‘How many good memories do you have of Bee?’
Henry paused in the act of deadheading the flowers in front of him and turned to me with a quizzical look. ‘Someone once told me that any relationship worth having should have at least four good memories,’ I explained. ‘I was just wondering how many you had of Bee.’
His face softened, the way I’d noticed it always did whenever he spoke about the woman he loved.
‘Four thousand, four million, four to infinity,’ he said. He gave a twisted smile. ‘I do realise that’s not a very scientific answer for a former mathematics teacher, but every memory with her was one to treasure. Every single second.’
I sighed, revealing a longing that I was trying very hard to suppress.
‘How many do you have of you and your mother?’ Henry asked, flipping the question right back at me.
I drew in a long breath, like a builder who’d been asked to give an estimate for a particularly tricky job.
‘Hard to say, really. None that come immediately to mind.’
A glint of steel that I don’t think I’d ever seen before flashed momentarily in his eyes.
‘Try harder,’ he urged. ‘There must have been some, even if you have to go way back in the past.’
I was a little taken aback by the unexpected dose of tough love. I could see what he was trying to do here, I just wasn’t sure I liked it. Plus, I didn’t think that reframing the past was going to be enough to undo too many years of emotional erosion. But I didn’t want to refuse, so I cast my mind back, like a fisherman throwing out a net without any hopes of catching anything.
But surprisingly, after a few moments of contemplation, I did.
‘Nicholas Pritchard,’ I said, in the same tone of voice that I imagine Archimedes employed when he cried out ‘Eureka’.‘Nicholas Pritchard. The boy in Year Nine who everybody wanted to go out with, who asked me out on a date, and then stood me up outside the Empire Cinema.’
‘Thoughtless swine,’ Henry said in mock outrage. ‘I’d have given him a week of detention just for being stupid. And then another for being blind.’
I laughed. ‘I think he’d done it as a dare. I was kind of geeky back then: train track braces, bad skin, and glasses. Not one of the popular girls.’
‘I don’t care. It still shows appalling lack of judgement. I bet he’d regret it if he saw you now.’
‘You’re very kind,’ I said, passing him one of the two chilled bottles of water I’d brought with me. It was becoming almost an automatic habit to double up on whatever I was bringing with me to the cemetery. I plucked two apples from the fruit bowl instead of one, ordered two lattes to go from the coffee shop, and picked up two sandwiches from the supermarket shelf. Somehow, without me even realising it, spending time with Henry had become an intrinsic part of visiting my mother’s grave. When I looked back on this summer, I knew these memories would be just as strong as those of Rhys and the lightning.
‘So where does your mother fit into the Nicholas Pritchard story?’ Henry asked.
It felt good to smile when I thought of something my mother had done, and I realised how little I must have done that over the years.
‘She didn’t tell me I was being stupid when I eventually gave up waiting and walked back home in floods of tears. She was the fiercest feminist I’ve ever met and yet on that night, when my fragile teenage heart had its first knock, she didn’t dismiss the pain of being rejected by a boy I was really into. It was one of the rare moments when I felt she truly understood me.
‘She let me cry it out, and I can remember that after I’d got into my pyjamas and crawled into bed, she’d sat down on the armchair in the corner of my room. I asked her if she’d stay with me until I fell asleep.’
‘And did she?’ Henry asked, his voice hushed as though he was truly invested in this old tale.
I smiled sadly as the memory came back to me with crystal-clear clarity.
‘She was still there when I woke up in the morning.’
The tears caught me by surprise, but they weren’t ones of sadness.
‘That was a good memory,’ I said.
Chapter Thirty-Two
‘So, you finally told him. It was about time,’ Mel said, reaching for the last choux bun on the plate. She shot me a reluctant Do you want this? expression, and I shook my head. I had a feeling if I’d gone for it, I could have ended up with a fork in the back of my hand.
We’d both taken time off work that morning to attend the second fitting for the outfits Jackson had chosen for us to wear at his wedding, which was fast approaching.
‘If that dressmaker could only see you now,’ I teased.