The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [81]
‘After all,’ Pete said, ‘with the benefit of hindsight we can all see what we ought to have done. You couldn't possibly have foreseen what effect that sudden downpour was likely to have on the roads after weeks of drought. It wasn't your fault, love. You did everything you could and stayed with her right up to the end. Nobody could have done more.’
He'd make a cup of tea for her, put her and the children and the dogs into the car and take them for a drive to the sea; later he'd pour her a drink and peel vegetables ready for supper or produce his one culinary dish – a curry. He is kind and thoughtful but he expects his kindness to show results.
‘There,’ he'd say cheerfully, putting her plate in front of her, refilling her glass. ‘You're looking better, darling. The day out has done you good,’ and, if she didn't respond with a positive assurance that she was cured, he'd look rather hurt, even annoyed, and a gloom would descend.
The trouble is, thinks Julia as she waves the children into the village school and gets back into the car, that it's all so complicated: a walk on the cliffs and a glass of wine simply don't compensate for the loss or do away with the guilt.
‘It's not just Tiggy that I've lost,’ she cried on one occasion when he chided her for being morbid. ‘I lost my baby, Pete. Our baby. Can't you imagine how I feel about that?’
‘Well, of course I can,’ he said, half awkwardly compassionate, half resentful at the implication that he didn't care. ‘But it was very early stages, wasn't it? Only a few months, after all. And we've got Zack. We have to think about him.’
‘I do think about him,’ she answered quietly. ‘I don't have any choice but to think about him. But I think about my own baby, too. Babies aren't interchangeable, you know.’
He looked rather shocked and she felt fearful that this terrible thing might force a wedge between them. Her feelings alarm her: it is out of character for her to feel so heavy of heart and limb, so disabled by grief and guilt. However hard she tries to block it, that day last summer replays itself in her head whilst she finds herself working through a series of ‘if only’ alternatives: if only she'd insisted that Tiggy had waited in the car; or if only she'd called an ambulance straight away instead of attempting the drive in the first place.
As she goes into the Stores to pick up the newspaper and some groceries, she is seized by a different kind of guilt: poor Pete must be heartily sick of it all. It was she who invited Tiggy to stay and persuaded Pete to allow Tiggy – who could never have guessed how crucial it was to be – to name them as her child's guardians; and he has accepted her baby uncomplainingly into his family In her remorse, Julia buys him a large bar of chocolate and then goes to the butchery department to select some fillet steak. Pete's last day at home shall be a good one.
He is stretched out on the sofa in the kitchen when she gets back. Zack lies peacefully across his chest whilst Charlie has dragged his Fisher Price garage close beside them on the floor and is running the little cars in and out with an accompaniment in his own particular Charlie-speak. Noses on paws, Bella and the Turk watch him, eyes flicking warily from side to side, as the brightly coloured cars come perilously near. He is enjoying himself enormously.
‘Here comes Mrs Geen,’ he shouts – he has difficulty with any r-sound – ‘and here comes Mr Yed! Oh, dear! Oh, no! Bang!’ Gleefully he crashes the two cars together; the two tiny occupants tumble to the flagstones, and the dogs wince and stir about anxiously.
Pete opens an eye and looks up at Julia. ‘I hope he has better road sense when he grows up,’ he observes. ‘Hello, darling. This baby smells terrible.’
Julia dumps the shopping on the kitchen table and lifts Zack up, wrinkling her nose. “I'll go and change