Jake stood beside me, chewing his lip slightly. I watched the other children running around, and wished he’d go and make an effort to play.
Just let him be him, I told myself.
That should be good enough, shouldn’t it?
Eventually, the door opened, and Jake’s new teacher stood outside smiling. The children began lining up, book bags swinging. Because it was the first day of term for everyone here, most of those bags would be empty for now, but Jake’s wasn’t. As usual, he’d insisted on bringing his Packet of Special Things with him.
I passed him the bag and his water bottle.
“You’ll look after that, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
God, I hoped so. The thought of it getting lost was probably as intolerable for me as it would be for him. But it was my son’s equivalent of a comfort blanket, and there was no way he could have left home without it.
He was already moving over to the line of children.
“I love you, Jake,” I said quietly.
“Love you too, Daddy.”
I stood there, watching until he was inside, hoping he’d turn back and wave. He didn’t. It was a good sign, I supposed, that lack of clinging. It showed that he wasn’t intimidated by the day ahead of him and didn’t need the reassurance.
I wished I could say the same about myself.
Please, please, please be okay.
“New boy, eh?”
“Sorry?”
I turned to find a woman was standing next to me. Even though the day was already warm, she was wearing a long dark coat with her hands pushed into the pockets, as though braced for a winter breeze. Her hair was dyed black, shoulder length, and she had a slightly amused expression on her face.
New boy.
“Oh,” I said. “You mean Jake? That’s my son, yes.”
“Actually, I was meaning both of you. You look worried. Honestly, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“Yes, I’m sure he will. He didn’t even look back.”
“Mine stopped doing that a while ago. In fact, once we get to the playground on a morning, I might as well not exist. Heartbreaking at first, but you get used to it. It’s a good thing, really.” She shrugged. “I’m Karen, by the way. My son’s Adam.”
“Tom,” I said. “Nice to meet you. Karen and Adam? I need to start learning all these new names.”
She smiled. “It’ll take a while. But I’m sure Jake won’t have any problems. It’s hard when you move somewhere new, but they’re a good bunch of kids. Adam only started here the middle of last year. It’s a good school.”
As she walked back toward the gate, I committed the names to memory. Karen. Adam. She’d seemed nice, and I needed to make some kind of effort here. Perhaps, despite all evidence to the contrary, I really could become one of those normal adults who talked to other parents in the playground.
I took out my phone and put my headphones in for the short walk home, with something else to be nervous about now. I had been a third of the way into a new novel when Rebecca died, and while some writers might have thrown themselves into their work as a distraction, I hadn’t looked at those words since. The idea I’d been working on felt empty to me now, and I suspected I was going to have to abandon the whole thing and leave it decaying on my hard drive as some uncompleted folly.
In which case, what would I write?
Back home, I turned on the computer, opened up a blank document in Word, and then saved it under the file name “bad ideas.” I always did that to begin with. Acknowledging it was early days took some of the psychological pressure off. And then, since I’d always been of the mind that making coffee didn’t count as procrastination, I went through to the kitchen and started the kettle boiling, then leaned against the counter and stared out of the window at the back garden.
A man was standing out there.
He had his back to me, and appeared to be rattling the padlock on my garage door.
What the fuck?
I tapped on the glass.
The man jumped and turned around quickly. He was in his fifties, short and portly, with a monk’s ring of gray hair around his otherwise bald head. He was also dressed neatly in a suit, gray overcoat, and scarf, and seemed about as far away from a potential burglar as I could imagine.
I made a what-the-fuck? gesture at him with my hands and the expression on my face. He stared back at me for a moment, looking shocked, then turned and disappeared off in the direction of the driveway.
I hesitated for a moment, still thrown by what I’d just seen, then moved back through the house, determined to confront him and find out what he’d been doing.
As I reached the front door, the bell rang.
Fourteen
I opened the door too quickly, and found the man standing on the step outside, an apologetic look on his face. Up close, he was even shorter than he’d seemed through the window.
“I’m terribly sorry to bother you.” He spoke formally, in keeping with the old-fashioned suit he was dressed in. “I wasn’t sure if anybody would be home.”
One obvious way to check if someone is home, I thought, would be to ring the fucking doorbell.
“I see.” I folded my arms. “What can I do for you?”
The man shuffled uncomfortably. “Well, it’s a slightly unusual request, I have to admit. But the thing is—this house. I actually grew up here, you see? Many years ago now, obviously, but I have such fond memories of the place…”
He trailed off.
“Okay,” I said.
And then I waited for him to continue. But he just stood there, looking expectant, as though he’d provided me with enough information already and it was awkward, or perhaps even rude, of me to make him say the rest.
A moment later, the penny dropped.
“You mean you want to come in and look around or something?”
He nodded gratefully.
“It’s a terrible imposition, I know, but I would appreciate being able to do so immensely. This house holds such special memories for me, you see.”
Again, his tone was so ostentatiously formal that I almost laughed. But I didn’t, because the idea of having this man in my house set my nerves on edge. He was dressed so properly, and his manner was so ostentatiously polite, that it all felt like some kind of disguise. Despite the apparent lack of physical threat, the man seemed dangerous. I could picture him stabbing someone with a sliver of a knife, looking into their eyes and licking his lips as he did so.
“That’s not possible, I’m afraid.”
The prissy manner faded immediately, and a hint of annoyance crept onto his face. Whoever he was, he was clearly used to getting his own way.
“What a terrible shame,” he said. “May I ask why?”
“For one thing, we’ve only just moved in. There are boxes everywhere.”
“I see.” He smiled thinly. “Perhaps another time, then?”
“Well, no. Because I’m also not particularly inclined to let complete strangers into my house.”
“That is … disappointing.”
“Why were you trying to get into my garage?”
“I was doing no such thing.” He took a step back, looking affronted now. “I was looking to see if I could find you.”