‘Will you be coming back?’ he asked her at last. Annie realized that in the panicky flood of longing she had barely thought beyond getting to Steve. It was impossible to think of going, impossible to think of coming back.
What am I doing?
‘I don’t know. Yes. I don’t know.’
‘When are you going?’
She told him and he nodded, almost abstracted.
‘If you do come back, we’ll be here. The boys and me.’
Annie had murmured something then, with the sobs choking her throat, and she had turned and run from the room.
That was all, until now, when she was picking her belongings out of the family jumble and putting them one by one into her suitcase.
What am I doing?
She piled in the last things haphazardly and snapped the locks. It was time to go. Steve would be waiting for her. Annie went slowly down the stairs, carrying her bag. She looked at the line of pictures on the wall, and put up her free hand automatically to straighten one that was crooked. She left the suitcase standing by the front door and went through the kitchen and out into the garden. Their three faces turned to her as she walked across the grass. They were so quiet, waiting.
Benjy moved first. He ran to her and clung to her legs.
‘I don’t want you to go.’
She put her hand on his head, holding the roundness of it against her. Tom didn’t move from his seat beside Martin, but Annie saw that he was staring fiercely to hold back the tears that he thought were babyish. Martin stood up awkwardly and came towards her. Annie felt how much she was hurting him, and the pain of it was worse than anything else she had suffered from the bomb.
I love you, she thought helplessly. All of you, I love you so much.
Martin bent down and scooped Benjy up into his arms, setting her free. She knew that her husband was letting her go, as gently as he could. She ducked her head, like a coward, away from his generosity. She ran across the grass to Thomas and hugged him, but he turned his face away from her. Benjy’s hands snatched at her as she kissed him, but Martin held him tightly.
‘Goodbye,’ Annie whispered. It would have been like a lie, or a taunt, or an empty promise to add, I’ll be back soon.
Martin touched her cheek, as lightly as if her skin would still bruise at the brush of his fingers.
‘We’re here,’ he said softly, reminding her.
She nodded, unable even to say, I know. She left them then, and went back through the silent house to pick up her suitcase, waiting beside the front door.
When she had gone, and even Benjy had stopped watching the back door to see if she would come out again, Tom burst out fiercely, ‘Why does she have to go away? It isn’t fair.’
Still holding Benjy, Martin went back and sat beside him. Benjy settled his head against his father’s shoulder, his thumb in his mouth.
‘Tom, listen.’ Tom looked away, but Martin was sure that he was listening. ‘Mum isn’t just your mother. She’s a person, too. We belong to each other, all of us, but we belong to ourselves as well. If Annie needs to go, I think we should let her, and do the best we can.’ Thomas’s face was still averted, but Martin knew that he was crying now. ‘She’ll come back to you, Tom. She’ll always be your mother.’
The child rubbed his face with the back of his hand. ‘Like always?’
They know what’s happening, both of them, Martin thought. Somehow, however, they feel it and they know it. ‘Like always,’ he lied to them, for now, until he knew for sure. ‘Like always.’
Of course they believed him. That was enough, for now. Tom sat quietly for a moment, and then he wriggled off the seat.
‘Can I go and phone Daniel?’
‘Good idea. Ask if he wants to come and play.’
Thomas raced away across the grass, and Ben broke out of Martin’s arms and chased after him.
It was very quiet in the garden. A cloud crossed the sun and a line of shadow swept over the grass like a drawn curtain.
Annie.
Martin’s head dropped into his hands. He hadn’t cried for a long time, but there were tears hot and wet against his fingers now. He had known that there was nothing to do but wait, and hope for her, but he felt his helplessness, crushing him. The sense of impotence brought vividly back to him the hours that he had waited at the police barrier. He had thought then, If it could be me down there instead of you, Annie. He had been certain then of loving her enough to take her place, to take on anything if it would save her hurt.
The thought came to him now.
If he loved her, did he love her enough to let her go? To let her go, to Steve? If that was what she wanted, truly.
He said aloud in the empty garden, ‘Yes.’
He wasn’t helpless, then. He could do that for her.
Martin lifted his head. He looked up through the leaves of the pear tree at the sky. There were more clouds drifting towards the sun. It was going to rain. He waited until his eyes were dry, leaning back on the garden bench and watching the sky. When he was sure that the boys would see nothing unusual in his face, he got up and went into the house to look for them.
Steve wrenched the wheel sharply and the car swung out from behind a bus. He accelerated out of the range of a taxi, but the brief burst of speed only brought him up against the wall of traffic waiting at the next lights. He glanced at the clock on the dash. He was late, five minutes already. Impatience made him push the BMW faster still, weaving in and out of the messenger bikes and Telecom vans. He was to meet Annie outside King’s Cross station.
‘Why King’s Cross?’ he had asked her, and she had merely replied, ‘Why not?’
He reckoned quickly, his fingers drumming on the wheel. Five more minutes. Eight at the most. She wouldn’t give him up in that time, would she?
He came past the red and yellow pinnacles of St Pancras in a surge of traffic, and then he saw her. She was standing at the edge of the pavement by the station, perfectly still, with her suitcase beside her. She was wearing a plain cotton dress, with her hair brushed back. She looked as vulnerable as a truant schoolgirl. Steve stopped the car. Absurdly, she was looking the other way, against the flow of traffic, and he had to call to her, ‘Are you going my way?’
She swung around then, and the sudden light shone in her face. A second later she was in the car beside him, her suitcase bumping them both. They sat amidst the stream of cars and put their fingers up to touch each other’s faces, tracing the contours, like blind people. Annie leaned forward and kissed his mouth.
A taxi began its insistent hooting behind them.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
Steve slipped
