‘And now I’ve made you uncomfortable.’
‘No.’ I glanced at him. ‘Well, maybe, a little.’
Behind us, a crow lifted noisily into the sky, its flapping wings sending vibrations through the still air. I fought the urge to smooth my hair and instead took a last swig of my beer. ‘Okay. Well. Here’s a real question. How long do you think it takes to get over someone dying? Someone you really loved, I mean.’
I’m not sure why I asked him. It was almost cruelly blunt, given his circumstances. Perhaps I was afraid that the compulsive shagger was about to come out to play.
Sam’s eyes widened a little. ‘Woah. Well …’ he peered down at his mug, and then out at the shadowy fields ‘… I’m not sure you ever do.’
‘That’s cheery.’
‘No. Really. I’ve thought about it a lot. You learn to live with it, with them. Because they do stay with you, even if they’re not living, breathing people any more. It’s not the same crushing grief you felt at first, the kind that swamps you, and makes you want to cry in the wrong places, and get irrationally angry with all the idiots who are still alive when the person you love is dead. It’s just something you learn to accommodate. Like adapting around a hole. I don’t know. It’s like you become … a doughnut instead of a bun.’
There was such sadness in his face that I felt suddenly guilty. ‘A doughnut.’
‘Stupid analogy,’ he said, with a half-smile.
‘I didn’t mean to –’
He shook his head. He looked at the grass between his feet, then sideways at me. ‘C’mon. Let’s get you home.’
We walked across the field to his bike. The air had cooled, and I crossed my arms over my chest. He saw, and handed me his jacket, insisting when I said I was okay. It was pleasingly heavy, and potently male. I tried not to inhale.
‘Do you pick up all your patients like this?’
‘Only the live ones.’
I laughed. It came out of me unexpectedly, louder than I had intended.
‘We’re not really meant to ask patients out on dates.’ He held out the spare helmet. ‘But I figure you’re not my patient any more.’
I took it. ‘And this isn’t really a date.’
‘It isn’t?’ He gave a small, philosophical nod as I climbed aboard. ‘Okay.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
That week, when I arrived at the Moving On Circle Jake wasn’t there. As Daphne discussed her inability to open jars without a man in her kitchen, and Sunil talked of the problems of dividing up his brother’s few belongings among his remaining siblings, I found myself waiting for the heavy red doors to open at the end of the church hall. I told myself it was his welfare I was concerned about, that he needed to be able to express his discomfort at his father’s behaviour in a safe place. I told myself firmly that it was not Sam I was hoping to see, leaning against his bike.
‘What are the small things that trip you up, Louisa?’
Perhaps Jake had finished with the group, I thought. Perhaps he had decided he didn’t need it any more. People did drop out, everyone said. And that would be it. I would never see either of them again.
‘Louisa? The daily things? There must be something.’
I kept thinking about that field, the neat confines of the railway carriage, the way Sam had strolled down the field with a hen under one arm, as if he was carrying a precious parcel. The feathers on her chest had been as soft as a whisper.
Daphne nudged me.
‘We were discussing the small things in day-to-day life that force you to contemplate loss,’ said Marc.
‘I miss sex,’ said Natasha.
‘That’s not a small thing,’ replied William.
‘You didn’t know my husband,’ said Natasha, and snorted a laugh. ‘Not really. That’s a terrible joke to make. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘It’s good to joke,’ said Marc, encouragingly.
‘Olaf was perfectly well endowed. Very well endowed, in fact.’ Natasha’s eyes flickered around us. When nobody spoke she held up her hands, a foot apart, and nodded emphatically. ‘We were very happy.’
There was a short silence.
‘Good,’ said Marc. ‘That’s nice to hear.’
‘I don’t want anyone thinking … I mean, that’s not what I want people thinking when they think of my husband. That he had a tiny –’
‘I’m sure nobody thinks that about your husband.’
‘I will, if you keep going on about it,’ said William.
‘I don’t want you thinking about my husband’s penis,’ said Natasha. ‘In fact, I forbid you to think about my husband’s penis.’
‘Stop going on about it then!’ said William.
‘Can we not talk about penises?’ said Daphne. ‘It makes me go a bit peculiar. The nuns used to smack us with rulers if we even used the word “undercarriage”.’
Marc’s voice was now tinged with desperation. ‘Can we steer the conversation away from – back to symbols of loss. Louisa, you were about to tell us which small things brought your loss home to you.’
I sat there, trying to ignore Natasha holding up her hands again, silently measuring some unlikely invisible length.
‘I think I miss having someone to discuss things with,’ I said carefully.
There was a murmur of agreement.
‘I mean, I’m not one of those people who has a massive circle of friends. I was with my last boyfriend for ages and we … we didn’t really go out much. And then there was … Bill. We just used to talk all the time. About music, and people, and things we’d done and wanted to do, and I never worried about whether I was going to say the wrong thing or offend someone because he just “got” me, you know? And now I’ve moved to London and I’m sort of on my own, apart from my family, and talking to them is always … tricky.’
‘Word,’ said Sunil.
‘And now there’s something going on that I’d really like to chat to him about. I talk to him in my head, but it isn’t the same. I miss having that … ability to just go, “Hey, what do you think of this?” And knowing that whatever he said was probably going to be the right thing.’