around the corner from the gang of smokers. When Solomon pulled the door open, and all the heads turned to stare at the two strangers, Laura quickly backed away. Solomon was relieved to not have to sit inside and be examined by the locals. Now she sits with a glass of water, while he drinks a pint of Guinness.
‘Never drink?’ he asks.
She shakes her head, the movement causing the ice to clink against the glass. She imitates the sound of the ice perfectly. It’s something Solomon still can’t wrap his head around, though he’s unsure of how to broach the subject; it’s as though she doesn’t even notice.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks. ‘Tom and Mossie – that’s a lot to lose in one week.’
‘One day,’ she says. ‘I only learned about Tom tonight.’
‘Sorry you had to hear it that way,’ Solomon says softly, thinking of how Jimmy had blurted it out.
‘Tom used to bring the shopping on Thursdays. When he didn’t come, I knew something was wrong, but I had no one to ask. I thought Joe was Tom today in the forest. I’ve never seen him before. They’re identical. But he was so angry. I’d never seen Tom so angry.’
‘You’ve lived there for ten years and you’ve never seen Joe?’
She shakes her head. ‘Tom wouldn’t allow it.’
He’s about to ask why, but stops himself. ‘Joe’s grieving, he’s usually more accommodating. Give him time.’
She sips her water, concerned.
‘So you haven’t eaten anything since Thursday,’ Solomon suddenly realises.
‘I have the fruit-and-veg patch, the eggs. I bake my own bread. I have enough but Tom likes … liked … to supply some extras. I was foraging when I saw you.’ She smiles shyly at him as she remembers how they met. He smiles too and then laughs at himself for his schoolboy feelings.
‘Jesus, let me get you some food. What do you want, burger and chips? I’ll get some for me too.’ He stands and looks across the road to the chipper. ‘It’s been a whole two hours since I ate.’
She smiles.
He expects her to mill into her food, but she doesn’t. Everything about her is calm and slow. She delicately picks at the chips with her long elegant fingers, occasionally studying one before she takes a bite.
‘You don’t like them?’
‘I don’t think there’s any potato in it,’ she says, dropping it to the greasy paper and giving up. ‘I don’t eat this kind of food.’
‘Unlike Tom.’
Her eyes widen. ‘I always told him to fix his diet. He wouldn’t listen.’ She looks sad again as the news of his death and her loss sinks in further.
‘Joe and Tom aren’t the types to listen to anybody.’ Solomon senses her blaming herself.
‘He once told me he had a ham sandwich for dinner and I gave him such a lecture about it when he came back the next week he was so proud to tell me he’d had a banana sandwich that day instead. He thought the fruit would be healthier.’
They both laugh.
‘Perhaps I was wrong,’ Solomon says gently, ‘he did listen to somebody.’
‘Thanks,’ she says.
‘How did your grandmother know Tom?’ Solomon asks.
‘You ask a lot of questions.’
He thinks about it. ‘I do. It’s how I make conversation. How do you make conversation?’ he asks and they both laugh.
‘I don’t. Apart from Tom I never have anybody to talk to. Not people, anyway.’ Somebody at the table around the corner stands, pushing aside the bench, which screeches against the ground. She imitates the sound. Once, twice, until she gets it right. The bar girl clearing the table beside them gives her a funny look.
‘I have fine conversations with myself,’ Laura continues, not noticing the look or not caring. ‘And with Mossie and Ring. And inanimate objects.’
‘You wouldn’t be alone in that.’ He smiles, watching her, completely intrigued.
She makes a new sound, one that makes him laugh. It sounds like a phone vibrating.
‘What is that?’ he asks.
‘What?’ She frowns.
And then suddenly he hears the sound again and it’s not coming from Laura’s lips, though he has to study her closely. He feels his phone vibrating in his pocket.
‘Oh.’ He reaches into his pocket and takes out his phone.
Five missed calls from Bo, followed by three messages of varying desperation.
He puts it face down on the table, ignoring it.
‘How did you know Tom?’
‘More questions.’
‘Because I find you intriguing.’
‘I find you intriguing.’
‘Ask me something then.’ He smiles.
‘Some people learn about people in other ways.’ Her eyes sear into him so much his heart pounds.
‘Okay.’ He clears his throat and she imitates the sound perfectly again. ‘We – me, Bo and Rachel – made a documentary about Joe and Tom. We spent a year with them, watching their every move, or at least that’s what we thought. You seemed to elude us. My experience of Joe and Tom is that they had no contact with anybody at all, apart from suppliers and customers, and even then it was rare for it to be human contact. It was just them, every day, all their lives. I’m not sure how Tom would have met your grandmother.’
‘She met him through my mum, who brought them food and provisions. She cleaned their house.’
‘Bridget’s your mother?’
‘Before Bridget.’
‘How long ago are we talking?’ Solomon asks, leaning in to her, enthralled, whether she’s spinning bullshit or not. He happens to think it’s the truth. He wants to think it’s the truth.
‘Twenty-six years ago,’ she says. ‘Or a little bit more than that.’
He